Zelda: Parallel Remodel
Mar. 26th, 2013 07:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroMany years ago, a great war was raged, and the use of the Triforce to end it split the world into two parallel halves. Now, the evil king Draegor kidnapped seven maidens, and it has something to do with both the Triforce and the secrets of the Parallel Tower.
One of the most well-known and oft-mocked A Link to the Past hacks is Zelda: Parallel Worlds. It's a serious overhaul of the game, re-doing the plotline, the world map, all of the dungeons, and even the sub-screens. It's also insanely difficult and requires you to know the glitches and unnecessary "techniques" of ALttP perfectly. Several folks (mainly PuzzleDude) decided to create the Parallel Remodel hack to make it accessible to a more reasonable player.
...I'm not sure he and I share a definition of "a reasonable player".
The first noteworthy bit, of course, is that there's an extended period in the beginning before you get the sword, during which you can only fight by throwing bushes and pots and enemies, and you can't save. This segment does feel much more "fair" than other hacks that do this, because the enemies in that segment aren't absurdly powerful (for the most part--there are still a few too many ball-and-chain soldiers) and the puzzles are simple.
When you finish the first dungeon and get proper access to the world, the gloves come off. The first thing you notice is that all of the enemies near the save/restart points will kill you dead in one or two hits. There are patches of overworld where the enemies are more reasonable, but in general they're not making that aspect of the game easy on you. Similarly, the dungeons have a lot of segments that are so packed with enemies and obstacles that the game slows down. PuzzleDude basically removed the necessity of bomb-jumping and other absurd "techniques" and cut out a lot of the puzzles, but left the insane gauntlets of laser statues, fireball pots, fire bars, spikes, holes and hyperactive enemies.
The light world dungeons are generally very short and simple. The puzzles consist of dodging a hellish obstacle course over and over again. The dark world dungeons are longer, but usually just as simple (the only puzzle that stymied me was the necessity to dash-bounce to enter part of Impa's Ways) and usually just as nasty in terms of fighting and dodging. Also, the original hack apparently allowed you to do most of the dark world dungeons in any order, whereas this one forces a specific order on you.
And finally: After playing the entire game, I still have no idea what the timer on the subscreen does or signifies.
Overall: Don't bother. The PuzzleDude's Quest hack at least had some clever (but entirely solveable) puzzles to go with the crushing difficulty of the enemies. This doesn't really have that, and while the revisions to the world are very impressive (a credit to the original hackers of Parallel Worlds), the exploration aspect can't carry the game.
One of the most well-known and oft-mocked A Link to the Past hacks is Zelda: Parallel Worlds. It's a serious overhaul of the game, re-doing the plotline, the world map, all of the dungeons, and even the sub-screens. It's also insanely difficult and requires you to know the glitches and unnecessary "techniques" of ALttP perfectly. Several folks (mainly PuzzleDude) decided to create the Parallel Remodel hack to make it accessible to a more reasonable player.
...I'm not sure he and I share a definition of "a reasonable player".
The first noteworthy bit, of course, is that there's an extended period in the beginning before you get the sword, during which you can only fight by throwing bushes and pots and enemies, and you can't save. This segment does feel much more "fair" than other hacks that do this, because the enemies in that segment aren't absurdly powerful (for the most part--there are still a few too many ball-and-chain soldiers) and the puzzles are simple.
When you finish the first dungeon and get proper access to the world, the gloves come off. The first thing you notice is that all of the enemies near the save/restart points will kill you dead in one or two hits. There are patches of overworld where the enemies are more reasonable, but in general they're not making that aspect of the game easy on you. Similarly, the dungeons have a lot of segments that are so packed with enemies and obstacles that the game slows down. PuzzleDude basically removed the necessity of bomb-jumping and other absurd "techniques" and cut out a lot of the puzzles, but left the insane gauntlets of laser statues, fireball pots, fire bars, spikes, holes and hyperactive enemies.
The light world dungeons are generally very short and simple. The puzzles consist of dodging a hellish obstacle course over and over again. The dark world dungeons are longer, but usually just as simple (the only puzzle that stymied me was the necessity to dash-bounce to enter part of Impa's Ways) and usually just as nasty in terms of fighting and dodging. Also, the original hack apparently allowed you to do most of the dark world dungeons in any order, whereas this one forces a specific order on you.
And finally: After playing the entire game, I still have no idea what the timer on the subscreen does or signifies.
Overall: Don't bother. The PuzzleDude's Quest hack at least had some clever (but entirely solveable) puzzles to go with the crushing difficulty of the enemies. This doesn't really have that, and while the revisions to the world are very impressive (a credit to the original hackers of Parallel Worlds), the exploration aspect can't carry the game.
