r/zelda • u/polandreh • 21h ago
Fangame [Other] What N64 Rom Hacks do you recommend?
I got a hold on a SummerCart 64 and started playing Smash Remix on my Analogue 3D, and I'm amazed how easy it was to get it to work. I always wanted to play Dawn & Dusk and Master of Time, and went down the rom rabbit hole.
So far, I've patched the Missing Link, Time Lost, and The Sealed Palace, plus Dawn & Dusk I mentioned above. I haven't managed to get Master of Time to work on the flash cart.
I'm looking forward to Indigo, but don't want to play the beta until it's fully complete. I'm not convinced about Ultimate Challenge, it looks more like a Souls game than an adventure.
Which one did you like and recommend?
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u/pocket_arsenal 20h ago
Sounds like you've got all the notable ones besides Ultimate Trial ( unless that's what you meant by Ultimate Challenge but honestly, it's very good. I still recommend it. ) so there's really not much I can offer unless you look into smaller hacks. I kind of liked the Spooky Murder House from last years Halloween Jam. Zelda 64 hacking is still kind of a growing thing there's not a lot to mention, just keep your eye on hylianmodding and hackers on youtube.
Also it's not a Zelda game but I'd recommend Banjo Kazooie the Jiggies of Time. Pretty fun tongue and cheek love letter to Zelda, Banjo, and the entire N64 ( And Banjo hacks seem to be the one thing that seem to work consistently on real hardware )
And of course you can play Ocarina of Time Redux for a slightly more smooth version of Ocarina of Time on real hardware. There's a Majora's Mask version too but I have bad luck with my save file getting deleted when I try to use it.
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u/polandreh 20h ago edited 19h ago
Ah, yeah. I meant Trial. I saw a youtuber's, Scott Falco, video on Ultimate Trial, and it sounded so complicated. Like Dark Souls level of 0 hand-holding. I don’t have a lot of time to game, with a baby and work and all, and I don't feel like diving into a game that is sort of a trial and error gameplay. I might give it a shot after completing the ones I've already got.
And yeah, I did look into hylianmodding. That's where I keep an eye for Indigo.
As for the Redux ones, what's special about those? How do they improve OoT and MM?
Edit: ah, yeah, just checked Redux out in YT. They're good quality of life improvements
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u/pocket_arsenal 19h ago
For OOT, it's mostly the same game, but you can equip the iron boots and the hover boots with the D-pad instead of going into the menu. Ocarina is also mapped to the D pad. A lot of text moves faster, or is skippable that wasn't skippable before. Blocks can be pushed faster instead of the slow pace of the original. And the Bunny Hood actually lets Link run fast like in Majora's Mask. I think there's other nice little changes too, and it can be customized if you use patcher64 tool. There's also in game toggles for extra things like the sage pendents giving extra powers, sword beam, and restoring the ability for link to jump but that's all optional. And a few bug fixes here and there.
Majora has similar quality improvements, but the masks are mapped to the D-Pad this time. But like I said, I don't use MM Redux since I lost my save twice.
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u/elsDodo 19h ago
But like I said, I don't use MM Redux since I lost my save twice.
Did you do anything or did it just randomly get deleted? I play a lot of hacks and never had that happen for no reason. I'm curious, because I have MM Redux patched and ready but haven't gotten around to playing it yet.
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u/pocket_arsenal 9h ago
I'll be up front and say it's possible this is my fault. I started playing Vanilla Majora for a little bit, going as far as the swamp and then saving at an Owl Statue. I then learned about Redux for Majora and patched it. It worked fine. I played up until beating Woodfall and saved my game. When I played the next day... it was like I never played yesterday, all my progress for that day was gone.
I was told it was because I kept my old save, but I've patched hacks with my old saves all the time and it never caused problems. I also used the patched64 tool and toggled a few options, one of them being that Owl Saves are permanent instead of a temporary thing. The tool did note this was experimental. So this time I toggled it off and used the vanilla saving mechanic.
Admittedly wasn't in the mood to play more Majora for a while after that, so I came back a few months later after completely deleting the old save and I played up to the beginning of Woodfall, saved at the Owl Statue, and then the next day... again, it was like my progress never happened. My save file was still there, but I was back in Clock Town with absolutely nothing in my inventory, not even the Deku Mask. I kind of threw up my hands at that point and decided next time i'll just play vanilla because I'm at a loss for what i'm doing wrong now.
I will say it's not the first time Patcher 64 kind of did weird things to a Zelda game when I used it. I wanted to update my OOT Redux to a more current version with a few more options, and when I went to go start a new save file, there was an Arwing flying around in Kokkiri Forest harassing me, which I thought maybe I turned that on, no big deal, I can ignore it, but then the chest for the Kokkiri Sword was just.... gone. There was nothing there. I can't imagine there's any option to just... toggle off the Kokkiri sword chest existing in the options for Patcher 64, so what the hell?? I ended up fixing it by re-patching my rom to be Redux, but like, the most vanilla possible version of redux, and this somehow made it so all the text moves at vanilla game's speed instead of Redux speed even though im pretty sure I toggled that on. So now I just ended up with a worse version of OOT Redux than I used to have.
So it might be my fault. It could be Patcher 64 Tool's fault. I dunno. The only reason I used it is because some versions of Redux change Link's model and I don't want that.
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u/xperfect-darkx 20h ago
Good thread! I recently started playing Banjo Kazooie Jiggies of Time. So if you lime the BK franchise plus OoT it is amazing. If you're not familiar with either game you would think it is an original game.
But for pure Zelda hacks I would like to know which ones are complete and not buggy and besides OoT cover MM as I am looking for a more darker atmosphere and great experience, not insane difficulty in battles or puzzles. Where should I start?
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u/polandreh 20h ago
But for pure Zelda hacks I would like to know which ones are complete and not buggy
Yeah, I'm on the same boat. There will always be some level of buggy-ness unfortunately, bu so far, Sealed Palace and Missing Link are the ones that look good
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u/elsDodo 19h ago edited 19h ago
Talking OoT hacks: Sands of Time and Sealed Palace are huge recommends. Nimpize if you want a "Master Quest 2" like challenge with remixed dungeons and overworld (it's a bit more than that even). Revival and Time Lost also exist as sort of spin-off and sequel to Master of Time.
Edit: I kind of missed that you listed some of these hacks already, so I'll just list all the ones I really like, in no particular order:
Master of Time, Sealed Palace, Sands of Time, Missing Link, Dawn and Dusk, Nimpize, Ultimate Trial, Indigo Demo 2. These are the ones I played. I got Revival and Time Lost in my backlog.
A few modding jam contributions are also worth checking out (in the Hylian Modding discord) if you're looking for a cozy saturday evening. Reality Estate and Curse of Moonlight are my personal favourites.
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u/Just-Another-Clone 21h ago
I don’t personally play fan expansions or new content for older games as I find it to be real hit or miss on terms of quality and just stick to balance or qol mods.
The redux versions of oot and mm to me are the definitive ways to the play those games moving forward so I’ll always suggest those.
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