“Zelda: Legend of Link” (New NES Hack Stream Series!)

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I recently was searching at random for hacks of the original Legend of Zelda for the NES, and I came across a brand-new hack (still technically a work in progress, though it is complete) that was released in 2014 and is called Zelda: Legend of Link. Strange name, I’ll give you that, but the game is really, really good!

So good, in fact, that I decided to cover it in a brand-new streaming series on Twitch!

Before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let me say this: The game is a complete rework of everything about the original game, save for perhaps some of the dungeons and how they behave. The music is entirely redone, all the dungeons have different music after the first one, items from later games like the Roc’s Feather and Pegasus Boots are in the game, the graphics have been completely redone, and the game features two 16×16 overworlds!!! Yeah, it’s a totally different game…Or is it? Honestly, I would say this game captures the essence of what a true Zelda III on the NES might have been like. The game’s overworld seems largely similar to that of The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening while the story is reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and perhaps this is fitting. After all, one of the theories about a third NES Zelda game was that it had elements that were similar to both the Game Boy and the SNES classics, but when the game was scrapped in favor of an SNES project, elements of it went into the SNES game while others appeared on the Game Boy cartridge.

First and foremost, if you wish to play this hack for yourself, head to the link here and follow the instructions.

And before you ask, no: I won’t tell you where to get any ROMs (for legal reasons).

As to my streams, I’ve done two episodes so far, each of them fairly long. These videos are currently on my Twitch page, though later I will be compiling them in some form or another and releasing them on YouTube. So, until that time, you can head to the links below to watch them for yourself:

Zelda: Legend of Link (NES Hack) — Ep. I

And:

Zelda: Legend of Link (NES Hack) — Ep. II

Jessica Brown

Retro Games and Technology Editor. She'll beat pretty much every Mega Man game without breaking a sweat.