Zelda 2-style on-screen encounters

[DenzTheMaster]

Okay, so I wanted visible enemies on my screen that would reappear and disappear in the form of shadows like in Zelda 2.  This was easy to accomplish, I just have two switches one for when enemies are active and one for when they are dormant, and a common event for each condition that waits a few seconds before switching to the other.  But now I'm at a loss as to how to position the events...

Does anybody have experience with on-screen enemies?  This is my first time doing it, and I really want it to be as much like it happens in Zelda 2 as possible.  Specifically, I want three shadows to appear near the hero and move in on him.  Now, this is easily done with multiple events scattered across the map but what happens eventually is you get every enemy event on the screen chasing after the hero, and I don't want that.  So, my question is, is it possible to just have three events (two easy groups, one hard group) following the hero at one time?

Has anyone set out to do this very same thing in their game?  Please give me input!  Thanks.

[DedlellyDeth]

Yeah, you can. Record the hero's position and that of the enemies (via setting variables to their initial position, then accommodating appropriately every time they move). Then subtract the X's and Y's from their counterparts, see if it's low enough, and if so, activate a switch and make a page or something so that the enemy's movement pattern is changed to follow the hero, constantly checking his position so that if he falls out of a certain range, it goes back to normal.

I've only played Zelda 2 for like the first 5 minutes when I was 7 so I don't know exactly what you mean.

[DenzTheMaster]

Yes, that sounds like exactly what I'm trying to do!  That didn't even occur to me...Thanks!

As for what I'm trying to ultimately accomplish...What Zelda 2 does when you're on the overworld, is every couple of seconds these shadows would appear, usually in sets of three.  They would walk towards Link from a space of about three tiles and you could dodge them, but eventually one of them will catch up to you especially once other groups have appeared.  However, they stay on the screen for about 3 seconds and then vanish just as they appeared.  It's basically a compromise between fully visible enemies onscreen and random encounters.