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Honestly, this hack was pretty fun! I love the use of Mario graphics throughout the game, everything looks super nice, and although I have a couple nitpicks with the music, I still enjoy the remixes you've put in as well! The hack has a lot of charm and I love it, but there's one big issue... room design.

Perhaps it's just me, but I just found it hard to navigate the overworld. Even with the map it's pretty difficult, as it's hard to determine what's a dungeon, cave, secret entrance, etc. apart from one another. On top of this, several paths to other overworld rooms are single-tile pathways or two-way hallways which make it hard to effectively navigate the overworld and makes it more like a slow maze. And, while it was charming, not being able to see the Dark World on the provided map picture or the top-left was a headache and a half, and wasn't fun in the long-run.

Dungeon design is also pretty mediocre. The layouts are all pretty rigid and, personally, don't seem to be very creative (although Level 7 had something going for it, giving you multiple options to navigate it how you see fit). Sometimes, having to bomb your way through a good amount of the dungeons also wasn't fun.

There were also a few glitches I came across. For one, I almost got softlocked in packs of ice rocks in the overworld multiple times, which would've majorly sucked if I didn't know how to edit Mario's position in RAM. There's also a room in Level 6 (possibly multiple, but mainly one) where the Pols' Voice enemies kept jumping into a little area between the rooms' blocks and the right dungeon wall, which was very frustrating when I had to wait a little while for them to jump out repeatedly. A few exits in the overworld also acted a little wonky sometimes, displacing me oddly on tiles when I would exit.

However, I still had a good time. Not great, but definitely good! The charm is so strong that I kept playing through anyway, and still had some fun! Although I feel this is a very weak hack in terms of level design, everywhere else it its strong suit and I still recommend this to people, as there seems to be others who didn't mind some of the level design! Love this, hope to see more works from the author in the future! :D

This was such a unique and fun game. Thank you so much, NesDraug for making it. The new Mario sprites and layouts were excellent. The music was very well done, and the layout of the overworld was extremely well laid out. I can tell a lot of time was invested in this romhack. The theme is wonderful.

Gameplay: This was a bit easier than average LoZ hacks, and I knocked it out in a couple long evenings of play. I can best describe my progression as stumbling my way through the game. I never became familiar with the outerworld map. With the exception of level 2, I always quickly stumbled onto the next level, and I spent very little time churning in the outerworld to find things. It was probably overly easy to collect mushrooms (hearts) to restore health because even killing the bats earns mushrooms.

• I never found the 2nd hammer(sword) but found the axe(3rd sword).
• I did not find level 2 (or the flute) until circling back after beating level 7. It wasn't too difficult to find, but I just missed it and kept rolling forward.

Some other memorable things I loved that were unique to this hack:

• The hints were excellent and timely.
• The reverse controls when hitting bubbles in the dungeon. This was both fun and so incredibly frustrating at the same time. loved it.
• Losing money instead of shield from the like likes (I still call them pancakes). I'd suggest losing money while touching them, not a specific amount per touch.

Other mentions:

• As I was circling back to find the flute, I got stuck in level 1 and had to commit suicide in order to exit the level.
• I liked the detail provided by the map, but would prefer that detail only be revealed as that area of the outerworld is discovered.
• Bombs were scarce for a majority of the game.

Everyone who enjoys the LoZ romhacks should play this one. It's one of my favs.

NesDraug has done it again. The sound design is a terrific remix of familiar Mario songs with hints of Zelda and also includes some Mario sound effects. The sprite and background tile replacements are all excellent fits (especially with enemy movement and abilities). It's a neat gameplay change to have the Roto-disc enemies disable the player's secondary attack.

I found the overworld to be somewhat non-linear (with only a few levels temporarily blocked off). I did have a bit of difficulty getting to Dungeons 8 and 9. Also many of the items can be both found in dungeons and purchased at stores (for a hefty price), which is nice if you are desperately needing an item.

Overall the new overworld and dungeon maps are well designed and fun. The use of pipe tunnels is particularly novel in both gameplay and tying into the theme. The bomb wand, the slow terrain type, and frequent use of the whistle and the cloud / step ladder mix things up. Some people will definitely appreciate the bombable tile hints for the overworld.

It's surprising how well Mario translates to the Zelda engine. This hack takes a fun idea and takes it way further than you would imagine. Well designed graphics, fun surprises, streamlined dungeon design and a custom soundtrack! There will be many moments that will put a smile on your face.

Difficulty is very beginner friendly and definitely below vanilla Zelda. The hints in the game always help you and it's a joy to find all hidden little secrets.

This is one of the best Zelda hacks out there and is highly recommended for those longing for a fun play-through in nostalgia land!

I had a silly idea to Mario in the shoes of Link in the world of Zelda 1 and began putting it together in Multimedia Fusion when I was in college, but I never finished it. This is a much better and more accurate representation of anything that I could have ever hoped to build because it is a rom hack and not a remake.

I played all the way through this with my son this past weekend in two sittings and loved it. It was a high-potency dose of nostalgia in two flavors with just enough new "game" to get my brain moving and not just go through routines.

The game itself though, is quite linear and has a reduced difficulty (imho) compared to the original Zelda 1, so my young son had no trouble enjoying it with me (until worlds 7 and up when things started getting real)

NOTE: Be careful in the World 5 Dungeon, you can accidentally trap yourself in the bottom left foot of the star if you push the block inward to the right...there is no other way out of that room other than pausing and pressing Up+A on controller 2.