Monthly Archives: December 2020

Hack Showcase: Legend of Zelda 2 Redux (NES)

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Hack Showcases and RPG Hack Showcases are a series where I show off various game and rpg hacks. I try to stick with hacks that improve gameplay or add quality of life features, completely or partially change the plot and characters, along with additional content, dialogue, graphical and sound improvements. Non-rpgs I try to give a full run to, or at least enough for a solid review. Rpgs I will stick with titles that have enough changes in the beginning to show off, and when I can, show parts later in the games where more differences appear. There may be spoilers in the reviews and videos. Some of these I may stream fully in the future or play on my own. Reviews are open to later revisions due to bug and content updates or me playing them and finding anything new I wish to bring up.

Zelda 2 Redux by ShadowOne333 aims to make a number of improvements to Zelda 2 for the NES, known as the black sheep of the Zelda family due to it’s higher difficulty, change from overhead to side-scrolling format and more. A lot of quality of life improvements were added too, along with optional patches to change your gaming experience to the definitive version of Zelda 2. I had finished this myself a couple years ago, after never finishing it as a kid for various reasons. Discovering this made me smile and I wanted to see what this hack was all about! ShadowOne333 is also the brains behind other Zelda redux patches for Link’s Awakening DX for Gameboy and Link to the Past for SNES. This hack was finally released after a long time in October 2020, with an update in December 2020 to bring this hack to version 2.3.

The changelog for this hack is extensive! And there’s a large assortment of optional patches to improve upon the Redux experience more!

  • Changes to the Life Meter HUD: Should have hearts now instead of the old bars it had for a life meter
  • Reworked HUD to be more in-line with other Zelda titles. It also looks much better to the eye now and is more streamlined
  • Added 1/4 heart gauge by IcePenguin. Now the life meter is reduced by 1/4 parts instead of the original sliding bar, effectively letting you know exactly how much health (no longer will the meter show no life with Link still alive)
  • Reworked title screen. Now the Sword in it is the same as the one in the original US boxart, and also the scrolling text of the title screen has been entirely rewritten to be more in-line with the canon story of Zelda II
  • Manual Save Feature: You can now save the game by Pausing and then pressing Up+A on the Pause screen (both in side-scroll pause and overworld pause!)
  • Manual saves no longer count towards the Death counter in the Selection screen! Now only Game Overs should increment that counter
  • Implemented @njosro’s Restart in Current Palace patch (as a bonus) 😛
  • Link now has a Blue and Red tunic! Upon using the Shield spell with a Defense level between 1-4, you’ll get the Blue tunic. Once you get up to level 5-8 of Defense, you will get the Red tunic Continue reading →

Faxanadu (NES) Review

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Faxanadu was released for the Famicom in 1987, and for the NES in 1989 by Hudson Soft. This is an action-adventure game like Zelda 2. It’s a spinoff of Xanadu, the 2nd game in the long running Dragon Slayer RPG series in Japan by Falcom. Your hero returns home and find sit ruined due to a war between the dwarves and elves at the World Tree, started when the Evil One emerged from a meteorite. You travel the World Tree, fighting monsters and collecting gear in the towns you find along with magic and keys to be able to proceed. You have a life and magic bar, which decreases as you use magic and take damage. Enemies can drop gold or bread, bread refills your life. In towns you can refill your life at a price along with getting items and saving your game via password and getting a title from speaking to a Guru. Doctors (and “Nurse Boy”) can refill your health completely in towns too. This is one those early NES games with a long password of various characters that you need to write down properly.

I never played this game as a kid or teen, I discovered this some years ago when i got into NES emulation via my Dreamcast and loved it. I recently rediscovered how good and charming this title is earlier this current year from some friends, and gave it another playthrough which rekindled the magic of this hidden gem of a game, and i picked up a complete copy of it for my collection!

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Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (PSX) Review

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Released in 1997, SOTN is a direct sequel to Castlevania Rondo of Blood, which at the time hadn’t gotten a proper US release. In this one, Richter Belmont has disappeared and Castlevania itself reappeared 4 years after the events of Rondo of Blood. Alucard, Dracula’s son last seen in Castlevania 3, awakens to discover what has happened with the help of an older maria from the previous game. This is the first of the Metroidvania style games, where the player explores an entire castle, gains new abilities, and fights bosses to uncover the plot. A second mode letting you play as Richter in a traditional Castlevania is opened up upon finishing the game. The game sports an amazing soundtrack and a number of dialogue scenes with voice acting (even if it is cheesy). SOTN wasn’t a big hit at first, until critic scores and word of mouth raised its status among gamers, prompting a number of re-releases.

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Retrorevisited: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1-4 (NES & SNES)

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Retrorevisited is a stream series where I revisit a game or a game series I haven’t played in over 10 or 20+ years. I’ll go through to try see what I remember until a game over or I run out of continues. In some cases muscle memory may slowly return, in others probably not. This is a chance for me to revisit games of my youth that I still have or had at one point, playing them with and without nostalgia goggles, and do with mini-reviews of them too. If I decide to play any fully later and do a full review, parts of the mini-review would be incorporated into it. Depending on the playstyle or system, games reviewed will either be mini-reviews or one about all games in this session.

Like most kids in the 80’s, I grew up on the first TMNT cartoon, and the first NES title. Even back then I figured there was quite a bit off with it, especially the challenge and jankiness. Like most kids and teens, my friends and I devoured the 2 arcade titles, and loved the home versions for the NES and SNES, and even liked TMNT3 which built on the brawler style and wasn’t based on an arcade title. So in my retrorevisited video, TMNT 1 I limped my way to stage 3, TMNT 2 and 3 I made it to stage 3 also! TMNT 4 I made it to stage 5! Both TMNT2 and 3 have hidden codes to increase lives, difficulty and a stage select.

I recently played through the Famicom TMNT2 (called TMNT in Japan) and TMNT3 (called TMNT2) there, and there are a number of difficulty, graphical and gameplay changes worth looking up too.

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