Lunaria's ZC Reviews

[Lunaria]

I play a fair amount of Zelda Classic (ZC) quests these days, and often enough I also stream them. I usually just let other people know on IRC and discord whenever I go live since, I generally don't schedule things in advance. It's rather sporadic, I know, but I'm not that into setting up a streaming schedule given I do this for fun. I also review ZC quests, and that's what this here thread is for! You might be wondering what ZC is? It basically started as a PC port of the original Legend of Zelda..., packed in with a level editor. Since then it has expanded quite a bit and contains lots of features from more modern Zelda games, as well as most recently scripting support!

You can find my hitbox channel here if you want to see old stream recordings or know where to find me: [Link]


Bellow you can also find my list of quests I have played and possibly reviewed, as well as in which order I favour them. I generally think reviews are better for talking about the qualitative of a work, but a list of how I rate things compared to each other is slightly interesting to me. I sort the quests here by rating I gave them in my review and then from top to bottom in order of which I think has better qualities. This is not a complete list of quests I have played, but rather a list of quests that covers things I played in 2015 and going forward.


5
-empty currently-

4.5
Link's Quest for the Hookshot 2 [Review]

4
In the Lost Kingdom of the Banana Blood God [Review]
Randomizer Returns [Review]

3.5
Forbidden Ascent [Review]
Antiquity [Review]
Turtles Hate Candy [Review]
Legend of Pokemon Warrior (Contest version) [No Review]

3
Hitodama [Review]
Randomizer Outlands [Review]
Umbral Cloud [Review]
The Flow of Time (Remastered) [Review]
The Neverending Fantasy - Anniversary Edition
Myrule [No Review]
Tale of Lyria (v1.6) [Review]
Beyond Hyrule [Review]

2.5
Fight for Freedom [Review]
Pessimistic Pizza [No Review]
Return to Koholint [No Review] [Dropped]

2
To The Top [Review]
The Forbidden City [No Review] [Dropped]
Lost Isle [No review] (I have a WIP one lying around..., although tbh I don't remember where.)
Project Snow (A Tribute to Yeto's Quest) [Review]

1.5
Isle of Rebirth [No review] [Dropped] (I thought I did write a review for this..., hurm. :I )
Russian [No Review]
The Third Legacy [No Review]
A New Adventure [Review] [Dropped]
Fun in the Sun 2 [Review] [Dropped]
The Hero of Dreams [Review] (though not a proper one)
Nargad's Trail: Crystal Crusades [Review] [Dropped]

1
Mega Man: Link Edition [Review] [Dropped]
Shadow Wars II: Dark Side of the Triforce [Review] [Dropped]
Link's Quest for the Hookshot 1 [Review] [Dropped]
The Island of Yeto [Review] [Dropped]
Myst Island [Review] [Dropped]

0.5
Hylean Revolution Episode 1 - Ganons Assault [Review] [Dropped]
Realm of Shamanock [Dropped]
Aidan's Adventure [Review]
Tropicana Island [Review] [Dropped]

0
Shadow Providence [Review] [Dropped]
DayDay [Review]


Tag legacy:
[Review]: I have reviewed it, I'll try to hotlink any new ones to relevant post.
[No Review]: I have not written a review for it yet, but I want(ed) to, OR, there was no proper avenue to write the review at the time.
[Active]: I am currently playing through this, most likely streaming, but I have gotten a good enough feel for it to rate and/or review it.
[On-Hold]: I'm still playing it, but I'm prioritising other quests/games.
[Dropped]: I stopped playing the quest and I don't plan on continuing, either because of glitches, I lost interest, or because the quest came to a point where it wasn't enjoyable enough. A dropped quest is not necessarily dropped forever as I may go back and give it another spin if I feel like it or if it got an update that fixes any major complaints.

[Lunaria]

Old reviews part 1: 5(read: 4.5) stars - 2.5 stars
---------------------------------------------------
Reviews:

[spoiler=Link's Quest for the Hookshot 2]So..., this quest got a huge update. Apparently inspired by the critique I levelled at the quest, so I'd be remised if I didn't go back and comment on it when improvements have been made.

The quirky dialogue remains at large and there is even a few new additions to it which perfectly fits in. If you want a humorous experience then this quest is for you! The graphics have also got a huge lift, the overworld tilework and screen design was pretty lacklustre and uninspired in the original, it was functional but that's about it. This update brings new life to the graphics though, and while the dungeons remain the same in regards to the graphics, the overworld has got a major facelift and looks very pretty! I'm still not sold on the repeated flashing between cyan and bright red with black in level 8, but that's also probably my only complaint when it comes to graphics in this quest.

So the new graphics look great, but some new gameplay problems was introduced because of it. It ties specifically to the hanging garden and the konami grove, more so the former than the latter. There is a lot of visual flair that appears above Link and enemies, so much as to it makes it impossible to see enemies and projectiles, and even where you are, at times. I didn't have a huge issue with it myself, given that it's fairly easy to tank things in normal, but I can't imagine this being anything but frustrating on harder difficulty levels.

Speaking of which, this quest now have a wide variety of difficulty levels! Now, I'm personally not a huge fan of difficulty solutions that only tweak damage numbers, but I have not tried them all so I wouldn't know exactly what's different between them. That being said, it's impossible to deny that the addition of difficulty levels makes this quest accessible and more enjoyable for a wider audience, and to me that's only a good thing.

Speaking of gameplay problems though, many of the old ones have been fixed! A lot of tedium in the quest has been removed by the additions of a few midway teleporters in some dungeon. Additionally, wallmasters and bats are not longer enemies that you're required to kill to open "kill all enemies" doors, this is a small change that has a huge impact on how enjoyable the quest is to actually play. And there are many of these type of changes, I won't go through them all, as that would take a while, but here is a short list of a few:

• "Space" map in most dungeons. (Very, VERY, useful for level 8 ).
• No door repair guys. (AFAIK tell anyway).
• Better rupee costs on some items, and in general better flow in obtainable shop items. (Could just be me knowing where shit is though...).
• Being able to change difficulty in-game either up and down based on players current preference.
• Less windrobes.
• All the changes done to the monochrome dungeon. (Actually, I liked the "required" floor markings, but I guess it makes sense why they were removed... They did provide info on what order you were supposed to do things in though).

I found several of the optional bonus dungeons in this quest to be fairly terrible in the last version, and while I still believe that, the ones I did find bad have been completely replaced with new ones that are both more interesting and challenging for players in a more creative way. The focus on repeatedly sending the player back to start has been removed, and instead we have a bigger focus on creative gimmicks. One of the dungeons is now an elaborate and complex puzzle dungeon (though it's completely bearable due to "space" map) while another is a gimmicky platforming dungeon, and it really shows that Moosh has improved in making those. There is very little to complain about here, and even if you for some gosh darn reason prefer to play the old terrible messes these dungeons used to be than legacy mode lets you do that.

Speaking of bonus dungeons, a new one was added. It's fairly short and gimmicky, and is more of a build up to the reward more so than anything else. It was a fun short experience with a few references, but I wouldn't say the dungeon really adds much personally. The reward though, is the games new super weapons. 10/10 Lunarias (from alternate timelines) agree that they are pretty dank stronk. You get to pick one and they all cater to very different play-styles, personally I prefer the salty option, but I can at least see the use for most of them. Not the tentai though, seriously, it does not seem useful. (Needs more red paint so it goes faster).

There is also a super secret extra super boss in the quest. I'm not a huge fan of it TBH but whatever, it's so far removed for the rest of the quest that really, who gives a shit? Even if you don't beat it then it can provide some funny narrative just from finding it.

Now, I'm personally against ratings, I think they are garbage and undermines reviews. What's important shouldn't be some abstract number, but rather the views presented. That being said, we do have required ratings here for reviews, so I'm obligated to give a fair one regardless. Now, I said last time that this was either a 2 or a 3, but that I'd have to drop it the lowest dips of quality. Now those dips have been smoothed out and the quest has actually got a major upgrade in many ways. And I definitively think this quest is above average now, so I'll give it a SLAM! out of five.


To be honest, if a Link's Quest for the Hookshot 3 was announced, I'd probably be fairly excited for it, this was some good shit moosh, some good shit, right there, RIGHT THERE!



For legacy reasons, the old review for the older version of the quest will archived, you can read that here:
[spoiler=Review for old outdated version of Hookshot 2]"Quest for the hookshot 2: The moral dilemma of what to rate the quest, a three, or a two? At the end of the day, I guess I have to rate it based on the lower dips of quality.


This quest started off rather great. Somewhat quirky dungeon design and plot, and really well made custom bosses. The overworld wasn't anything to hang in the christmass tree, but hey, it worked. Sadly, it all came to an end when I got the dark world... and everything turned horrid. Once you get there everything seems to be balance to the player already having the red ring, which is located in a hidden shop. While the player can access it right away, the problem is knowing where it is. There are also plenty of door repair guy rooms on the overworld in the general area around it... and the red ring costs the maximum amount of rupees the player can carry at that point. And that's not even touching the dungeon design, which went all downhill.

I want to like places like the Tablet factory, but it just has too many flaws. Level 7 also has some terrible gimmicks. The first is that the dungeon has an easy and a hard mode, once you pick one, you're stuck with that choice for the rest of the save file. The problem with that is that the hard dungeon is complete bullshit of the highest degree, and features enjoyable gimmicks such as: Shooters that shoot wind (yes the kind that takes back to start), shooters that shot homing bullets that when they hit the wall explodes into two wind shots. I'm sure you can imagine how enjoyable a dungeon full of those are going to be! But hey, you can always just choose the easy path, right? Sure, if you don't mind getting insulted by the game every timer to enter it! And honestly, given foreknowledge, it's not really a choice; One is a proper dungeon, the other is one of the most frustrating and rage inducing dungeons in the quest.

Then there is level 8, AKA, final dungeon of maximum seizure. For people with eye problems, this dungeon is unplayable, as it will constantly switch between complete black with bright red, to a very bright cyan, and some times this happens very rapidly. And while the dungeon does have a very interesting gimmick..., the fact that it drags on forever and have quite a few instances where you can be sent 8+ rooms back is frustrating. This is mostly due to how confusing the dungeon is in structure, and if you're not adept at making mind maps, or you're making your own map, well..., let's just say you won't be having a good time, at all.

The quest also has some horrible bonus dungeons, including: A side scrolling tower to climb that has very narrow/precise platforming (that is a bit buggy), combined with annoying enemies, windrobes, and wind turrets! A dungeon inspired by the glorious Impa's way from Parallel Worlds, yet somehow, was made even bloody worse. That dungeon has such funny mechanics as: Really confusing teleporting system, moving invisible spikes, moving invisible teleporting tiles that take you back to start. Another bonus dungeon is one that the player is forced to do with very limited gear, yet is completely filled with absurd amount of things the player is supposed to dodge. Of course, these dungeons are optional, but they do host the best gear in the game. And I can not conceive why they were included considering how plain up unenjoyable they are.

I'd also like to give a huge shout out to my homeboy patra, who got at least 50 starring roles in this quest, good show man, good show!


At the end of the day, would I recommend this quest? Not really sure to be honest. There are a lot of interesting and cool things to see here, that's for sure. And in many regards, there are some quite good design thoughts and decisions put into it. But on the other hand, there are a lot of really terrible ones too. It's certainly not a quest I'd recommend to completionists. It's worthwhile to look into if you're a quest designer to see some of the more interesting ideas and puzzles, but it's not a quest that I'd think most would enjoy to try and complete completely"(sic)[/spoiler]
[/spoiler]


[spoiler=In the Lost Kingdom of the Banana Blood God]This is a short but fairly competent quest. It get most things right, but there are some problems with it too. Is it worth playing? Yes. Is it worth doing a 100% run? Hell fucking no! :P

This is one of those games that is definitively worth experiencing, as the gameplay is overall solid and the humorous plot is worth seeing through till the end. There are a few dips in quality in the design, and there are some features missing that I'd like to see. *coughoverworldspacebarmapcough* Music, audio, and visuals are pleasing and nothing struck out to me as bad. The difficulty in the quest is reasonable enough, and while you might die on a few bosses before you figure out how to beat them, nothing is too hard to beat once you know what to do.

So yeah, overall great quest! :D



...

I wish I could leave it at that, but sadly, there are some bad things in this quest too. The post game content is pretty tosh, to put it mildly. The first bonus dungeon (which is rather short,) is fine, though the boss fight is quite a large of a difficulty spike. The problem is the second one, which has to be one of the most horrible dungeons by design that I have ever had the pleasure to play. It's hard to describe just in how many ways the dungeon is terrible, but sufficient to say, you don't want to play it. I can look past it since it's technically optional side content post the games completion, but it feels a bit cheap too, given that there is a continuation of the plot there.

Furthermore, this quest features an extremely infuriating minigame. I wouldn't mind it too much if it weren't for the fact that certain major character upgrades seem to come from doing well enough in it. The problematic part is that you have no idea either what the rewards are, how many there are (ergo, if there still are any left to gain,) what your score needs to be to get the next one. I gave it quite many tries and I got two pieces of heart from it, but from my understanding there are more rewards. In general, players are expected to have a mastery of this minigame to 100% the quest. And given the difficulty level of that, I don't think necessarily it's well designed to expect that.

I give this quest bananas/10 too few "oh banana" sound effects. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Randomizer Returns]Probably the best randomizer avalible for ZC so far, in my honest opinion. Replay value is really high in this one since it's not insanely long, and there are a lot of randomized aspects that will make for a new experience every run. Other than that you have a nice mix of Zelda 1 style gameplay with more modern conveniences (though no space map in dungeons). I enjoyed my two playthroughs so far and I think I have gotten a good enough grasp of the quest structure to say that I like it.

That being said, the quest does have some flaws: The full-sized overworld does not work in the quest's favour. I completely understand why the Zelda 1 overworld was used, since that's where the expectation is. But I think a smaller overworld map around the size of a single BS map would be better size. Mainly since there is a secret on every single screen, the quest is completely flooded with useless secrets. Now, in one way it's nice to know that there is always one secret per screen, that way you can know for sure if you can cross a screen off the list or not. On the otherhand, this means finding what you need (dungeons) becomes a bit of a pain, especially if you find late-game dungeons early, because when you can do them later on you just don't remember where they are. I guess that's a minor nitpick, but it's certainly an area that could looked over on for future projects, or an alternate map for this very same quest? (hrm)

Another complaint I have is the visuals. Firstly, I will say that the visuals work way better in-game than what it seemed like from the screenshots, so that was nice. But I'm not entirely sold on it to be honest. It's mostly the overworld palettes that bother me, I guess. Like, the sand on the beach looks way too dark and muddy (but the mountains there look good), while the green grass looks... off. I think my problem with the grass is that it's either too bright or not bright enough. :P

But yeah, I'll play more of this in the future, great randomizer, can't wait for the updates! [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Forbidden Ascent]I was sceptical when I first saw this, just like I was for Freedom in Chains, 2D platforming in Zelda Classic is very iffy, and hard to get good. While quite many users praised Freedom in Chains as being highly innovative, I just couldn't see it, a lot of the platforming was very stiff, and many quirks of ZC engine were still present.


So I'm glad to say that this quest actually impresses me in that regard, a lot of the problems have been tweaked away, circumvented by design choices, or solved by advancements in the ZC engine. The 'Super Fast' screen scroll speed works as well in 2D platforming game as I was expecting, and it's very much a thing that matters for vertical segments. Speaking of which, steps have been taken in the level design to avoid awkward platforming through screen transitions, which was very much present in FiC. This is one of the best, if not the best, example of a 2D platforming game in the ZC engine. It's worth noting, for those who don't know, that this is less of a metroidvania and more of an action/platforming title. The exploration aspects are fairly limited, and the entire experience is quite linear. That's of course not necessarily a bad thing, it's more of a matter of taste.

I would have liked to see a bit more focus on new assets, some bosses are recycled from FiC, and so is the majority of the graphics. While mostly everything follows the same style, I would have wanted to see some improvements in that regard. The graphics are for the most part fairly simplistic, but don't seem to be following any specific system limitation (NES, SNES, etc) nor make the most out of colours.


Now, here comes the biggest critique I have: The difficulty needs to be tweaked. The hardest parts of this game was the start and the end, and the curve takes sort of a dip in the middle. The water/swimming mechanics are pretty awkward, and the first part of the game asks you to do fairly complex movement in it, fast, and in some cases in the dark. Swimming is also somewhat tedious given how much you actually need to mash the button to gain any sort of height. (And again, you need to raise to the surface very fast in certain scenarios.) It's not that the punishment for failing is harsh though, far from it. But it often feels like there is no good way to get through something without taking at least some hits, and this happens in other scenarios later in the game too. Personally, I would say making certain things easier to avoid is the way to go, especially early game, and then raise the damage of failing a bit to compensate.


Anyway, I liked this game a lot, although it was short, and had some minor frustrating parts, it's definitively worth playing. 4/5, needs more memes. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Hitodama]I'll be going into details about stuff, so if you want to avoid spoilers, stay away.

Hitodama is a quest I quite enjoyed to playthrough. It has quite a few flaws, but most of them are minor and generally don't hurt the experience.

It's a game that is similar to the metroid titles, it's all about exploring a world and finding upgrades that let's you reach new areas. It's a bit open ended in what order you do areas in, which is nice, and the quest is very good at letting you know where you need to go next. You'll generally pass by the barrier that you lack an item for before you have it, and they are generally distinct enough to be memorable. The quest has a good sense of flow for the most part, though backtracking becomes tedious when you start unlocking the entirety of the map. There were several instances in this quest where the next area I needed to go to was the one on the opposite end of the map. Areas generally don't get much faster to go through even with upgrades, and short-cuts or warp solutions are nowhere to be seen.

While it takes a while to get used too, the logic behind secrets are generally quite clear, and aside for the post-game dungeon there are good visual clues for it. They are very same-y though, so once you get on the games wavelength they are generally not hard to find. The game also seem to bank a bit too hard on players doing a 100% run, that is to say finding all the secrets. The final boss, which I'll get back to, can be a bit arse without all the upgrades. Though that's not necessarily true, it's just that you'd need specifically the final upgrade that you get for 100% item collection. I think that's a bit limiting personally, especially since I'd consider the final boss being a bit too easy with the upgrade, but probably a bit too hard without it.

Speaking of bosses, this game has a bunch of really good ones. This game doesn't have that many bosses, and they are in general very similar, but the construction of them is what makes them great. Each half of the game has three boss fights, the first two fights are against foes that are similar to each other, but have slightly different movesets, while the third fight is against both on the same time. This is a great way to raise the stakes really high without going out of the players comfort zone. The player will already be familiar with how the third fight works before it even starts, they now just need to improve even more so they can best both of these foes on the same time. As mentioned, the second half of the game does this again, but with two even harder foes. I personally find this approach great, and I found the fights to be both challenging and fair, (though they are probably a nightmare on a low% run).

The final boss, on the otherhand, is a mess. Getting hit by anything gives you some form of debuff, either the screen going wave-y or causing "confusion" which makes your movement inputs walk you in different (random) directions. I beat the fight on first or second try so I wouldn't call it hard, but I wouldn't call it enjoyable or well constructed either. It turns into a lame and very unsatisfying way to end this otherwise fairly enjoyable quest.

The level design in this quest vary from competent, to mediocre, or awful depending on the area. I'm not going to give any specific examples, since that seems like it would be beating a dead horse at this point. If I want to get nitpicky there are some questionable enemy placements in certain areas (such as the fast "boos" in largely swimming based screens), and some level design aspects that aren't clear until you have already been hit by it, (taking damage from spikes that are still covered by grass). One thing that is worth pointing out is that you don't know if a block is breakable before you shoot it, because there is no visual cue for it. This is fine for secret passages, but there are plenty of passages in the main path of several areas where you need to deal with that nonsense. This generally leads to the player not trusting the visuals and goes around blasting every wall.



Graphically the quest is also a mess. The tilework is great/decent, but the graphics themselves are kind of uninspired and plain, not to mention clearly lacking in variety. I don't think the idea of a very "blocky" is bad, but it does not really mesh well with the higher fidelity on other graphical things, such has the high detail sprites or the general largeness of the palette. I just generally don't like the end look of the quest, the very blocky look also ruins a bit of the exploration aspect of the game, because every area will look very same-y, and the same tiles are re-used in several areas. The palette itself is in general very good throughout the entire quest.

Audio design is kind of garbage, you're going to spend the majority of the game blasting the wind spell, which has a very grating sound effect. In regards to music it's a bit hit and miss, I personally don't think much thought were put into the soundtracks since it's a bit here and there in regards to theme, but I didn't really have much expectations in that regard either. I will say this though, there was an area that legit had a track so annoying that I had to mute the quest, that's a problem.


Overall I think this is a good quest. I didn't find it amazing, but it didn't waste my time and I generally had a good time playing it. The post-game dungeon is pretty tosh, but it's basically a non-factor to be honest. There's definitively room of improvement here, but I would recommend this quest. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Randomizer Outlands]Outlands Randomizer... completed at 288/300 5/9(?) item collection ratio. This will be more of a critique piece than a review. (Some spoilers present, stay clear if you don't want to be spoiled.)

Oh boy, where do I start with this? It's great, just like the previous randomizers. The fact that it takes the Zelda 1 hack Outlands and makes it a more enjoyable experience is great on it's own, but with the added randomization you get an additional layer of excitement, as you're never quite sure what you'll get. I was ready to give this a 5/5 after I got done whooping Ganon, but there are a few things holding this quest back from being as great as it could be.

First the simple stuff: The music. The quest features songs from various different games, and all of the tracks sound good and fit the areas they are in. However, the volume levels could use another looking over. A few of the tracks are almost impossible to hear unless I bring up the volume. (But doing so makes all the other tracks and sound effects loud.) And a very small amount of tracks are a tiny bit too loud. This may sound like nitpicking, but considering how little time it would take to fix this and how much more consistently pleasing the audio would be, I say it would be well worth it.

Another thing is the item graphics. It's hard to know if an upgrade is the final version of an item or not, and at the end of the game I had five different swords, without any easy way to tell which one would deal the most amount of damage. (Not that it matters since I used the hammer anyway, but, ya know.)

And now to the big one: The game drags out, and there were several points I wished it would just end. Nine times four dungeons, plus two extra final ones, that's a fair amount of levels. And it would have been a great ending point for the quest. By the time I reached the level 9's, I was so overpowered in gear that I didn't need to worry about dying at all. But then, the parallel world happens.

It's a great concept, and a fun surprise... until you get going. Four sets of nine levels again? That's insane. The parallel world is more modern in design, which is probably another nod to parallel world, seeing as that's an Z3 hack, compared to Outlands which is a Z1 hack. This could have been a great opportunity to make Z3 Parallel worlds inspired levels, instead we get revamped and heavily modified versions of the previous level set. While the ALBW references are nice, this whole thing just feels shitty.

By the point I started the parallel world I was nearly unkillable. Out of my 22 deaths in the run, only one happened after I got to the parallel world, and this is despite me using the fast forward button when making my way across the new world and dungeons. Not to mention, the death happened in the True Tree level, which is a post game bonus dungeon! (And I got glitched into a state of being unable to move.) Nothing was challenging about the parallel worlds: Combat went from easy to easier as I amassed all the items in the parallel worlds, dungeon puzzles were easier what with the more modern dungeon layouts. The magic key stops working in the parallel world, but since dungeon keys don't switch over to level specific... I already had a collection of over 30 keys when I got there. (And I found the new magic key fairly fast anyway.)

That's not to say that there weren't any good parts to the parallel world though. The "You broke it! Noooo"(Paraphrasing) level is one of the most genuinely funny levels I have had the pleasure to play. The True Tree level was amazing too... well not the level itself, as it was a chore. But it has one amazing thing at the end, that I really dig. Even though I knew exactly what it was as soon as it happened (having seen quite a few scripts in my days, etc.) it was still awesome. The remodelled overworld is also much more enjoyable to explore and has more interesting scenery.


But then, the quest gives you the sidequest from hell: Collecting every map and every dungeon compass in the game. It's optional and it only gives two items if you complete it. (And you can see what they are in advance.) But this side quest is a pain in the ass, and it is given halfway through the game, at which point you might have skipped the map or compass in a few levels. Have fun backtracking and figuring out which ones! If this sidequest was made known to the player at the start of the game, it would have been less of a pain in the ass, but I still don't think it's a great one. And keep in mind that this forces the player to complete all eight Final Outlands levels. As, opposed to the two you have to do regularly (one in Outlands and one in the parallel world). Some levels also don't even have compasses! :D


This quest turns into a collectors dream... and nightmare on the same time. There is really a reward for collecting everything. But that doesn't mean the reward is good, nor that it isn't a chore to go through it all.


I feel that Randomizer Outlands completely misses it's own point of existing. The high point of randomizing a game is that you can get some fairly interesting experiences, putting replay-ability in the forefront as the intended way of playing the game. But given the size of the quest, I'm unsure if I'm interested in replaying this quest at all! After a certain point it just feels like the items you get pad out the inventory, rather than providing a new avenue for fighting. The earlier sections of this quest is by far the better, as you have to adapt how you fight to what tools you get. But let's get real: I don't need five different swords that shot sword beams in different ways, I don't really need three rows of hearts, and I most certainly don't need an upgrade to Faroes wind! (I could go on...)


Ironically I think this quest would have been better with content being cut. One set of 9 levels + the extras in the parallel world would have been fine. But make them larger, more complex, and inspired by parallel worlds. Heck, even two sets, one ALBW and one Parallel worlds inspired would have been great. A cut down on the amount of items in the quest would have been for the better too. Maybe stop at the range of 200-250? A lot of the upgrades don't seem to matter after a certain point anyway. But hey, at least the quest ends at a high note. The final dungeon and boss fight was both creative and interesting. (Though, not challenging.)


Did I enjoy my time with Randomizer Outlands? Yes.
Would I recommend the quest to others? Yes.
Do I have any interested in replaying it? No.
Do I plan on 100% it for all the items? No.[/spoiler]


[spoiler=Umbral Cloud]I'll be going through this quest in details here, if you don't want to be spoiled, don't bloody read this! >;D

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this quest, from a technical perspective it's certainly very impressive, having a large amount of scripted bosses and items. Yet I'm not sure I'd argue that the production value is high despite that, because everything else in the quest never really reaches the same level.

Rating wise I'm giving this quest a 3(good), because it it is a good quest, but it didn't amaze me, and I certainly think there is room for improvement. 100% games isn't really my cup of tea, but I did do a fair amount of side questing and I did get the true ending.


So I'll get right into it and comment on the design. The level design in this quest is mediocre, it get's the job down but is all around not very interesting or that enjoyable. The quest started off with some good and interesting ideas, such as the first area locking you in and you have to figure out how to escape it with your new item. This is probably the most interesting part of the quest though in regards to level design. The later underground dungeon feature a puzzle where you get a combination to a lock on one screen and have to input it on another. This is interesting in theory, but it doesn't really mesh with how the rest of that area is constructed. Since it barely opens up at all when you have gone through it the first time, back tracking to get the solution (which you couldn't get earlier) and then backtracking back to the point where you need to insert it becomes a chore.

Then there is also the matter of how this quest generally don't follow metroidvania conventions, despite being one. This quest has a large world with several interconnected areas, but getting around to them is a major chore, even late game when you have all the upgrades. The castlevania series generally sidetracks this issue by having warp points (to better or worse success), where as the metroid series have a very clear and cut "main path". If you're heading from crateria to norfair in super metroid you just go down the elevator to red brinstar and down from there. Relative to the games size it does not take long to get from point A to point B assuming you have been through those areas before and have the right upgrades. I don't feel the same holds true here, there are some shortcuts that opens when you have the flippers, and some shortcuts that open up when you can walk on spikes..., but in the grand scheme of things when I had to get from one end of the map to the other for end game side questing it still took forever. Maybe there are paths that are more optimal than the ones I took, but if so then the game didn't do a good enough job at making that fact clear. I think this quest would do well with a progression warp system that unlocks more points the further you get into the quest, it would cut down on the tedium of backtracking. Since enemies generally don't drop rupees anyway it's not as if there would be that much lost in regards to what players have in resources, should this extra travelling be cut out.

Another problem that this quest faces is that it's very bad at letting players know where to go next. I think the best example is the hookshot, there are plenty of obvious hookshot points throughout the quest so when you pick up the item there are plenty of places to go. But..., where you actually need to go is not the most memorable location. The screen in question is one players likely went through and opened a chest in at the start of the game, and yes it does have a hookshot structure, but that fact is not immediately obvious on that screen. And this is before you see any other hookshot points in the quest, so unless you realise that it's a hookshot point the first time through you're unlikely to memorise it, and consider instead the screen to be "completed" and done with. The only reason I figured out I needed to go there was by process of elimination, because I had been to all other hookshot points in the quest, and I couldn't progress at any of those. And this is not just with the hookshot, I feel I spent a lot of time just walking around aimlessly trying to figure out where to go next, but having no obvious path to do so.

I mean, a lot of people just go around and say that it's "dumbing" a game down to have subtle hints on where to go next, but personally I think that it's simply good design. I don't think super metroid would be praised so highly these days by so many people if it weren't for that inclusion. I mean, just look at metroid 1 and metroid 2, most people look back on these games and consider them to be pretty garbage. Of course those games have other flaws too, but I can't imagine if metroid 1 was released today that it would do very well, because it is a lot of walking around aimlessly to progress and bombing random floor tiles in random rooms. I'm not saying this quest is even close to as bad as metroid 1, mind you, but I do think that the lack of flow on where to go next is a flaw. As much as I like exploration, you can't really go off the main path and explore if you can't see the main path in the first place.

Right, enough japing about that, onto to ACTUAL meat of this game: The bosses. If people called this a boss rush quest I wouldn't disagree with them. (Though it would maybe be missing the point a bit...). This quest has a lot of bosses, and I do mean A LOT. Personally all these constant back to back boss fights is not exactly what I enjoy, but I can appreciate that this is what the author wanted to make. Now, a lot of the bosses in the quest are actually pretty good. The first guardian (the ice one) was pretty good, and so was the last one (the statue thing), though I do have some complaints about that one. The ice tablet boss was very interesting, though I personally found it rather hard to be able to damage it in phase 1 without using cheese bees. All of the final bosses I got to right were pretty good, I did like the sun one a lot simply from concept and how it looked, but it played pretty well too. And the final bosses does do a good job in feeling like there are high stacks in the fights.

But, and this is a decently big but, there are some less good bosses. The fire witch minibosses are kind of tosh. Once you have the hookshot, and realise that it does a ton of damage, they aren't that hard to cheese. But, the fight with them ended up not being enjoyable, and there many situations where I felt I had no location to dodge too, because there was fire everywhere. The earth tablet boss is kind of weird, if you got the beese the entire fight is a joke that is over right away, but otherwise it seems to go on for quite a bit longer than needed..., or rather maybe not enough? It's so weird. I didn't have a problem avoiding the spike pit in the middle of the room, but I didn't feel like I was doing any damage too it and I ran out stamina constantly. It's also not an obvious fact that the stamina refills for this (only?) screen don't actually despawn, this is not something a player could possibly pick-up on unless they waited to see what would happen to it. And though I only saw it very briefly, the thunder tablet guardian didn't seem that great either. I'm not really a huge fan of the wave effect in general, because it just seems to be a case of "oh you got hit, here now you can't see shit and actually attempt to dodge for a while!" "Oh, you got hit again when you couldn't dodge? Let me just keep that wave effect going for you!" As you might be able to tell, I wasn't fan of the wizzrobes that shoot that either, in fact, I think this quest might rely on this mechanic a bit too much, it's not even a particularly good one.

Anyway back to bosses. I really don't like either of the fights with your in-game brother. I mean, I could cheese the second one fairly easily, because bees and other crap. But it feels like the type of boss that should be able to fight with your sword, but honestly dodging a lot of those moves and also attacking? Yeah that's kind of absurd for the most part. I mean I guess it's not a huge deal since you don't need to win the first fight, and you can cheese the second one. But honestly, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth having to use a cheese solution for such a pivotal fight in the story. From one thing to another, the fire guardian feels very awkward to fight. Phase one is very awkward to fight, and if the fire head shoots something that can actually reach and hit the ice head feels more luck based than it should be. I would also have liked if the head segments in phase 2 were possibly coloured a bit differently. It was not at all obvious to me that you could walk over those segments, and until I was told otherwise I assumed I'd take damage walking into those. (And trying to walk into something to see if you take damage or not is not a situation that should generally exist). There are more bosses that I think could maybe be tweaked a bit more so it feels less like the game fucked me over rather than feeling like I was the one being bad, but I'm not going to go over them all.


Right, onto graphics!

None of the palettes in this quest impressed me, they ranged from okay to mediocre without really any outliers in either direction. Graphically this tileset have a lot of style clash, and this quest introduces even more by having sprites seemingly from a wide range of different games with very different perspectives and graphical styles. The tilework on most screens look nice and the terrain structures makes sense and looks decently interesting. I didn't personally find anything that explored any new ideas, you have your general themed areas of snow, lava, sand, forest, etc, nothing really stood out. I can't really praise anything other than possible the amazing spectacle some of the bosses throw out, but that's about it. Graphically, this quest is merely okay.


And now, audio.

I'm glad to see that the moblin yelling when they dies does not make a return from IoR! Audio engineering is what you'd expect for this type of game. Which means that the audio engineering is actually pretty good! This is one of those things which everyone just assumes is okay because they don't think about it, because good audio engineering isn't noticeable. In contrast, it's very noticeable when something isn't good. Which is the music engineering in the case of this quest! Many tracks loop rather poorly in this quest, either because the loop point isn't very good (the being of the point has an intro that should probably not be played in the middle of the song), or there is a delay in between each loop, or a combination of both. There might be a slight delay in ZC between loops, I'm not sure, but if so that's not fixable. But a lot of these songs could use some editing to make them loop better, or make the audio longer (by manually looping) so it doesn't run out as quickly. This specifically comes up in relation to the boss music that often seemed to run out and loop before the boss fights were over.

Speaking of the music, it's "okay". I didn't hear any song in the soundtrack which jumped out to me as "bad", and the tracks generally fit the areas in which they played. But the overall soundtrack is a freaking mess, and it really breaks the thematics of the entire quest. The graphical look of the quest and the plot seem to suggest that this is a fairly dark story (and this is further reinforced by the endings). Going into the snow area I wouldn't have expected it to play freaking paper mario music, it's such a tonal shift from most other things, and it's probably the track that sticks out as the most not fitting in the entire soundtrack. The guardian boss theme sticks out as not fitting either, it's a song that goes for this whole "movie" epic sense of large scale. But graphically, this quest don't really match that perspective at all. Like, don't get me wrong, it's a very impressive boss fight, but it's not this cinematic epic thing. I think maybe a more rock based track would fit the thematics a bit better. Most of the rest of the music was fairly forgettable, the only other track that stands out as really fitting to me is the goron mines theme for the first dungeon. It's a completely different themed area than in the original game that track is from, but it really fits well and build a lot of suspense.


Story telling~

I didn't have any high hopes going into this quest, most quests generally handles narrative very lacklustre, or not at all. I'd love to say that this quest is an exception, but it's kinda not. The quest opens up with an exposition dump that could probably have been halved, a lot of the concepts explained into details there most players would probably have picked up on from NPCs and going through the quest. That being said, this quest does at least do a fair amount of things right, the dialogue feels in general to be rather realistic, and when exposition dumps happen, it's at least far and few in-between. And while the quest does beat the player over the head with the idea that perhaps what they are doing isn't that great of an idea, at least the point comes across. The build up for the endgame twists exists, and there is some degree of payoff, even if the entire thing was fairly predictable. The game of course twists again with the true ending, but that one feels a bit more phoned-in and makes the true ending maybe a bit less interesting than it should have been.

The core of a story exists here, but that's kind of it. If you asked me how I'd describe any of the characters as characters..., well I couldn't tell you. There is no character development to be seen, and we don't really learn all that much about who any of these people are. Who cares about whether or not I save the main characters sister, literally all I know about her is that she likes eating crunched ice. Not that Zelda games themselves really very often cares too much about some of this crap either, like, who cares about if I save Zelda in ALBW, I know next to nothing about her aside from her name. (That being said, ALBW actually does okay at narrative in most regards, but that's not a discussion for this review). But this quest puts an emphasis (however small) on the story, so it's kinda hard not to notice the flaws.

I wouldn't recommend this quest for the story, and it's not the appeal of it anyway, but it's there so I gotta comment on it.



Miscellaneous things. (/Luna's nitpick list!)

The NPC that informs you of how the time slow spell can be countered is introduced way after these enemies are. If you hadn't picked it up before this point you probably wouldn't even have made it here in the first place!

There are no footstep sound effects when walking without the iron boots, but there are with. This actually creates the illusion that you're walking faster with them on than off.

The entire weather system feels a bit poorly implemented, especially when you have to grind these conditional drops late game to get enough money to buy the rest of the items. This is not "exploration based" content to get rupees as the quest advertises it as. It doesn't have a huge impact on the game, but this thing should probably be reworked, because it just feels tedious.

I can't see an item % counter anywhere. It makes it hard to tell if you have everything. I mean, I know I missed a lot of life and stamina upgrades, but I honestly think this is something that would benefit the quest.

That one spot in the lava area (in the middle west end of the map) where you have to walk behind a hookshot pillar and go west? Yeah, the visual cue for that is not very obvious. I mean, I have seen this type of thing in other quests, but it was the first time for this one so it kinda came out of the left field. And due to the ground colouring blending fairly well with the lava, it was not something I picked up on until after I brute forced into the area and realise that, "wait, you can't actually get into here from the other side" and started looking for the path that HAD to exist.

The lens that displays enemies life is awkward in it's entirety. For a boss focused quest, this is something I would have implemented as a free feature available from the outset. But I can understand giving this to players a bit into the game after they got a taste of it. What I can't understand is hiding it behind a completely optional, very miss-able, sidequest! And then for the cherry on the top it also uses your stamina! If you want to keep mostly the same set-up I'd recommend starting the player off with, or giving them fairly early on, the currently lens. (Maybe have it drain slightly more stamina if you like handicapping people). And then from the side quest provide one that doesn't drain stamina. I can't see what there possibly is to gain from hiding the boss's health in this quest, it doesn't make them harder, it just makes fighting them more awkward since it's hard to tell if what you're doing is effective. And that's essential what happens, because you're gonna have to turn it off in boss fights to optimise your stamina recovery.

The palette in the forest on the mountain tiles have weird colouration, compared to how the tile was made, the lighter colour is dark here, and the dark colour is light. Most people don't care about this, but I think it looks ugly. It's as if having a light coloured mountain can't work, but the entire palette should follow that logic then.



Anyway, those are my current thoughts on this quest after just having finished it. I think it's a good quest, and if you want to be impressed by highly scripted bosses, then this is currently the best quest on pure that does that. But it's not great experience overall, and I wouldn't recommend this quest on it's metroidvania merits.

Note: I didn't proof read this, there might be grammar, spelling, and a few logical errors as a result. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=The Flow of Time (Remastered)]I'm on the fence if I should give this quest a rating of 3 or 4. But at the end of the day, I find ratings to be pointless in the first place, if you want my opinion, read my review, not the rating!

So, The Flow of Time. Is it a good quest? Yes. Is it worth playing? Yeah. Certainly, I think it has a few flaws, but you'd be hard pressed to find a quest that does not have flaws.

So what is flow of time? It's a very linear quest that is inspired by the Oracle games. Most dungeon features puzzles mechanics that are unique to it and follows similar logic to the ones found in the oracle games dungeons. Though, the gimmick in level 2 and 3 are very similar, and some dungeons don't have, or don't focus on, these puzzles. Dungeon design is not incredibly streamlined, there is a fair amount of backtracking and running around in circles to progress. Most people probably won't have a huge problem with this though, but it's worth baring in mind that the dungeons are fairly long as a result.

The overworld is not your standard fare either, the majority of it is segregated into sub areas, and connectivity is fairly low. You can still get around quick enough via the games warp system, so it's not an issue per-say. But get from point A to point B (sans warping,) is as roundabout at the end of the game as it is at the start.

Combat wise the quest is now more in-line with a reasonable experience, you get the defence upgrade at a much more realistic time and the difficulty curve scales much better than previous versions of the quest. Magic management has also been made more reasonable, and the candle is a much more viable weapon then it previously was. Some of the scripted bosses come across as a bit unrefined, but they work, and it's certainly more original than just using the standard ZC bosses. The ball and chain guys over flood the final part areas of the game though, so those get a bit dull.

Graphically the quest is what you'd expect out of an Oracle game. And I mean that literally; All overworld palettes are straight up the same as those in the Oracle games and most graphics are just lifted from it. The dungeon palettes are new though, so those spice things up a bit. But generally, graphically you're not going to see anything too original in this quest, but it still looks good. The tilework is a bit hit and miss, nothing stands out as too amazing, and a few places look a bit off. It's not too problematic graphically, but some of the tilework do get in the way of the gameplay.

There is a fair amount of obfuscation in the screen design, which forces you to take long ways around things. This makes travelling around less enjoyable than what I would have wanted it to be. Steps have been taken to minimise the issue with this in later updates of the quest, but certain screens I feel should just have gotten a complete redesign. This is one of those things that people in generally are not going to take notice of, but it still hampers the experience; So I have no doubt that most people won't even notice this when they play the quest.


I may come of as harsh here, but I'm trying to describe what the quest has to offer. And I do genuinely think it's a quest worth playing. But it's worth baring in mind that the quest is very dungeon heavy, and that exploration is very low priority in the experience offered.

---

You can read my old review from a previous version of the quest below. Though bare in mind that a lot has changed since then, so it's not accurate to the quest that you can download here.
[spoiler=Old Review]I downloaded the latest version of this quest today, (25/8/2015) and after a few hours, I really feel done with it. (I quit a while after I got the red candle and got back to the present time.)

I'd like to say that I tried the original version of this quest back in the days, but that was years ago, and I gave up with that fairly quickly. It's obviously a lot of improvements have been done since then, but I still think this quest has some glaring flaws and poor thought out design ideas. It has some good parts too out of what I have played, but I can't with a straight face give this quest a 3.

The screendesign on the overworld is nothing next to horrendous at times: I have lost counts how many times I have entered a screen, only to be forced to move back the way I came since that route is completely blocked by solid walls. Graphically, some areas (the swamp, village) looks amazing, yet most places look rather horrid.

Both level 1 and 2 features excessive backtracking, 2 more so than 1. It's not a huge issue in level 1, and I could look past it there, but level 2 is worse in that regard. I'm not sure I like the quests gimmick of having dungeons tie in with overworld caves in a large way. Sure it seems like a cool idea, but I don't think the quest capitalised on it in a good manner. Furthermore I find almost all areas in this quest to be filled to the brink with traps (as in, the enemy trap.) This feels lazy if you ask me, and I'm personally not a big fan of trap dodging gameplay. It doesn't help that level 1 already makes the trap dodging fairly challenging... and it just gets more difficult from there on out.

The quest also have audio issues: Many SFX have crackles at the end of them, and some midi tracks don't loop properly. (Caves) Might seem like nitpicking, but honestly it affects the play experience. At least the music choices are fitting and good.

Another example of padding/tedious backtracking is when you have to unlock the first node to enter the wastelands. If you accidentally step on the teleporter in the cave before you solve it, you get warped to another cave in the wastelands. This is problematic when you realise that you'll have to go all the way around through the swamp and forest again to get back to where you need to be. And those teleporters are clearly placed as an obstacle and are fairly easy to get pushed into by the ropes.


I'd like to say that I'd want to finish this quest, and I might still yet do if it gets updated. But from what I have seen so far this quest just has too much that either needlessly aggravate or bore me. Some of it is small stuff, some of it is not. There aren't any extreme flaws in the quest, but the little things just starts adding up over time. And without any knowledge that these issue lessen over time, I can't really see myself turning on the quest again in it's current state. Let me know if you update it, and will give it another spin. On that note, if you need aid in identifying problems more in-depth, let me know and we can sit down with this some time and look over the design.[/spoiler][/spoiler]


[spoiler=Tale of Lyria (v1.6)]It wasn't bad, but it wasn't very great either. It's a fairly mediocre bog standard quest that is very obviously someone's first project. Some things drag on and take longer then they need too, and there are many oversights and examples of tedium. But overall, it should be completely playable experience and I have no doubt in my mind that most people would enjoy it to some degree.

Looking forward to the author taking what he/she learned from this project and making a more impressive quest in the future.

Thanks for the feedback! Do you have any specific examples of where the quest went wrong, so I could avoid such mistakes in the future?

A lot of the content is just very uninteresting, many of the later dungeons just drag on without actually providing anything new. Unless you can provide an interesting experience for it all then less is always more. There are also minor examples of tedium all over the quest, to give a few: The mirror robe in the central room of the final level that keeps re-spawning, enemies placed in ways so that they block hookshot points you need to use, no quick means to get across the overworld. Nothing game breaking, but these things add up.

All of the block puzzles in the game are also very same-y and very simple, so I don't think they add much, the fact that you have to solve them every time you need to go through the room also adds tedium.

*shrug* I'm sure you can figure out more avenues of improvements if you look over and analyse your design.

[/spoiler]


[spoiler=Beyond Hyrule]Okay, so this was a thing. It's a decent outing of outlands, but it's far from perfect.

For a quest that tried to replicate outlands but on the same time modernise most aspects it only succeeds on a surface level. Most of the oddities of what makes outlands stand out simply aren't here, such as the wacky enemy sprites or outlandish dungeon structure and order. (Outlands often forced you to leave dungeons half finished and come back later). Yet, some of those aspects live on in the optional items that can be found in earlier levels if you backtrack. Thematically the quest kinda falls a bit flat compared to outlands too. It's not that outlands is amazing, but it had some wow moments, such as entering level 9 and seeing that the entire dungeon was (or was supposed to) made entirely out of gold.

Can this quest stand on it's own merits? Eh, possibly. This is not a bad quest, there are few things that stand out as problematic, and the problems that do exist get rather predictable after a while. For example most dungeons while short, suffer from tedium when it comes to the flow. You're often asked to go through the same rooms several times and it bogs the experience down a bit. Dungeon design in general is rather mediocre, the only level that stands out to me is level 9 but even that is not an amazing level. Since it's a breath of fresh air compared to all dungeons that came before it though it stands out.

If you don't mind playing a fairly generic quest then this one is fine. But since it has no selling features other than being an outlands remake, it kinda makes it hard for me to recommend it. But if you do feel like playing it, it's an okay experience, there are certainly much poorer quests out there. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Fight for Freedom]Meh, a very short rather mediocre quest. A 3x3 overworld and around 15 or so screens worth of dungeon. It's not bad, but I wouldn't recommend it. It's practically a waste of time to download it, given that it took me literally 10 minutes to complete it, yes I did time that.

There are better more interesting quests out there, go play those instead. [/spoiler]

[Lunaria]

Old reviews part 2: 2 stars - 0 stars
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Reviews:

[spoiler=To The Top]Okay, so, to the top is in general a fairly good/okay quest. It focuses mostly on puzzle concepts and gimmicks more so than anything. When I went into this quest I was expecting to be blown away by how amazing it was given what I had heard about it, but sadly that did not end up being the case.

I feel that most floor, though not all, overstay their welcome. The floor concepts get old and tiring way before you're even done with it. There are also several puzzle mechanics that are introduced fairly early on, then repeated ad-infinitum throughout the quest. Some of those are manageable, such as the the pit rooms where you need to fill in the missing floor with the yellow cubes to makes yourself a bridge. Other ones like the timed step triggers that show up are just frustrating, some of them almost seem to require perfect movement, not even joking. They would maybe not be so bad if they had less aggressive timing, but it is what it is.

And while the floors drag on, none do so more than the infamous floor 9. In the grand scheme of things I don't think floor 9 takes THAT much more time to complete in contrast to floor 10, but it's just the things you have to do feel like extreme levels of padding. Floor 9 also features some of the worst cases of sub-dungeons in the entire quest..., but also some of the best. Indeed, To The Top is not lacking in good content, there is a fair bit of it. And floor 10 genuinely feels like a great final dungeon that would fit into any quest (aside from what you need to do to find the map).

I also want to throw out there that I definitively think that To The Top is a technological marvel, some of these things in this quest would have been insane to do in ZC 2.1. And I guess if you where there for the time and place when this quest first came out, that would have mattered way more. But I also think that the knowledge that this is a technological marvel don't really affect the screen-to-screen gameplay much. And at the end of the day I feel that this is one of the quests that would benefit the most from getting an updated 2.5 version. Although, in many ways that's really a catch-22, because the very reason that it was made in 2.1 is what makes it special.


My problem with coming to a conclusion for a quest like this is that there are some genuine good stuff in it, but the things I find bad are so bad that they kind of completely ruin the experience. So I guess what I'm trying to say is: Do try out the quest, but don't go in with too high expectations, and realise that a lot of mechanics in the quest makes it very dated. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Project Snow (A Tribute to Yeto's Quest)]I'll be going through some parts in detail, so if you want to avoid spoilers then this review isn't for you.
Metconst notice: This quest is VERY dependent on knowledge, so if you want to experience it for yourself then you really don't want ANY spoilers!


Talking about this quest in a critical sense is problematic. Often when it comes to outlier products like this it's often that critic gets hand-waved away as any perceived issues are either because that person doesn't "get it" or that it's just not for them. And while certainly, those scenarios could very well happen, but that does not mean that the critic does not hold any water, so disregarding any complaints from that perspective is banal to me. I'll admit first-hand that this quest isn't for me, though I play a lot of quests that aren't strictly speaking for me. But I don't think that's weird, this is a product that has such a narrow demographic that it aims for that practically most people coming in to play it will fall outside of it.

I struggled for a long time while playing this quest to find a value for it, but there certainly is one. If the goal of the quest author was to take the core ideas from Yeto's Quest, improve upon them, and then release a quest with wider appeal..., then the author has already succeeded. And I'll admit, I have never played Yeto's Quest, but I have played this, so I know that it has already reached a much wider audience and appeal then the quest it was inspired from has ever experienced. But to me? That's not good enough.


Would I recommend this quest? No, I probably wouldn't, not in it's current state. Is the quest hard? Yeah, no doubt. Does it have some neat mechanics? Yep, that too. Was it an enjoyable or interesting experience to play through the quest? Now that, is where the jury is still out. Because to me "being hard" don't necessarily have any impact on good I find a game.

Subverting and playing with an audience's expectation is a very difficult task, so it's very nice to see that this quest actually does that part right in several scenarios. The Crystal switches come especially to mind, the green one first was both hilarious and interesting to run into, then the second red one played it straight, and then the blue one throws another curve ball. It's interesting because there is a build-up, but the pay-off it's at all what you expect it to be. The green one is seen before you reach it, yet it turns out it's not quite what you thought it was. But since the red one works you still get established with the idea that this is an mechanic that exists in the game. So when you reach the blue one then it keeps getting more and more build-up as something necessary, then later one it is seen more as a practicality if it could be reached. By the end of the game when you figure out it's gimmick then it's very interesting and even a bit funny in hindsight.

The hammer pegs also serve this purpose. There are a lot of heart containers spread around the world, each of them seemingly requiring some specific item to get, and yet when you finally get it then you realise that the build-up didn't at all have the pay-off that you thought it did. This also happens with the mountain area, you can constantly see it from near the start of the quest, and yet when you finally reach it then it's not quite what you expected it to be. But that's fine, because it's still exactly what it needs to be, and it still serves a purpose and have a proper pay-off. At these high points is where the quest truly shines, where it really does something quite interesting.

But that's not most of the quest. Most of this quest is running around for literally hours trying random shit until you find what you're supposed to do, and I do mean literally, this fairly short quest took me around 15 to 17 hours to beat. It's not as if there aren't any interesting puzzles, but what you need to do is often the last thing you try. And to me, I find that to be poor design. It means that there isn't enough information there for the player to grasp at. Strictly speaking, having a puzzle game last for 15 hours is a number, but most of that time wasn't spent logically considering puzzles; it was spent attempting random things in hopes of finding a solution. Sure, some of the solutions makes sense in hindsight, but that does not mean that there is enough information there beforehand to solve it. And, I think a lot of these things could have been adapted better if the quest had a wider testing group to provide feedback.

Sure, it makes logical sense that a wallmaster dumps you in the prison, and yes, it does play with the players expectation of what would happen if a wallmaster gets you. But there is nothing in the game that'd suggest that you need to be grabbed by a wallmaster other than one out of several yet to be accessed areas. (Which also looks like you can access if you have another item that you eventually end up getting later). And this is just one example of when the quest does this, it happens fairly often. The problem with these things are that if you need to do one to progress then you can be walking around for hours without any sense of direction or making any progress. And to me? That's not really compelling gameplay, because it's not that I have a puzzle that is to hard for me to solve, it's that I don't even know what the puzzle is in the first place. To contrast, the blue key next to the crystal switch is a much better puzzle, because you actually know it's a puzzle by the point in which you need it. So then you can spend your time figuring out what would be the solution, it's not necessarily what you expect, but it is a solution you can figure out via train of thought, rather than aimlessly walking everywhere.

But then that's not even the only way this quest is hard. For a quest which has a main focus on solving puzzles there is a heck of a lot of hard combat. And the weird thing about it is that not only is there, the difficulty curve is crap. To illustrate I have made this chart in MS paint:


Legend:
1. First boss.
2. Having to deal with enemies within the dungeon.
3. Starting to get the good combat gear, blue tunic and the sword on the roof, red candle etc.
4. Second boss.

Generally you'll want a curve that is somewhat like or close to example 1 or 2. You don't need to, but you should probably have a good thought through reasons for why you don't stick to a curve like this if you want to deviate from it. Project Snow's curve is more like what I drew out here. Strictly speaking the combat outside of bosses only gets easier the longer you play the game. One you start having to deal with the various enemies inside the castle then there is a jump in the curve again, but generally it just goes down the further you get in the quest. And I find this very problematic, because it really doesn't mesh well with the other mechanics of the quest, and it only adds frustration for the first half. Yet, combat outside bosses turns into more of joke the further you get in the quest. And I just can't grasp why this was done other than maybe to emulate Yeto's quest, and sure it may have succeeded if that was the aim, but is it good? No, I don't think so.

The bosses are also really hard for the wrong reasons. Apparently an update dropped after I got the quest that nerfed the bosses health and damage. But to me, that sounds like a band-aid solution that doesn't actually solve the problems with the bosses. The first boss is not hard because it deals a lot of damage and kills you easily, it's hard because it doesn't give you nearly enough reaction time to deal with the incoming threats, almost as if you were somehow supposed to know how the boss function before you get to it. Because there clearly isn't enough time or space to learn how it functions on the spot, as should be evident by the fact that I died around 10 to 15 times before I managed to beat him. And it's not as if this even makes any sense either, the boss fight is repeated with a harder version later on, so why isn't this one more lenient and actually give players the space needed to learn? Again, I feel this could have been adapted or avoided with a larger testing/feedback team. (Which, admittedly, is not necessarily easy to get). The final boss is really epic and I like it as a concept on the paper, much like the first boss, but it suffers from similar problems. This is a short list of changes I'd personally make to it rather than damage/health nerf:

[spoiler=List]1. Remove the bottom row of complete spikes in the purple head phase, or have a few holes in this row. Due to the scrolling the spirit may not even be visible, and it's just completely miss-able. And if you can't see that..., well, this phase becomes an impossible mess of figuring out what you need to do.
2. Slightly slower velocity on the ice spikes. The creator will probably find this silly (but then he/she has foreknowledge), but if you're too close when it starts to shoot then it's impossible to dodge. And even aside from that I feel that just a slight increase in the amount of time you have to react would be good.
3. Less leading on the fire head once it starts shooting. It changes the direction it blows the fire mid attack if you move, it's not that big of a deal, but this is more for the edge cases in where you can get stuck in the corner without space to dodge. (Which is not a problem with the fire per-say, since you can shield it..., but the other heads can follow up on that).
4. Removal of elements in the last phase, it's just pure chaos. Depending on the theme I'd go for I'd either remove the heads or make the fire much less frequently, or remove the jars/bombs dropped from above as well as the bubbles (jinxing enemy).
5. In between heads make the amount of hearts that drop set instead of random. Nothing stings more than getting fucked over by RNG.
6. Possibly add in a late game shop somewhere that sells a potion that actually heals some life, idk.[/spoiler]

And that's just the abstract puzzles and the combat. The quest also has a large amount of walk-trough walls and bomb-able walls, most of which have no or next to no hinting towards them. Some of them are clever, which is fine, but those often have secondary elements to them. Such as the pushable statue on the second floor, or the lockblock that seems to do nothing on the first floor. But here's the thing, most of them aren't like that. And I just don't think it's a compelling game mechanic to have players randomly push up against every wall, because that's the gameplay that this design makes players do.



On the flip side, the graphics in this quest are fairly great and competent. Palettes are great, tile-work is great, I don't think I saw any instances of style clash. The music in this quest is also fairly good. Personally I'm not sold in seeing midi files in quests these days, but the songs are at least decent and they all fit the scenarios in which they are played. So generally this quest has fairly good aesthetics.


I can go on, (such as how the lockblock as used, etc) but I think I have made my general views at least somewhat clear on how I feel about the design of this quest. It has a lot of potential, but there is just a lot of crap here that stands in the way of a truly enjoyable experience. For most people, this quest is just going to be an exercise in frustration, so I can't really in good faith recommend it.


</420noproofreading>[/spoiler]


[spoiler=A New Adventure]In the middle of level 3, I don't think I'll continue this quest, it's a bit too plain for me.

The EXP system and the scripted items I have found are all interesting, but that's about where I draw the line on interesting things. I have explored most of the main(?) overworld and completed both extra dungeons inside level 1 and 2. The overworld design is very plain and uninspired, with hard locks directly in front of the levels, requiring the item from the previous one. The palette is the plain NES one aside from some minor alternate usages. There is new different music in this quest, but there does not seem to be a lot of it, and it lacks in variation.

The level design is the biggest flaw of this quest, the dungeon designs so far don't provide any interesting challenges nor explore any interesting themes or ideas, same with the overworld. The quest has some things of interest, like the leveling system and some scripted items. However, neither of those two things can hold me over through the level design which I find wholly uninteresting, and the lack of variety and inspiration in music and graphical theme doesn't help.[/spoiler]


[spoiler=Fun in the Sun 2]I have beaten level one through four at this point, though not in chronological order, so I think I have gotten a fair sample of the quest so far. While I intend to keep playing this quest more I have seen enough to solidify my opinion on where I stand on the quest, I don't think there is anything past the point of where I am in the quest currently that could make me consider the quest worse or better than how I see it currently. (But if I do run into something like that I will go back an adjust my review, of course).

Most of the content in this quest is fairly average, there is certain things that stick out as being good but I haven't ran into any content that amazed me. From that perspective I would have rated the quest a 3 (which is "good" in PZCs scale), labelled it decent and moved on with my day. Sadly, thing's aren't that simple, because this quest have a number of rather poorly designed aspects. I'll just go through a few that comes to mind but I doubt I remember them all:

The palette in the plains area burns my eyes, likewise it did the same for several viewers on my stream. The brightness on the ground really need to be tuned down a bit, probably the trees too. And while not as big of a problem in the mountains, the ground there is on the edge of what I find acceptable in regards to brightness. It's going to be a hard sell to make me play a game that physically hurts my eyes, and I doubt this is a problem that is exclusive for me.

The overworld secrets are overall garbage. Some of them are a bit clever but the wast majority of the secrets seem to expect you to bomb every plausible wall, burn every bush, play the whistle on every screen, etc. There are seldom hints for any of the secrets on the overworld. Perhaps this design methodology flew back when Zelda 1 was released, but that was also a game that expected you to take notes and share with your classmates as to collectively find them all. But that's not really how people play games these days, and I doubt that was the intention when you made this quest. Fact of the matter is that most players think it's a cope-out to have to look up all the secrets in a help thread. And that's not even starting on retarded crap like randomly hammering a rock without any indication that it would do something..., on a screen that already have another secret, I'm sorry but that's garbage design.

While there might be a hint for it somewhere in the quest, I had to be informed by one of my viewers when I got to level 6 that, no, the cross is in-fact in level 1..., in a screen not on the map. That's a very easily miss-able item that is crucial to progressing in the quest. That's a very awkward design choice since I think most people who have missed it would conclude that the cross is closer in the game to level 6, if not inside it, when they run into cloaked enemies.

The level 1 boss is hard for the wrong reasons. The bosses in level two through four are all easier, which is kind of awkward. The reason the boss in level 1 is hard is due to the traps in the boss room, there is just next to no room to dodge, and it honestly feels like victory over that boss was determined more by RNG than any skill my on part. (Given that the boss moves and shoots randomly, and I managed to get a patterned where it did not shoot a whole lot on my second go at it).

Level three over relies on the "enemies always returns" flag. It seems to be on for every single room. I did this dungeon after level four, and yes, it is easier. But it's also extremely tedious if you happens to die. Honestly, if a few screens didn't have that flag it would have been a much more enjoyable experience. The bombchues also seem a bit buggy on the latest build of ZC (exploding even if they don't collide with link), but that's not really this quests fault so I can't blame it for that.

The quest starts you of without a wooden shield..., yet most enemies and enemy placement early on seems to suggest that it was intended that you have one. So goal number one grinding up enough rupees to afford one (and finding the shop that sells it). It just comes across as kind of awkward that the quests starts of with a money grinding.



I think this quest could be good, maybe even great for the right crowd. But currently it's stifled with some awkward design choices that's really holding it back. There are some good things though, the music selection is great and really gives that retro wibe, and some of the dungeon designs are quite interesting and a bit clever. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=The Hero of Dreams]I never got around to finish writing my review for this quest. So I'll just make a TL;DR snippet so I can provide my rating.

The short gist of it is that it drags on for way to long with a lot of padded content that don't add much. The narrative is some of the worst narrative I have ever seen in a quest, and is extremely cringe worthy. The gameplay itself ranges from mediocre to bad for the most part, but it's not too hard to get through the quest given the insane amount of heart refill ponds, some times even multiple ones in the same dungeon.

I don't think this quest has anything that isn't offered elsewhere in better packaging.[/spoiler]


[spoiler=Nargad's Trail: Crystal Crusades]A lot of work was clearly put into this quest, but to me that ended up meaning very little.

The narrative is very uninteresting and non-engaging with cardboard cut-outs instead of actual characters. The plot follows a world trotting adventure for pieces of a macguffin that sees you interacting with a bunch of NPCs. Yet none have much of anything interesting to say and the plot itself is so standard and predictable that I have to scratch my head and wonder if the intention was to make a parody of those type of stories.

Style clash don't bother everyone, but it bothers the hell out of me, so no plus points in regards to graphics. Tilework on screens is generally not that interesting for the most part either. Palettes are ranging from mediocre to good.

There are some neat sound effect things, such as footsteps on various terrain. But the inclusion of those type of things just highlights the exclusion of other details, such as sand in the desert or rain in the swamp. Music is okay but forgettable.

Level design ranges from mediocre to bad so far, with most of the overworld and the first mini dungeon being mediocre, to the first macguffin dungeon being bad. Resources management is also badly implemented: You start with a wallet that can carry nowhere near the amount of money you get. Another example would be the fairly often usage of bombs, yet the first bomb bag is really small and enemies drop bombs VERY rarely, and when they do you only get one. So basically, if you run out, you have to track back to town to buy more.


Overall there is a lot of things in this quest that makes me not like it, and practically nothing that makes me want to play more. If I'm not engaged after around 3 hours than I doubt I ever will be. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Mega Man: Link Edition]For what it is, I'd not say that this quest is terrible. In fact, it did a lot of things better than I expected it to. The problem is that it's just not good enough to justify playing. The platforming physics in side-view ZC is pretty darn bad, so all platforming just becomes awkward. And in general, if I wanted to get a nes style megaman experience then there are plenty of games like that, both the original 6, then a gazillion of ROM hacks of those games, as well as some more modern stuff that follows the same formula like MM9 and 10, etc.

The level design was just kind of boring and not very interesting, same when it comes to the graphics.

The boss fights that I experienced were in general poor and featured either attacks that you couldn't dodge, or attacks that were very easy to dodge (Wizzrobe man comes to mind...). Furthermore, a lot of features that makes megaman games function are missing: You don't get your health and ammo back in between missions, bosses have no health bar so it's impossible to figure out if the weapon you're using is it's weakness, etc.

It's not a horrible quest, but after half an hour there was nothing that made me want to keep playing it. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Shadow Wars II: Dark Side of the Triforce]Fairly poor quest from what I played. I'll admit, I did not play further than into level 2, but from what I played the quest raised a number of red flags, on top of not being very enjoyable. A random door that warps you back to the entrance in level 1 for example, it's just annoying. Furthermore level 1 had an out of bounds area that you find in regular gameplay, but it seems half intended as there is a joke shop there... but the screen with the joke shop is all kinds of broken and you can't get out of it (forcing you to F6->continue).

I didn't see any compelling gameplay or other things of interest that would keep me playing, but I did see a bunch of things that is just all around bad. I wouldn't recommend this quest, and it's only for people who can put up with similar things as to what I described, because from what it seemed, things did not get better. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Link's Quest for the Hookshot 1]Okay, I'll probably not get around to finishing this quest any time soon. I mean, I probably will, I made it to the spoilers: dark world, so I do want to finish this eventually.

But this quest is just crap, that it's rated so highly amazes me. The overworld design has to be some of the worst garbage I have played in a zelda classic quest in recent time. It's basically just a bunch of terrible mazes, but they are also linear and full of garbage mechanics. (The pit one comes to mind as especially awful). And the worst part is that they are so linear, and there are no short-cuts that you just keep having to walk through that tedious crap should you ever need to backtrack. The tile-work in the overworld is generally awful too. The bright pink forest and the blue forest both stand out as being especially terrible in this regard. But it's not as if the dessert or pit maze are that much better.

The dungeons aren't that great either, many features awful mechanics, or weird obtuse ideas on what you need to do to progress. There is also a fair bit of referential humour that even when it wasn't dated, it probably went above most peoples heads, and even so the jokes aren't that good in the first place.

Like, overall, there are a crap ton of bad design choices, but since I know the author has gotten much better since this quest I don't see the point of bringing them all up, it serves to benefit no one. I wouldn't recommend this quest, it's tosh in quest form, but hey, that's just my theory: A QUEST THEORY! #Referential_Humour #DatingYourJokes #It'snotevenfunny [/spoiler]


[spoiler=The Island of Yeto]This quest is all sorts of train wreck in many ways. After playing it for around 10-12 hours and still not finding anything I find in the quest that I could point to and say "yeah, this is good", that kind of makes it bad. This quest is not completely awful, I have played worse, but I have not found any reasons as to why I wasted all these hours in it.

I decided to play this because I wanted to get some ideas of what inspired Project Snow (or as it was renamed, the Tribute to Yeto's quest). I know this was made afterwards as more of an answer to that, but if anything that only made me more interested. Yeto's quest is famously known for being rather bad, and given that this claimed to be better (and it certainly looked better from the screenshots) it got my hopes up.

But none of the things that made Project Snow good really exists here. This quest is a confusing mess with inconsistent rules and hints, if you can call them that, for things that even in hindsight barely make sense, let alone when you first see it. From my understanding the idea of figuring these things out is a huge appeal for some people, but I just can't relate to it myself. Walking around randomly for hours until you find that one (or two) things that you missed and couldn't figure out is not exactly enjoyable, and it's not qualitative hours of gameplay for me. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Myst Island]This quest is absolutely horrid when it comes to flow. It attempts to present itself as a fairly open ended experience where you can do things in different order, but it's actually a very linear experience..., except, the game gives no indication of where you need to go at any given point. And figuring out what parts of the game you can tackle now with your current gear is an exercise in frustration management.

There is also quite a few of questionable design choices, such as that you have to leave and go buy keys in the other side of the world to progress at times. Honestly, this quest is not worth the time to play based on the design issues alone, and that does not even mention the fact that the quest has a few bugs as well as several spelling/wording issues. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Hylean Revolution Episode 1 - Ganons Assault]Some effort was clearly put into this quest, and with a fair amount of more work put into it then it could probably be a decent quest. However, from what I played it's pretty darn trashy, and I can't stand playing it anymore.

First of all, the difficulty balancing in this quest is fairly bad, a curve seem to be non-existent. The quest also loves to start you of with 1 heart (out of three) whenever you die, which is kinda bad since most things will one shoot you from that position. The overworld also has terrible flow, which can partially be attributed to the terrible secrets. Nothing visually suggest that throwing a boomerang at a random tree would do anything. I found the guy who tells you where the sword is after I already found the sword..., and even then it was only by accident.

There are also plenty of other bugs and bad design choices. Most cubes in level 1 seem pushable, but no proper undercombo seem to exist. In one room it does..., but it's one of those cycling tiles that leads to floor falling away. Which I'm quite sure is unintended seeing as the direct warp goes to screen 80 and you're stuck in the wall there. Furthermore there is a wall of statues early in the dungeon that you need to bomb..., that respawn every time you leave the room so if you're dying you'll have to use another bomb to get past it. And let's, of course, not forget the room with insta-kill spikes everywhere that you can walk into, but have no way of knowing that it's going to be death.

Graphically the quest looks like a mess, tiles in random CSets that don't mix with the ground colour everywhere, etc. This quest doesn't look pretty, not at all.


I can certainly see this as someone's first project that they put some effort into, but there is a lot of problems with this quest that just doesn't make it enjoyable to play. I wouldn't recommend this quest. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Aidan's Adventure]This quest features at best very generic level design. But it also have plenty of bad stuff like walk-through walls on the overworld that you have to check everywhere for. This quest doesn't do anything good, and it certainly doesn't do anything interesting. It also has quite a few bugs and other bad things, like a maze path in the first room of level 2, no dungeon exits other than the triforce room, etc.

I can't think of any good reason as to why anyone would want to play this. [/spoiler]


[spoiler=Tropicana Island]Definitely deserved the feature box slot, would feature again! 10/10!!!! For more in-depth thoughts see my video.
Metconst notice: PureZC.net has a feature box that rotates between suggested quests, at the time I was skeptical of if it was actually used in a good fashion (and at the time of writing this I still am).[/spoiler]


[spoiler=Shadow Providence]This quest looks terrible, has fairly bad design, and on top of that is so full of bugs that it becomes unplayable. The final drop was when I entered a house/tower thing and both the staircase up to the next floor and the door out of the building were broken warps..., but you also continued there so you'd be permanently stuck unless you want to lose all progress since the last save.

In short, this quest is unplayable.[/spoiler]


[spoiler=DayDay]I actually played through this when I was gathering ideas for NightNight, and man, this quest sure is something, (and by something I mean complete garbage). If it wasen't evident by the screenshots this quest looks like crap, it was meant to be crap, and plays like crap.

So yeah, find something better to play..., no WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! TAKE YOUR MOUSE AWAY FROM THE DOWNLOAD BUTTON, DON'T DO THIS TO YOURSELF!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
[User was Banned for this post][/spoiler]

[Quote58]

Okay I have no problem with you posting your reviews, but why on earth would they not go in the Zelda Construction part of the forum?

[Lunaria]

@Quote58 I was thinking about it, but to me the logic I drew was that Zelda construction was more for the making of zelda hacks, etc, not necessarily playing them. I felt that reviews/thought pieces on games would fit better on the gaming board since it's more related to playing games than making them. But idk, the thread could always be moved if it's in the wrong place.

[Zero One]

I'm fine with leaving the reviews here. It's not like Zelconst actually has activity.

[Lunaria]

So, I recently played through Turtles Hate Candy by HeroOfFire (if that name rings a bell it's because he(?) is the one who is been making the ZC randomizers).

So, I recall playing a rather old version of this ages ago..., and I didn't like it. But that was then and this is now, the quest has probably changed a lot since then. For one, the quest now features a (optional) randomizer mode for those who don't want a pre-structured game (Read: me, in the case of this). I haven't 100% completed this quest entirely yet, since I'm still lacking a bunch of items on my status screen..., and my item completion rate is 101% at the start of the post game dungeon(s?).

Overall I think this quest is pretty good, it has some interesting dungeon ideas and structures, and oh god is it enjoyable to play a randomizer that isn't just on the Z1 overworld..., and isn't outlands crap. It's not by any means perfect, in fact I'd say the start of the quest is perhaps the worst. Level 1 is by far the worst and most boring dungeon in the entire quest, and the mixing of wall types also makes it the most ugly one IMO. However, dungeons like level 4 more than makes up for it, assuming you get that far. Like most of HeroOfFire's randomizers it's very easy to simply get overpowered a bit in, this happened sooner rather than later in my playthrough since I got all boomerang upgrades near the start. However, I can tell that at least some work and thought was put into it this time since level 8 and 9 actually do scale up and become difficult despite the gear you have.

That's not to say the quest is particularly difficult though, the combat is in general fairly tame compared to most ZC quests, but that's not really a bad thing if you ask me. It makes it more accessible to people who aren't hardcore into ZC quests. Furthermore, the difficulty fits the relaxed and "fun" theme of the quest. Most "puzzles" aren't that hard to figure out either, but for everything else there is always the lens of truth.

While the plot could be fairly considered a throw away one, the theme, item descriptions, and dialogue in the quest is actually fairly witty and enjoyable, and I'll admit that I chuckled a couple of times. It's not something that takes itself too serious and that's probably for the best when the plot of the game is that turtles have invaded and the only solution is to kill them with candy. :P

Graphically the quest looks fine, the tileset isn't necessarily my cup of tea but it works. The only places in the quest that stand out as looking ugly to me are level 1 and the current post game dungeon I'm in. Tilework and structural design of the overworld ranges from good to generic, nothing standing out as bad nor exceptional. Palettes are fairly straightforward and don't do anything far out there for the most part. Some more interesting ramps could probably have been chosen to spice things up and look pretty, but I can appreciate the approach to look simple and be easy to look at.

Nothing stands out as bad in the audio design, music choices are fitting and works for the most part. No idea what the overworld song is but it's really good IMO and definitively fits the tone of the quest. Some additional midi's for the various overworld sub-areas might have been nice though, would have provided a sense of variation.


Overall I'd say this is a good quest and I could probably see myself recommending this to anyone who'd be willing to try a ZC quest. It's large in scope to feature what feels like a complete experience, but it's also not too difficult. Furthermore, the inclusion of the randomizer option built in makes the quest have plenty of extra replay value.

Warning: One dungeon does feature flashing colours in excess, so if you have eye problems this might not be for you.

[MetroidMst]

It's not like Zelconst actually has activity.

Maybe because things like this aren't getting posted in there. :P

[Lunaria]

I thought Zelconst was mostly created for MoN to post about and handle his alttp editor as well as a place for a alttp hacking scene to grow. AFAIK not much have been happening with black magic in quite some time, and from my understanding alttp hackers are hanging around elsewhere anyway.

[Zero One]

It does say Zelconst is also for ZC, so if you want to move it, that's fine, I can do that. But Zelconst is pretty dead because nobody hacks Zelda here.

[Lunaria]

Antiquity is a very old fashion quest, if someone showed it to me and told me it was a NES Zelda 1 hack, I could see myself believing it. The goal was clearly to try to emulate a true Zelda 1 style experience, while still innovating where needed.

The quest feature a couple of new enemies and a complete set of new bosses, but they all make sense and fit in well with the old ones. It uses tracker music and have a couple of new songs in the place of some of the old ones. Personally I liked all of the new things, the new bosses are especially nice since I always found the bosses in Zelda 1 to be some of the weaker parts of it and the new ones fit in very well with the idea of a NES game/hack.

Just like Zelda 1 this quest features a First and a Second quest, the latter which you can access via naming your file something specific. What I have played through was the first quest, and as such that's what I'll talk about.


Now, overall the quest is fairly good, but the dungeons definitively stands out as the best part. They are all cleverly designed and very often offer the player multiple ways to clear them. It's also very rare that a previous levels item is required for a later one, this means you can play the dungeons in a fairly free-form order. (Here's mine: 1-2-3-4-8-7-6-5-9) You'll generally never feel overwhelmed or asked to do something unreasonable either, the only thing that bothered me in regards to the dungeons was the level 9 boss, which had a patterned that seemed to suggest that the player almost have to tank it.

The overworld for the quest works, but the further you get from the dungeons the more the flaws of the quest starts to show. I'm certain a lot of choices and directions of this quest was taken in order to stick as close as possible to the Zelda 1 formula, but I can't help but to think that throwing out some of the things that don't work would have been for the better. Bombing every mountain on the overworld and burning every bush was never compelling in Zelda 1, some sort of visual cue would have gone a long way to make this better. And while the music that is in the quest is good, there is still a lack of variety here, one overworld song and two dungeon songs (one which is reserved for level 9 only), does not really make for a varied soundtrack. The warping system is as clunky as ever and continuing starts you of with three hearts no matter what your max is, this combines nastily with the fact that if you save in a dungeon you'll be put back on the overworld. 

And while the dungeons are nice I can't really describe the overworld as anything other than dull. It has a a new original layout and sports a couple of various themes to it..., the problem is that they are all the same ones as Zelda 1. I personally think it's lacking any real new ideas, some new coat of paint and perhaps some other themes to it would have done wonders. It also features door repair rooms, which is really something that practically does not but discourage exploration. I'm also not quite satisfied with the idea that you need to grind up 250 rupees to get a whistle in order to complete the game. Sure, in practices you needed to get the blue ring to beat Zelda 1, but it was still optional and up to you when you wanted to get it. Here it is a hard requirement that grinds progress to a halt. I didn't do level five last because I couldn't find it, I did it last because getting the whistle was to big of a pain. This holds even more true when you consider that you can still only carry a max of 255(?) rupees, meaning that if you save up for it you might end up missing out on rupees between the point of being able to afford it, and the point of actually getting it. (And leaving in the middle of a dungeon to get it could be impractical).


Overall I liked this quest, I just think it has some short sights and some issues with choice to stick too closely to the Zelda 1 structure. Throwing out what doesn't work and replacing it with something better would have done wonders for this I think.