“Zelda: Outlands” — Awesome Classic NES Hack!!

For those that keep up with the fan community, The Legend of Zelda: Outlands is a pretty famous hack. The hack was completed by GameMakr24 and released back in 2001 and stands as one of the very first full-featured hacks of the original NES Legend of Zelda. In some ways, Outlands can stand well on its own and is almost like an unofficial Zelda III on the NES. The story takes place sometime after Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, with the Thunderbird coming and laying claim on the Triforce of Power, taking it away with him to a realm outside of Hyrule-proper known as “the Outlands.” Link, losing most of his equipment in an accident while traveling there, must embark on a journey in a strange new land to find the magical Fairy Tetrarchs who can break the seal on Ganon’s secret lair there, where the Thunderbird has gone to hide the Triforce.

At its core, the game is essentially an reworking of the classic game. The music and everything else is pretty much just copied over from the original version, but the colors are reworked (Link is darker looking, like he is in the cartoon series), the graphics are original for the most part, enemy graphics are swapped around and look nice, the bosses (though mostly reskins) are very interesting, and the overworld is very alien. But, the biggest change in my opinion is that Outlands is a lot less straight-forward compared to the first game. Yes, there are 9 dungeons that you must complete to finish the game, yet the game almost has that “Metroidvania” feel to it. For example, in Level 1, you will see the Step Ladder item visible in one of the rooms, but as it turns out, you cannot get it until you have the Ocarina and can defeat the boss that is guarding the room before it. Where do you get that? Why, not until you can access Level 4, of course! Often, you will visit a dungeon and defeat the boss protecting the Fairy there, but you’ll have to make note of certain locations that you cannot yet visit and then return later with the appropriate item. It’s this feature of the game that makes the game deceptively difficult and long. Yes, the overworld is still the traditional 8×16, yet the game jams A LOT into those 128 screens and the dungeons are laid out in such a way as to be quite difficult.

I must thank YouTuber Vythern for requesting this run of the game. I had tinkered around with it before but never played it to this extent. I’m really glad to be finally taking a more in-depth look at it! 🙂

Anyway, I will definitely see this one through, so stay tuned – a Part 2 is certainly on the horizon!