Zelda: Remastered (Mesen HD Pack)

[spotanjo3]

Incredible. My favorite. Good work!

[Kallisto]

Amazing work! I got a question, but are those signs readable or just for show? I pressed all my controller buttons and nothing pops up.

[Aclectico]

Just for show. I never considered making them readable... I can think of at least one way that it should be possible to pull off readable signs via Mesen condition functions. But, I'm actually working on a couple of other projects at the moment and it would take quite a while to write logic for all of those signs. Interesting idea. It may be worth looking into it some time.

[Vanya]

Ooh, yeah! That'd be a great addition to this pack.
It would be a great way to add a little bit of direction and maybe some extra clues.
I think Breath of the Wild shows that this style of open Zelda game can really benefit from having a bit more information strewn about to help players along a bit.

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, that might be a great way to add in some of the info that you'd be able to find in the manual normally. Maybe even use gossip stones instead of signs?

[darkcloud]

So I tried the HD version of the pack and I have stuttering. Performance in Retroarch is actually a bit better than standalone. Does Mesen work worse with Ryzen CPUs than with Intel ones? I have a 2700 overclocked to 4ghz and while other HD Packs get to full speed as long as I don't enable any options that are CPU intensive this pack reaches only 40fps in standalone Mesen and almost Fullspeed with Retroarch as long as I also enable threaded Video.

[Aclectico]

I can't really speak much to this on my end - During pack development, all testing was completed on Intel CPUs. So, I'm not sure if Ryzen has some quirks that result in some unexpected behavior. I have noticed during testing that the standalone version typically performs better than Retroarch. So, I'm surprised to hear of a case where it was actually the other way around.

[darkcloud]

Thank you. Maybe having thread optimisation turned of for Retroarch helps. What definitely helps is using  Vulkan or turning of hard GPU sync on Open GL. The lighter version for weaker CPUs works great though. I only have 5% CPU usage instead of 18,5% (which means one core is fully used and another one a bit). 

[darkcloud]

I solved the Problem. It turns out that it was quite simple and I had suspicions before. The reason was that my overclock destroyed single core performance. It works great now other than maybe a small hickup right at the start which probably comes from loading. Incrediblye work!

[Aclectico]

Good to hear it works now... and you are right- that long pause at the beginning is just the pack loading. With most Mesen packs, the loading process is very fast and not really noticible. But, this pack is quite large so it just takes a long time. I may reach out to mkwong98 and see if it's possible to add a loading message so users don't think that the emulator is just frozen.

[jim35]

Could you look into maybe making a version that looks closer to the illustrations in the manual etc.

[Aclectico]

I'm not really looking to take on anything larger than a small support role when it comes to a separate pack for this game at this time. Having said that, if someone put together the art, I would be willing to help show them how to implement it in a new pack. Doing so should be relatively straightforward because the programing groundwork has already been established with this version (with the help of a few individuals). I can't speak for everyone right now. But, on my end, I don't mind if that programming groundwork was reused. I have a feeling everyone else that contributed wouldn't mind either if credit was provided.

[jim35]

I'm not really looking to take on anything larger than a small support role when it comes to a separate pack for this game at this time. Having said that, if someone put together the art, I would be willing to help show them how to implement it in a new pack. Doing so should be relatively straightforward because the programing groundwork has already been established with this version (with the help of a few individuals). I can't speak for everyone right now. But, on my end, I don't mind if that programming groundwork was reused. I have a feeling everyone else that contributed wouldn't mind either if credit was provided.

Is it possible to do a modern take on this and Zelda 2 by which I mean do a 1:1 of the illustrations and basically make it like an interactive anime or cartoon with cutscenes like how the recent dragon ball games look like the anime in video game form. I mean with a modern engine but with the basic original gameplay but updated slightly and no I don't mean by using mesen I mean from scratch I wasn't  asking you if you could do it this time I was asking if it's possible. that I think would be pretty awesome.

[Aclectico]

I suppose if you aren't limited to Mesen and could use other resources like GameMaker - Sure, anything is possible. Where things get tricky is that most people that work on these types of unofficial projects do so as a simple hobby in their spare time (unless it's an official project backed by the IP owner). Generating the motivation to take a massive project like that without pay would be asking a lot.

[kamikaze55]

I am already a huge fan of Shadow's hacks...particularly Zelda II. I realize I'm really late with this discussion as I honestly just discovered this by accident. I am really insanely glad I did. I love this...it's absolutely great in every way. I do wish it was a little easier to get installed though. I hoped that it would just be a patch like previous hacks and it couldn't be for obvious reasons. I've played through it three times already and cannot get enough. This was a great job done by all involved! The only thing that doesn't seem to work is save states in Mesen.

If anyone sees this...please do this for Zelda II and Metroid. I play the three original Zelda's yearly along with Metroid and I would absolutely love for remastered versions of Zelda II and Metroid....Particularly Shadowone's Zelda II hacks that simply improve the gameplay and looks...not the bizarre "whole other game" versions. Thanks a ton for this!

[Aclectico]

I am already a huge fan of Shadow's hacks...particularly Zelda II. I realize I'm really late with this discussion as I honestly just discovered this by accident. I am really insanely glad I did. I love this...it's absolutely great in every way. I do wish it was a little easier to get installed though. I hoped that it would just be a patch like previous hacks and it couldn't be for obvious reasons. I've played through it three times already and cannot get enough. This was a great job done by all involved! The only thing that doesn't seem to work is save states in Mesen.

If anyone sees this...please do this for Zelda II and Metroid. I play the three original Zelda's yearly along with Metroid and I would absolutely love for remastered versions of Zelda II and Metroid....Particularly Shadowone's Zelda II hacks that simply improve the gameplay and looks...not the bizarre "whole other game" versions. Thanks a ton for this!

Thanks for the kind words.

For Metroid, this may interest you. It was my first attempt at spearheading a Mesen pack with a good amount of help from others. Some may say it's a bit rougher around the edges. There were a lot of lessons learned that were eventually applied to Zelda: https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=26811.0

For Zelda 2, this may interest you (WIP by a few people including Giric and HaddianKey): https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=33860.0

Also, it's been a while since I checked save state functionality. I know save states from older versions of Mesen won't work with newer. But, are you saying save states generated with the latest Mesen rev level also won't work?

[mkwong98]

The save state bug has been fixed a few days ago, you can download the new version and try using save state with it.

[kamikaze55]

The save state bug has been fixed a few days ago, you can download the new version and try using save state with it.

I have the latest version of Mesen which is 0.9.9 and it still crashes with save states. When I start mesen up and the previous game is already loaded on the screen and then I click the screen it should open up right where I left off and instead with this particular HD pack it crashes. Mesen works fine on other actual nes games just not this HD one.
December 31, 2021, 03:01:12 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)

Thanks for the kind words.

For Metroid, this may interest you. It was my first attempt at spearheading a Mesen pack with a good amount of help from others. Some may say it's a bit rougher around the edges. There were a lot of lessons learned that were eventually applied to Zelda: https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=26811.0

For Zelda 2, this may interest you (WIP by a few people including Giric and HaddianKey): https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=33860.0

Also, it's been a while since I checked save state functionality. I know save states from older versions of Mesen won't work with newer. But, are you saying save states generated with the latest Mesen rev level also won't work?

As stated in my reply to the other guy...No save states in the current mesen will not work for me. As long as the in game saves work though I'm good. As for your HD Metroid....I'm blown away. I only got to the screw attack but I can easily say that this is just downright excellent!
January 03, 2022, 01:59:38 AM - (Auto Merged - Double Posts are not allowed before 7 days.)
So I decided to see if my version of mesen was actually outdated and is the reason for the save states and such not working. So I deleted everything I had and started fresh and redownloaded Mesen. I also redownloaded the Zelda remastered stuff. The save states still do not work and there was one time in particular that an in game save did not save properly.

Other than this...this is the greatest thing to happen to NES roms since sliced bread.

[kamikaze55]

Final reply: I love the remastered Zelda I and Metroid. They're both excellent and faithful. My only complaint about Metroid is the orange circle things in the last level that damage you seem to be way too big. Other than this they are both perfection and seriously made my day!

I redownloaded Mesen from two different sources. One was from the mesen website and the other from the link posted at the beginning of this thread from MK Wong. What's interesting is that the Mesen from their actual website still crashes when trying to load save states and it also crashes if I open Mesen and open the game by clicking on the screen where I left off. If I reload the game it works fine.

However, the Mesen from MK Wong works perfect. No crashes from loading save states or from clicking the game on screen from where I left off. It's really strange because both seem to be the same version....the one from the official Mesen website doesn't work while the one from MK Wong works. It's seriously puzzling.

Someone seriously needs to remaster Zelda II. It would be the icing on the cake to have both Zelda I and II remastered....preferably a faithful remaster like the Zelda I remaster. The "remake" for Zelda II demo is practically a completely different game from the actual Zelda II and from what I've heard it's been abandoned due to threats from Nintendo. I'm guessing it's because it's an actual remake...not a remaster.

If I had the time and patience to remaster Zelda II, I would. Unfortunately I just don't have time or the patience. It would probably take me 12 years anyway but someone who has experience would probably be able to do it in no time.

[Aclectico]

I redownloaded Mesen from two different sources. One was from the mesen website and the other from the link posted at the beginning of this thread from MK Wong. What's interesting is that the Mesen from their actual website still crashes when trying to load save states and it also crashes if I open Mesen and open the game by clicking on the screen where I left off. If I reload the game it works fine.

However, the Mesen from MK Wong works perfect. No crashes from loading save states or from clicking the game on screen from where I left off. It's really strange because both seem to be the same version....the one from the official Mesen website doesn't work while the one from MK Wong works. It's seriously puzzling.

Sour was the main developer for Mesen and they stopped working on the emulator right around the time this pack was released. The timing of that development was a bit unfortunate because some developmental features at the time (like multi-layer backgrounds found in the Zelda pack) never made it to the stable build on the main website. In any case, mkwong98 continued development of the emulator and that version is currently the one I encourage others to use.

-A bit of a sidenote: mkwong98 was also the author of HDNes, which was the first NES emulator to spearhead this type of Enhancement Pack functionality.

[Frankbel]

Wonderful work!
I would like to try this on my Switch.
I have tried default mesen core on the retroarch for switch with no luck. The hd pack is not loaded. Perhaps it is a matter of the mesen core.
However, compiling a custom mesen core using MK Wong's fork of mesen is a hard task for me.
I would be grateful if someone could provide such a core for Switch retroarch suite. Thanks!