SydLexia.com - The Forums :: View topic

Posted: Jul 22 2009 06:49 pm

Quote:

You may have noticed this image of a Legend of Zelda dungeon viewed from a first-person perspective making the Internet rounds over the past few days. Perhaps it has alarmed you! Those looming, pixellated Stalfos warriors are like some sort of bizarre 8-bit vision of hell. If you are a right-thinking person, you have also found it to be enticing. Sure, there have been plenty of efforts to re-envision Zelda in three dimensions (including a bunch of fairly successful ones by Nintendo), but I find this stark, retro-looking direct translation of the NES game to be unusually compelling... even just in screenshots.

A little research at the source reveals this to be an effort by a TIGSource forumgoer, Radix, to take a simple 3D engine called Standard Waiver and map the dungeons (and eventually the overworld) from Zelda into it. Even without having tried the 3D rendition myself -- no Mac support, per usual -- the comments in the TIGForums thread are about what I'd expect: cool idea, rocky implementation. The NES visuals are disorientingly monotonous, Link's stubby little sword has terrible reach, it's difficult to judge distances, that sort of thing.

Still, it's interesting to see how nearly right this works out to be. You wouldn't really think an NES game would play well translated into 3D, but this little project suggests that Link's modern-day adventures really aren't too far removed from his earlier escapades. And, also, that a Zelda-themed first-person shooter could manage to be more ambitious than Link's Crossbow Training and still be worthwhile.

Radix has indicated he'll be tweaking some of the mechanics, such as Link's reach; hopefully that will include an on-screen compass or mini-map and (most importantly) shadows beneath the enemies. A Mac version would be nice, too, but after all these years I've learned better than to want the impossible. Fortunately, Nintendo tends to turn a blind eye to harmless projects like this, which means it stands a better-than-average possibility of actually panning out into a finished product.

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8999094&publicUserId=5379721

the article has the links to the original source

Posted: Jul 22 2009 07:00 pm

Neat, hopefully they work out the kinks and Nintendo leaves them alone about it.

Now that I think about it I'm surprised no one tried this earlier. Confused

Posted: Jul 22 2009 07:16 pm

He's right, that image is unusually compelling.

Posted: Jul 22 2009 08:40 pm

I just tried it.

It's in alpha, but they totally need to improve the speed and the reach of the sword badly. Other than that, awesome idea.

Posted: Jul 23 2009 12:49 am

can you strafe? because if it's just up down left right (translated to forward back left right in 3D) like the NES game it's gonna be bizarre playing in 3D, not to mention dizzying.

Joined: Dec 06 2007 Location: Connecticut Posts: 11244

Back in 1999 when I first went to college there was a 3D browser on the web.
http://web.archive.org/web/20000303013052/http://www.cyberworldcorp.com/

I made the entire first level in Zelda using sprites. It was pretty awesome but there was no scripting, so I couldn't make any actions occur. Each Zelda room was simply a new 3D webpage.

I'd be very interested to see how the original Zelda would look using the HL2 engine which was used to create Oblivion.

Posted: Jul 23 2009 12:00 pm

GPFontaine wrote:

Back in 1999 when I first went to college there was a 3D browser on the web.
http://web.archive.org/web/20000303013052/http://www.cyberworldcorp.com/

I made the entire first level in Zelda using sprites. It was pretty awesome but there was no scripting, so I couldn't make any actions occur. Each Zelda room was simply a new 3D webpage.

I'd be very interested to see how the original Zelda would look using the HL2 engine which was used to create Oblivion.

I did not realize that, the HL2 engine is fantastic and very malleable.

Posted: Jul 23 2009 12:16 pm

Looks like Doom, but I'd rather play Doom than LoZ.

Posted: Jul 23 2009 12:26 pm

This could be awesome if they worked out the play mechanics, looks like a trippy experience.

Posted: Jul 23 2009 12:41 pm

Blackout wrote:

can you strafe? because if it's just up down left right (translated to forward back left right in 3D) like the NES game it's gonna be bizarre playing in 3D, not to mention dizzying.

Yeah, you can strafe.