Earlier this week, the world marked the 40th Anniversary of the release of the first Legend of Zelda game, appropriately titled: The Legend of Zelda.
An unofficial fan remake by some guy named Jeb got a little bit of attention as a result of this. I downloaded it and started playing it.
It’s pretty good. It’s not perfect, like Hoverbat’s incredible remake of Zelda II, but it’s pretty good. The controls and hit detection are not what I remember, so don’t feel quite right, is my main gripe about it.
All the graphics in the game have been redone, which is hit-or-miss, but mostly they’re improvements, except that the original graphics didn’t need improvements. But it’s somewhere between the Broadcast Satellite sprites and the Zelda III sprites.
Some of the new enemies I recognize as borrowed from Mario games, like the Cobrats from SMB2, and others I don’t recognize but probably are from another Zelda or Mario game. The code that controls the movement and behavior of the enemies is pretty close, but not identical to the original, meaning that old strategies that worked in the original likely may not work quite the same or at all in this remake.
The world map and dungeon maps have changed, giving the game expanded new spaces and more to explore. These new bits don’t always conform to the design language and rules used in the original, but may take their influence from later Zelda titles, or Jeb’s own ideas.
I’ve played through the first four dungeons so far, and discovered several new secrets. I’m finding it challenging, the difficulty level is definitely higher than the original. Due to not being able to find the White Sword right away, and most of the overworld Heart Containers being unavailable, I’m having a harder time dealing with the new enemies. It feels like the item drops are a bit less generous, too, with bombs, hearts being somewhat less common drops, and fairies very rare.
Nintendo usually takes these projects down as soon as they discover them, so I wouldn’t expect this one to be around forever. So if you want to give it a try, better grab it while you can.