This hack was generally a good time from start to finish with interesting new “Master Quest” style dungeon changes. The new dungeon items are also neat and I’m glad to see the Cane of Somaria getting more use throughout the game, it’s shockingly underused in vanilla.

Anyone who has beaten ALttP a few times and is familiar with most of the mechanics in it should have a pretty good time with this hack, so I think I could recommend it to mostly anyone (assuming they qualify to that statement). That’s not small feat considering how much chaff there is when it comes to ALttP hacks, that’s not an insult, but rather just a sad observation of the landscape. Making ALttP hacks is hard, the engine don’t bend easily to doing anything differently, even this hack has some bugs associated with that. So for a hack to come out with plenty of modifications but *also* include well designed dungeons? Quite impressive.

So yes, if you’ve been, just like me, waiting for a ALttP hack worth playing that won’t drive you nutz with absurd design or absurd difficulty (like say Parallel Worlds), then this is the one to go for.

High points of my run:

• The trip to get the moon pearl was cool.
• Cane of Somaria getting plenty of love and creative uses.
• Ice palace went from the worst dungeon of the game to one of the best.
• The puzzle to get to the big chest in Skull Woods is really elaborate and nice, I like it.
• More enemies that drop magic in ice palace was appreciated.
• The Bow. Finally.

(I didn’t really use it outside of required stuff and Ganon)

As for complaints, criticisms, or glitches:

• The water dam when released causes buggy visual water to spawn all across the screen.
• A central puzzle in Dark Palace is a bit too hard to figure out since what you need to do is not something that you could really feasibly consider to be doable. There are some hints in the room, but it’s not clear despite those.
• A friend playing this reported that the locked doors in swamp palace reset after leaving the dungeon to go overworld exploring, forcing them to use a cheat code to get more keys for it.
• My inventory is complete sans the Red Mail, it might very well not be in the hack or be super well hidden, but some clarification to either effect would be good.
• Considering how early thieves’ town is, Blind’s Arena is not really okay in the slightest. You can come back and kill him later with the magic cape, but in that case you just cheese in the opposite direction.
• Likewise, Helmasaur King is a bit too overtuned for when he comes in the game, I’d get rid of some of the spikes in the room to give players better avenues to move, the RNG in how the boss moves can just put you in positions with nowhere to dodge.
• I ran into some bugs with the first big room in turtle rock where my Somaria platforms just went off the rails at the end point and floated over and into the wall of the room.
• The torch puzzle in turtle rock on rails is a bit overtuned and feels ill suited, especially if you don’t know to abuse the hookshot for a damage/pit warp.
• Armos Knights fight in eastern palace is maybe a bit overtuned, the author should consider that for most people the fact that you have to do it bow-less is already a big jump up in difficulty, the arena could be slightly more forgiving.
• The spike maze room in Skull Woods’ lower right section is too tight, especially to dodge a Wallmaster, the entry point where you need to thread a needle both horizontally and vertically and hookshot to enter the maze is especially egregious.
• There are some glitchy looking one-way doors in ice palace where you exit out of locked key doors. The dungeon works fine but the visuals of this is weird.