Unofficial The Legend of Zelda Remaster Released for Emulation

A team of modders has finally completed their latest product, a rather unofficial remaster of The Legend of Zelda! Of course, it’s more than a simple emulator port, as that has been available for a long time. This massive overhaul mod uses the Zelda 1 Redux release as its template. However, they’ve increased the internal resolution, there’s better audio, new and improved textures, and even new animated environment details.

One thing I really like is the increased frame count for running. As a PC gamer, you know that more frames = smoother motion. Even the text printing rate is increased, which was painfully slow in the original.

Zelda: Remastered

While this isn’t the full changelog, it does highlight many of the key features.

• Increased resolution
• Increased frame count for running
• Updated sound effects and music
• New title and game select screen
• Animated environments
• Save manually with Up+A when in the items subscreen
• Re-localization of the game script
• Increased bomb max
• Increased bomb upgrade amount
• Faster text printing
• Change the Red and Blue rings to Red and Blue tunics
• Breakable tile hints
• Press the “Select” button to toggle the item assigned to the “B” button
• Faster health refills
• Partial heart pieces in HUD

How Can I Play It?

The overhaul, remaster, mod, or whatever you want to call it is available now. You’ll need the Messen NES emulator to run the game, as well as the original ROM of the Zelda NES game. Those first two, you’ll have to find yourself. However, the updated files can be found here.

“A Mesen HD Pack is now available for the NES game, The Legend of Zelda. This pack replaces graphics, sound effects, and music. It is a hack that builds upon other prior hacks and it uses Zelda 1 Redux as a base (available here). Credit should go to the original authors for work done on prior hacks. Also, credit should go to the various artists who created content which contributed to the final look of the pack (artistic and programming sources are detailed in the credits section of the README).” – YouTube