428 replies to this topic

[ShadowTiger]

Thanks for the lovely post a few posts ago, Mitsy.  A thoroughly enjoyable read.  I know that may harbor a 25% doubt here and there, but I'd personally consider it a landmark of the modern era when it comes to gaming revolutions.  I wouldn't even dare to use a word so demeaning as "impressed" because it couldn't even touch the very edges of the raw power that your efforts have so lovingly and diligently produced.  Everyone I've ever displayed the quest to in video form was similarly impressed.  If only they knew the age of the engine under the hood.

 

Another thing you might want to add to the list of potential bug-fixes is "Clue in Tower of Seline room where Whirlwind Song is required." Although there is a Music Note on the floor, I'm pretty sure that the first place you actually have to use that song and some people might conclude as MeleeWizard did that it only warps you to the beginning of the dungeon.

I actually second, third, and fourth this.  It's one of the areas that people very often find themselves stymied.  The Whirlwind / Block All mechanic is extremely rare and unknown, and isn't one of those things that would make a lot of sense initially.  I'd even go so far as to say that that bottom-right room in Seline's Tower might need even more of a spoiler.  Maybe a drawing on the back wall of the room featuring a whirlwind and a block all block with an arrow pointing from the wind to the block.  That would more than do it.

 

Yeah, most of the puzzles I find myself stymied over all revolve block all blocks, come to think about it.

[studkid]

Hey Mitsukara.  I just made a full playlist for my streams here.  

 

I also was playing a bit more today and ended up breaking the game again.  I somehow glitched myself into some sort of boss rush area through the rafting minigame, although the map was extremely broken.  It seemed like I glitched into the placeholder rooms (the bottom few rooms like the basic cave layout).  Here's were this happened.

 

Spoiler

And in case you didn't already see this, there is a bug that makes it so you are locked out of Hyrule if you save and quit in the room Zelda is locked in.  This should have been obvious to me that is probably wouldn't be a good idea to save and quit here but since I didn't see anyway to escape I decided to save and quit to come back to it later.  I have the video showing this here.  This was probably more my fault for exiting the game during a cutscene though.

Edited by studkid, 24 June 2017 - 11:51 AM.

[naal]

What do the last two whistle songs do?

[Mitsukara]

I'm not completely certain which two you mean by 'last', so I'll list what they all do:

Wind's Whistle:

• As Link, create a whirlwind going from west to east.
• As Zelda, create a whirlwind going from north to south.

(Whirlwinds usually just send you to the start of a map, but they have a special usage in the Tower of Seline.)

 

Secret Toot:

Activates certain secrets (usually only on labelled tiles) and defeats the River Devil in Hyrule.

(The power bracelet can also be used to pass the River Devil.)

 

Sun's Song:

• As Link, sets the time of day to 1 (day).
• As Zelda, sets the time of day to 8 (night).

(Optional song.)

 

Flying Melody:

Warp around the overworld in Calatia or Hyrule.

(Optional song.)

 

Song of Storms:

• As Link, make it start raining.
• As Zelda, make it stop raining.

(The main purpose of this song is to enter the Triple Eye Rock palace.)

 

Epona's Song:

Used to obtain Epona in Marui Palace.

(That's all; I kinda meant to add some sort of other use, and never did.)

 

Wisdom Circle:
Used to enter the final chamber of the final dungeon, after getting through everything else.

(Obtained inside the final dungeon.)

(Also, it seems I labelled this one as having different functions for different characters... and then forgot to actually have any such thing. Good job, me.)

 

Light Prelude:
Warp between the Calatia and Hyrule overworlds instantly.

(Optional song.)

Edited by Mitsukara, 03 July 2017 - 03:47 AM.

[C-Dawg]

I have not had time to play this quest myself yet, but I've been watching MeleeWizard's Lets Play, and I wanted to stop by to tell you: this stuff's fantastic, yo.

 

The programming is great, and shows off how open development on ZClassic can actually be at this point. That's cool, but that's not even what I was impressed by. What really knocked my socks off is this: You went through all the classic Zelda games, plucked items, levels, and enemies from all of them, crammed them into a sack, and shook it up. That should have resulted in a confusing, muddled, unplayable mess. It should have resulted in an ugly mis-mash of sprites from different games.  Levels mixed up between overhead and side view making no sense. It should suck, and suck hard.

 

But it works.  You should have poured poop out of that messy bag you made, but instead you poured liquid gold.

 

Somehow you've captured exactly the same kind of goofy, NES-era suspension of disbelief that gets the player just over the hump of accepting the simplistic graphics. Somehow everything kind of makes sense. Old Hyrule being down there below Death Mountain. Mixing Z1 and Z2 style overhead enemies. It might be nostalgia talking, but it all JUST WORKS. 

 

I can't really even begin to analyze what you did here. It's like trying to interpret a Jackson Pollock painting, except that in this case, your art actually took lots of effort and talent. (Shots fired!)  All I know is that this is the best Zelda Classic quest I've ever seen, and I can't wait to be home again so i can fire it up and give it a try.  

 

Well done!

[naal]

Does the bracelet work differently for Link and Zelda?

[Timelord]

I'm not completely certain which two you mean by 'last', so I'll list what they all do:

Wind's Whistle:

• As Link, create a whirlwind going from west to east.
• As Zelda, create a whirlwind going from north to south.

(Whirlwinds usually just send you to the start of a map, but they have a special usage in the Tower of Seline.)

 

Secret Toot:

Activates certain secrets (usually only on labelled tiles) and defeats the River Devil in Hyrule.

(The power bracelet can also be used to pass the River Devil.)

 

Sun's Song:

• As Link, sets the time of day to 1 (day).
• As Zelda, sets the time of day to 8 (night).

(Optional song.)

 

Flying Melody:

Warp around the overworld in Calatia or Hyrule.

(Optional song.)

 

Song of Storms:

• As Link, make it start raining.
• As Zelda, make it stop raining.

(The main purpose of this song is to enter the Triple Eye Rock palace.)

 

Epona's Song:

Used to obtain Epona in Marui Palace.

(That's all; I kinda meant to add some sort of other use, and never did.)

 

Wisdom Circle:
Used to enter the final chamber of the final dungeon, after getting through everything else.

(Obtained inside the final dungeon.)

(Also, it seems I labelled this one as having different functions for different characters... and then forgot to actually have any such thing. Good job, me.)

 

Light Prelude:
Warp between the Calatia and Hyrule overworlds instantly.

(Optional song.)

 

Oh, nice to see that you are still around. We've missed you.

[Mitsukara]

Well done!

Thanks! Zodiac: Story of the Guardian is pretty impressive from all I've seen of it so far too, so that's high praise. However, I'm pretty sure my programming is a messy rat's nest XD

One thing I tried to do to avoid visual style clashing, was to edit 'foreign' sprites to match the main style. So for example, when I used LTTP or Gameboy-based sprites next to Zelda 1 sprites, I heavily edited them to reduce not only the number of colors, but to do things like remove outlines and add more NES-like shading, to try to get them to blend a little better. I'm glad to hear maybe some of that worked out.

 

Does the bracelet work differently for Link and Zelda?

 

Only sort of. There's a poorly explained feature where if you switch characters while holding something, the character you switched from will keep holding it until you switch back to them. This mostly just lets you keep a throwable rock from far away, or things like that. There's no other differences though.

 

More importantly, the "L/R Switch" feature on the menu at the beginning of the game does not work correctly, so if you turn that setting on, you may still need to equip the Power Bracelet to the B button to use it properly for various things. A bit of sloppy programming on my part, sorry.

 

Oh, nice to see that you are still around. We've missed you.

 

Hi! Sorry I haven't been around much. I rambled a bit in this post about what's going on with my benig-aroundness (or lack thereof), and my full thoughts about the condition of this quest, in this post. I hope you're doing well, and I'll poke my head around on Skype sometime hopefully maybe.

 

As for Let's Plays, I still haven't caught up on all of them as much as I'd like to- I watched all the youtube reposts of Eppy's streams, and I've been able to keep up with MeleeWizard's every-other-day updates (he's getting near the end of the quest now), but there's a lot more I'd like to get to. Probably StudKid's and KingAquamentus'/WillPlayIt's next, at some point.

 

For anyone who's interested in watching Let's Plays/uploaded streams of LaZPoC, there's a whole list of them here.

Edited by Mitsukara, 04 July 2017 - 08:08 AM.

[Old-Skool]

 

KingAquamentus / WillPlays LP
(Ongoing; also included the manual; didn't put the Enhanced Music in the correct directory.)
Playlist is out of order and doesn't include all of the videos for some reason, including part 1...

 

 yeah something that needed a little editing on my part. It should be alright now.

[ShadowTiger]

So in Melee's Let's Play, in the more recent videos, he managed to find a unique method of travel.  He put a ladder out into the world, hopped on it, and used the L2 Beetle to carry the ladder up and about, taking the player with it.  It reminds me of someone hoisting themselves up by their own feet and floating around like that.  Is that a legitimate strategy that you would allow?  I can't even begin to imagine how many puzzles it might effect.  It almost makes the climbing rope useless.

[Old-Skool]

I don't know if anyone pointed this out, but Mero's name in the credits is misspelled "Miro"

actually tbh I often found myself tossing the ladder around to get to places as if it were a legit and intentional maneuver. Later on I discovered that the magnet gloves combined with the leaf do this even better. 

Edited by King Aquamentus, 05 July 2017 - 09:03 AM.

[Deedee]

So in Melee's Let's Play, in the more recent videos, he managed to find a unique method of travel.  He put a ladder out into the world, hopped on it, and used the L2 Beetle to carry the ladder up and about, taking the player with it.  It reminds me of someone hoisting themselves up by their own feet and floating around like that.  Is that a legitimate strategy that you would allow?  I can't even begin to imagine how many puzzles it might effect.  It almost makes the climbing rope useless.

I actually suggested that mechanic to Mitsukara during my testing, and I believe it, along with using the beetle on your partner, is the intended solution for a few puzzles (that one room with a giant lava pit and block-all combos covering the entire room in Triple Eye Rock, and that one room with the Thunder Barrier right before you get an item in the final dungeon). The beetle also seems to be the intended solution to another puzzle in Triple Eye rock, with the 3 switches and one switch being really high up, as the Somaria Block can also be lifted with the beetle up to that switch (the Somaria Block can also do the ladder flying thing, but it's easier to fall off IIRC).

For some reason, every LP of the quest I've seen only really considers the "go far" and ignores "lift new things".

[Mitsukara]

 Is that a legitimate strategy that you would allow?

Dimentio speaks truth. The beetle only does that crazy stuff because I deliberately programmed it to : )

 

But it is a little ridiculous (super cartoonish logic), and it does undermine the climbing rope's relevance. That's why I made the climbing rope something you had to get first, albeit not very long beforehand.

 

I don't know if anyone pointed this out, but Mero's name in the credits is misspelled "Miro"

Oops! Nobody mentioned this. I'll correct that if 1.4 gets done (assuming I remember).

 

Oh hey, that means you finished the quest! Congratulations! I'm still planning to catch up on your videos soonish, sorry I haven't done so yet. (I'll probably leave some comments on youtube when I do.)

 

actually tbh I often found myself tossing the ladder around to get to places as if it were a legit and intentional maneuver. Later on I discovered that the magnet gloves combined with the leaf do this even better.

Yep, I also programmed these in deliberately. I like the idea of having half my own puzzles be super-breakable : )

 

I suppose if I were ever to make a Super Mario World romhack (not especially likely, but I've toyed with the idea), I'd be generous with the cape and Blue Yoshis/blue shells, for much the same reasons.

 

There's actually a puzzle in the final dungeon that I'm not sure CAN be completed without Beetle+Ladder shenanigans, and one that definitely requires Beetle+Somaria shenanigans. Then again, I went a little overboard on the final dungeon, putting in stuff that could lead to major eleventh hour guide-dang-it problems. Then again, I also included some Guides text files in the Support Pack (the thing that has the manual and enhanced music and stuff), which explain the solutions to those puzzles, so... it actually is possible to look up some of the answers.

Edited by Mitsukara, 05 July 2017 - 02:08 PM.

[C-Dawg]

Yep, I also programmed these in deliberately. I like the idea of having half my own puzzles be super-breakable : )

 

Allowing your items to be combined like this is amazing, and adds a deeper element of gameplay to discover. This is a fantastic idea. It's even better here, since your quest (especially the end) really forces players to experiment, meaning they're likely to figure out these weird interactions at the end of the game (like Melee did) and then, boom, there's your replay value.

[Old-Skool]

oh no, I almost never used the ladder and beetle together. maybe once but that was it. I somehow completely missed the second treasure of the final dungeon and just kept magnetleafing around