Konjak's Legend of Princess

So what if Nintendo decided to make a new 2-d side-scrolling Legend of Zelda game (like the second one on the NES that I never really played) with beautiful pixel graphics and lots of charm? Do you think it would look something like this?



Maybe - if Nintendo hired Joakim Sandberg and/or just paid him for his ultra-cool new game, Legend of Princess. This game has all of the mechanisms you'd expect from a new 2-d Zelda game, quite a bit of challenge, perfect length for what it is, and the intrigue of fresh replayability due to the differences in gameplay/exploration ability caused by selecting different items at the start of the game.

Oh, and it's free. Also, it plays best with a gamepad. You can download it at konjak.org.

If you're lazy and hate the sight of other great indie games, just click here for the direct download.

Another great game by Konjak is Noitu Love 2, released some time last year. It doesn't play at all like Legend of Princess (if you ask me it's inspired by games Treasure developed on the Genesis in the mid-90s (vs what Nintendo did in that same time period)). This one plays best with a mouse and keyboard, but it's $10 if you want to play the full version of the game. The demo is great, but the full game is ten dollars well spent.

3 comments:

jglc said...

and keep in mind, this only the demo - no telling if konjak will expand it, but if he does...

Noah said...

If he does, he'll need to vary the gameplay more. But, with a few tweaks, this could be a great full game. However, I don't think it'll happen because of the obvious licensing issues (Nintendo will never allow anyone to profit off something that is this obviously derivative of one of their top intellectual properties). So, I think the only way we'll see more of this is if it's released for free. And I don't think that'll happen because it must take an incredible amount of time, effort, and skill to develop something like this.

Anyway, we can always dream. Or, Nintendo could hire him. Big game companies should be hiring more people who love to make 2-d games. 2-d games are the past, and potentially the future. They're the future for me anyway. If they made more [commercial] 2-d games these days, I'd be buying a lot more games.

Unknown said...

Damn, I missed this article. I look forward to playing this free game (and 10 bucks is such a low price). I think I personally like 2D games better because there were so many good ones that I played growing up. Also 2D makes platforming better. I hate 3D platformers where I fall off because my jump was far enough (Y axis), but I didn't fall horizontal enough (X axis). I like the freedom that comes with jumping in one direction. You can run at top speed without fear.

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