GuestLog in

Tl;dr - Once again, another NES Era Zelda hack that fetishizes the difficulty of the NES titles and ups the challenge even further under the misguided conceit that the NES games were good because they were hard.

Red flag in the ReadMe, never expect a romhack that claims that the already unfair Zelda II was easy in any way to be well designed.

• -Among the flaws of this hack, here are some that I noticed.

• Aches (Bat Enemy) are often placed above instant death pits.

• Iron Knuckles are placed in the same room as Bubbles and other enemies as early as the first dungeon.

• Achemen (Fire Vampires) have been made immune to the sword for no good reason, with no means to defeat them before the player is forced to pass areas with them.

• The player begins the game with 1 Magic Bar and at level 1 magic does not have the ability to cast the first spell they learn as a result.

• There are still enemies that steal EXP upon hitting the player. These enemies steal 10 EXP, just as they did in the base game, but because EXP values have changed in all other instances, this is the equivalent of these enemies taking approximately 50 EXP in the base game (Hard Mode exacerbates this problem by halving the EXP Values of enemies the mode doesn't outright remove EXP from).

• EXP numbers no longer appear above a defeated enemy, so constantly looking to the currently stocked EXP is the only way to know how much EXP they drop.

• EXP cost for a Level Up is not shown on the Level Up Screen, and thus the EXP Requirements ReadMe is the only way to know how much a Level Up, other than the one you're currently working towards, costs.

• You start with 3 Life Bars instead of 4, because what Zelda II Romhack wouldn't do that at this point, effectively making enemies, especially early on, even stronger on top of the already present power boost they have compared to the base game, even on Easy Mode.

• Dark Caves now turn Link completely jet black instead of a bluish shade, making it impossible for the player to see themself in such areas. (Note that, like the base game, the player must still go through a dark cave to reach the candle)

• The second town the player reaches blocks off its means to heal and restore magic via a closed bridge, making healing any damage made past the south cave a pipe dream as enemies still do not drop healing items.

• Swamp battlefields reach higher and are completely opaque, making the Octorocks fought there invisible until they jump, meaning the moving ones can blindside you by spitting rocks from below the swamp.

• Blue Deelers (Spider Enemy) Will jump, even from already being in mid-air, once their hit-stun ends, as their jump timer now still counts down even when they're stunned, giving the player no option but to defeat it once they land, as attempting to escape the fight guarantees the player will take damage.

• Red and Blue Deelers now now give the same amount of EXP on Easy Mode, meaning Blue Deelers are stronger than red ones for no reason.

• On hard mode, both Colors of Deelers give 0 exp (made even more ridiculous a change by the fact that the mode doubles their speed), making walking past them even more appealing an option than even the base game made it, regardless of the damage that may be taken.

• The sword beam has been "Improved" to go farther. It effects enemies no better than it does in the base game, and because it takes longer to disappear, it takes longer to shoot a second one.

• Bosses no longer give EXP, even in easy mode. This decision would have made sense if the statues the player puts the crystals in were still right past them, but because the one dungeon I explored had multiple bosses, which only rewarded keys and the candle, the bosses effectively give no EXP for no reason.

• The candle item was still collectable even after already collecting it.

• The more consistent Magic Potion Drops should have been a great boon, but because the hack has withheld the Shield Spell like "hard" OOT hacks withhold Din's Fire, they are effectively worthless early on.

• A lack of paths on the overworld makes it so that encounters can happen at all times, especially annoying on Hard Mode because the early game enemies no longer give EXP.

• The above problem also means that the environment no longer nudges the player in the right direction.

• The above problem also-also makes it far easier to cheese Set-Encounter Tiles, which I consider a bonus given the nature of the hack otherwise.

• The most common cause of death, in my time playing at least, was being knocked into an instant death pit by a weaker enemy, making grinding to max level in the early game seem very appealing, because all of the enemies were arbitrarily made stronger, and a high level won't help against instant death anyway.

• There is no way to confirm how many lives the player has left. The respawn screen instead uselessly tells the player how many crystals they have left, possibly because that too was removed from the pause menu.

• All of these are from before, during, or just after, the first dungeon.

This game is excellent. Much harder than the original. I'm not great at Zelda II so I struggled at times but I was able to finish it. I used about 60 continues. The game was much different than the original and a pleasure to play through. The hearts and magic containers had new secret ways to find them and there were many new secrets and some were a challenge to figure out. Many times I was knocked off of the edge by an enemy and had to start over. Which can be really frustrating but it's just part of the game I guess. It's really irritating though that whatever area of the game you need to get to is always a long walk away and if your like me you need every one of your lives just to get somewhere in a palace. So when you walk for five minutes and get knocked off by a flying enemy that came out of nowhere it's annoying. But I guess I just need to practice and get better at it. This game had many new secrets and many interesting clever new ideas. Such as the backwards crazy off the wall palace which was such a great idea but like hell for me to play through. But what an idea that was. The icepenguin is obviously an absolutely excellent hacker who has made many great Zelda II hacks. If only I was better at the game I would enjoy the hacks more. This is like a whole new Zelda II adventure and I love it. If I was better at the game I would love it even more. I'll come back to it again later when I step my game up. You should try playing it. im Hoping the icepenguin will come out with more Zelda 2 hacks but also hoping that they won't be any harder than this one was. This one was hard but not so hard that it made me hate it. I really struggle with a couple of icepenguins other hacks. This one was a struggle for me too though. It had its ups and downs. At times I loved it and at times I was hating it when I would fall off of the edge and die pretty often after long walks to get to the next palace. That's part of the game though. I would really like to see a thing where you can continue from the palaces when you game over. For me that would make this hack almost perfect. Great game. Great job icepenguin.

Zelda 2 is one of those games that gets a lot of undeserved hate just for being different. In spite of all the criticism, I still rank it high among my list of favorite Zelda games and favorite NES games. That being said, I've played it to death and pretty much memorized it.

With that in mind, I needed a fresh challenge for my Zelda 2 fix, so I went to check out Ice Penguin's hacks. I thought Zelda 2 Part 2 and Part 3 were a little too Kaizo-esque for my taste, but then I came across Journey of a Day, which completely overhauled Hyrule, added new puzzles to solve with new item requirements for different locations, and expanded upon the gameplay and challenge of the original game.

One thing we used to do in old-school adventure and RPG games before the days of the internet was take notes of different things, like passwords or locations of things and stuff like that. For this hack, you're going to want to do that if you want to get through the Great Palace. Just throwing that out there.

I believe that a good ROM hack should give a fresh challenge to players who have mastered the source game without going completely overboard, and I feel like Journey of a Day did that perfectly. While I can beat the original Zelda 2 in just over 2 hours, my playthrough of Journey of a Day took 6 hours. I felt the love put into making this hack, and any Zelda 2 fan should play it!

It's definitely even more cryptic than the Adventure of Link:

I've been playing this game for at least one year now on and off: Let me explain, first of all I've only located two dungeons, the first one I didn't get too far even though I did get the candle, I still can't get through the door because I can't get the key because it's under some rock and I don't have down thrust yet.

The second dungeon I got to much much later has a lock I can't get through. Even though I located the key in the upper left hand corner there is seemingly no way to get to it! What the heck man!

So far I only have found: life spell, shield spell, and jump spell, and candle item. And I've upgraded every level to max except for attack which is nearly max.

And I've located the first death mountain maze section, but I have not found anything in there even though I have gone through seemingly every single part of it.

And I've been everywhere on the map that I can get to currently since I don't have the ability to break rocks, or travel from docks,a lot of it is still closed off. So therefore I feel like I'm stuck unless there's a way to find hidden things while walking into mountains and sea, which is already mentioned in another review, otherwise I doubt I would never have even thought to do that. Hopefully that will open up more of the game.

So therefore, if doing that is what's needed to progress in the game, it might not have been a horrible idea to at least hint at that in the game manual, which I believe it doesn't, that's my only complaint in this game, if it actually does, then that's my mistake.

After owning Zelda II for the NES is was never my personal favorite Zelda game but still love how it has a different feel to it from Zelda I and A Link To The Past.

First thing I did notice about this rom is Links jumping has been reduced, not my favorite part of the game, but it does make it more challenging, It is easier to die if you don't time your jumping right because you can either fall into the water pit or lava pit when entering a cave. Secrets are alot more difficult to find in it compared to the original but I think that's what IcePengiun had in mind, this game is some terms torments the player but in my opinion that's what makes it fun to play.

I like how you have to back track and get spells, keys and other items before you can actually beat the temples and move onward in the quest

If you were never a fan of Zelda II for NES then this hack is not for you at all!

The easy version is the one worth playing, the hard version will make you quit even before you enter the first dungeon.

Worth a try if you like Zelda II

8/10

This is not as beat-your-head-against-the-wall hard as his other predecessors to this hack. Which is good. But by the middle of the game, you'll wish you kept notes or made a map because there's a fair amount of backtracking to places. Also there isn't just one death mountain overworld maze.

If you haven't been told, you'll probably never figure out that there are secret passageways in the mountains and the seas. So you'd better hone your push-against-a-wall technique, because there's a lot of it.

Knowing the benefits of each spell is crucial to surviving the tough enemies. If this is your first time playing The Adventures of Link, I'd suggest finding a different hack.

I did grin and bear it all the way through Journey of a Day, though admittedly a lot of save states were used, and I needed a walkthrough toward the end because I just forgot where everything was that I had to go back to.

Definitely a tough one here. I do recommend this, but know what you're getting into!

I have now fully completed the Hard Patch without Save State and recorded my journey. Looks great with my Zelda II: Part 2 and 3 videos. I still need to finish the Great Palace in those (they are TOUGH), so, I'll stick to my Journey of a Day review.

I played icepenguin's Zelda II hacks in order (of course), so I'll naturally draw some comparisons to the others. I might not play Shadow of Night because I'm a sucker for old school graphics/sounds (with surprises) and SoN looks pretty fancy. I couldn't resist taking a look at Journey of a Day though.

First thing I noticed was that your max jump height was reduced! Took a while to get used to, still messed me up on more than one occasion though. New laser is so much fun! It's cool how you can redirect it. New graphics are awesome! Love the animated tiles and all the new colours. Especially the graveyard (since I do most of my levels there), it's easier on the eyes.

The overworld, progression and secrets have several similarities to Part 3, but there was enough difference, especially in the palaces, to make it exciting.

The beginning, like Part 3, is the most difficult. If you take the time to bang out your levels, then things will start to soften up for you. Part 2 is probably the easiest to level up in, but that hack has more emphasis on the puzzles.

In this Hard Patch, you have only two lives. So, the tradeoff is a relatively easy overworld and palaces for those two lives. Similar idea with Part 3, but Journey of a Day is a cakewalk compared to it. I think I prefer Part 2's method much more and prefer that hack overall. Six lives and difficult puzzles. One more quick thing that's cool about Part 2 is that the up and down stabs are disabled. I don't mind them, but I really enjoyed not having them.

In the end, I personally prefer Part 2 and Part 3 the most out of icepenguin's hacks. Journey of a Day is still an outstanding piece of work though, to say the least.

Finally heard what Zelda wanted to say before she was cursed! Thanks for the great new adventure!!

Apparently the easy mode is really ultra hard mode. And the hard mode is impossible mode. The original game was super hard, and this one is much harder.