About that, it doesn't really matter where the music comes from, it matters how it sounds. Some modern pop songs could work well with medieval-styled fantasy, who knows?
Oh, well yeah, the point was more about the appropriateness of a music than its source. I mean, if an arcade action game suddenly has a dark or mysterious moment better suited to a fantasy setting, that's great. I just said what I did under the assumption that a game's music lived up to its title/setting/etc. and that, say, a cybernetic techno-thriller set in 2286 would have futuristic electro-styled music to match.
Again, I refer back to Zelda II. The game gets a lot of flack for being difficult, but I don't really see why that is thought to be a bad thing.
Maybe it's just because Zelda 2 was one of the first games I played, and I was still in the phase where those first games were setting the standard for all that was to come later, but I never found Zelda 2 all that hard.
Apart from that massive final palace, where the 3-lives start was nearly as bad as Z1's 3-heart start, the primary issues I had with Z2's difficulty were more like unplanned nuisances than planned encounters - getting knocked into lava by those stupid flying horse-heads coming off the side of the screen while jumping, wonky physics relating to upward/downward thrust, or other things like that.
But even Z1 had a load of things like that - cheap shots by enemies to the point that the shield is one of the most useless items in the games, darknuts turning into you the very frame they're about to get stabbed, or getting knocked into a ham sandwich.
And as for general encounters, it's hard to think of a Z2 enemy that causes more trouble than the blue wizzrobes do in Z1.
But as far as difficulty goes, I am completely with consistency on that front. Even if the game is really easy, it can still be a good game if it has something engaging about it.
I don't mind spikes, as long as you're provided some options to prepare for or adapt to them.
I mean, there's a such thing as taking things exponentially off the chart, yeah.
But a lot of games will give you an upgrade and throw harder enemies at you simultaneously. All that does is retain the same gameplay balance under a new look, and make me wonder why even bother? Either let me enjoy my upgrades for a while, or jump the difficulty up and send me running for those upgrades. (I usually prefer the difficulty jump.)
More Puzzling Dungeons: It's a common trend to have dungeons that are just a gauntlet of enemies. It's also common to have a gauntlet of enemies with an occasional block puzzle/ice block puzzle/lights out puzzle/hamiltonian path sprinkled in between. Neither of these make for fun dungeons. I want to see some more dungeons that are themselves puzzles, interconnected and thought provoking.
I think the biggest issue is lack of puzzle variety in general with ZC. It was always more of an obscurity game than a puzzle game, but that doesn't mean some good puzzles can't be implemented with minimal effort.
Anybody who wants to see a good NES-based puzzle game with Z1-style layouts needs to play The Adventures Of Lolo series. The goal for each room is the same - collect all the heart packages to open the treasure chest with the crystal that clears the room and reveals the exit. But the way you do it is so continually varied that I find the games to almost perfectly walk the line between familiar and fresh.
Perhaps the most noteworthy element of the games are how all the enemies play into the puzzle. There's never an enemy that's merely a threat to your life. Though you can be killed, each enemy has its own gimmick that requires its own treatment as part of the larger puzzle. Some enemies freeze when you align with their horizontal axis but charge when you align with their vertical axis, other enemies permanently fall asleep when you touch them, certain enemies can't cross certain grounds, still other enemies will line-of-sight insta-kill you and you have to plan your obstacle arrangements around them, some enemies only come to life once you've collected all the heart packages... the games are really an excellent example of not only how to build great puzzles in Z1 style, but how to build every kind of enemy into the overall puzzle.
My first thought is to recommend the 3rd one, since it adds overworlds, training rooms, themes, characters, some semblance of story progression, and looks all-around better, compared to the first 2 which are basically just a series of puzzle rooms. But at the same time, you won't appreciate all that 3 adds if you don't at least play some of 1 first.
Still, the bottom line is - play these, and you'll never go back to block puzzles again.
Tileset Bugs: If you're using a tileset with broken defaults, such as Classic or Firebird, don't just leave it. Don't leave the numbers on the Classic heart meter.
I do agree on numbers looking sloppy, but I guess I don't expect first-timers to understand that it's "broken," since there's generally an assumption that provided sets are functional, especially the one that comes with the game. Plus most people just want to design maps, not futzpuckle around with the subscreens.
But, since the topic's brought up, I suppose I might as well share these here:
I made these when I revamped that first quest of mine. They account for HP/MP in eighths. The icons don't offer enough pixels for sixteenths. The extra gray icon acts as a placeholder for a container that hasn't been picked up yet, though you'll have to add an extra color swatch of 12, 12, 12 to CSets 0 and 1 if you want to use those. Or just erase them entirely, whatever.
But for anybody who hates numbers and wants icons, feel free to grab those and overwrite the icons on the bottom of page 100 of the default classic tileset.