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This hack does two things. First, it makes the hearts fill up faster. In the original games, drinking a potion or visiting a fairy would slow the game to a crawl as your hearts slowly filled up. Now it's pretty quick.

The second thing it does, is that it fills out the map in the corner of the screen as you explore, when in the original game, it would stay a grey rectangle forever, which, if you ask me, is pretty useless. The original didn't even have gridlines to compare to the physical map that came with the game.

Some would argue this defeats the purpose of the original game, but since you're on a romhacking website, it's reasonable to assume you're here to enhance your game, not play the vanilla game. As someone who loves this game, hails it as my favorite NES game and Zelda game, and has played the vanilla game with no deaths many times, I would absolutely recommend playing this by default... and besides, it's much harder to find those physical maps that came with the game.

Just having the map fill out doesn't really defeat the purpose of exploration. It's really just eliminating one step between you and a sheet of graph paper. And even with the map in the corner of the screen, you still have to find all the hidden rooms and burnable bushes ( hint, you won't find more than one secret per area, no square of the map has two doorways ), and the dungeon map system is still completely unchanged, still encouraging you to use the good old graph paper map drawing method.

I think some Zelda hacks go a little too far in attempts to make the game accessible, but this one is just right. All I would do differently adding an option for the Famicom Disk System version of the game for those sweet sound effects.

Having a map like this helps you keep track of where you have and haven't been while also keeping the map on-screen. Having only the game manual's map is an archaic design choice which the mini-map fixes. I would definitely recommend using this hack for a blind play-through, but also using the game manual's map for the information it gives.

For hearts, I think sticking to 1/4 drawn increments would have been preferable to follow future installments, and the updated heart sprites should've been part of an additional patch as many, including myself, prefer the original sprites. The increase of healing speed is a welcome change for something painfully and unnecessarily slow.

If you're new to this game, this is an amazing mod, easily the most essential. (Unless you actually DO want to draw the entire map, but that only appeals to a very small number of people in 2019.)

The truth is that the game design of the original Zelda is archaic, with unnecessarily obscure objectives and essential items placed in extremely hard-to-find locations. This mod helps alleviate some of that pain, and with a few more tweaks, someone could easily beat Zelda without any external assistance whatsoever. (a feat which is virtually impossible in vanilla LOZ, and certainly frustrating and unfun if attempted)

Romhackers from all over are including this in their hacks by default, and it makes me angry. The entire point of Zelda 1 was that you're handed a map that's already 60% complete and you need to fill in the rest of the details yourself, by hand, with a pencil. That's how old RPGs and adventure games were back then. Wizardry did the same thing: you had to draw your map on grid paper. The entire point of Zelda's in-game "map" being a grey box was so you could check Link's position with your map to find out where you are.

What makes Zelda 1 have such a unique charm is that it feels like you, the player, are the adventurer. YOU are the one filling out the map. YOU are the one collecting clues and saving Hyrule. Taking that away makes Zelda 1 "just another Zelda game". If you're the type who doesn't want to do that, and wants a hack to do it for you, then my advice to you is either deal with it or go home. This is not the proper way to experience Zelda, especially not for a first-time player.

The overworld map is brilliant. However, the 1/8 heart increments seem half baked and too ambitious. Change it to 1/4 increments like the future Zelda games did. Remove the splotch of orange in the heart sprites too, red & black look much cleaner.

On a side note, is it normal for the sprites to become corrupt? Second dungeon in, and half of Link started to look garbled, the Keese were replaced by the old lady, and the the moving spiked traps became aliens. I used a clean ROM if memory serves.

Yeah, great stuff. Though, I do wish people would stop inserting their names into the title screens of every hack and translation. Try put it in the credits; you know, like the people who actually MADE THE GAME did...

Back in the original release you either had the Tips and Tricks guide or you drew out a map for yourself on the back of the manual as you went along.

In the absence of these, this hack makes for a great substitute. The healing speed improvement and the heart meter break down is even more of a welcome improvement.

It should be implemented on every hack, if possible.

My only complaint is that you're limited to the PRG0 version of the game. If you want to play, say, the Collector's Edition version with the rewritten text scroll... well, these aren't compatible. The overworld is fine, but the game will crash once you're in a dungeon.

Having an overworld map that reveals itself as you visit a screen really helps in discovery for those playing through for the first time. No more forgetting where you've been and where else you need to go.

Having the heart health broken down to 1/8 increments instead of full heart increments is also helpful once you obtain either the blue or red ring so to know exactly how much heart health is left.

These two things should be added in some form to every Zelda hack. Awesome addition to this already great game!