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The author put a lot of effort into this hack. The QoL-improvements make the game much smoother and the exploration of new areas - that were not accessible before - forces you to think about new sea shell and rupee locations.

At the same time, the hack targets players that have a profound knowledge of the game, the capabilities of the items and the map layouts. Small mistakes are punished significantly with the loss of hearts, that can only be replenished with buying new ones at the store or the refilling potion.

You are much more aware of your controls, due to faster enemy movements and higher damage intake.

As soon as you reach the second part of the game, with a certain amount of heart containers the difficulty gets flatten out. Definitely recommended!

Original review: [Great idea, too much changed] Recommended: No Version: 1.0 If it only had difficulty changes and nothing else, it'd be a really good Hero Mode hack. Once people start modifying areas, enemy placements, adding in new stuff, it becomes a different thing completely. I hope in a possible 1.1 version of the patch, the option to only have the stuff that'd be in other Hero Modes will be placed as an optional patch.

Beware tho, the difficulty is pretty high compared to the original!

I enjoyed this game for my 1st time ever playing this game. My only downside is that the game would not allow me to acquire everything. I could not get all 26 Owl Statues, so I couldn't get the Level 2 Sword nor the Level 3 sword even though I found the location. Other than that, still good game.

The recommendation of "Yes" is conditional upon the needs of the player. All of the changes are done well and I have yet to find any glitches or bugs. It also fixes a number of problems that existed in the original game.

If you are looking for a hack that gives a new but VERY difficult & challenging experience and offers refinements which are enjoyable, than this patch is for you. It succeeds wildly in this capacity!

However, if you are a casual player or a veteran player who does not enjoy ultra difficult games, then this not recommended.

Note to dev, the changes made that do not effect difficulty are very good. A "normal" level difficulty patch would not go amiss and would likely find a grateful audience. Only a suggestion..

Don't get me wrong, Link's Awakening is one of my favorite games of all-time. However, Link's Awakening DX Hero Mode takes its difficulty to frustratingly high levels. As the game implies, it increases the enemy damage. Certain mid-boss/boss attacks, spikes/cacti and lava are a one-hit kill that your potion can't protect against. This is extremely frustrating because you don't know which attacks one-shot you until Link gets hit by one.

The 4x damage and lower invincibility frames also leaves very little room for error in some parts, causing quite problematic situations for the player.

The game already punishes you for dying, meaning if you screw up once, you'll likely end up costing yourself the game's best ending because of a boss killing you in one hit that you never knew about until you got hit by it.

I'd suggest playing Quality of Life Improvements, by the same ROM hacker, which has the same QoL improvements besides the unfair difficulty. Until then, can't recommend this.

I was looking for a challenge and some new elements, but every step of this hack just feels like a chore. Everything is made unnecessarily more difficult without rewarding the player for the major upheaval they're facing. Having to hit weak enemies' multiple times over and over becomes tedious, almost feeling like a grind but with minimal reward or progress.

The game permanently punishes you for being killed once, which is ridiculous. The player is expected to play through almost flawlessly. All gameplay is just made harder for the sake of being harder, with few new puzzles and designs being introduced.

I'm sure there are some nice tweaks and introductions here somewhere, but few if any players will experience it without having to resort to cheating.

Such a shame, I do hope the author updates this.

The improvements to the game are great, but what ruins it is that it's trying to be "hardmode" at the same time. The hard mode parts feel forced, such as 4x damage and no hearts or fairies. Also bosses one shotting you is just cheap, and reduced invincibility time doesn't feel good.

What I like a lot of the changes outside of the hardmode part of it. The new rooms/caves are interesting and well designed. There are new hidden items, such as a level 3 sword and a new tunic. Guardian Acorns and Pieces of Power are quick pick-ups without the annoying text. No more health beeping. And a bunch of other great changes.

So I would love a patch without the forced hardmode elements, but with the other additional changes.

While the hack is good for what it is, I would have preferred a general improvement patch separate from the harder patch. For example, the fixes to the guardian acorns and pieces power are fantastic! The insta kill, not so much. The no beeping or annoying text? GREAT! The 4x damage? Eh...

It seems like for every step forward, there is a step... not back, but to the side. :)

This is one of those cases where it almost seems like it would benefit from 2 separate patches. 1 for hard mode and 1 for general improvements.