Would this idea work if someone remade Zelda 1 on FDS using the Ultima 1 or 3 engine and Link to the Past in Ultima 4? The Underworld ones might not work as well due to being restricted indoors.

The games are really too different for it to work. They're not even the same type of game!

Ultima 1, 3, and 4 are (mostly) turn-based RPGs. Zelda 1 and 3 are action games.

So no, it wouldn't work, or if it did, wouldn't be even remotely the same game.

It was more in terms of the first person dungeons, not the boring, clunky turn based combat where the enemies stunlock you several times without a chance to counter.

Fair point though. I've only started Zelda 1 on Nintendo Floppy and U1. The latter is damn hard and I can't reload a save so it wouldn't be suitable.

Maybe a modern version of Underworld's engine could work for those Zelda remakes but without the terrible controls that game had: more like a System Shock 1 Enhanced Edition control scheme. They could always just use a debugged 9 engine if that's too much.

Except that those 2 Zelda games used an overhead view and not anything resembling a first person view. Therefore, I don't see any remake using such an engine to be even close to being called the same. I can't even see them being even the same *type* of game.

Also, enemies don't stunlock you in the Ultima series. (I should also point out that the turn-based combat of Ultima 1-6 is far better than the real-time-with-no-control combat they put into Ultima 7.)

Haven't played Ultima 7 but I did hear about that. There was real time combat done slightly better in UU though. Not as good as System Shock 1 or Thief though.