According to what I see on YouTube, my last major project was an LP of Super Mario Bros. X, a fan-made game based on Super Mario Bros., which added extra characters and a stage builder mode.  I showed off some stages I had made, along with the main game itself.

Before that was an LP of an old computer game, The Secret Island of Dr. Quandary.  That actually took four episodes to complete.

That aside, my last upload was back in mid-April, so I’ve decided it’s time to return to the LP world.  I’ve had a couple projects in the can, ready to upload, but there was an audio issue that stood in my way.  For some unexplained reason, any videos I uploaded would not have any sound.  The video would otherwise play properly, but all sound was inexplicably absent.

I was playing around with some programs last night, and decided to convert the files (encoded as .mkv, which has never been a problem before) to .avi.  I recorded a short sample video as a test and uploaded that.  The audio was fine on that.  Problem solved.

I proceeded to upload part one of a project I filmed back in the summer, a game of The Sims wherein I had Sims named after friends on Twitter (Cartoonmoney, Inventrix, TheLadyisUgly, and Cyberwasteland).  This uploaded without a problem and the audio worked fine.  Later on that day, I uploaded the second part.

Coming up soon, I’ll be uploading the second project that I completed but never could upload properly.  This is a playthrough of a prototype build of The Legend of Zelda that was posted online a year ago.

That out of the way, here’s a list of all the LP projects that I’ve uploaded to my YouTube channel (each link is to the first part of that LP):

Super Mario Bros. ROM-hack

Ultima Exodus (NES)

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (Unfinished)

All-Night Nippon Super Mario Bros.

Tiny Toon Adventures (NES)

Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers (NES)

Super Mario Bros.

Tetris (NES)

Chip ‘n’ Dale 2 (NES)

Top Gun (NES)

Kirby’s Adventure

Pokemon Blue Version

Facade

The Secret Island of Dr. Quandary

Super Mario Bros. X

The Sims: Twitter People

So there you have it.  More on the way soon.

First off, Rupeethon went for a bit over 80 hours and raised $4,111.14 for Child’s Play Charity. Great work, guys, even with the incident with the stove that caused everyone to evacuate the basement. (Which was amusing, but I’m glad nothing happened from that.) I’m noticing a banner on your site that lists eight Zelda games (TLoZ, ALttP, OoT, MM, TMC, WW, TP, and SS). Is this a hint for Rupeethon III? If so, awesome.

Next…oh, the ExtraLives Bootleg Bonanza marathon, which was unfortunately cut short by a hurricane. I’m still not sure what became of the results of that marathon, but they raised about $3,350 for Free the Children, a charity that builds schools in developing nations. There’s actually not been any activity from ExtraLives since then, so…who knows? Well, MonotoneTim streams on Justin.tv occasionally.

Anyway, next up is the NESIT Mario Marathon, from back in early September. Remember these guys? They played through a bunch of Mario games, and raised $3,582 for Child’s Play. They were an entertaining bunch to watch, and I look forward to their next marathon. I don’t see any details on that yet, but I’ll let you know.

Then we had the Mega Man for Healing marathon in mid-September. These guys played through most of the Mega Man games (they got partway through 9), and raised $4,120 for Child’s Play. They also raffled off some really cool stuff. Stuff is always cool. Their marathon went on for two days, eight hours, and 30 minutes. Great job, guys, you were also very entertaining (especially with those pictures that were brought in towards the end of the marathon).

Team Brocket did their own Zeldathon a few months back, but I can’t find any information regarding their donation total. I’m sorry I can’t find that information. They were raising money for the psychiatric pediatric unit of the Kelowna General Hospital, which used the funds in a similar manner that Child’s Play would have.

Next in that article, I mentioned the ZeldaGamesAid marathon, done by a group of guys in the UK. This marathon only recently happened, concluding around the UK release of Skyward Sword. The hosts of this marathon were rather entertaining to watch, though I did slack off in watching when they were playing Skyward Sword. ZOMG spoilers. Anyway, they went for nearly 200 hours, playing through most of the Zelda franchise, and raised about £1,273.16 for charity. (For those playing along at home, that’s about $1,997 or so. Very entertaining, guys. Hope you do another marathon.

Only just recently completed is the second annual Mass Effect marathon, which raised $20,600.01 for Child’s Play. I wasn’t able to watch much of this marathon, but what I was was rather entertaining. Lots of shenanigans and such. Great work, guys.

Last but definitely, *definitely* not least is Desert Bus for Hope 5, one of the original (and most successful) video game marathons for charity. The LoadingReadyRun crew bussed for 6 days and 6 hours, raising $379,385 for Child’s Play, easily breaking their record from last year. Anything more said by me about them is just another voice lost in a vast sea of fans of that marathon.

So there you have it, all of the recent (recent meaning back to late August) charitable video game marathons recapped, now that they’ve all been and gone. Fantastic work, all of you.

Realizing this, I’m looking through my collection of GBA and DS games, and will discuss my favorite games on each system, starting with the former. There are quite a few, so brace yourself.

As an afterthought, I’ll break this list up into two articles. This article will deal with my favorite GBA games, and the next with DS games. Sound good? Good.

Early on in the GBA’s life cycle (within the first few months, actually) an RPG was released, called “Golden Sun”. I’d been seeing screenshots of the game in Nintendo Power magazine (yes, here’s the obligatory, “back when the magazine was good” comment), and the visual style of the game looked great. Then I read about the game’s mechanics, and a bit about the story, and I was intrigued. Golden Sun was the first GBA game I owned, and it did not disappoint. The story is simple: you play as some youths from the mountain town of Vale, and you explore a sanctuary you’re not really allowed to. Some stuff happens, and some characters are taken hostage, while your characters have one of the four elemental stars. Apparently the villains want to ignite the four elemental lighthouses, an act that will unleash the ancient system of magic, Alchemy, upon the world, an act that will apparently result in the complete destruction of the entire world. So your party sets out in pursuit of the villains, and you end up chasing them across the world in an effort to stop them from powering on the various lighthouses. Along the way, you collect magical creatures called djinn, which you can assign to party members. Doing so will alter their classes and stats. During battle, you can use djinn for a variety of effects (some djinn boost stats, some unleash attacks, some heal, and so on). Djinn that have been used like that stockpile so that you can, once you’ve used enough djinn, use them to summon spirits to aid you in battle. This was an awesome thing to do in battles. Besides that, Golden Sun had a great story, and some really great puzzles. The dungeons were fun to explore, too. Great RPG, with some of the best music of any GBA title.

Going on from that, a sequel to Golden Sun, called Golden Sun: The Lost Age, was released some years later, also on the GBA. TLA carried on the story from right where GS left off, and continued it in a fantastic fashion, rolling out new plot twists that you would never have seen coming. I certainly didn’t. Plus you get a boat that ends up becoming an airship. How about that? Isn’t that neat? TLA introduced new characters, as well. I remember the initial draw of TLA being that you played as the villains from the first game. I was not sure how that would play out, but play out it did and I loved where the story went Another cool facet of TLA was that you could import your save data from the first game, and when the original party joined your new party, your old characters would be at the same levels when you beat the first game, bringing with them all their items, weapons, armor, money, and djinn. Isn’t that just neat? Bringing your old party over with all of their items and abilities (and djinn) was actually necessary in order to find all the secrets in TLA. For instance, there was a secret dungeon that you could only enter if you had every djinn from both games with you. (Incidentally, it seems GS and TLA were originally planned to be just one game, but proved to be too large a game to fit on a single GBA cartridge.) So yeah, if you love RPGs and haven’t played the Golden Sun games, I highly recommend it. Amazing games.

Elsewhere on the GBA are the Pokemon games. I can’t get through an article like this without bringing up this franchise, can I? No, can’t have that! Anyway, the GBA saw the third generation games (Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald). Of that trilogy (not really my favorite trilogy from the Pokemon series, but whatever), Emerald is what I recommend, as it is sort of a combination of Sapphire and Ruby. In R/S, you had two antagonist Teams to deal with (Team Magma and Team Aqua). Team Magma wanted to bring forth the legendary Pokemon Groudon to create endless sunny days, and Team Aqua wanted to bring forth the legendary Pokemon Kyogre to create endless rainy days. In Sapphire, you dealt with Team Aqua and could catch Kyogre, and in Ruby you dealt with Magma and could catch Groudon. Well, Emerald looked at that and said, why not catch both? And guess what? In Emerald, you deal with both Teams and can catch both of those legendary Pokemon, in addition to the dragon, Rayquaza. So, of that generation, Emerald is my favorite.

The GBA also saw remakes of the original Pokemon games, Red and Green, as FireRed and LeafGreen. For long-time fans of the series, such as myself, we wanted access to the first generation of Pokemon, but no longer had access to them, as you couldn’t import Pokemon from Gold/Silver/Crystal to the Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald games. With FR/LG, you could play through the original games and gain those original Pokemon again. Besides that, the first-gen games were brought up to the third-gen level of mechanics, which doesn’t mean much to people who aren’t that into the actual multiplayer side of things. I know that if I started spouting about how certain moves didn’t work as intended, or how certain mechanics were fixed, and the battle equations were fixed, you’d zone out, so I won’t. FR/LG were great remakes of the originals, I’ll leave it at that.

Most of the remainder of my GBA collection consists of remakes, such as Final Fantasy I&II: Dawn of Souls, Final Fantasy IV Advance, Final Fantasy V Advance, Final Fantasy VI Advance, Tales of Phantasia, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. All of those are great games, just not GBA-original games. So. Moving on.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was an interesting game. Most fans of the FF Tactics games go on endlessly about the first game on the PlayStation, which I’ve never played, so fair enough to them. It may be a great game, and have Cloud as an unlockable character, but that’s that game, that isn’t FFTA. FFTA did what every FF game does and sets its events in a new world. The main characters end up, via a magical book, in the land of Ivalice (yes, FF12 returned to this realm). The main character, Marché, doesn’t want to stay there, and is dead set on destroying Ivalice in order for him and his friends to return home to Earth. Guess what, his friends don’t like that; they want to stay in Ivalice, they don’t want to return to their sad lives back home. FFTA is a tactics game, so you’ll spend most of your time in battles, moving your characters around the board, using special abilities in addition to normal attacks. What’s new here is the law system, which I guess people didn’t like because it sort of restricted what you could do in these battles. Break a law too many times and that character will be sent to prison. So I guess FFTA is, in the end, a law-abiding simulator. Anyway, the story was great, there were tons of missions to go on. This game can easily provide a couple hundred hours of gameplay. If you like tactical games, this one is fun.

A lot of my GBA collection consists of RPGs. Big surprise there, huh? Next and last on the RPG list is Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. This game sees the plumber’s third outing in an RPG environment, and the first instance of such on a portable system. Prior to this we had Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars on the SNES, and Paper Mario on the N64. Anyway, this game sees the Mario Bros. venture out to the Beanbean Kingdom, which neighbors the Mushroom Kingdom. Shenanigans involving some magical and mystical bean ensue, and you meet up with a rather hilarious villain known as Fawful. In fact, this entire game is hilarious, really, which is a pleasant change from the usual RPG fare with “ZOMG the world is doomed, guys, let’s try not to be emo about it!” and things like that. Even the battles are more fun in this game, as you have timed button pressing attacks to defend, and Bro combo attacks that require precise button pressing. This game is just fun, which is what you’d expect from a Mario game, isn’t it?

Last on my list of GBA games are the three Castlevania gamse that appeared on the GBA. Of the three (Circle of the Moon, Harmony of Dissonance, and Aria of Sorrow), Circle of the Moon is really my favorite. This one just feels different from the later GBA and DS Castlevania games (probably has to do with the fact that Iga didn’t work on this game, something I’ll discuss more about later), and is rather more challenging. The music herein is fantastic, the design of the game overall is great. This is just a great all-around game that you should definitely try, if you can find a copy. More about Iga and this game: Apparently Iga doesn’t like Circle of the Moon, to the extent that he’s effectively retconned this game entirely out of the Castlevania continuity. I think it’s something to do with the implications of family bloodlines, and that the Belmont lineage might contain some vampire blood, which OH NO GUYS THAT ISN’T GOOD LET’S PRETEND THIS GAME NEVER HAPPENED! KTHNXBYE.

Wait. One more game, okay? It’s Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, which was a game that actually had no involvement in other FE games (such as the previous GBA game, simply titled Fire Emblem, which was, of course, a prequel game to Fire Emblem: Rekka no Ken (I can’t believe you didn’t know that, guys)). This was also the second Fire Emblem game to be released outside of Japan. Anyway, both of these GBA Fire Emblem games are great, but are quite difficult. I mean, lose a character in battle and they die permanently. But the games are great.

Well, that’s a look at my favorite games on the GBA. Next time I’ll have a look through my collection of DS games and see what stands out.

Audio Announcement

So, with the Rupeethon wrapping up later today, you might be wondering if there are any other video game marathons for charity coming up. Well, fear not, there are plenty in the coming weeks and months worthy of your attention (and donations, if you can spare any).

First up is the ExtraLives Bootleg Bonanza marathon, starting this Friday, 26 August. There’s been a lot of discussion behind the scenes and on the forums about what this marathon will be like, but decisions have now been made. Tim and the ExtraLives crew will be playing a number of pirated games (a full list of these games are on the site). Changing a bit from their usual style of only having the games on the visual side of their feed, Tim’s adding in a green screen that will allow for MST3K-style silhouettes of people there. This marathon should go on for about three days. This marathon will benefit Free the Children, a charity that constructs schools in developing nations.

The NESIT Marathon is starting up on 2 September. This will be that group’s first ever marathon, so tune and help out if you can. They’ll be playing through a number of Super Mario games, starting from the original trilogy on the NES through to titles on the Wii. Besides the main series, they’re throwing in three Mario Kart titles. Should be a great marathon. This marathon benefits Child’s Play Charity.

Following from there is the Mega Man for Healing marathon. They’ll be playing through Mega Man 1-10 and a few spin-off games. Further levels will be unlocked via donations, so if you want their marathon to continue, please donate. This marathon will benefit Child’s Play Charity.

Team Brocket, another newcomer to the gaming marathon scene, is doing their own Zelda marathon starting 1 September. Interesting notes about their plans include a three-heart run of Majora’s Mask, and the inclusion of both DS Zelda games (Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks). This marathon will benefit Child’s Play Charity.

October looks to be empty of gaming marathons at the moment. If you know of any happening in that month, please let me know.

November is when things pick up again. A group in the UK is doing their own Legend of Zelda marathon, but the timing and duration of their event (it starts on 11 November) allows for a rather awesome addition to their lineup. First off, they’re planning on playing 21 Zelda games, including the three atrocities that appeared on the Philips CDi. However, their marathon should extend to and a bit past the 18th of November, which is the release date in the UK for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and yes, that game is part of the latter end of their lineup of games to play. So, if you’re not too busy playing Skyward Sword, tune in and watch these guys play it. This marathon will benefit GamesAid, which is a broker that divides proceeds among five charities in the UK (Special Effect, Action For Kids, Winston’s Wish, Willow Foundation, and Royal Hospital for Neuro-Disability).

On 25 November, the Mass Effect Marathon returns. They’ll be playing both games in that franchise that are out at this point. All sorts of shenanigans are in store for this marathon this year, so please tune in. This marathon benefits Child’s Play Charity.

18 November is when one of the biggest gaming marathons of the year starts. The fifth annual Desert Bus for Hope marathon begins at 6pm PST on that day. Join the LoadingReadyRun crew as they begin playing one of the worst games ever played. This marathon may only have one game, but the LRR crew makes it very entertaining, with donor challenges and special guests. The whole point of the Desert Bus game is that they have to drive a virtual bus from Tuscon, AZ, to Las Vegas, NV, a drive that takes eight hours of continuous play. This marathon benefits Child’s Play Charity.

So there you have it, a list of upcoming gaming marathons from now until November. If you are planning one, or know of one, that I haven’t listed here, please let me know and I’ll get the word out.

I hope you enjoy this part of the project, and I would also like to hear some feedback about the project, either comments about the story itself or the audio entries. Either or would be appreciated. Constructive criticism is quite nice.

First up is The Renaissance Wolf WWS Minithon. Technically it starts on 30 of July, but that’s close enough to the August timeframe. They’ll be playing the following games:
1-WolfQuest,
2-Rainbow Dash Attack
3-Spore
4-Learn to Fly
5-Dogz
6-Feed the Panda
7-Secret of the Magic Crystal
8-Pokemon Red/Blue
World of Zoo: Creature Creator (In-betweenie game)

All proceeds raised from this marathon go to benefit White Wolf Sanctuary.

Tim Troppoli, with the ExtraLives group, is planning a marathon in August. Nothing is official yet, either in terms of when (likely late August) or what they’ll be playing (maybe playing bootleg/pirated games). More on this when details are settled.

This post will be updated with information on additional marathons as I hear about them, so stay tuned.

Capcom explains that their decision “is based on a number of criteria with input from different sectors of the company. Unfortunately it was not felt that the Mega Man Legends 3 Project met the required criteria…”

This follows on from the resignation from Capcom last year of Mega Man co-creator Keiji Inafune, though Capcom is not claiming that as a reason for canceling this project.

This project was to be presaged by an early build made available on the 3DS eShop. Called Mega Man Legends 3: Prototype Version, this would have offered players a glimpse as to what the full game would offer, with ten missions and a new playable character.

Fans had also been invited to submit ideas for this game, with material ranging from stage ideas to character art. Those people will likely be receiving mail from Capcom notifying them of the game’s cancellation.

Now, however, all of that is off the table as the entire project has been canceled.

ExtraLives is doing a gaming marathon starting this Friday, 15 July, at around noon EDT. This marathon will benefit Free the Children, a charity that constructs schools in developing nations.

Beyond this just being another marathon, though, this will celebrate two years since ExtraLives began. Back in late June, 2009, their first marathon took place, wherein they played a bunch of Pokemon games (Pokémon Red, Blue, Gold, Silver, Ruby, and Sapphire, to be precise). Since then, they’ve done marathons for Mario, Zelda, and Sonic, among others.

However, within all of those past marathons, there were games here and there that they never finished, due to time constraints. This upcoming marathon will correct that, as this is a Mop-Up Marathon, wherein the ExtraLives crew will finish those games that they didn’t have time to in their original marathons.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! Not only will they be doing this Mop-Up Marathon, interspersed throughout will be a “Terrifying…ly Bad Games Minithon”, which will undoubtedly prove entertaining. (Remember: Tim has a Phillips CDi and those unspeakable Zelda and Mario games)

So, you’re probably wondering what games will be played, all told. Pulled straight from the site is the complete list of all the games to be played during this event:

Mario Marathon (December, 2010) Block
Super Mario Bros. 2
Hotel Mario
Super Mario Galaxy 2

64 Hours of the N64 (March, 2010) Block
Superman 64 (I own 2 copies, not something I’m proud of)
Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Zelda: Majora’s Mask race

The Rise and Fall of Sonic the Hedgehog (August, 2010) Block
Shadow the Hedgehog (sorry guys, we can’t deal with Heroes again)

Pokemon Marathon 2 (July, 2010) Block
Hey You Pikachu! (Fun at 3AM!)
Pokemon Adventu (Everyone’s favorite Pikachu platformer bootleg… thing).
Vietnamese Crystal (We have 2 copies now– we’ll race them, first to crash loses!)

Legend of Zelda Marathon (December, 2009) Block
Faces of Evil and/or Wand of Gamelon (How many times have you heard “-cording this”?)
Zelda: The Wind Waker
Zelda: Twilight Princess (A race between the GameCube and Wii versions)

And between these blocks, we’ll intersperse games from…

Terrifying…ly Bad Games Minithon (October, 2009)
Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing
E.T. (The Atari 2600 masterpiece)
Shaq-Fu

It all starts this Friday at noon EDT. It should be fun.

The cover is a bit of misdirection: you don’t rescue Hugo from the house, you rescue his girlfriend, Penelope.

One game in particular was Hugo’s House of Horrors. It was an adventure/puzzle game, and all of the commands were done via typed commands. For instance, if you wanted Hugo to walk to a door, you typed in “walk to door”. If you wanted to pick up an item, you typed, “pick up [item]“. That’s how gameplay went.

The story for the game was simple: Hugo’s girlfriend Penelope had gone to babysit at a rather creepy old house, and Hugo hadn’t heard from her for a considerable while. So Hugo goes to check on her, and finds that she’s been taken captive by a mad scientist. You have to negotiate a series of puzzles, collect and use items along the way, in order to rescue her.

The graphics were the simplistic kind you’d expect from an early DOS game. The command interface was equally simple, as I described above. The puzzles were rather challenging, and required clever use of items collected along the way.

Of course the game feels ancient by today’s gaming standards, but that’s to be expected. It’s a rather short game, but, as I said before, the puzzles are challenging enough. I’m sure the game is still available somewhere out there on the Internet, and if you feel like a bit of gaming nostalgia, it’s a fun game to play.

The game spawned a couple of sequels, continuing the story of Hugo and Penelope. The second game, Hugo II: Whodunit was a murder mystery in which you played as Penelope, while the third game, Hugo III: Jungle of Doom had the characters escaping from a jungle after the small plane they were on crashes. I don’t think I ever actually beat the second game, but I easily beat the first and third.

Apparently there was a fourth and final Hugo game released in 1994, called Nitemare 3-D, and was essentially a Wolfenstein clone. In that game, Penelope is taken prisoner in the haunted mansion again, and Hugo goes in to rescue her, armed with guns. I’ve never even seen that game, to be honest.

So, there you have it, this time a game that I really and honestly think I’m the only one who remembers.

A final note: some years back, there was a rather interactive webcomic called “Problem Sleuth”. It presented a series of images, and invited readers to provide suggestions for what the main characters should do in order to proceed. The visual style of that comic, mixed with the command line at the bottom of each panel, reminds me a lot of these games. Just thought I’d throw that tidbit out there.

This beta build of the game varied in quite a few ways from the finished version. Some enemies (such as the Wizrobes) were weaker, and some rooms in dungeons either had fewer enemies to negotiate or different groupings of enemies. Sprites for some enemies were different. A more noticeable difference was the fact that the dungeons all used the Level 9 theme from the final version, as the normal dungeon music hadn’t been applied at that point in development.

The image on the left is from the prototype, and is an example of a dungeon room with an easier selection of enemies. The right, of course, is from the final release in Japan.

The Cutting Room Floor has done a great job compiling a list of all the changes from the prototype build to the released version.

Last night I finally got around to playing the prototype, as I had finally realized why I couldn’t get it to play in my emulator (it was a simple matter of using the emulator commands to simulate removing the disk, flipping to side B, and replacing the disk). I recorded my playthrough of the first quest as a new Let’s Play project.

For that first playthrough of the game, I didn’t check on any online source for changes. I wanted everything to be a new experience, so I played through on my own. I was quite surprised to find the Level 9 music playing in every dungeon, and found it, in its own way, quite unnerving. That bit of music is quite suspenseful, and made each dungeon feel a bit more daunting.

The dungeon layouts were essentially the same. I didn’t notice a difference in dungeon design until I arrived at Level 9. I was heading to the normal location for the Red Ring, but found that I couldn’t bomb the northern wall of that room.

Confused, I continued on through the dungeon, intent on finding the Silver Arrows in their usual location. What I found in that room instead was just the compass. Turns out both the Silver Arrows and Red Ring had been moved from their locations in the prototype to where they are in the finished version. To access the room with the Silver Arrows, you have to pass through the only invisible doorway in the entirety of the first quest. The Red Ring is two rooms below.

There were other differences I noticed: Pols Voice were invulnerable to arrows in the prototype. There was no hungry Goriya in Level 7, yet you could still buy the meat in one shop for 160 rupees. Speaking of rupees, due to a different calculation for enemy drops, rupees were more common to find than in the final version.

So I finally completed the first quest, and started on the second. I wandered into Level 1, but immediately noticed differences, the first being that there were no enemies anywhere in the dungeon. A second difference was that the dungeon map for Level 1 in this prototype second quest was a capital “L”, which is the map for Level 3 in the finished version. However, the accessible rooms in the dungeon extended far beyond that. Yet there were no enemies in the dungeon.

This is a compilation of all the dungeon layouts for the prototype second quest. The overworld is identical to the first quest. None of the dungeons have a Triforce chamber, meaning there is no Triforce piece to obtain. This ultimately means that the prototype build only had the bare framework for a second quest, and it was not correctly playable. Interesting to see an early build of the second quest, though, as many dungeons have extra rooms not in the final version, or the final version has rooms not in the prototype.

Either way, this prototype build is definitely worth looking into if you are a fan of the early Zelda games, and are interested in seeing how development for the first game came along.

Yet even this early build of the game lacks the cave in this famous screenshot from the instruction booklet included in the American localization of the game:

Screenshots come mostly from Lost Levels forum and The Cutting Room Floor.