I have now fully completed the Hard Patch without Save State and recorded my journey. Looks great with my Zelda II: Part 2 and 3 videos. I still need to finish the Great Palace in those (they are TOUGH), so, I’ll stick to my Journey of a Day review.

I played icepenguin’s Zelda II hacks in order (of course), so I’ll naturally draw some comparisons to the others. I might not play Shadow of Night because I’m a sucker for old school graphics/sounds (with surprises) and SoN looks pretty fancy. I couldn’t resist taking a look at Journey of a Day though.

First thing I noticed was that your max jump height was reduced! Took a while to get used to, still messed me up on more than one occasion though. New laser is so much fun! It’s cool how you can redirect it. New graphics are awesome! Love the animated tiles and all the new colours. Especially the graveyard (since I do most of my levels there), it’s easier on the eyes.

The overworld, progression and secrets have several similarities to Part 3, but there was enough difference, especially in the palaces, to make it exciting.

The beginning, like Part 3, is the most difficult. If you take the time to bang out your levels, then things will start to soften up for you. Part 2 is probably the easiest to level up in, but that hack has more emphasis on the puzzles.

In this Hard Patch, you have only two lives. So, the tradeoff is a relatively easy overworld and palaces for those two lives. Similar idea with Part 3, but Journey of a Day is a cakewalk compared to it. I think I prefer Part 2’s method much more and prefer that hack overall. Six lives and difficult puzzles. One more quick thing that’s cool about Part 2 is that the up and down stabs are disabled. I don’t mind them, but I really enjoyed not having them.

In the end, I personally prefer Part 2 and Part 3 the most out of icepenguin’s hacks. Journey of a Day is still an outstanding piece of work though, to say the least.

Finally heard what Zelda wanted to say before she was cursed! Thanks for the great new adventure!!