Umbral Cloud

I dropped my relative brief but candid thoughts here. Long story short, it's a very good quest that I wish I played sooner.

Just beat the superboss on Swindling two days ago; with that, I've done everything on that difficulty, including all of the endings. Easily the most boss-dense quest I've ever seen, let alone played. Considering that bosses are where Evan really shines, this is not a bad thing. Overall, I really enjoyed this one (though I admit I'm partial to challenging bosses), but it wasn't perfect. Let's break it down further:

First, a comment on the custom items. I never used the Flail and rarely used the water shield, but others have told me they're useful for a number of fights. I'd probably have used the Flail more were I playing on a lower difficulty setting; I can't deny it's a fun weapon. As for the water shield, all of the boss fights where I would have found exchanging stamina for durability useful included lightning attacks, so I only really used it to avoid catching fire. The only one that I really considered problematic was Quake. Evan and I have discussed this, and he seems to agree that he wrote himself into a corner between that one and the superboss. If a weapon like that needs to be used to beat something (which every offensive spell does for the superboss), it has to have at least some degree of aim, but this renders it overpowered against everything else. (As it is now, I was able to cheese a good number of spirits - including the one supposedly strong against its element! - and most minibosses with it, even on Swindling.) The only workaround I can think of would be to
When writing this, I'd initially planned to save discussing the bosses for last, but this connects to the item issue a bit. The wind spell, like the rest, is optional, but the final boss of Ending B has one attack that can't reliably be dodged without it (the one with the spinning lasers). Others have told me otherwise, mentioning something about running through the circles before they're fully grown, but this would require you to be standing so close to the boss before it starts charging that it could score a guaranteed hit on you with a different attack. That fight was probably my least favourite in the quest. The rest, barring Patra (seriously?), were spectacular. They're incredibly diverse and always kept me on my toes. Some have complained that they're "overdesigned" and too complicated for a ZC quest, but I personally don't see how boss complexity is bad; in fact, what I loved most about this quest was throwing myself at each one until I'd completely taken its attack patterns apart (which, on Swindling, you will need to do for the ones you can't cheese with Quake). Beating the superboss felt like a real accomplishment, the reward be damned.My only two complaints about the superboss are as follows:

• Its design more or less forces you to pause-buffer (because of all the weapon-switching you have to do). As a result, I had an easier time with this guy than with Tartaros in IoR, even though the former is clearly tougher on paper.
• Its second attack cycle includes both the time spell and a leaping attack that can't just be jumped over with wind on the spot. This is problematic because a good number of spells can't be used to cancel the former, creating a possibility (albeit a somewhat remote one) of forced damage when accounting for the immunity mechanic.

(EDIT: I forgot about one big issue I had with Trinexx. I had to be told that you can walk over the main head's neck, because it uses exactly the same palette as the head itself. It looked to me as though the neck would deal damage on contact. I'm not normally one to care much about palettes, but even I can't overlook this.)

I think the one place where this quest was weakest was the story. This might just be because I have a habit of over-thinking plots, but I felt like this one had more holes than a certain North American dairy product everyone thinks is from Central Europe:Still, the plot didn't seem to be the focus of this quest, and it was still fun despite the holes.

The music was also great. This quest really benefited from the OGG soundtrack, especially the tracks for the desert, story bosses, and superboss.
The enemies and map design were good, but I felt like a few places were downright unfair (and would be on any difficulty). The worst offender was definitely Miasma Keep, in which you can easily end up trapped until you win a lengthy race against a timed switch. This does not mix well with tracking Keese, and this part of the map was my least favourite as a result - yes, I hated it even more than lightning attacks in general (which were also frustrating). Also, I somehow reached the third key guardian without ever seeing random weather. I've been told this is rare, but it still stopped me from doing several sidequests until I figured out how the random trigger works (protip: it's time-based, not screen-based).

Other comments: There's one key and one inventory space you'll never use, due to what I've heard was a miscount and an unfulfilled contingency, respectively.

Final score: 4.5/5, because only the Quake, Trinexx, and map design issues really hurt my enjoyment of this near-masterpiece. Rounded up to 5 because that's how mathematicians do it for some reason.

I honestly didn't liked this quest very much. I don't think it's bad or anything, just average. I think the overworld and dungeon design is decent, but the backtracking can get annoying after a while. The music selection is okay, but rather forgettable. It has the Lanayru Sand Sea theme though and that's awesome.

My main gripe with this quest is the bosses. Well, i actually like the first one though, i thought it was a really well done boss battle. But then it goes downhill really, really fast. You picked Trinexx from ALTTP and made it really bad. Depending on a certain combo of attacks, you will get hit, no matter how hard you try. This also applies to several other bosses. This means luck plays a big role in several battles in this quest and i loathe that with a burning passion. The final boss is probably the worst case of this. Depending on the elemental types he changes into, the combination of attacks will ensure that you get hit, specially when he's near death with the constant type changing.


And why the hell there's no potions in this quest? Damn Gaius is the only one that gets to drink one.


I still finished the quest and i guess that means something. But i don't see myself ever replaying it.

It's time I start reviewing this quest.

This is personally one of my favorite quests in the database, and it is the perfect speed run quest. (Here's hoping to see a few people actually speed running it).

Unlike Isle of Rebirth that tends to drag on a bit at times, this quest is much shorter, and as a result IMO has a much better replay value. I can, if I had the freedom more than likely play this quest a dozen times and still love it. I believe the quest's replayability is its biggest strength.

The game is very polished and it does play relatively well despite at times the quest feeling a bit "rushed", and this is where the flaws begin to come in.

There is no point in this game where it becomes more obvious that it was a bit rushed but at Sky Keep or whatever that place is called. The final level in this game is average at best and doesn't do justice for Evan's design skills. Even he said that this particular level was rushed, but it's not just the level. This game contains a lot of mild quirks that seem to be a result of not well thought out design decisions mainly because Evan was either rushed or pressed for time, this aspect does bleed into this quest unfortunately.

However, despite it being rushed. It's still probably one of the best designed quests in the database. So that's saying something.

The bosses were great, but even I feel they were a little too hard at times. Even on Stronger I found myself pause buffering a lot to be able to damage control and manage some of these overall attacks that don't always mesh well together. Long story short, I feel all these bosses can be cheap sometimes. This is something that both this quest and Isle of Rebirth shared, but I hadn't really noticed how much I was pause buffering in Isle of Rebirth too and thus never put thought to it. But ever since pause buffering itself has come to my attention one time when James criticized Dimentio for pause buffering in his quest, it got me thinking that a good boss shouldn't encourage pause buffering or absolute mastery of the boss to beat. While I technically don't mind this because I'm sick in the head and will beat it anyways, I can take an objective look at it and see how this could be considered a design flaw to most people.

My other quirk in the game is the absence of fast travel in a world that can sometimes be a bit of a pain to backtrack in, and this game does encourage a lot of backtracking. Some form of fast travel system a player could earn sometime before or after beating Hauntrock would have done this game a huge favor, but unfortunately Evan missed that opportunity and it as a result hurt this quest in it's greatest strengths, which are replayability and a speed run quest.

In conclusion, this quest could have easily been a 5/5 quest for me, even if the bosses were a little unfair. But the lack of fast travel and painful backtracking are what brings this quest down. I can give this quest no higher than 4/5.

I've been putting off this rating forever cuz I wanted to right a really in-depth review. However, seeing as I'm apparently too lazy for that, I'll just leave the quick version here.

The bottom line is that it's amazing. It's a well done Metroidvania that eschews the normal overworld/dungeon format. The story is dark without being edgy, the puzzles are fun, the bosses are probably some of the best ever made in ZC, and the difficulty challenge means that anyone from a ZC newbie to a expert challenge-gamer can have a great time with the quest. I'd highly recommend to all types of players, whether you enjoy exploration or you love combat.

Being a fan of Metroid-vania style quests (and games in general with that genre), I couldn't resist playing this one, and I'm glad I did. And another thing of note, at least for me, is that I was completely unspoiled (aside from the main quest page with the download) as to the plot, characters, etc.
While not *quite* up to par with IoR in terms of scale, which is to be expected, as IoR took I think over 7 years to complete?!, this short but very involved quest certainly holds up in spite of that. Exploration is certainly key, and is without a doubt the quest's high point. There were only a few points that I was stuck and didn't know where to go, but once I narrowed down the areas I'd already been to, I eventually figured it out.
Playing on Swindle (Choppah) mode is, while obviously challenging, definitely more fun than any other mode, especially so for the multitude of bosses in the game. While on a higher level of difficulty it really felt you were dodging for your life during those fights, and when the heart gets pumping like that you know you've gotten into something amazing. The scripting for these bosses was incredible and lent them a broad range of attacks which, while unexpected at first, really added to the overall fun.
The atmosphere in the quest is suitably dark, but not too much. Almost along the lines of the mood in Twilight Princess or even Majora's Mask, and the soundtrack for each area fits rather well, my favorites being the opening cave system, the Sun Tower and the Necropolis. The other areas are diverse and fun to explore as well, plus all of the enemies, a few I'd nevr seen before, like those Timed Wizzrobes, or the Icerobes, were really cool to see and presented a unique challenge.
The puzzles are innovative, and I'm looking mainly at the one which rewards you with the Hookshot upon completion. As soon as I entered an ice area, I was thinking to myself "Hmm...this IS an Evan quest...there's probably going to be an ice-block puzzle somewhere in here." Lo and behold, there was. And I'm still laughing at how trollish it is. XD "Oh, I've solved it!" "Oops, the block was already covering a switch." *few minutes later* "Now I've actually solved it!" "Dammit, now I can't open the chest."
Well done, Evan. Well done.
That aside, the quest shines in all aspects and presents an interesting connection to Isle of Rebirth which is extremely nice. The story, boss confrontations and overall atmosphere combine to make this a thrilling and engaging exploration based quest. And all of the extra things were nice too, such as the weather system, the trading quests and all of the items to find in order to get better equipment. Hats off to another excellent quest, man.

Ooh. First actual post on Pure. Onto the review:

Having played through a bit of this quest, I can say it’s pretty darn amazing. The music choices are pretty spectacular, and they pair excellently with the tileset to create a very atmospheric quest. The story is also reasonably simple but has charm and clearly has thought put into it. The custom bosses show a ton of skill with the program, and while I may be horrible at ZC (and thus had some trouble with them), I can see the thought put into making them creative and challenging. In fact, all the scripting in this quest is really well done and really adds to the experience: the side quests are interesting and the items are cool and useful.

My only gripe with this quest is that it is a bit easy to lose your way. By which I mean that you can get stuck not knowing where to go next. However, this does encourage exploration, and the overworld is very nice, and it would take me some time before I could get bored with it.
Also tracking keese. No pls. :3

Overall this quest is very Swindle Chopper; 4.8/5.

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Edit: Staff contacted me an basically told me that I'd have to bump up my rating for all quests I have ever reviewed by one star. Note that this does not reflect my own opinion on the matter, or the quest, but just that it was something I was made required to do.
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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 [u]not[/n] 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.

Now that I've played through this quest I can give it quite an honest review. For being only the second major quest created by Evan, this one is pretty darn solid. Allow me to recourse my thoughts through playing this quest. (Keep in mind, this is based on playing the game at the Standard difficulty setting)

Gameplay-wise, it's pretty solid for using the Zelda Classic engine. None of the standard mook enemies seem to be much of a headache (Zaprobes excluded), and there's a distinct amount of the feel of progression in this quest. Being one built around a Metroidvania style, you are usually needed to find an item to proceed onwards towards the goals you seek. While there are only three major bosses in the game that are required to defeat to enter the final area, the overworld is expansive enough that it will feel a fair bit longer between each one than you may think. The overworld, while smaller than some others I've seen, has a lot to look around for, and nearly every screen has something to find in it, be it a bombable wall, killing all the enemies on screen, or simply searching a spot. Overall, gameplay is pretty good and fair.

Music-wise, a fair number of songs from Skyward Sword were used in this game (among other songs from other games), and they all fit the areas they play in quite nicely. None of the music really felt out of place.

The bosses...well, despite there only is three you technically need to beat, this game has FAR more than that. By finding special tablets, you can summon optional bosses that, if defeated, will allow you to borrow some of their power, and these abilities are likely some of the most interesting scripted items I've seen to date. Each one has a use, and while some may be overlooked a bit in favor of others, they add a great new way to play the game rather than just your standard sword and boomerang fare. That being said, these optional bosses don't mess around, so don't go in underprepared. Namely when fighting the Fire, Ice, and Thunder bosses. I will also say that the third major boss in the game is probably one of Evan's best ones so far.~

There are three endings to this game, and they are all dependent on what you do and acquire, thus giving this quest some replay value. And with four difficulty settings, anyone can play this quest and enjoy it either for a fun ZC romp or a great (and swindling) challenge.

My only gripes is that some of the bosses were a slight headache (see above) and took several attempts even on the Standard difficulty, which only goes to show just how much they'll hurt on higher ones. There were a few other tiny issues when I first playtested the final build, but they have since been pretty much rectified. All in all, this quest gets a solid 4.5 out of 5 from me, which will round up to 5 here on the database. Good work Evan,and I'm looking forward to your future work!

Interesting turn off the Zelda formula. This quest is based on heavy combat with not much puzzles involved (I think only Miasma Keep was the only place with the most puzzles). Anyhow, the story was awesome, and I loved that IoR reference! So, is this like a prequel to it?

The bosses... man, they are worthy of being remembered. All of them had a few tricks that made them pretty hard to defeat, but in the end it was all worth it. Now, let me write a bit about the sidequests... While they do add some gameplay value, most of them were "fetch quests"... If played right, you could've made a better sidequest system, kinda like Majora's Mask, where there were a ton of things to do...

I digress... these are the only flaws I considered for this quest. Everything else was perfect, and you've done it again. Congratulations, another worthy addition to the database.