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A good homage to the SNES classic

  • Irog
  • 05/25/2017 11:19 AM
  • 3337 views
The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past is such a monument in game history. I had to play this fangame at some point.

The Legend of Zelda Solarus Edition, as its title implies, is built using the Solarus engine. This engine brings so many improvements compared to Zelda games made in engines like RPG Maker. I had played "The Legend of Zelda: Mystery of Solarus" made in RPG Maker 2000 by Christopho and Netgamer. For example you had to open the menu to use an item once and had to reopen the menu to use it again. Here you can allocate up to 2 items to action buttons like in Ocarina of Time. This makes it easy to use the items in combat. All menus have Ocarina of Time ease of use plus a very convenient feature to chose key allocation. Default controls use arrows to move, D for menu, X and V for items, C for sword and Space for action. This is a good control layout but I prefer to use my index finger for the most repeated action: the sword. A quick change in the settings made it possible to swap C for V but unfortunately, the HUD button names and position do not adapt to the new configuration.

Zelda has been captured, again, and you play as Link to rescue her. In game events or NPCs don't unfold any additional story elements. The game uses default LTTP music and graphical assets as well as modified graphics and great custom boss sprites. It plays in full screen or windowed. Map layout is good but there are some incorrect tile usages. Music and sound usage is as good as in LTTP except when you fight enemies while the Great Faerie music plays.

The overworld looks nice and makes good use of obstacles to block path and later items to unblock paths and uncover treasures. They are enough enemies to force combat on the overworld. This is good but the variety of enemy is very limited: only sword fighters, no archer, no electric slime, no bird, no ghost, no bomb-trower.

Dungeon offers more enemy variety but lacks enemies capable of range attack to the point that your shield is completely useless. Bosses are the only enemies capable of range attacks but their projectiles pass though your shield. Dungeon layout is good. Some rooms that would be multiples maps in LTTP are gathered into a single larger map. That is used to great effect when you have to move a block between rooms to press a switch. Such layout also gives you an unfair advantage over the enemies: you can stay in the doorway and attack them while they can't leave their room. And remember, none has projectile attack. In some occasions, you'll be able to see what's in other rooms.



I wonder if I can bomb this wall. Will there be anything behind it?


Puzzles are often the easy type and you can bypass some due to walkability bugs. I like the "Two stones, and a journey into the clouds" puzzle but I feel I've seen it before; maybe in the old Mystery of Solarus. The following was great:



How do I get this heart container I desperately need?


All bosses have great sprites and easy to discover weakness. The two-heads dragon is a great homage to the original NES Zelda. Boss health is limited so they go down quickly. The final boss Agahnim, on the other hand, is a very rough challenge. When you enter the last dungeon, you'll at best wear the blue mail and won't stand a chance. But the designer carefully placed the Golden Gloves in the last dungeon so if you exit the dungeon, you can reach an optional dungeon to get the Red Mail. Even then the fight is tough. When Agahnim summon his own doubles, there are so many projectiles flying and bouncing around that it's almost impossible to face Agahnim long enough to win a tennis point. I tried to use items and discovered that the Somaria block reflects his projectiles. Unfortunately, projectiles reflected this way don't hurt him. But the block provides a good cover so I could stay alive longer and defeat him.



My best haha moment: discovering that the Somaria block reflects Agahnim projectiles!


In conclusion, this game is a good homage to the SNES classic but some major bugs need to be fixed to prevent bypassing puzzles and dungeon rooms. It's definitely worth playing if you're a fan of the Zelda series.

Here is a list of bugs I found.

Posts

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SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

Wow, thanks for the well written review.
You found a lot of mistakes I didn't know about, and some I did.

I saw someone get that heart container without the feather in a LP video, I was quite surprised, but I didn't know you could bypass so many areas in the game like that! (You really spent quite a bit of time play testing this, you're the first person to find this mistake.)

I let the feather thing with the arrows alone and thought it more of an extra if someone could figure out that they could just jump the arrows.

That white tile thing your seeing is from a mistake I think I made early in development, before I understood the map dimension rules. (Solarus lets you you make a map of any size you want, but it supports 16x16 tiles. So you need to make sure your map is a multiple of 16 or that white thing might happen. I think that's what is causing that issue.)

There's also an issue with the bomb I'm glad you didn't experience, that's more an engine problem currently though.

This engine was more difficult to understand than RPG Maker. I needed to do a lot more scripting than usual. But I think anyone who wants to make a Zelda fan game should probably consider it over RPG Maker or Zelda Classic.
I'm facing some issues with Lya and look at how LTTP addressed them. So I'm a bit in a Zelda mood at the moment.

I payed your game three times, using each save slot. So I didn't test the "erase save file" functionality.

On the first screenshot of this review, you have a wall-pillar a few tiles south from the caked wall. When you walk next to the wall it pushes you a bit away from the wall. Such wall-pillar could prevent bypassing the lava pit in bug07. If it works, wall-pillar would also benefit the pits in the ice dungeon.
SunflowerGames
The most beautiful user on RMN!
13323

If I were to fix it I could just use some player block thing I believe (sort of like a same as event in rpg maker.) My motivation to do so is something else though.

I have had a couple of requests on YouTube to make another Zelda game in Solarus, sort of not feeling the vibe though. If the Solarus guy ever makes some resources for Alundra I might be motivated though.

(I'll have a look at those different files you sent me for Lya after I finish my review for some terrible unicorn I just played.)
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