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Comment by roel_v | Hacker News Reader

What are some good current RPG's, in the style of the original Zelda, for PC or mobile today? All I can find is free-to-play.

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Solarus (http://www.solarus-games.org/) is both a very polished fan sequel to A Link to the Past, and also an engine for building your own action-RPG games in Lua.

Wow, this looks great. How are they able to use "The Legend of Zelda" title in their released games?

edit: Getting "Bandwidth or Storage Limit Exceeded" when attempting to download from the Solarus packagecloud.io. Sadface.

It's back. I also wonder how they are able to do that. The graphics, sounds and music is all from the SNES Zelda title. How can this survive if you aren't even allowed by Nintendo to upload movies to YouTube?

The website owner and lead of the project is not based in the US. If he's received any notice from Nintendo, he's probably just ignored it with no consequence.

Youtube is different because there's a monetization angle with the ads. The artwork in Solarus is certainly not legal to distribute in most countries, but it's so low-profile that no one has bothered to go after them.

Hyper Light Drifter

http://www.heart-machine.com/

Some of the most beautiful 2D graphics I've ever seen in a setting absolutely soaked with atmosphere and detail, really nice responsive controls, and hard, rewarding gameplay.

Not sure if this is what you're looking for exactly, but Trails in the Sky is pretty good. It's on GOG for PC. It has one of the most detailed worlds I've ever seen in an RPG -- almost every NPC has a name and updates dialogue after every event.

Can personally confirm that it works pretty well with WINE on Linux (even got my xbox360 controller to work using xboxdrv in xpad mode, shockingly) -- just the intro movies won't play, but other than that it works great.

Yes, Trails is very good (and Second Chapter is even better) but it is nothing like any Zelda game I have ever played. More like a Final Fantasy game with turn-based, tactical battles which are separated from the overworld.

(On your specific video problem: Trails uses DirectShow to play the videos so make sure your Wine setup can play them)

To the GP: Recettear has combat like the older Zelda games (with a simplistic shop management sim tacked on. I think the Ys series also has combat somewhat like Zelda. Perhaps Diablo clones might interest you. Which bit of Zelda are you looking for?

try http://www.heart-machine.com/ - i heard good things about it (not played it yet, but the trailer/screenshots looks good!).

I think it's the best game of 2016 so far.

I've backed Moonlighter[1] and Cosmic Star Heroine[2] on Kickstarter. They might be worth a look, although neither are out yet...

[1] http://moonlighterthegame.com/ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytQNG5t8wCs

Oceanhorn is very Zelda-like, originally made for iOS but later ported to many other platforms. It got great reviews and is not free-to-play.

Crashlands is much like Zelda in that it focuses on fun, adventure, and action over things like stats and skills and party building. Available on Steam and also iOS/Android. I also found this game extemely funny and addictive (though it has a definitive end, so you don't end up stuck playing forever).

If you have ~$150, buy a PS Vita. Through the PlayStation store you can purchase dozens of JRPGs like Persona 1 through 4, Final Fantasy I through X, Chrono Trigger/Cross, Legend of Mana, Vagrant Story, Breath of Fire IV, Legend of Heroes series, Harvest Moon series, etc

Anodyne (http://www.anodynegame.com/) is a great indie game heavily inspired by the early Zeldas.

Salt and Sanctuary is basically Zelda II + Dark Souls (and a great game!)

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