NES
Nintendo Entertainment System
Zelda II - The Adventure of Link (ZALiA)
ZALiA
A from-scratch rebuild of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link in GameMaker, not a recompilation and not a source port. It recreates the NES game at 480x270 with an options menu, remappable keyboard and controller input, item randomization and a set of version differences.
¶ Compatibility
- Dumps: Standalone. The download carries its own assets and reads no
.nesROM. - Upstream: itch.io page by HoverBat, built with GameMaker 1.4 and Tiled, free to download. The page offers v1.0.0.2 (286 MB) and a current beta, v1.7.12 (293 MB), and shows 147 ratings at 4.8 out of 5. No public source repository is linked.
- Builds: Windows only.
- Status: Version 1.7.12 beta, with 1.0.0.2 as the stable download.
¶ Rating
🥈 Silver, provisional. The remake is mature and well rated upstream, but it ships only for Windows, and running it under Wine or Proton needs a native d3dcompiler_47 override because GameMaker compiles its shaders at runtime. Provisional until a full run here.
¶ Notes
- What it adds: 16:9 rendering at 480x270, an options menu, item randomization with flute warping between visited towns, and a documented list of version differences from the NES release.
- Input: keyboard and Xbox controller, with an options menu for remapping and audio toggles.
- Not a recompilation. The game is rebuilt in GameMaker, so recomp tools and ROM patching do not apply. The itch page titles it ZIIAOL; the project and its downloads use ZALiA.
- Fan project. Unofficial and free.