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Resurrection of Ganon imagines Hyrule after the defeat of Dark Link. Palaces are in decay, the people have fled, and Ganon's evil soul still weighs heavy on the land. Link must resurrect Ganon and destroy him, once and for all.

The "happy never after" theme translates into a new overworld map overgrown with vegetation, an original music score, and variations on spells. Rather than finding jewels at the end of palaces, you are awarded with Magic Containers, a nice twist on normal gameplay. Most of the enemy bosses are dead, but that doesn't mean you won't be in for a good fight.

The difficulty is slightly higher than the original source game, which is good because I've always felt The Adventure of Link was actually a bit too easy. Game progress is intuitive and nicely staged, something that I imagine is tricky to implement in a hack this extensive. Some enemies have new vulnerabilities, which was an unexpected surprise.

The creators did a great job capturing the atmosphere of desperation aligned with the game's premise. The new design of the decaying palaces was especially cool (hey, they used those forgotten windows in the original game's code!) Definitely worth a playthrough and a strong effort from the team that created it.

Highly recommend!

A couple of glitches are worth mentioning since they likely will be patched in the future (SPOILERS). I apologize for the length of these notes, but hopefully, they point the developers in the right direction to fix 'em up.

1 - I think it's by design, but the starting palace where Zelda slumbers is also one of the palaces you have to explore to gain an item and Magic Container. You enter this palace only from the left (?) to correctly begin the level. This is kind of glitchy and isn't mentioned by the in-game characters. A hint like "Enter Zelda's Palace from the west entrance" might have helped if this is in fact an intentional design feature.

2 - In the Ghost Town accessed via ducking into a chimney, exiting to the right of town soft locks you out in the middle of the sea (Pause on controller 1, UP + A on controller 2 still works to get you to the save/continue screen). Also, you can enter the house that the human boy emerges from, but this starts a cascade of broken graphics throughout the game, not just at the town level. If you manage to find the Ghost Town, simply exit to the left to avoid any trouble and get on with your game.

3 - At the final palace, it is possible to reach the path to the boss in two different locations. In one version, you drop through the floor, end up in a room with golden goat heads, then go left out of the room. When you re-enter the room to the right, it's a new room - which grants you passage to the final fight.

However, you can reach this same golden goat head room via another path. Sometimes you can re-enter and get the path to the boss, but sometimes it does work if you've come this way. I can't for the life of me figure out why it only sometimes works from the "other" way. I have noted that sometimes a small spiky enemy is in the room left of the goat heads. If that enemy is there, the "exit / re-enter" trick will not work. If the enemy is absent, it will work. I have been able to access the boss through BOTH paths (the first one always works to get to him, the second sometimes).

It's a weird glitch for sure, and can be frustrating when you are so close to the end of the game.

A celebration of everything that made the original great with new spins. Feels like a true continuation that can be easily recommended to all lovers of the original.

# Difficulty:

+ Higher than the original, without ever feeling unfair. Added platforming sections don't contain unfair death pits.

+ No excessive game overs, most of them at the beginning of the game before firsts level ups.

+ No guides required. "If you have very good knowledge of the original" ^_^U

# Graphics and design choices:

+ Overall graphics and design choices for the overworld, towns and palaces are quite remarkable.

+ Special attention has been put on the palaces. Each one has quite distinctive graphics and atmosphere.

+ The desolation on the land can be felt though the color palette, graphics and the design of the places, it is cohesive.

- Non-telegraphed overworld places are a bad design choice 99 out of 100 times. Having places telegraphed or not should be player choice, specially towns, palaces and main items. "A patch for this would be welcome by many, even if optional."

- Few bosses. Sadly most palaces finish without a high note leaving the player without a strong fulfilment.

# Music:

+ Themes quality range from good to great.

+ The overworld theme.

- The main palace theme gets repetitive even on a short playthough.

# Gameplay Balance:

+ Grinding is never needed to level up.

+ Experience is saved across continues.

- Continuing after a game over and need to walk all the way to a palace. "A patch for this would be welcome by many, even if optional."

Resurrection of Ganon is one of the best Zelda II hacks out there, because it's not only the same game with a new overworld, but it's a real sequel of the original game! The story continues, there are new musics and a new great atmosphere! There's only a little thing to fix at the very beginning of the game: when Link exits from Zelda's room, if we go in the temple on the left, this is another palace (maybe the Great Palace, last level?), and the door of Zelda's room is in a yellow tile on the right of the temple... I think it's a little mistake to place the Great Palace's entrance at the beginning of the game: if it's an error, please fix it and it will be perfect! ;)

Zelda II: Resurrection of Ganon (ROG) is a complete hack of Zelda II that will surely amaze you. ROG reuses a lot of maps from the original game, but does it in a really clever way to create an adventure that feels truly new.

In this hack you'll traverse the good old overworld map, but due to Ganon's malicious spirit you can't reach places in the order you did in the original game. Towns are completely deserted, only owls and hint stones will help you find your way through this dark mirror world. Hints are pretty good, so I never felt lost and always had an idea of where to go to. Though, knowledge of the original game is needed, since many towns are still on the original spot, but now hidden in woods.

The design of the temples in ROG is simply amazing. Again, many maps are re-used, but there are a lot of small twists that force you to find a new way to reach the end and find the temple item. I had a lot of fun exploring these new temples, because the new solutions were never too obscure. Temple items are all mixed up and at the end of a temple you won't place a stone, but you'll find a magic container instead. This is a smart gameplay concept. The player starts with only one magic container, and by completing the temples he will be able to use more and more magic.

ROG has some of the most impressive graphics I've seen in a NES hack. The temple graphics have all kind of new tiles added, and they give each temple a unique setting. I especially liked the sand-covered temple and the flower garden. Palettes are changed everywhere to give the game a dark tone. They all work really well and are colors match perfectly.

One has to mention the incredible soundtrack to ROG. I don't know how they did this, but the overworld theme is so good it could've been part of an original NES game. The pitch height in all music pieces is pleasing to the ears, better than the original game. It's highly recommend to play this hack with the music on.

ROG adds some very welcome gameplay improvements to make the game easier than vanilla Zelda II. The guard spell is now much more useful. It can block fire and the axe swings of those annoying enemies in Death Mountain. Fairies heal both your health and magic, making it easier to survive in the temples. Overall the balance is good in this game. I never needed to grind and the difficulty never surpassed that of vanilla Zelda II.

Overall, Resurrection of Ganon stands as one of the best Zelda II hacks to date. I took a lot of notes for my own upcoming Zelda II hack ( Zelda II - Amida) . Resurrection of Ganon is a shining example of how to create a hack in which it's fun to explore without needless frustration, while adding lots of eye and ear candy. Be sure to play this hack, it's well worth your time!

I could actually see Miyamoto and his team turning out something like this to celebrate an anniversary or something.

The difficulty was right where it needed to be, except for maybe a couple of early enemies, but those can be worked around easily enough. The owls and gossip stones, in lieu of NPCs, were a great touch, and really added to the atmosphere, while making things less cryptic.

So many hacks in the past have had such great ideas, and then ruined it by throwing outright ball-breaking enemies and environments at the player, or there were items and locations that could never be expected to be found except by cheating or watching a walkthrough.

This one doesn't do that at all. Anything you can't get through is pretty much on you and your skill level. That's as it should be.

I recommend this to every Zelda 2 player out there.

Another one of those obnoxiously hard-type hacks. The magic usage is super stingy in this. You start with 1 magic bar & spells are more expensive. Even at magic level 7 the Life spell costs 45, costing just under 3 bars (48). I managed to get to the original 6th palace only to get 'Ninja Gaiden'ed into pits because of some ridiculous platforming with malicious enemy placement.

It takes forever to find towns & gather spells, so expect a very slow & restricted beginning. I just finished the 'The Triforce of Courage' hack & that was way better (Magic level 8 actually reduces magic costs like it should, unlike this game).

Sure, there's no bosses at the end of the palaces but the enemy fights (especially Blue Darknuts) will kill you off more times than your patience can handle. There are far better hacks out there to play (not to mention the Randomizer)

While it's been neat to see Zelda II romhacks before, I agree strongly with another reviewer that most err on the side of being far more difficult and unforgiving than the original game- which was already known for it's difficulty.

Here, the monster placements are comparable to the original, there's not a bunch of extra instant death pits, none of that.

Instead, the challenge in this new hack comes from figuring out where you need to go. It only fully makes sense if you have knowledge of the original game, but then it plays with your expectations once you do in a way that I found pretty cool (although I got stuck in Island Palace for quite a while because of a certain trick).

And just to be clear, they do NOT force you to skip through doors as a Fairy, nor do they force you to fight Dairas without some kind of option for better defense- I recommend keeping that in mind. This hack is actually very trustworthy once you figure out it's secrets.

The experience system is actually far more generous than Zelda II this time, since you don't lose it at game over, and there are plenty of 500 experience P bags hidden around. Also, in an unusual (but atmospheric?) choice, there aren't very many boss battles; and the final levels aren't quite as expensive as in the original game.

The music is all new, which might sound like a bad thing since Zelda II had awesome music, but fortunately this new music is great too. The whole game has a slightly spooky, serious atmosphere. (The imagery in the first room of the game is really memorable, too.)

The only thing I would really want to change would be perhaps to alter the final dungeon a bit- maybe it could replace certain rooms with some of the bosses that didn't appear, if that's possible? I know ZII hacking is pretty difficult though. The final boss was still pretty tough as is, since I was never very good at certain things in ZII, but I wouldn't say it's any harder than the original.

If you are fairly familiar with the original game, definitely try this. I'm not sure if people would like it who don't already like Zelda II, but as a Zelda II fan I loved it, it's my favorite ZII romhack yet. Fantastic work!

Too many Zelda 2 hacks have some crazy challenge (No jump for example) or something which makes them nigh on unenjoyable. This one doesn't ask you to twist your arm and leg. Granted the early game will be a little tough if you're not paying attention to some details (hint hint). But beyond that, this hack respects player's knowledge of the vanilla game to keep everything just about the same, but different enough to think outside the box a little bit.

Highly recommend for anyone looking for a balanced challenge.

And thank God the life spell is actually tolerable!

This hack feels like an unofficial direct sequel to The Adventure of Link. The world map is the same, the palaces and caves are mostly the same, but the atmosphere and the order of action in the gameplay is completely different. Sort of like A Link Between Worlds was to A Link To The Past.

To start, darkness has fallen over Hyrule with Ganon's resurrection, and the color palettes and the music have been changed to reflect this. The setting is also underscored by the towns being deserted and boarded up except for the houses where you learn spells and sword techniques. Honestly I wasn't sure how to feel about the new music at first, but it really does a great job of portraying the darker atmosphere of the game.

Speaking of the towns, the unhelpful townspeople have been replaced with gossip stones and Kaepora Gaebora the owl from Ocarina of Time who actually give you helpful advice. Thank you!

Another frustration from The Adventure of Link that was removed in this hack is the two rooms in the Hidden Palace (Level 6) that require the use of the Fairy Spell to get across. Platforms to the rescue!

Also, leveling up is not nearly as strenuous as it was in The Adventure of Link, with lower costs for maximum-level upgrades! I didn't mind the grind in AoL, but those who didn't like it can rejoice now!

The maps of the overworld and the palaces may be the same, but what really makes this hack feel like a direct sequel to The Adventure of Link is that all the bosses are already dead and the crystals already set in the statues. However, the boss rooms of each palace are the only places where you can find Magic Containers to extend your magic meter, so you'll still need to go through them again. However, you cannot go through them in the same order you did in The Adventure of Link, because the key items have been rearranged, and you'll need two items from East Hyrule to access and get through the Island Palace in West Hyrule.

There is also a seventh palace to go through before the Great Palace, which I have never seen another Zelda 2 hack do before but I love it. The North Palace which serves as the starting point in The Adventure of Link becomes an extra dungeon in this hack, which reminds me of how the Temple of Time from OoT became its own full dungeon in Twilight Princess. It's also where you'll find the only other boss fight in the game besides Ganon.

Some of the puzzles in this game really make you think outside the box, and many of the things you did to get through the original Zelda 2 won't work a second time. For example, how do you get through Death Mountain when the first cave is blocked off by a wall too high to jump over with an item on it that you need to get the Jump spell? Also, how do you get to the Island Palace when the cave passage you normally took to get there has now caved in after a storm? Also, where is the flute needed to get past the spider guarding the Valley of Death? Is there another palace I'm missing? These are all questions you will be asking yourself while playing this game, even if you have played the original Zelda 2 to death like I have.

Overall conclusion: This game improves upon many aspects of The Adventure of Link and makes a familiar environment feel brand-new again. Highly recommended for any Zelda 2 fan!

Overall: I've played a handful of of Zelda II hacks including Part 2, 3, Journey of a Day, Shadow of Night, Leaf of Interia, and this one is by far my favorite one! The reason is that it is not hard and annoying like the others and fun to play.

Fun: With that said, let me tell you what else is is cool about this hack:

The music is new and sounds really cool (similar theme as original) the game colors are awesome and building experience points is not painful like with the other hacks.

You don't need to put in crystals in each level and every level provides an item with either a heart or magic container.

The levels are still in the same spot but getting to them is another story.

The towns all have houses with closed doors, with exception to some places in each town and the fountain (invisible fairy) raises health and magic together.

There is more than meets the eye when searching for the flute and final magic container located in a hidden castle. Had I not gotten a direct hint I'm not sure I would have found it!

Thanks for this fun hack GTM604.