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[Richard Kain]

I went ahead and fired up the copy I have on my 3DS. I had just beaten dungeon 4 when I left off, and now I've knocked down dungeon 5. I have ten heart containers, 13 extra keys, and I can rock 12 bombs at a time now. I have the blue ring and white sword as well, but I always pick those up early. Unfortunately, you can't snag the magic sword until you're sporting 12 heart containers, so I'm going to have to find a few more before I can claim that prize.

The darknuts in dungeon 5 are as hard as they ever were. Be careful, be patient, and make sure they don't push you into a corner.

[Paul Eres]

can we play it even if we already played it and it was not in our backlog?

That's what I'm doing. (again)

Level 3 goes down second, I use a total of one key while gaining two from it, and now I have the raft. I know of the treasure room by the North half, but I don't need it, I'm doing good on cash, and I'm one or two secrets from scoring the Blue Ring.

fastest way through the game for speedruns is actually to start at level 3, then go to 4, then 5, and then with the whistle you can warp around quickly, and the ladder makes getting through dungeons faster. i think i may try that method this time

you also need to get the bomb before level 3, though, for the boss of it (you can get it from blue octorocks most often), so it's a little dependent on luck

[dustin]

I've almost beaten level 1 (my second dungeon) now.  I was pretty suprised when it switched to side scrolling style for getting the bow.

It's cool you can play the dungeons in so many different orders.

I also hadn't realized how much secret stuff there was just laying around the overworld map.  After this dungeon I'm going to go exploring more.  For fun i printed out the map that came with the game and am filling in the blank squares/check boxes by hand

[baconman]

Slight miscalculation on the Magical Sword, I whoop L6 to compensate. Couple close calls costs me my Water of Life (doggoned Blue Wizzrobes and that one Gleeok), but after I recover that, it's back across the continent to take out the remaining levels. May even start with 5.

I shortcut across, get the enemy bait while I'm at it, buy some new Water, and stomp through L2 effortlessly. My net in keys so far is +4; turns out I took a one-key loss in L6. Whoop.

SUPER SPOILER:
I go straight through the level, diverting only to the room with the Magic Boomerang, which is the only door to the side not locked.

...

L5 goes down without too much trouble, aside the two rooms with Blue Darknut crowds. Those take me one more Water. Down to the final trio, now. A little low on my dough, so on my way back I may detour to get my bomb upgrade, but I can get one of those in 7 anyways. Now, straight to eight. Get these Darknuts offa mine!


RE-EDIT: Busting through L8, I score the Master Key - already at a new +4 keys. However, doubling back to the passage to get through it, I run out of waters and bombs, and got entangled by the blasted Blues. DEATHCOUNT: 1.

  I AM SO DISAPPOINT.


To set back up, I walk outside and stab ONE MOBLIN. It drops bombs. FML!

Also, I'd saved up just enough for that bomb upgrade, too...
__________

Okay. So now, I'm through Level Ate. OMFG, that level design in brilliant... but I effing HATE being on the receiving end of it!!



That room that killed me before? Ended up going through that, without the bombs. Idiot!! So then naturally, I'm bounding back and forth to farm for you-know-what. I end up reencountering that room full of Blues and fireballs. THREE. FUCKING. TIMES. "!". Before I get them and get to the end of it.

What's tragic here is that I've probably spent as much time on this one dungeon as I have on half the entire rest of the game combined. >.> So much for superpro. Still, deathcount remains at 1, guess I can be glad for that...
__________

It was fun kicking Aquamentus' butt in two hits. L7 down, obviously. Thinking of saying "screw the bomb upgrades," since I'm still hovering around 60 rupees, with a full Triforce.


Edited for spoiler-consciousness.

[Richard Kain]

In the original Legend of Zelda, there are a few "gates" that limit access to forward progression. These are few and far between, but they do exist. The raft that can be found in Dungeon 3 is one of them. You cannot reach the 4th Dungeon without it. The ladder that is found in the 4th Dungeon is also a major gate. Most of the dungeons after 4 require that you have the ladder to traverse them. (they contain rooms that can only be crossed with the ladder) The whistle (Dungeon 5) is a much lesser gate, but it is still an impediment. Specifically, you MUST have the whistle in order to get into the 7th Dungeon. Technically, the enemy bait is a gate, but I generally don't count it as it can be easily obtained from shops. You need the enemy bait to get past a specific room in Dungeon 7. The final "gate" item is the magic key in Dungeon 8. The final dungeon, Death Mountain, is designed in such a way that the magic key is almost required. (you could theoretically buy all the keys you need, but that would require epic levels of grinding)

[Paul Eres]

i just thought of something: if you could somehow "rush" the lion key in dungeon 8, which would be pretty hard but not impossible, you then could go quickly through most of the rest of the dungeons of the game, since you wouldn't need to collect keys anymore

[baconman]

DM dropped my deathcount to 2, which is still a bit more disappointing, but quest 1's a done run. That's good for today. I got knocked by a Bubble INTO a LikeLike, and failed to switch items to something that could break me free from it quickly enough. Grunting through some Blue Wizzrobes ripened me up for an unfortunate Patra spawn location, and that was that. Second run did it, though.

Paul: If you know your routes in the dungeons, keys aren't an issue anyways. XD I was at +6 keys when I got to the Master Key. Now, on the Second Quest... hurr - IIRC...

...either you have to collect a key out of dungeon order, or purchase at least one to successfully complete the game. It's a good thing it allows you to do so, huh?

[Paul Eres]

keys aren't a problem but i was thinking in terms of a speedrun: most of the time to get the few keys that you do need you need to kill every enemy in a room, which takes time. if you get the "A" key first you can shave that time off a bit

[handCraftedRadio]

Ah man I just played through this game the whole way through for the first time a couple of months ago- should have waited so I could join the club.

From playing it the whole way through on the original NES cartridge, I can definitely say that the most difficult part of this game is blowing on it just right to get it to run properly. Maybe we should all go over proper dust blowing techniques for those of us who are beginners, as well as those of us who are experts yet still may need to brush up on our skills a bit. It never hurts to practice the fundamentals.

[Noah!]

TIME TO MAKE THIS A PARTY!!



Alright everyone, time to throw my hat into the ring. I'm gon' be playing me some Zelda 1, one of the greatest Jehovah's Witnesses simulators I've played to date. Oh and it's a neat adventure game too.



And yes, I'm using the FDS version because it has the fly audio that makes me feel like I'm rollin' in with style. It's like putting pleather pants on an OST and it's great. (as consolation, i do have the original version on virtual console though...but i wanna see what changes were made when they shipped it here)

Aside from the FDS thing though, it's just gonna be a vanilla run. No goin' swordless-style or speed-style, no minimal or 100%, and I'll probably be dying tons trying to trek halfway across the map with no supplies in search of items that may not even exist.

And with that, guys, I'm off! Wish me luck!

[kukukupo]

Ah man I just played through this game the whole way through for the first time a couple of months ago- should have waited so I could join the club.

From playing it the whole way through on the original NES cartridge, I can definitely say that the most difficult part of this game is blowing on it just right to get it to run properly. Maybe we should all go over proper dust blowing techniques for those of us who are beginners, as well as those of us who are experts yet still may need to brush up on our skills a bit. It never hurts to practice the fundamentals.

If you get some q-tips and some rubbing alcohol you can clean the edge of the cart.  If you open the NES and clean the edges where the cart goes in, you shouldn't need to blow on the carts much anymore.  Be sure to give it 10-15 minutes to dry, though!

[baconman]

^ I'd love to hear about any differences you encounter from the original formula, too. How much better is it's OST? Oh, never mind. I'll just have to Tube it and hear for myself...

[SirNiko]

You should have played in "KILL MODE"!

Is anyone participating who has not played or beaten the original Zelda before? That's what I want to see.

I might play this a bit on the weekend, but I've beaten this way too many times to make it worthwhile. I'll probably drop in the IRC for a bit, though.

[Richard Kain]

Maybe we should all go over proper dust blowing techniques for those of us who are beginners, as well as those of us who are experts yet still may need to brush up on our skills a bit.

The correct dust-blowing technique is to purchase a replacement pin adapter and drop that into your original NES. The pins on the original NES were made from an inferior metal that would lose its tension over time. That is what caused the infamous connection problems. These days you can purchase a replacement pin comb that is made from a better metal that doesn't lose its grip.

[dustin]

Is anyone participating who has not played or beaten the original Zelda before? That's what I want to see.

I haven't played the original zelda (well I played 1 level of it maybe) and I thought from the sound of it lots of others hadn't either but I seem to be the only one playing for the first time in this thread :/ .  Oh well!

edit:WTF is up with the level 1 hint, there are no peninsula's when your fighitng the boss.  I was all ready to be fighting in a water type area but it's a dragon that shoots fire.  How does that clue make any sense.