Welcome to a new edition of Sacred Reviews and this time we will take a break from ZC to look at a Zelda: A Link to the Past fan hack. The fan game is called Parallel Worlds Remodel, a hack that re-released in 2012. Two users named PuzzleDude and qwertymodo were modders that worked on this version known as 1.1. PW was originally called Tower of the Triforce until two users named SePH and Euclid reworked the old idea into what it is now. From my experience playing the original hack it was heavily bugged with glitches that would get Link stuck. The game goes as far as Hyrule Castle before dropping you in front of Ganon with little chance of winning. If anything that was more of the developers testing their programming skills before redesigning this into Parallel Worlds. There was also an earlier version of the original release called 1.0 that tried fixing the glitches that plagued the gameplay. Now, in this alternate timeline there are two worlds one that had harsh weather conditions and another with lush and lively environments. Ancient tales explained how the army from Hyrule were able to get the Triforce and used it to destroy their opponents. The power of the Triforce being used on Hyrule’s enemies caused a fissure in time and space to split the world in two. In the current events of this timeline, seven maidens who have said to know the secrets of the Parallel World have appeared. The king of the land named Draegor has developed a plan to capture the seven maidens so he could get the Triforce and use it for his evil intentions. When playing this for the first time, I saw PW as the second quest to ALTTP we never got. The overworld was designed in a vastly different manner due to most things not being where they would normally appear. An example is there being a sea front and how the Lost Woods is now where the East Palace and its valley would be—To say this was a breath of fresh air to play after completing ALTTP many times is an understatement. The enemies in Hyrule and the Ice World see no differences as most weren’t redesigned into the newer concepts. Now, the monsters in the dungeons didn’t get any changes to their challenge and acted in the same manner as the vanilla game. One of the features I loved about the bosses is how the Dark World versions were placed at the start of the first three levels. It is this rearranged aspect that often reminds me of the second quest from the Original NES game and those after in Zelda Classic that did something similar. In the lower portion of the Parallel Tower located on the Sky Isles (this version’s Death Mountain) has you face Helmasaur King. Before we tackle the biggest issue of the level design let’s begin with the good concepts. The way the game flowed gave me something different to how the vanilla base was presented. The best example comes from not getting the Master Sword until the end of the adventure. You still get a level 2 sword which is required to access Hyrule Castle. A unique challenge that stood out is how the Ice World is used differently from the mirror concept in ALTTP. Meaning the parallel realm’s level design doesn’t need Hyrule to progress to a new area. The modders developed the overworld like this to make it different, so they don’t copy the same format. In fact there are enough differences between the two realms where each one’s challenges don’t overlap. Now, the level design’s issues are mostly found in the dungeons whether it was poorly produced concepts or tedious mazes. The right caption has Link travel through Impa’s Way that acts like a level and another place to enter on the overworld. Impa’s Way has a lazy challenge where there are no enemies except for Moldorm as the dungeon’s boss. The obstacle has the player step on the gaps between platforms with indications of flashing red of the areas they can walk. It might be an improved idea from previous versions however, the dungeon was terribly put together no matter how much was fixed. Then we have the puzzle solving in the Lost Woods where you move in four paths in a certain order to progress to the hidden area. The developers still provide the hint to get past that portion which rewards us with the Cane of Byrna and a magic bottle. There is another similar puzzle on the opposite side of the overworld called Endless Beach and will take you to the Master Sword’s location. Some will take issue to solving a puzzle like this however, there is no problem using such a challenge. After playing through quests on ZC that had this feature, it pretty much is a standard in these hacks to have especially when the games provide you the hint. That brings us to the improvements compared to version 1.0 that truly fixes most of the problems. The areas that were originally unfairly dark is no longer the case because often the player would take damage from multiple instances previously. The Guardhouse and Din’s Catacombs were notoriously difficult thanks in part to the locations being too dark to see. Speaking about the Guardhouse, in the original release and in 1.0 was infamous for its difficulty. Meaning you had to trek through the building without a sword until reaching Link’s uncle. However, if the player gets a game over then the hack starts us back from the beginning of his house—The game previously wouldn't allow you to save during the level until getting the sword. These programmers designing the intro in such a way was downright ridiculous. Throughout the Remodel Edition you will find these features ironed out like no moldorm boss in the Guardhouse’s sewers. Of course, bomb jumping was removed altogether as that was needed to exploit intentionally placed gaps to pass them in the upper portion of the tower. A long stretch of floors now replaces these gaps since there was no reason to have us rely on that exploit. Despite the problems being ironed out in this update, the level design still isn’t the same quality that ALTTP is known for. Most of the time you will rely on tools like the Cane of Byrna, so Link doesn’t take damage because of the unfair difficulty—The gameplay forcing the player to take so much damage from tight environments filled with enemies is bad level design. In previous releases, the biggest thing that annoyed me the most is climbing the Parallel Tower three times to get a couple of key items. For once qwertymodo fixed this issue by allowing the player to backtrack to previous rooms instead of reclimbing the structure. The structure of the levels is still broken in design despite being reworked so it’s more streamlined. Half of the dungeons were either made into unnecessary mazes in one large room or broken sectors with little areas to maneuver. You will notice that in Nayru’s Bay, Impa’s Way and Nabooru’s Hole had the worst of the challenges. Then there are straightforward ones that try to keep a traditional design. The worst one here was Darunia’s Cavern that looks to have a similar concept to the fourth stage in the second quest from the Original NES game. I get the idea of putting this in as a throwback level however, the developers should have reworked the concept. It was 2006 and there is no reason to have such a dated idea for level design in something trying to emulate ALTTP’s format. The appearance of the Parallel Tower in Hyrule on the Sky Isles in the left image had a fantastic presentation. It stood on a floating island creating this mystical ambience, and the symbol crest of the Hyrule was placed well on the entrance's floor. The original developers also did a great job with the architect by differentiating it from the Tower of Hera. While there is no issue reusing the Tower of Hera’s sprite building in ZC, seeing creative efforts here is welcoming. The next is a statue design placed in a couple of areas in the Ice World that sets it apart from the rest of the props. These statues are found stationed at the entrance to Sheik's Hideout as the right caption shows. It is probably meant to show this fallen kingdom stands strong in the face of their current problems of extreme weather conditions. These statues depicting knights riding horses and wielding swords gives us a possibility how far Nintendo could have gone if a Super NES sequel was produced. When it comes to these hacks’ visuals, they either keep to the vanilla base or change the features from moderately to radically. PW falls between moderate and radical as the developers did a good job altering many things. Several key items were either replaced or changed in their appearances. No longer are there pendants and now are replaced by the gems from Ocarina of Time. The Deku and Hylian Shields take the spot of the standard and fire ones and are actually more defined here. Of course, like most 16-bit titles on the Super NES Link’s hair color was changed to blonde instead of an unusual pink. It is hard to understand why these developers did this back then because Link’s sprite wasn’t the only one to have strange hair color. Terra from Final Fantasy VI has her sprite with green hair even though the concept art has it blonde. The greatest feature PW has to offer is the way the programmers added additional assets that were never in ALTTP. There are now newer trees like pine and palm trees placed along the original visuals. Even statues depicting knights riding on horses in the Ice World gave that environment extra history about the land. Hyrule’s locations had unusual placements but not in a terrible way. The desert is now replaced by a beach font, and a series of islands in the sky is in Death Mountain’s place. Compared to the Parallel World, it features a near ruined kingdom that is on the verge of collapsing due to the harsh weather conditions. Now, the dungeons on the other hand, saw no changes in their assets and don’t build on ALTTP’s graphics. It does present an identical appearance to previous designs but enough to still nail the theme these levels represented. The names were somewhat interesting since they were picked after the goddesses and the Seven Sages. That is a throwback back to Zelda II considering the towns in that game were named after the sages in Ocarina of Time. Most of these dungeons’ titles match up to their personality and how each one represented the location they stood for. The one to have the weirdest name was Nabooru’s Hole as the title inadvertently implies a sexual implication about the character. I doubt Euclid and his team were trying to make a sexual joke or act perverted about her. Sometimes programmers put things in without realizing the inadvertent implications of an idea until later. The quality of the OST didn’t see any changes either and is left the way Koji Kondo produced the soundtrack. In fact each track was used for the right areas to the point that some got reused in a good way. Sheik’s Hideout uses the Guardhouse/Hyrule Castle theme. When you think about that this makes sense since the Hylian ninja was Zelda in disguise. The best thing about these hacks is how much different they are and the intro in the left caption explains the story of the two worlds. When watching the intro I love the attention to detail the modders did by showing a village next to a castle with a crescent moon in the sky. Reusing the Vanilla assets like Goddess of Wisdom did would hurt the presentation due to not being separate from the official plot. The story itself is basically a “what if” take on the timeline where things play out radically different. Link is a treasure hunter that has no ties to some ancient bloodline of holy knights or is reincarnated as the Spirit of the Hero. Zelda is not a princess but a maiden from the Parallel World with knowledge about both worlds’ Towers. The only thing that remained similar was Draegor being controlled by Ganon who has a related goal to his Original variant in the regular canon timeline. Basically, Ganon needs the information from the maidens to solve the towers’ puzzle to get the Triforce. Instead of a different version of the Imprison Wars from OOT, the tale in the opening talks about there being two armies being against each other for one reason. That was until the country of Hyrule used the Triforce on their enemies to defeat them. The power of Triforce in use did more than defeat Hyrule’s enemies as it caused a fissure through reality and split the world in two. The explanation being different is what set this apart from the other hacks and quests from ZC. PW’s backstory works since this is a non-canon plot that has no ties to the three timelines. It is also perfect to use as a one off story that doesn’t need sequels to explore the world further. The one of the things these modders always get right is including heart piece collecting. The left caption shows Link finding a heartpiece within a boat on the seafront. I also love how the developers did this in a way where you had to go through Din’s Catacombs to discover it. That is one of the few examples of good level design found here since this makes the player want to explore to discover hidden treasures. The next caption depicts three rooms inside a cave that uses the ice cavern as the structure in the second quest. As mentioned, this replaces Farore‘s Isle level so the player can obtain all the key items needed to get to Ganon. It is another lazy design to implement especially when 1.0 did a better job using the second quest format. There literally is no reason to play this when it is too short to act like a harder mode. As for content, PW follows the standards of the series to a T with side quests and a second mode. The usual features such as collecting heart pieces and hidden tools to find are all present. Then there is climbing the Parallel Tower that is needed to get the Master Sword and fight Ganon as the final boss later. Remember when I mentioned how this hack felt like an unofficial second quest to the Vanilla game? The funny thing about that thought is PW actually has a second quest to access. Throughout the adventure there are seven tablets to find that give you information on how to access it. In the age of the internet, finding these tablets is truly optional in collecting them. The player has to name their file TotT to gain access to the second quest since beating the game isn’t required to play. However, some features were changed from version 1.0 and this mode is slightly shorter than the previous edition. The last one had you complete the first three levels in Hyrule and then a couple in the Ice World thus making it longer. Now, there is no third level as this was taken out in favor of a three room cave system. Inside only has several chests that house all the key items needed to get the Master Sword and to reach Ganon quickly. That is a shame for PuzzleDude to leave this out when Euclid and SePH had the idea right from the start. Despite its faults, the hack was truly ALTTP’s unofficial second quest that we never got. The reason for these thoughts is how this hack changes the location of everything to the point it is nearly rearranged. However, the Remodel Edition does attempt to fix the unfair difficult aspects of previous releases. Between the darkness being removed in most levels and not forcing players to use exploits to get by, it definitely dumbs down the difficulty. The visuals and presentation are the best thing about the fan game with using newly produced assets not found in the regular release. Even though no graphical changes were produced within the dungeons, their themes and overworld being developed differently more than makes up for this. Now, the plot is written similarly to the canon story that features two worlds mirroring the other. However, it is executed differently by using a winter world instead of a twisted version of Hyrule. There are still problems present in the level design that saw no fixes elsewhere. Half of the dungeons use a maze layout which forces the player to take damage or rely on the Cane of Byrna. Then there were the enemies and traps being placed in spots they should’ve never been in. A personal gripe is how PuzzleDude shortened the second quest to three levels instead of several. He/she might as well call this second adventure the Shorter Quest due to its ridiculous length. Regardless, this was a fun hack to play through and the concept being different from ALTTP is what was needed. Rating: 8.3/10 Very Good
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Retro Gamer is an avid Zelda fan who has enjoyed the series for nearly 30 years ever since she first touched the NES. Whether its the official titles or fan produced stuff like Zelda Classic, there hasn't been a game she missed.
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