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The game is so close to vanilla that if you're just looking for a casual diversion for your next vanilla Z2 playthrough, this is fine.

But, this is far from what 'Master Quest' should imply. If you're looking for a step up in challenge from original Z2, this isn't it. If you want a Z2 world that opens up differently, this isn't it. If you want a nice looking reskin of Z2, this isn't it. None of the changes made are improvements to the original game.

The overworld: The paths are slightly changed. Not enough to make the player think or work through it, mostly to make you walk a little farther getting places. The world still opens in the same order and every hotspot is in the exact same vanilla square. I think the landscape looks worse, too. Messy and artificial.

Side view areas: Everything about side scrolls is the same as vanilla, except some enemies are replaced with tiered up versions of the same, i.e. Orange Ironknuckle becomes Red, and Red becomes Blue. As a veteran player, Reds aren't harder than Orange. They take more hits but give more experience, making it easier to level up and overpower the game. Blue IKs move differently than Red, which in some situations makes them easier to deal with than a Red IK. The changes don't seem very well thought out.

Graphics: New artwork for many sprites. A couple have nice shading. Mostly I don't get the changes, they half look like they came from Metroid. The Goriyas (boomerang throwers) got changed to upright bulldogs similar a Moblin, which are already in the game doing what they were meant to. Zelda II uses dark outlines to contrast sprites with background. Some of the replacement sprites do not do that, making the sprites even more of a misfit.

Bugs: At least one carriage return was lost in a text box (in the first town), and palace 6 has a couple issues including a bug that stops the music and locks the camera. The camera bug only prevents you from reaching non-essential rooms. I mention this because it makes me wonder if the game was play-tested.

After playing a couple recent difficult Zelda II rom hacks in the past couple weeks that I didn't enjoy, I thought I'd play this one because it looked interesting. I knew it was going to be a tougher challenge (It being called Master Quest) But my thoughts are the overworld map was some what different but did have the same general feeling of what caves had from the orignal game itself I guess pretty much the only difference with the hack is he added more and stronger enemies into the palaces/caves, so you could get you XP up quicker the more you move on into the game, some paths had longer paths to get to palaces to make you fight more enemies, but I found it just to get your XP up more.

Like I said, nice little hack, new comers on Zelda II should not try this unless you've beaten the original game it self, This though is nice, great to see the creator paying respects to the original game with more of a challenge

7.5/10

The primary differences in this version are: somewhat changed overworld, some changed monster graphics, and moved-around and added monsters in dungeons.

There's a couple of cheap hits (especially a hammer throwing monster placed before a lava pit), and it requires some trial-and-error to find the tunnel to Palace 3 (it's in the same place but it's harder to find as it's not as obvious where King's Tomb is), but overall the difficulty is only slightly harder than the original game. You get harder enemies sooner, but you get more experience for them, so you gain levels faster. Experienced players will clean up, but players who haven't beaten Zelda II a dozen times before will probably have a tougher time. But then, plain Zelda II is a pretty tough game itself.

Ultimate verdict: recommended, but only slightly. It's not really changed that much, substantively, from the original.

Very nice add on quest to the original Zelda II.

Since the original didn't have a "2nd" or Master quest, well, here it is....a quest that probably SHOULD have been added by Nintendo for those of us who finished the original 1st.

Nothing more, nothing less. And no, I do NOT count the quest the original Zelda II furnished us with...it was merely an overpowered Link asked to do the exact same quest he just got done doing...more of a replay than an actual second game.

As in the second quest of the first The Legend of Zelda, there are some alterations to the map (the Overworld anyways) and a slight bump in difficulty due to enemies being placed where they weren't before or adding to the total number of enemies faced in any given encounter.

As the previous reviewers said, palace layouts and locations remain unchanged (except for HOW to get to them on the overworld) and the addition of some extra enemies within (i.e. an extra slime or piranha plant for instance where there wasn't one before, or an upgrade of an enemy, such as a red knight for an orange one, etc).

The author did make some cosmetic changes to some enemies, some NOT for the better (the slimes with 'legs' and silly faces for instance), though some changes were nicer...such as mini orange demons (think ghosts n goblins) in place of the original silly orange birds in the swamp areas.

All in all though, a nice play through for those who want more "vanilla" Zelda II, in a quest more or less how Nintendo probably would have made it.

Recommended.

I said yes to recommended but its okay. There's some nice touches but overall its more of a over world reworking and enemy relocationg / reskin. If that's what your looking for I would then recommned this Rom Hack as it would be right up your alley.

If your actually looking for a true new challenge and something fresh, I'd look elsewhere. I would have loved to have seen this hack with new Palaces and Items swapped using those items to take you on a new journey with link. ie you get flute first to get to palace 2 as its blocked of by the river devil/spider as it is in the original game etc etc etc.

overall then id say i like some of the ideas they just werent fleshed out enough. it was worth the 1:45 mins to beat it. so im not going to complain.

Thanks for the hack

Recently completed this new hack by Remz and it was fairly enjoyable. I found it to be too easy though, and the palaces had the same layout, unfortunately.

Was nice exploring the new overworld, but everything was pretty well in the same general area.

If you're looking for an easy, new playthrough with a few extra features, this will satisfy. But, I found it a relief to return to icepenguin's Part 3.. a hack that is actually challenging to me.

Great job though, thanks.