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This romhack enables people who find Hydlide tedious or at times difficult due to the way combat works to finally be able to play through it in a swift 30 minutes (if you know what you need to do)!

The improved XP rates makes it so that grinding doesn't take a long time, but it's still a process you as a player need to undertake before going in dungeons for items like the pot. The regenerating health increase makes it so you don't have to wait extended periods of time just for your health to top out before attempting again. Definitely an improvement!!

The only note I have to mention is that due to said health regeneration increase, you will recover health very quickly at max level inside during the Varalys encounter, making it incredibly easy to just attacking him a bit in defend mode, then run off, wait a second to regenerate HP and then fight him again. It's up to each if this is a good thing or not, due to the nature of the original fight relying on the Medicine potion and the RNG from the nearby enemies.

All in all, I definitely recommend this romhack if you want to have a quick fun run of Hydlide!

This is definitely the definitive way to play NES Hydlide. The xp boosts feel like just the right amount now, instead of the more tedious grind of the original. It's also nowhere near as easy/quick as the Windows 95 port with overdrive enabled too, so a good medium. The only stopping point was the grind for level 7 in the graveyard felt like it could use a slight bit more xp, but that's a largely minimal complaint. The game is easily beatable in a sitting without breaking too much of a sweat now and the whole experience is less tedious than before. While I do prefer the Windows 95 port overall for graphics/replacing that mind-numbingly short music loop, this is definitely one of the better and more fun ways to play the original Hydlide. Would love to see rebalance hacks for II and 3 similar to this on other systems.