While we try our best to keep up to date with all of the amazing fan games being released, every so often something incredible will come out and completely pass us by.
That is the case with ZIITAOL, an incredible fan remaster from last year, which only recently caught our attention thanks to a post from ViníciusMedeiro on Twitter. The fan game is an enhanced PC remake of the 1987 Nintendo release Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, one of the more divisive games in the Zelda series, and is a direct translation from the original game's Assembly code to GameMaker Language by the developer Hoverbat.
It adds a bunch of fantastic quality-of-life improvements, including a widescreen presentation, new secrets to find, and improved dungeon and overworld maps. It also disables the background flashing that occurs whenever Link dies by default for greater accessibility (this can be toggled back on in the menu options).
Here is a longer list of some of the modifications, taken from the initial announcement post on Reddit:
- Saving System: Most towns have an NPC that will save your game
- A dungeon map showing you the rooms you've visited so far
- An overworld map that shows your immediate vicinity in the overworld and the name of the area
- Extra Life Dolls are permanent. When loading a save file or continuing after a game over, your lives are 3 + (number of dolls acquired)
- You retain 25% of your XP when continuing after a game over
- Saving in a town will retain ALL of your XP
- HUD displays an icon of the stat that's next in line to level up
- Background flashing is off by default and instead is solid red. This can be toggled in the options menu
- Continuing a game from a game over starts you at the dungeon's entrance if you died in a dungeon
- Continuing a game from file select starts you at the town you saved at
- The spell chosen for casting shows in the HUD
- Your current MP shows as a number at the top of the spell menu
- Unaffordable spells have different color
- Active spells have a different color, though they can still be cast. (the diff color can be toggled in the options menu)
- Wisemen refill your MP
- Low HP beeping less frequent after 8th beep
- You only have to talk to Riverman once to activate Saria bridge
- Key count shows in HUD
- Faster dialogue speed
- Various other things.
If you want to give it a spin yourself, you can grab it now from itch.io.