Finished this up and damn this was very fun actually! Really enjoyed going through this one and it's so refreshing and quite nostalgic to see NewFirst being used after god knows how long. You used it well and the quest looks pretty great! The quest itself is your typical Z1 style adventure but it's definitely spruced up with modern things here and there and some pretty fun dungeons too. I REALLY love the way the dungeons are designed, absolutely does give way for replayability where you could do things out of order and make things in earlier (or later) dungeons easier for yourself. The fact that you can bypass key doors is awesome too since it really makes you consider where you should use keys or not (even though I THINK all keys you need can be obtained even if you use them straight away). The difficulty is generally fine, although I do feel Level 9 spiked just a tad, but nothing too crazy. The overworld is pretty solid, not too much to write home about there, but also it gets the job done and is still littered with secrets to uncover which is great.

I personally feel that Level 8 was a tad too cryptic to find, but that could also be on me since I somehow missed the Lens until the very end and it was seemingly in the most obvious place ever (literally cut a bush lmao). I can't recall if there's some info hint about that somewhere, but if not it might be useful to add in, potentially. My other gripe is that the 3 heart continues are kinda annoying and unnecessary. I think this was the case for the other IcyZelda quests too, but I still believe it's a very outdated mechanic that's just there to annoy players rather than pose any challenge. It also makes it more useless when you have healing refills available at the start of every dungeon which just makes me wonder what the point of 3-heart continues even is tbh. I'd just get rid of that at all, since imo I wouldn't really add that in any quest anymore. Even then though, I didn't have much trouble, it's moreso just a personal preference I suppose.

That's about it though, this was a very good quest, really brings me back to the 2.10 days like with your other two quests. I'd give this one a solid 4.5/5 which rounds up to a 5. Fantastic work!

Oh, I forgot to mention one thing. You are EVIL with Level Ex's reward. I'll leave it at that...

I gave this quest a try at the recommendation of GamingNomad and ended up loving it.

I dig the nonlinearity of the dungeons and especially how intelligently the compass is used. I was able to dip into some dungeons really early and nab their items because of their slick design, using the map and compass to figure out which way to go. I've seen very few quests actually handle dungeon navigation quite so well with regards to these items.

Difficulty was also pretty solid. Enemies in this quest are weird and often have defenses that defy expectation. It made figuring out some dungeons tricky, but once I figured out the quest's rules it wasn't so bad. I'd say the only place where enemies go a bit too far was in the last dungeon, where there's completely invisible ones that require the lens to avoid. Credit to IcyMind, the lens is completely free, but before getting hit it isn't really possible to know where they'll be and so the mechanic creates a sense of paranoia throughout the whole dungeon.

The overworld is I think one of the weaker aspects. It's functional but a bit samey. I think it's really tricky to do memorable overworlds in NewFirst. For the most part it doesn't impede gameplay, though I did stumble for a good while finding the lens and the entrance to level 8.
Overall this was a pretty rad experience. Funny thing is I almost didn't give it a try due to superficial reasons such as the tileset and the name. Really gotta stop making these hasty assumptions. Don't judge a book by its cover.

Also

Had a really good time with this quest, and with how open-ended it is, I really enjoy how much the quest rewards the player for taking note of many different secrets by remembering where and when to bring items. I do feel at times it can be a bit too reliant on the Lens sometimes, however. Luckily the lens themselves aren’t hard to find and it doesn’t use any magic or rupees to boot. Awesome! Never felt too overwhelmed either because of how well interconnected the overworld is, and the size feels just right. Exploration is a blast. Dungeons are deliciously complex, and I enjoy how keys are not only accessible from many different areas, but not every door leads somewhere pivotal, sometimes being nothing more than a shortcut. This tests the player to pay attention to the map in a good way, where you can often decide if you want to use the shortcuts, figure out if a locked door is more likely to hold the way forward, or hold onto the keys and only use them when necessary, making no one playthrough of a dungeon the same. My only gripe sort of came with the combat. Enemy balance often feels hit or miss, and I can’t tell if the Magic Shield was something I missed or if it was done away with all-together, but not having it on hand and having to deal with certain enemies hitting way harder than they have any right to (the Lynels especially ugh) often felt artificial even by the late game and I’d advise maybe balancing the damage output for some enemies a little more. Enemies like Wizzrobes being nerfed was a really good call though. Overall this game balances exploration in a way where it never feels too overwhelming yet complex enough to keep my attention all the way through, but the enemy balancing could’ve been better. Good stuff!

not enjoying this quest. There seams to be a problem with the key logic. And I cannot find lvl 4.

where is level 5 ??

where is lvl 4?

That "let's play"cave.. how to get out? I need to F6 and retry

What do the card sign enemies do?

An unexpected but very welcome surprise! Congratulations on finally finishing.