So I absolutely adore Zelda, it might be my favourite series of all time.
Logically I try to play every game and fan-game I can get my hands on and apart from emulators the Pandora so far has been lacking in that regard (The ROTH trilogy does not cut it for me, no enemy patterns and bad level design sadly overshadow the nice ideas and story).
Some time ago I had a look at Zelda Classic - you could call it the game maker for Zelda games - and it looked like the perfect fit. Sadly I could not get any custom quest to run and also there are are just SO MANY, too many even (never imagined I would say that).
Then a few days ago I stumbled across an interesting article on TIGSource highlighting some of the (subjectively) best user created quests.
Admittedly the article is written in a rather ... interesting (let's settle on that) way, but if you don't like hyperboles you can also just look at the screenshots or even better try those and judge for yourself.
I only tried a few so far, which worked well. Some require a special build of ZC (details in the article), which we don't have available apparently, but I also have not tried those.
All in all the quests seem to have a really high overall quality, the graphics are good (and often enough original), the ideas are fresh (a Megaman themed Zelda game! - don't expect miracles though, consider it "just" a skin
) and it actually feels like a Zelda game, which is the most important point.
As I have said, I have not tried much yet, so I cannot give a detailed review on them, but the first steps in "Hero of Dreams" and "Mega Man" are quite good already.
Some images:
Read the article
If you are still following and wondered how to actually play those, here is a step-by-step guide:
(btw, in Zelda Classic most menus work with [start] to confirm, also you can press [Esc] aka [Fn]+[Q] at any time to open the overlay menu of ZC which allows you to adjust some settings and exit also, but this is usually not needed)
Multiple quests will need multiple slots, as there are only 3 available (for nostalgic reasons probably) you might run out eventually.
Check out the "pandora/appdata/zeldaclassic" folder on your SD card and you will find some .sav files - those are the quest data, back them up from time to time (I managed to corrupt save data, dunno how exactly, but better be save then sorry).
To save the game, press [F6] ([Fn]+[6]) which will ask you to "Quit current game?", select "Yes" and it will take you to a new screen to "Continue", "Save" or "Retry" - select "Save" (where you start next time is dependant on the game, but it usually works like in "A link to the Past").
Have fun and report on the quests you tried
Edit: Fixed tag fuckup
Logically I try to play every game and fan-game I can get my hands on and apart from emulators the Pandora so far has been lacking in that regard (The ROTH trilogy does not cut it for me, no enemy patterns and bad level design sadly overshadow the nice ideas and story).
Some time ago I had a look at Zelda Classic - you could call it the game maker for Zelda games - and it looked like the perfect fit. Sadly I could not get any custom quest to run and also there are are just SO MANY, too many even (never imagined I would say that).
Then a few days ago I stumbled across an interesting article on TIGSource highlighting some of the (subjectively) best user created quests.
Admittedly the article is written in a rather ... interesting (let's settle on that) way, but if you don't like hyperboles you can also just look at the screenshots or even better try those and judge for yourself.
I only tried a few so far, which worked well. Some require a special build of ZC (details in the article), which we don't have available apparently, but I also have not tried those.
All in all the quests seem to have a really high overall quality, the graphics are good (and often enough original), the ideas are fresh (a Megaman themed Zelda game! - don't expect miracles though, consider it "just" a skin
) and it actually feels like a Zelda game, which is the most important point.As I have said, I have not tried much yet, so I cannot give a detailed review on them, but the first steps in "Hero of Dreams" and "Mega Man" are quite good already.
Some images:
Read the article
If you are still following and wondered how to actually play those, here is a step-by-step guide:
- Download Zelda Classic and install as usual
- Download your preferred quest (click the size below the text saying "Download" on the PureZC page) and EXTRACT it anywhere on your SD card (so you got the .qst file on there)
- Start ZC, skip the first intro with [b.] the second one with [start]
- When you are in the Zelda-style slot selection menu navigate to "Register a new name" to create a new game in an open slot (directly accessing the empty slow won't work) - enter a name with the keyboard
- Navigate to the newly created slot, pressing [start] now would start the default quest (Original Zelda), so DON'T DO THAT, press [b.] (the action button) instead, this will take you to a sub-menu
- Press [b.] again, this will open a file dialogue, which you have to point to the quest file - press "Browse"
- Navigate to the quest file, you will start in the mounted PND, navigate upwards (topmost item "../") until you are at root level (top bar showing only "/"), then enter "media/" and afterwards look for the folder named after your SD-card (if you don't know how it is called - it's the name showing up with the SD-card image on the XFCE desktop), navigate to the downloaded qst file from there
- After you pressed enter or "Ok" to load the file, the game appears to hang for a time, THIS IS NORMAL, just wait, this can take up to a minute
- Back at the custom quest dialogue press enter again to confirm your choice (the bottom box also contains some info about the quest)
- The screen will go black and the game appears to hang again, this is also normal, wait again, this can take up to a minute, too
- You should be back at the slot menu and the icon next to your slow probably has changed (to something quest related), select the slot and press [start] to begin the quest (this will again take a while)
- Next time you start ZC you only have to repeat step 11 - aka start the quest
(btw, in Zelda Classic most menus work with [start] to confirm, also you can press [Esc] aka [Fn]+[Q] at any time to open the overlay menu of ZC which allows you to adjust some settings and exit also, but this is usually not needed)
Multiple quests will need multiple slots, as there are only 3 available (for nostalgic reasons probably) you might run out eventually.
Check out the "pandora/appdata/zeldaclassic" folder on your SD card and you will find some .sav files - those are the quest data, back them up from time to time (I managed to corrupt save data, dunno how exactly, but better be save then sorry).
To save the game, press [F6] ([Fn]+[6]) which will ask you to "Quit current game?", select "Yes" and it will take you to a new screen to "Continue", "Save" or "Retry" - select "Save" (where you start next time is dependant on the game, but it usually works like in "A link to the Past").
Have fun and report on the quests you tried
Edit: Fixed tag fuckup
Last edited by a moderator:
