Playtesters Wanted - Legend of Zelda Third Quest

[KevvyLava]

Hi all, I have pretty much completed (I think) my "Third Quest" of the original Legend of Zelda for NES.  I wanted to see if anyone was interested in playing this and giving me feedback on the following main areas before I release the final version:

1. Difficulty - I wanted it to be fairly in line with the original
2. Creativity - What do you think of my dungeon design and placement?
3. Is it fun?

The items and dungeon layouts have been switched around (in a couple of cases I kept the layouts and changed the rooms) so you will find the Blue Candle in a dungeon, the Blue Ring in a dungeon, etc.  There's some minimal text changes and usually if an Overworld screen is modified, there's a new secret.  Some screens are the same as before but the secret is in a different spot.  To make this less annoying, the Red Candle is accessible earlier in the game.

Every dungeon has at least one item in it, but here are some hints:
- The Red Ring is not in this quest
- Silver Arrow is in Level 9 (as is tradition)
- There is only one shop that sells the Bow
- Every dungeon has exactly the number of keys you need to complete it
- There is no Magical Key.  Level 9 has 5 keys and all 5 are required to complete it
- Do not enter Level 9 without a 2nd Potion
- Important screens in the original game probably have something important
- Blue Ring and Magical Shield cannot be purchased
- Some dungeon rooms overlap with other dungeons, so don't sweat it if you can't seem to access an item or door
- There are more LEAVE YOUR LIFE OR MONEY guys, so I recommend having a few bucks on you each time
- Maps are not 100% reliable for some secrets

If I screwed anything up, lemme know and I can update and upload a new patch.  I've play-tested it a bunch, so we should be in pretty solid shape.

Editors:
- Zelda Tech
- Dungeon Master
- Zelda NPC Text Editor
- Hex Editor Neo

The IPS patch should be applied to USA PRG0:
CRC32 - D7AE93DF
MD5 - 337BD6F1A1163DF31BF2633665589AB0
SHA-1 - DAB79C84934F9AA5DB4E7DAD390E5D0C12443FA2

Patch:
https://mega.nz/#!dRFkRIqL!yq1dl3_Ixze2GgY22MD8T1cV83tjlLz66wx-aJQ7acU

[erpster2]

I'll give this a try, KevvyLava.

some things for you to think about:
-bomb upgrades (the old man that allows you to carry more bombs for $100) - will they be available in this game?

-title screen edited to indicate a "Third Quest"

[KevvyLava]

Hey there! Thanks. Yes, there are 3 bomb upgrade guys. I don't know how to edit the title screen. Maybe that's something that people can help me with in time. Excited to hear what you think. I've made some minor changes to it so far, because I'm currently working on adding a Fourth Quest to it. Doing a little hex editing to change a few smaller things, too.

[erpster2]

ok I'm done finishing the 1st 8 dungeons of the game

minor problem with level 8 - missing a dungeon map item
please add it in the next beta release

gonna play through level 9 later tonight

[KevvyLava]

Ah, you're right. Thanks for that. Any areas that seemed too easy/too hard or confusing? Or are you waiting until after Level 9 to give me the 'ol review?
November 07, 2019, 04:22:54 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

ok I'm done finishing the 1st 8 dungeons of the game

minor problem with level 8 - missing a dungeon map item
please add it in the next beta release

gonna play through level 9 later tonight

Did you attempt Level 9 yet?  I can't wait to hear your feedback.

[erpster2]

Did you attempt Level 9 yet?  I can't wait to hear your feedback.

yes I have attempted Level 9 for the past few days and this final dungeon left me very frustrated.
It seems lvl 9 is nearly finished but not 100% complete (more like 99% finished) because there were some rooms that were unreachable or inaccessible by any normal means (esp. the rooms that had the remaining keys and the dungeon map) - I had to buy some keys from the shops to access the remaining locked rooms but the dungeon map room and the other "key" rooms still remain unreachable [hence my frustration].  But level 9 does have both the correct number of keys and locked doors.

a suggestion for level 9 - since the room where the silver arrows is obtained is right next to the room where the dungeon map is located, maybe change one of the normal walls in the silver arrow into a fake wall or a "walk thru" wall so that the dungeon map room can be accessed from the silver arrow room and that also allows accessing the other remaining rooms where the other keys are located.


and here are other problems I found that need to be corrected:



Level 2 - this block that I circled does not move when I try to push it - change this to a movable block so that gamers can backtrack and go back to earlier rooms in case they miss something.



Level 4 - these Blue Darknuts are throwing boomerangs?  they seem to act like Blue Goriyas which they really are Goriyas (but with wrong graphics or spritesets).  change these enemies into "real" Blue Darknuts.



Level 8 - there's this movable block in the Triforce room that only moves when pushed and does nothing else.  change this block into a regular non-movable block since it really serves no purpose (barely the opposite problem of Level 2)

If you need more help with improving your hack, you can ask either LexLuthermiester or even The3Dude

I don't know how to edit the title screen.

well there's this tool that can edit the "text" of the game , including the text on the title screen.  maybe you can ask The3Dude to help you out in editing the title screen

[KevvyLava]

Thanks so much for the feedback.  I wanted to make the Silver Arrow tough to find, and I wanted there to be a bunch of Red Bubbles before is so it was pretty much guaransheed that you'd have to use bombs to defeat the Wizzrobes in there. 

As for the "inaccessible rooms", I think the sneaky trick I used might have worked effectively with the staircase, and that's why you weren't able to reach the other area.   Those rooms are definitely accessible.

The Darknuts throwing boomerangs was done on purpose.  I thought it was a fun surprise, so I'm debating whether or not to leave it as is.

I'm tweaking the overworld and attempting to make a second quest right now as well.  But I run into this weird issue where when I swap certain screens in the second quest, it makes the areas the wrong color and I can't figure out why.

What were your thoughts overall?  Were there parts you flat-out didn't like (or loved) and was it a reasonable challenge without being overkill?
November 09, 2019, 03:41:13 PM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

yes I have attempted Level 9 for the past few days and this final dungeon left me very frustrated.
It seems lvl 9 is nearly finished but not 100% complete (more like 99% finished) because there were some rooms that were unreachable or inaccessible by any normal means...

https://youtu.be/Vf9Ba6YBdHI?t=223 I fast-forwarded to the part where you can access that other side of the map.

[erpster2]

thanks.  let me know if you posted a new version of your hack as I had been beta testing few other people's Zelda 1 hacks for the past several weeks

[KevvyLava]

Hey man. So I didn't make any significant updates to the hack because the only changes you mentioned were really basic (missing pushable block and another block that is pushable on accident) and I'm working on the Second Quest dungeons and stuff. Did you get what I was saying about the staircase thing in Level 9?

[erpster2]

Did you get what I was saying about the staircase thing in Level 9?

Edit 12/18: Yes.  I kinda overlooked the "go into" and "go back out of the staircase" trick which some gamers will sometimes miss doing to reach other areas in lvl9 of your game.  the other Zelda 1 hack that I think uses that staircase trick in a few dungeon levels is The3Dude's Trial of Courage hack.

so no Magic Key for this game, not even in the upcoming 2nd quest?

[KevvyLava]

I'm actually working on the Second Quest right now but having many issues editing the dungeon layouts.  I've completed the Overworld and have all of my entrances set up properly, but the compression that is used on the dungeon layouts appears to be messing with item placement in some levels, which is resulting in items appearing inside the walls.  I am going to try to make the dungeons smaller in hopes that this solves the problem, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.  Hopefully I'll have this done by the end of the weekend and you can try it out.

I have a fun wrinkle that I think will make hunting in the Overworld more important than before.

[Trax]

A precision about the movable blocks in Dungeons. There is no such thing as a "movable block", in the sense that you can't set a specific block in the room to be movable. You can only set the room itself as having a secret, and then the game automatically sets the leftmost block of the middle row as movable. Yeah, it's arbitrary like that.

[erpster2]

I'm actually working on the Second Quest right now but having many issues editing the dungeon layouts.  I've completed the Overworld and have all of my entrances set up properly, but the compression that is used on the dungeon layouts appears to be messing with item placement in some levels, which is resulting in items appearing inside the walls.  I am going to try to make the dungeons smaller in hopes that this solves the problem, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.  Hopefully I'll have this done by the end of the weekend and you can try it out.

I have a fun wrinkle that I think will make hunting in the Overworld more important than before.

ok

I kinda remember your review made of this guy's Zelda1 hack almost a few years ago, which I'm now beta testing the recently released 2.0 version of it.  too soon to tell whether the 2.0 version is better than the 1.0 release which had many problems

[KevvyLava]

erpster2: I'm not sure which review you are talking about.  But I'm almost done with the Second Quest on the rom hack, which I should have ready to go this week in case you want to play it.

[KevvyLava]

Hi all, I started a new thread for the beta version of this hack, which now includes a fully functional 2nd Quest....or I guess in this case, 4th Quest.

http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=31120.0