Lost Isle

So it's been forever since I last even touched this quest. I remember several years ago I tried to play this and probably gave up at Level 1 or so, but about 2 weeks ago I decided to try and give this quest another shot for old time's sake and man I had a total blast playing this from beginning to end. I ended this quest with 100%, with 93 deaths and about 21 hours of gameplay. I admit, I did use an online map of the quest as a checklist for heart pieces and other stuff, but I did end up remembering most things on my own, so yay? lol

Anyways, about the quest itself. This is a true masterpiece of a quest and I had so much fun playing it. The island itself is probably one of the best overworlds in any ZC quest I've seen. I love the exploration involved and how everything links up together with the fast travel system and the fact that items are used to the fullest to discover heart pieces and other secrets around the island, something not many quests can pull off well IMO. I also love how each area in the island has some sort of backstory to it, and the extra story stuff from the hidden caves and fairy statues adds quite a lot to the quest. Moving away from that, the dungeons are very well made. They're incredibly complex and all have very interesting gimmicks. Each one of them took me a good while to beat, but none of them were too overly complicated nor too difficult, almost all of them were just perfect IMO. I think the only dungeon that really frustrated me was Bhalstok Castle because of the constant disappearing floor tiles in the higher floors which were incredibly annoying to navigate with only 4-way movement. Other than that, my favourite dungeon was definitely the Plague Fortress. I really love technology-based dungeons, and this is probably the best one I've played in a very long time. I also love that dungeon song, but have no idea where it comes from lol. Also on the topic of dungeons, the Oderra Catacombs definitely felt like such a huge twist to everything else. Things got so very dark and gruesome in that dungeon (and I've definitely seen much worse), but I never really felt uneasy with that kind of stuff until I got to that place, I guess it might be because that's the one thing you wouldn't expect to see in a ZC quest lol. But yeah, the overall dark tone of the quest was very well made, and the story was definitely quite depressing, but was made incredibly well as well.

It's honestly very hard to think of any problems I had with this quest, there's almost none really. Besides the minor complaint about Level 3's vanishing floor tiles, I think the only other big thing I could say is the 3 heart continues. Whether it was the norm back in 2007 or not, I still think 3 heart continues is generally a bad thing to have in any ZC quest that isn't a Z1 clone. They weren't too much of an issue early on, but later on it became a real annoyance since you don't have full health for bosses or whatever after dying to them. This became a big issue with Level 4's miniboss and caused a lot of my deaths mostly because I didn't have enough health to fight it. Potions are also quite rare so I really didn't want to go all over the world looking for them, and grinding for health is incredibly boring. But yeah, I really think I would've had a better time in some places with full heart continues, it would've made things much more manageable and made things more fair IMO. Other than that, no other big issues I could think of.

Overall, this was a fantastic masterpiece. Sure some design choices are a little dated now (3 heart continues specifically), but the quest is still incredible to play and I would definitely recommend this to anyone who hasn't played or beaten this yet. Giving this any less than a 5 is criminal for me, so 5/5 from me. Really good job with this!

Overworld:
I felt that it was so full of stuff to grab and the rewards were very rewarding. I did find some areas rather tedious, but that made going to where I was trying to go all the more rewarding.

Dungeons:
They all have the weirdest design with lots of little corners that go nowhere, I feel that this makes the area feel like it's more real.

Overall:
I feel that this game manages to feel quite real. I also feel that all of the places have meaning. They mean something, like: What happened here? How was this made? What is this used for?

Wow. Where to start. I tried this many years ago and felt overwhelmed. I gave up. I was on the other end of the spectrum in terms of the polarization. This time I came back determined. I was going to get into this and see what the hype is about. You really are alone, in a massive world, with very little direction. It does feel like Metroid in many ways. You gain a new item and rack your brain for the 3 or 4 places you remember seeing you could use it but can't recall exactly where. But I persevered, figured out what the quest demands, and slowly but surely fell in love. This game is incredible. Despite only four full-fledged levels the amount of content here is simply off the charts. I had to look up a few small things (most of which I should have figured out, although I never would have found the MasterDome), but, the hints are there if you observe. With good use of the overworld map, the map hints, the warping system, and some creativity you can make this huge world seem manageable.

This has a different feel than many ZC quests but it is an all-timer. It is up there with the most amazing custom quests I've ever played. Every item feels earned, every new level a discovery. The feeling of foreboding and isolation never leaves you even as you gain power. Prepare for as many as 30-40 hours of discovery. Respect it but don't fear it. Lost Isle is a masterpiece and deserves it's reputation as such.

This quest is really well done, especially in terms of overworld design, but there is one part of the game that really subtracts from the whole experience.
The Oderra Catacombs are just sickening.
I think the overall experience could've been a whole lot better if it wasn't covered in blood and gore. I think that if it was more akin to the Shadow Temple from OOT, which focused more on atmosphere and story-telling than it did gross-out, it could've really worked as a 'dark and mysterious descent'. There were a lot of storytelling opportunities there too. It could've served the story as the final place of refuge for the village, before they eventually all passed away, but by making the dungeon all about gross-out blood and guts, the dungeon feels more like it's there purely for the sake of having obscene gore than anything else. It just feels cheap and gross, and it hits its lowest during the Doom Cave segment, where almost every room is littered with mangled corpses, blood puddles and body parts. It just makes you feel sick. A more subtle approach works much better than always-in-your-face body horror in my opinion. It gets to the point where it ends up lowering the overall experience of the quest to a point where it doesn't feel worth it to play anymore, simply because of this one moment in the quest.

...
Also, some parts of the game have an issue with enemy spam, most notably near the end of the game. It's not really a good sign when it's nearly impossible to avoid getting hit.

This was an absolute masterpiece. The dark atmosphere, music and story, the overworld and dungeon design, everything was superb. But most of all, the constant emphasis in exploration to push the game forward, having no hints and hand holding, having to figure out things for yourself, was what really put the game up there for me. I do see the lack of directions turns a lot of people off, so this is certainly a bit polarizing, but for me it was one of the biggest driving points of the game. Finding your way around the game on your own merit, by force of your own exploring, without other characters to tell you where to go or where to find stuff makes the experience of actually finding your way all the more rewarding, which is something I feel a lot of games lack.
It also had a very Metroid-y feel to it, with Link being on a desolate island all by himself, plagued with monsters, it gives the game a very lonely, desolate vibe, that is amazing.
I spent a lot of time exploring, finding my way around the island, uncovering secrets, caves, dungeons, and it all felt incredibly fulfilling.
The difficulty felt just about right, never easy, but never unfairly hard.
This is probably my favourite ZC quest and I find it hard to imagine one will top it. Amazing work!

Perhaps the pinnacle of quest development in the ZClassic 2.0 era (before scripting). Highly recommended. it does require some level of patience, but if you enjoyed the original Legend of Zelda, you're familiar with that.

I can't believe I never rated this till now. This was my first Zelda Classic game, and I enjoyed it. Absolute masterpiece, my favourite level has to be level 2! Most people hate this quest because the dungeons are too long, but what do you expect from one of wolfie's games? I enjoyed this game completely. My only complaint is with you, Peteo: The Doom Cave: WHY!? YOU MONSTER, WHY!? (JK)

This is a perfect example of quantity over quality, in the case of the overworld. It felt like a chore actually getting anywhere or getting anything done. It'd be fine if there were secrets everywhere, but despite the exploration theme of this quest they seem to be quite scarce.

I only made it to level 2, but I really did not enjoy my time spent playing the quest.

Edit
In retrospect I probably shouldn't have given the quest a flat out ZERO after putting some time into my own quest.
With... so much ground to cover, I can't really not say that the amount of work put into this is at least impressive.

I probably would have had a SIGNIFICANTLY better time with this quest if I had mapped everything out manually... Is that recommended somewhere in the readme? I feel like it should be.

This quest is a lot of fun at first but the amount of repetitive steps in level 1 all but ruin it. Having to lower the water every single time you die is absurd. I've backtracked countless times and still haven't beaten this level.
If you like a challenge this one is for you but if you have ADHD I recommend you skip this one...

Strait up 5 yo! Know what I sain?