Unwinnable Ganon situation

Although this is extremely rare and situational. it is possible for the Ganon battle to be unwinnable if you fight him without your sword when it is tempered. I recall that AST has a cutscene added for the sword tempering so it is impossible to leave without a sword.

What is the ASM address for unarmed Link where the damage class could be changed?

What I am pointing out is that it is still a design flaw to be placed in an unwinnable situation that forces a restart in a game. I know that it is close to the entrance, but it still does not change the fact the unwinnable situations should never happen in game design when it involves restarting.

The worst situation for Zelda 1 was the Silver Arrows. The English version removed the hint that they were to be found in Death Mountain. The problem is that when battling Ganon, the door is locked. This flaw could be easily fixed if the door was left unlocked or hint that the silver arrows are needed for Ganon.

Then what would be considered a design flaw?

The only way this unwinnable situation could occur would be if someone didn't bother exploring the overworld in the slightest and only went to the dungeons. Why would you want to spend a bunch of time trying to fix this situation that is A) likely never to occur (unless the player is an idiot) and B) if it did occur it would only be because the player sucked and didn't bother learning how to play the game in the first place?

wizzrobemaster wrote:The worst situation for Zelda 1 was the Silver Arrows.  The English version removed the hint that they were to be found in Death Mountain.  The problem is that when battling Ganon, the door is locked. This flaw could be easily fixed if the door was left unlocked or hint that the silver arrows are needed for Ganon.  

Then what would be considered a design flaw?

It's not really fair to judge the original Legend of Zelda by modern day standards. This game is filled with stuff that is idiotically cryptic, but that was pretty much the standard back then.

Zelda 1's crypticness was not really that bad in the first quest. Also the translation was kind of messed up in the North American release because of the changed secrets. if anything, it could use a remaster to fix some of the issues, but not enough to keep it from hand holding the player.

As for the unwinnable situation, no game should ever have them where you are stuck. Bugs are obnoxious, but are generally oversights or side effects from the programming so they are unavoidable, but actual design choices really need to be taken into full account.

- Ganon has immunity to the Hammer from a hardcoded check.  this game loves its hardcoded checks.

- i'll echo that anybody who falls down that hole barehanded deserves to die for stupidity.  they'll just have to load from their last, nearby save is all.  unless they play through large swaths of the game without saving.  in which case, they deserve to suffer before dying for their stupidity.

Hardcodes are really annoying.  I can't believe how many this game has. The one damage class I mentioned can bypass the hardocoding. So by using the barefist mechanic that was implemented, I can change it that you can damage Ganon without the sword. I was able to harm invisible Ganon with the altered Somaria block.

10th enemy has the bomb seem to make no sense. I am not going to discuss the manual because that has translation issues. The Silver Arrows, however, still bothers me. The bait is annoying, but not too difficult to find.

The second quest was designed to be a troll fest especially when you have red Bubbles that permanently lock your sword with no exit in a locked room. The toll mechanic was also pretty obnoxious especially when you choose to pay with life when you have 3 hearts, a contradiction occurs that drops Link's hearts to 0, but not dead.

Zelda 1 hacking is much easier when it comes to simple edits, but when using the level editor, there are different classes of enemies, which is why Wizzrobes and Dark Nuts never appear in the same dungeon.

Despite its faults, I still enjoy playing Zelda 1 because it is easy to get into and honestly I find that the game is only rough the first time you play it. The only problem though is that it does not play well on anything that is not exclusively a 4 directional pad. The Gamecube is probably the controller to use.

I like how the game lets you explore freely. The only barriers are dungeon items that you need to get through other dungeons. I have done no save playthroughs only to get destroyed by Wizzrobes in level 6. For some reason I found farming for rupees to be fun probably because the enemies actually feel threatening in the beginning.

Although the second quest is cruel and unforgiving, it at least feels like a different game by adding a couple of new mechanics and dungeon layouts. The over world could have been arranged more differently outside of the relocated secrets.

On the other hand, it is probably more forgiving than Super Mario Brothers 2 (J).

I think Zelda 1 is underrated, but is not without its glaring flaws. Nevertheless, because of its simplicity and short gameplay, I don't really think they are that much of an issue. My biggest issues are rooms filled with Blue Wizzrobes or Dark Nuts when you cannot get the Magic sword without passing rooms full of these enemies.