Fans are making the Zelda and Pokemon roguelikes that Nintendo won't

The Legend of Zelda
(Image credit: Nintendo)

A pair of recently rele♒ased romha🔯cks turn the original NES Legend of Zelda game and the Game Boy Advance game Pokemon Emerald into full-fledged roguelikes.

To clarify, , and it's since received a ton of , a good deal of , and a number of patches with a staggering amount of fixes (🤡detailed on the project's ). The Legend of Zelda roguelike was released just this month and hasn't had a bunch of updates, so it's possible it's less polished than the Pokemon Emerald roguelike, although the few reviews available are all𓂃 very positive.

. "Pokemon Emerald Rogue is my take on it!"

"Venture through a randomized, ever-changing dungeon with progressive diffiไculty the further you go," says creator arnpoly of The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Dungeon romhack. "Collect classic items and upgrades, and battle familiar foes throughout your journey. Every playthrough is different. Ganon is lurking deep within the dungeon, but beware, for if you perish, you’ll have to s🦂tart all over from the beginning. Are you up to the challenge?"

Pokemon Emerald randomizes your route, encounters, and items based on your progress each run. Eventually, you'll run into a 𒁏random gym leader with a procedurally generated Poketeam based on their assigned type. The further you go, the more difficult trainers you'll enc🍷ounter, and if you manage to make it to the champion and win the fight, you'll complete your run. 

When you die or complete a run, you go back to a hub area where you can buy permanent items and catch new starter Pokemon to use in the next run, so like most roguelikes, you can bolster your defenses at home base after each run.
You can also unlock additional buildings and NPCs in the hub area as you go, which is another detail that should make this ambitious roᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚm✅hack feel like the true blue Pokemon roguelike that Nintendo probably won't ever make.

The Legend of Zelda: Ancient Dungeon also sounds impressively fleshed out. Same as Pokemon Emerald Rogue, it features procedurally generated dungeons, items, and enemies, as welꦫl as new abilities for items that weren't in the original game. "Only the most intrepid explorers will uncover further🐭 mysteries the Ancient Dungeon has to offer," teases the .

There may not be a roguelike among them, but these are the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Pokemon games and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best Zelda games you can play right now.

After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as🍸 GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.