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Starting out this Hack was great. It has really good ideas for increasing the puzzle difficulty and I think having many Items not appear where they normally should does increase the difficulty and challenge. However some of the dungeon routes were designed so poorly I often had no idea where to go or what to do especially when getting into dark world dungeons. There were no hints or payoffs for the player to understand the reason behind the puzzles and the direction they were taking you in.

The over world unfortunately suffered the same problem, where even as a veteran of the game I had no idea where to go or what to do to progress given my current state of weaponry / ability. Sometimes there was one place in one area you had to go to. Not to mention I think there is a flag set for the old man to appear in the cave to you after getting the second pendant, and since I went to death mountain early, he did not appear and did not give me the mirror. I had to use cheat codes to get it since I didn't want to restart.

All in all, Good ideas but poor execution in routing / telegraphing.

I have recently wanted to play any finished ALttP romhacks to analyze the level design and while there are several nice navigable ideas here, the biggest flaws come from how there are enemies or obstacles that need to be fixed.

Some of the dungeons have key logic issues where small keys are potentially missable such as a dead end locked door in Skull Woods an, optional room in the Temple of Darkness, and exiting a room that has a locked door on the other side in the Ice Tower.

in Turtle Rock there is a Somaria Platform that is bugged which can result in a collision issue, and Zols spawning in Misery Mire's entrance with pits do not react well with them.

Some push blocks are required to have the player lose a heart by falling into a bottomless pit and some of the dungeons tease the player that they can explore the dungeon earlier only to run into an item gate before being able to obtain the dungeon item.

Then you have obstacles where Fallmasters are placed while you need to dodge several traps in a floor tile room in Ganon's Tower, way too many shooters and Winders in some of the dungeons.

The resource management is also poorly implemented. In Hyrule Castle, you are given bombs before you get the sword and if you run out, then you must restart the game because no enemies located there drop them.

Despite my negativity, there are some nice puzzles and this hack could be much better if it fixes several of the issues I addressed. Overall, the problems that need to be observed and fixed:

• forced damage obstacles must be removed.
• no small keys located in locked dead end rooms that are not meant to be revisited.
• enemies cannot be placed in rooms that have poor collision interactions
• resources must be placed where unwinnable situations are not possible.
• obstacles must be tested for potential collision bugs that can soft lock or semi freeze the game.
• make sure enemies and traps are placed where damage is avoidable.
• if a dungeon has item gating on the critical path, either place it early enough in the dungeon that the player does not waste a lot of time or have the dungeon item accessible.

After giving this hack a shot, it had good first impressions and stood out as a sort of master quest of the original game. A better master quest hack than the one I played ages ago, with cleverly made puzzles. But sometimes those puzzles are too much to figure out and can leave you stumped. Nearly every dungeon has a portion where I could not figure out what to do, so much that I need to look up a youtube video. Even when I find the solution, it's usually something I wouldn't have figured out. There's also times when you need to do trial and error. In those moments, I feel bad for those playing on hardware without save states.

In some cases the puzzles are just flat out not fun at all, like the ones in the hyrule castle tower with the pushable statues that you have to push around a maze and hope you can get past them, while in the dark with just a flashlight.

There was also a time where I was stuck without a key for a long time in the desert palace. Turns out the key was under a pot that was in a room with tiles that fling at you. And I realized that the tiles were also removing the pots from existence. Another ridiculous moment is when there was an enemy you need to kill and it was unreachable. Turns out you had to capture a bee and unleash it.

Finally, another ridiculous moment is when you had to bonk off a statue in order to push a block behind you that was over a pit.

After I got to palace of darkness, I just said screw it this hack gets me stumped way too many times for what it's worth. Even the maze before palace of darkness got me stumped completely. I can't imagine how difficult the later dark world dungeons are. I wouldn't say that this hack is not worth checking out, but most would have a lot of trouble getting through it and kinda wastes your time playing this. I would only recommend this hack to ALttP pros such as speedrunners who know the game more than veteran players.

This is a very well-made hack that I thoroughly enjoyed playing from start to end. Couple of high points and a few low points to mention:

High Points:

• The Author did an amazing job to re-work the game! As someone who played this growing up it was great to get a new level of challenge that wasn't completely insane while keeping things fresh.
• Really makes you think! And you will get used to some dash moves you never thought possible. By the end you'll be a pro :).
• Like I said, I really enjoyed this and decided to play it thru unlike some of the other ROM Hacks for LTTP that I had tried that were truly too hard for me to enjoy.
• Make no mistake: it is hard and you will feel accomplished as you work thru the completely redone dungeons!

Low Points:

• Got soft-locked on the Dark World Water/Swamp Dungeon... if you plan to attack this dungeon do yourself a favor and create a save-state FIRST. I thankfully had one from not too far before and it saved me. I think someone else mentioned it happens if you start the dungeon, then go adventuring out into the world and return.
• Somehow I couldn't find exactly ONE heart piece :(
• Others mentioned it, but no, Red Armor isn't attainable (Blue is the most I got) but this is probably to keep the game more challenging.

This is my first review and I want to thank the author for a great experience overall!!!

(some spoilers may exist below)

Summary: An excellent balance and rerouting of the vanilla. Puzzles are extremely well designed, and (mostly) rely on stand vanilla mechanics. Difficulty is elevated over the vanilla in many ways, but not to the kazio extreme. Very recommended. Thank you so much to the creator! I'm sure this was a lot of work (and it shows in the results)

PROS Dungeons: The dungeon puzzles are extremely well thought out and designed It's rarely obvious where exactly to go or what to do next as there are often multiple directions to progress Difficulty increases in a roughly linear fashion as you progress through the game You are often offered options (like a B/O switch or hammer mole) when you must ignore them. Health/Damage is much more of a concern, but again, not to the kaizo level. For seasoned players, this is a welcome difficulty

Overworld: The flow for both light and dark worlds is well controlled by the creator based on the key item acquisition and intended play direction The feel is very vanilla, but the flow is sufficiently different to feel like a fresh take on a classic design

Ancilla: Item usage is much improved upon. as other reviews state, the Cane of Somaria fulfills much more of its potential Almost every item seems to be required for one feat or another, a nice touch

CONS Dungeons: I found, quite often, that i had to save and quit due to insufficient magic (real hardware, no save states). It was really quite frustrating. This is mostly due to exploring, trying things, and not knowing where to go. A bonk mechanic that is most likely unintended in the vanilla is required in 2 dungeons. In some locations, there's excessive back tracking just for the sake of backtracking, but it minimally detracts from enjoying the game

Bugs: I did not record the events, but I believe I soft locked a few times A few glitches exist, most notably the swamp palace dam release water tile problem Many Sahasrahla dungeon tiles present the same old text, which, with the new dungeon flow, can be very disorienting and misleading. Very few unintended starts exist, but there is a tiny rail one can bounce off of in TOH that bypass a small amount of time spent walking KEY DOORS - many key doors will reappear after a save and quit to be locked again, without a way to get another key. The only solution seems to be to edit the memory in an emulator, save, then port back to console.

I also did not find (or need) the red mail.

This hack was generally a good time from start to finish with interesting new "Master Quest" style dungeon changes. The new dungeon items are also neat and I'm glad to see the Cane of Somaria getting more use throughout the game, it's shockingly underused in vanilla.

Anyone who has beaten ALttP a few times and is familiar with most of the mechanics in it should have a pretty good time with this hack, so I think I could recommend it to mostly anyone (assuming they qualify to that statement). That's not small feat considering how much chaff there is when it comes to ALttP hacks, that's not an insult, but rather just a sad observation of the landscape. Making ALttP hacks is hard, the engine don't bend easily to doing anything differently, even this hack has some bugs associated with that. So for a hack to come out with plenty of modifications but *also* include well designed dungeons? Quite impressive.

So yes, if you've been, just like me, waiting for a ALttP hack worth playing that won't drive you nutz with absurd design or absurd difficulty (like say Parallel Worlds), then this is the one to go for.

High points of my run:

• The trip to get the moon pearl was cool.
• Cane of Somaria getting plenty of love and creative uses.
• Ice palace went from the worst dungeon of the game to one of the best.
• The puzzle to get to the big chest in Skull Woods is really elaborate and nice, I like it.
• More enemies that drop magic in ice palace was appreciated.
• The Bow. Finally.

(I didn't really use it outside of required stuff and Ganon)

As for complaints, criticisms, or glitches:

• The water dam when released causes buggy visual water to spawn all across the screen.
• A central puzzle in Dark Palace is a bit too hard to figure out since what you need to do is not something that you could really feasibly consider to be doable. There are some hints in the room, but it's not clear despite those.
• A friend playing this reported that the locked doors in swamp palace reset after leaving the dungeon to go overworld exploring, forcing them to use a cheat code to get more keys for it.
• My inventory is complete sans the Red Mail, it might very well not be in the hack or be super well hidden, but some clarification to either effect would be good.
• Considering how early thieves' town is, Blind's Arena is not really okay in the slightest. You can come back and kill him later with the magic cape, but in that case you just cheese in the opposite direction.
• Likewise, Helmasaur King is a bit too overtuned for when he comes in the game, I'd get rid of some of the spikes in the room to give players better avenues to move, the RNG in how the boss moves can just put you in positions with nowhere to dodge.
• I ran into some bugs with the first big room in turtle rock where my Somaria platforms just went off the rails at the end point and floated over and into the wall of the room.
• The torch puzzle in turtle rock on rails is a bit overtuned and feels ill suited, especially if you don't know to abuse the hookshot for a damage/pit warp.
• Armos Knights fight in eastern palace is maybe a bit overtuned, the author should consider that for most people the fact that you have to do it bow-less is already a big jump up in difficulty, the arena could be slightly more forgiving.
• The spike maze room in Skull Woods' lower right section is too tight, especially to dodge a Wallmaster, the entry point where you need to thread a needle both horizontally and vertically and hookshot to enter the maze is especially egregious.
• There are some glitchy looking one-way doors in ice palace where you exit out of locked key doors. The dungeon works fine but the visuals of this is weird.

First off, big shoutout to SkierLink for making the hack and getting the update out ASAP after the unfortunate softlock that was found.

This is possibly the most balanced hack I've played for LTTP. Since the overworlds are kept mostly vanilla, it respects the players knowledge of the vanilla game, but just has that extra difficulty and tricks. Some of the tricks I was not aware of and took a while to figure out. Definitely no glitches required.

Can't wait for more hacks from this guy.