With all this Zelda talk, and Aonuma’s little NES-riffing demo, and all the “Is this more NES Zelda? Is this more Link to the Past Zelda? Is this more Skyward Sword bullshit?” that accompanies it, I’m wondering what the good smallish indie/dōjin games are that take their cues from early Zelda games are. I’m not looking for fan demakes/remakes/fantasy sequels/Zelda Classic stuff (that stuff can be neat and has its place), but games that took those original Zelda models and built on them.
In terms of influence I’d like to see, Legend of Zelda (NES) is more important to me than Link to the Past and its 2D successors. And for now I’m not particularly interested in seeing ones that more directly channel Ocarina and Wind Waker and all that. The ideas in Zelda 2: Adventure of Link are always something I’d like to see more done with, but I kinda asked that question in Quick Questions like a year ago.
I guess what I’m mostly looking for are games that build directly on the original game’s ideas without binding themselves to the series conventions that started piling on right after. I’m looking for indie alt-Zeldas.
BirdyWorld is one of my favorite things to have ever existed, though I doubt that it works anymore.
It was a “collaborative zelda-like” where players would create individual screens to build the map out. You were rewarded for going further and further away from the central zone. A neat conceit, but it worked shockingly well in reality. I can’t remember all of the systems, but it very much rewarded good design and challenging-but-fair tactics.
The creator was working on a sequel/full game, but no updates for 1+ year probably means it’s dead.
Anodyne is at least okay. I had fun with it but it was hard to tell how actually good it was through the thick miasma of links awakening nostalgia.
I really like links awakening
This is coming along nicely. Thank you all. Looking forward to more.
This is so cool and I am going to try the heck out of it (if it works) when I am done with thesis work for the night.
Meeee tooooo. TBH, I’m still off-and-on working on a Zelda 1/Link’s Awakening thing that grew out of a jam I didn’t actually submit to two years ago. Because I’m obsessed a little with LA.
Straying is good by me.
Oh yes, Adventure in the Tower of Flight! I’ve been meaning to play this some more. I started it a few months ago but fell asleep and never went back.
Does anyone remember an MS-DOS game/prototype that was circulating in the mid-90s that looked a whole lot like NES Zelda but with a character in red clothes and maybe no hat?
Links Awakening is the best Zelda game and one of my BGoATs
im sad to hear Ittle Dew is bad it looked cute
umm sorry i have no answers. every Zelda like i see trailers of looks pretty and good at first, and then it shows how the game plays and it’s always lots of block pushing and shit
i wonder if Zelda Classic is still going strong? was real into that back in my teens.
Oh shoot, I think I somehow thought these were the same game. Whoops. Gotta get up on Elliot Quest then. Looks rad as hell and I don’t know why I thought they were the same.
It has lady Link with the serial numbers filed off and a cute fox fairy so i’m still willing to give it a try
This Zelda Classic quest is excellent, if anyone here is still into ZC. Perfect length, has a cool custom chiptune soundtrack, is entirely based around blowing things around with a wind spell. Many of the puzzles take the most basic, boring Zelda “puzzle” (light all the torches!!) and somehow make it interesting and fun. The beginning part is a little rough and involves aggroing + juking enemies without any way to fight back, but if you get through that to the part where you acquire your wind magic, you’re in for a treat. This is basically a short, cool indie game that’s only loosely related to Zelda.
The kind of stuff Zelda Classic is capable of now is wicked cool. It’s bizarre to recall that i was messing with this same program when i was 12. Like, ZC is how i first played the original LoZ!
I’ll also support Ittle Dew. It’s got a great gimmick: there are three dungeons, and three dungeon items, but you can tackle the final dungeon at any time. There are many routes through the dungeon, such that it is highly doable to complete it with any TWO of the three total items! But beyond that, I believe I heard that with a lot more ingenuity and knowledge of the items’ nuances and edge-cases, the final dungeon can actually be completed with only one.
Or you get all three because you really enjoy the game and don’t wanna skip a dungeon.
It’s not very difficult but it’s clever enough to give that brain-tingling feel. Plus, when you beat the game you unlock an optional dungeon full of legit super tough puzzles that require you to pay attention to the aforementioned quirks and edge cases, as well as timing (prior to this the puzzles don’t really require precise timing). Remember how in Bubble Bobble there are some techniques that feel like optional “advanced” moves, until you get 30 levels in and realize you have to do those all the time now? That’s how Ittle Dew’s optional dungeon is. In fact, I think I never beat it!
It’s been a while since I played it but I recall enjoying it highly.
EDIT: i can’t actually find anything about beating the castle with only one item, so maybe I just imagined that. but apparently beating with just two is less trivial than I thought!