Nintendo - Zelda Bonus Disc Hands-On, 2004 Releases Trailed

Thanks to Game Informer for their hands-on impressions of Legend Of Zelda: Collector's Edition, as the GameCube bundle/bonus compilation approaches release. The article describes "The first two old-school games [The Legend Of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure Of Link] look just as they did when they released way back in the day", and shows comparison screenshots for the N64 titles [The Legend Of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and The Legend Of Zelda: Majora's Mask], for which "...the graphics are now in high-res." Elsewhere, 1UP has news on Nintendo release dates for 2004, as "The four-player GameCube Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is still on track for February 9", and "will share that ... release date with Metroid: Zero Mission for Game Boy Advance... [which] expands on the original 8-bit Metroid adventure with revised levels, new story elements, and other added features."

Comments

hmm...

[hiroshi912681]

majora's mask seems to lose some drawing distance. and that sucks about the sound hiccups... I guess the gcube's n64 emulator wasn't really up for emulating games that needed the extra memory module.

I wish they showed screenshots at higher res... and screenshots of the other games. I'm curious to see how well the nes games look on the tv. Also, is Zelda II based off the US version or the Japanese one? There were some differences in music, and sprites... other misc stuff. (*the only one who probably cares*)

If they look blurry or stretched... then that would suck. I heard that metroid prime's unlocked NES metroid kind of sucked about that. It might not be able to go into a low resolution (stuck at somewhere close to 640x480?).

I personally recommend IMBNes for PS1 if you're picky like me. Since it's PS1, it uses a resolution very close to the original NES (actually shows a little more pixels... but on most tv's, you can't tell the difference). And, it was also designed to emulate the palette just as the original NES output. So, not only are the games in perfect colours, they also look amazing with s-video.

Re:hmm...

[edwdig]

Here's the deal with the N64 emulation. The N64 has 43 megs of RAM - 3 of which is video ram, so 40 megs working space. Of that, 24 megs is fast RAM and 16 is slow RAM.

Ocarina of Time is 32 megs, and the N64 has 4 megs RAM. That leaves 4 megs for the emulator, which is plenty. The only hiccups you get are when swapping data between the fast and slow RAM. The only noticable time is when going to the inventory menu.

I'm not 100% positive, but I think Majora's Mask is a 64 meg cartridge. Which means the game must be streamed off the disc. Even if it's only a 32 meg cartridge, it uses 8 megs of RAM, which means you still couldn't fit the ROM + RAM used + emulator in memory at once. So you've got to stream the ROM from the disc.

As for Metroid in Metroid Prime, I didn't notice anything odd looking. It was kinda funny when I tried it on a progressive scan TV though - you could very clearly see each pixel.

Re:hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd just like to point out a slight mistake in what you just said. You mention the N64 has 43 megs of RAM. I believe you were refferring to the GC.

They probably could have solved the problems with the emulator if they could somehow shrink a meg or two off the rom, in order to allow everything to fit at once. If they were able to change the button graphics, I dont see why they cant find a way to trim a bit of the rom off. In the Zelda Master Quest Bonus disc that came with the Wind Waker, the entire ending was put into an FMV that streams off the disc. This is why the ending doesn't work in the leaked master quest rom on the internet. Surely, removing the ending should've given them the free space they need? It's a shame they had to sacrifice graphics quality instead of trying to make everything fit.

Slowdown/Flicker

[Anonymous Coward]

From the GameInformer link: The first two old-school games look just as they did when they released way back in the day. We did notice some slowdown, though, particularly when a large group of enemies are on-screen or if there are a lot of projectiles floating around.

This slowdown was there on the original NES too, and in every emulator I've used. An easy was to see it is to go to the graveyard in Zelda 1 and release as many ghosts as you can.

The flickering was due to a hardware limitation of the NES - you could only have a certain number of sprites per scanline. If too many characters were at the same vertical position on the screen, they couldn't be drawn simultaneously, so they'd flicker. This was really bad in Bubble Bobble. Many emulators don't enforce the sprite limit, preventing the flickering.

Re:Slowdown/Flicker

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Continuing in that GameInformer paragraph: "But, on the positive, a lot of flicker that was present in the games when they released on the NES and SNES is magically gone."

These people are paid to write about video games and they don't even know what system Zelda 1 and 2 were released for?

No Link to the Past?

[indros13]

I'm sorry, but I seriously think that the SNES Zelda was the best one. Given its (relatively) small size, why couldn't they include that in an emulator? Now I won't be able to travel by duck...

Except on my ZSNES, of course.

Re:No Link to the Past?

[fireduck]

They're currently selling Link to the Past for the GBA. Giving it away free as a bonus might not be in their best interest.

FF: C

[Newtonian_p]

FF: Chronicles looks sweet. This may be the trailer they're talking about.

Re:FF: C

[shadowcabbit]

Thanks for pointing out the trailer.

By the way, is it just me, or does FF:CC seem to look and feel an awful lot like a Zelda game, almost more so than an FF game? Judging by the trailer and the seemingly action-oriented combat, it looks that way to me. Of course, I'll buy it either way, but I'm more looking forward to Sword of Mana first...

Why not sell it?

[Trillian_1138]

I still don't understand why they're not selling the bonus disc. I don't want another GameCube, don't want any two of the games that are required to get the bonus offer, and don't want Nintendo Power.

Why not LET me pay $25, which is more than Nintendo Power without the cost of actually sending me the magazine I don't want. Nintendo Power used to be the only good source for Nintendo info, but with dozens of websites out there it's useless. I don't want it.

Couldn't Nintendo make MORE money this way?

-Trillian

Re:Why not sell it?

[smoondog]

One word: eBay. You will find gamecube games at a reasonable price there.

-Sean

Re:Why not sell it?

[NanoGator]

Subscribe to Nintendo Power, keep the disc, and send me the mags. :P

Re:Haha?

[Guppy06]

"Maybe Nintendo should take some programming tips from the evil emulator community."

Like what? The only emulators the community has come up with for GameCube play Chip 8 and Game Boy software. To my knowledge, the emulator community has yet to produce an emulator for a console that adequately runs a console from the generation immediate preceeding it. The closest thing to that is a port of SNES9x for N64 that runs incredibly slow. It's just too difficult when you don't have the option of just throwing more RAM and a faster processor into your box.

Nintendo has managed to get a decent version of N64 games to play on a console that simply was not designed to play N64 games. While it may not be perfect, it's still good (better than what these games look like on an N64 emulator for a PC, I'd wager), it's cheap and it allows players who don't have an N64 (quite possible with the recent spike in GCN sales) to play some of the greatest games in gamedom.

You think the EMU community can do better? Put up or shut up.