first, some context: for reasons I no longer remember I had been wandering the net, as you do, looking for a good metroidvania. somehow, at some point, I managed to find one that was very unique; it was called zodiac: story of the guardian, and one single playthrough exists full stop on YouTube. said playthrough only exists because the fellow playing it was provided it by the original developer, c-dawg himself. zodiac was unique for 2 predominant reasons: 1, it combines features from multiple games in an unorthodox manner, and 2, it was made on a zelda engine. that's right folk, the man made a 2d metroidvania platformer on a zelda making engine, which if I remember correctly he did modify to account for it, I may be wrong. as I'm sure you can tell by now, but this game ISN'T mine; but any and all attempts to find, let alone contact c-dawg were met with failure. even asking the youtuber who made the playthrough didn't know him that well, and hasn't heard from him in a long time. i have, however, found a website that has download links for the last version of the game made, along with prior versions. at this point ladies and gentlemen you can see where this is going and why I made the title what it is, but I can't bear to leave this diamond in the rough collecting dust in the annals of the web, so now I will swallow my pride, rip off the band-aid and accept the backlash I'm sure to receive: if anyone has the free time, and the skill, I would like you to have a look at this game, and rebuild it from the ground up. this game was ahead of its time, and even today it is only somewhat poor next to modern games of its like; I have nothing to offer in return, and my uncertainty of this matter leads me to place it here in general. once again, I am fully aware of how selfish and cheap I am being to ask this of you all, but I don't know what else to do if any of you, however mild, show interest in this thankless task, then follow these links; the first to the mentioned walkthrough to see it in action, and the second to the download links themselves.
thank you for you patience, and I apologise once more for my hubris.