I love hacks, and when I download one I am fully prepared to be extra patient with it, as they’re usually completely fan-made. Suffice to say, I get it.
So I downloaded The Legend of Zelda: The Missing Link and was pleasantly surprised to see that (from the beginning at least) it looked whole and kind of clean.
But the smoke and mirrors stopped there.
-The hack is 1/20th the size of a full N64 Zelda title but literally lags in every single section of the game, on Emu and on N64.
-The unique item that the hack offered was actually a great idea, but has a habit of soft-locking the player when it’s used. Not a bug, just didn’t test it enough.
-The illusion of it being open-world is almost immediately voided, as the game is “cleverly” placed linear progression.
-There’s only one dungeon, and it’s intentionally frustrating. Not clever. Aggravating. So many rooms, doors, and corridors look exactly the same, and make it hard to tell where you’re going. And then the map AND compass are in the last 2 rooms of the dungeon…like….what?
-The boss fight takes the whole “frustrating instead of challenging” idea and puts it on steroids. You have to use the really inconsistent unique item, you have like 1 second to hit the weak spot before it whips around at Link so fast it’s unrealistic in every possible way. And of course, it is laggy as all hell. On a modern PC. (Also, another spider? Come on man…)
Now here’s the thing: I’m not mad about it; it was free. I just cannot believe several people obviously put an insane amount of time and effort into it before just…releasing it in a terrible state. Kinda sad.
So. With all that being said.
What N64 RomHack should I try to wash the bad taste out of my mouth? lol