The original 'Legend of Zelda' has been remade in Minecraft, without using mods

engadget.com:

A Minecraft mad scientist has recreated The Legend of Zelda inside the blocky sandbox game without any third-party mods or resource packs. Fan and YouTuber C1OUS3R, who has also made Sonic the Hedgehog and Super Mario Bros. inside Minecraft, took nearly a month to craft the Zelda tribute.

The developer used command blocks, custom textures and other in-game features to recreate the 1986 NES classic. “I use Blockbench to create a flat version of Link from all sides so I can rotate it to make it look like he’s facing every direction,” C1OUS3R explained in a making-of video. “I would make a Voxel model like I did in the previous video games, however, it’s pretty much unnoticeable and takes 30 times longer, and I don’t really have the time for that.

“I then overlaid this model over a carved pumpkin which is one of the items you can wear on your head in Minecraft. I then make the player invisible to make it look like you’re controlling Link. Then by using the data packs function folder, which is just command blocks in written form, I’m able to detect which way the player is moving based off armor stands and rotate the model to make it look like it’s moving. I then simply animate the textures, and boom. You have a controllable Link.”

C1OUS3R said on Reddit (via Kotaku) they will release the playable creation, which runs through the first boss fight, once their YouTube video gets 5,000 likes. (It has over 500 at the time of publication.) The developer says they want to eventually release an entire gaming engine inside Minecraft. “It’s much easier to understand rather than something like Unity. I believe Minecraft has the ability to really help people get into game development.”