Welcome to my reviews for all of the quests from Russ's two-week contest quests.
My goal is to play through each quest and give them somewhat thorough reviews. This topic is open to discussion about the reviews or the quests being reviewed. My reviews are not intended to offend or insult anyone, because no one likes that.
My Rating Scoring System Rating (out of 10)
10: Masterpiece
9.0-9.9: Amazing
8.0-8.9: Great
7.0-7.9: Good
6.0-6.9: Okay
5.0-5.9: Mediocre
4.0-4.9: Bad
3.0-3.9: Awful
2.0-2.9: Terrible
1.0-1.9: Unbearable
0.0-0.9: Disaster
Database Rating (out of 5)
5: Amazing
4: Good
3: Okay
2: Bad
1: Terrible
0: Disaster
Yes, the database ratings are not the exact same as what they "officially" called it. I think it is better this way.
Gameplay So, is the gameplay of this quest good? No, not really. You start out on a screen and start wandering around. After a bit of walking, I start to realize that almost every screen has no enemies!! Take a look.
On this screen, I enter the screen for the first time and no enemies?!?!?
And unfortunately, this no enemy problem continues for more than half of all the overworlds. It is very bland, and makes the overworld very boring. Another thing that makes the overworld bland is that there are absolutely no secrets! Makes exploration a pain than otherwise it being fun. I eventually reach a town, with only a shop, but no people. I think there should be some people to talk to at least, so that it is a town and not a deserted one!
Overall, the overworlds are bland and have problems that need to be fixed.
Now let's go to the dungeons, shall we? I find Level 1 after a little bit and I'm greeted with this:
AHHHHHH! Blue Darknut already!?!?!?!?
Yes. A blue darknut at Level 1. Really? I just think that it's unfair difficulty. Tone it down a bit! Not that I can't handle it, but I just think that a blue Darknut at Level 1 is ridiculous. But it must be the exception, right?
NOPE. NOT AT ALL!!
I think that the difficulty can be toned down a bit. There is a blue ring but considering the time it would take to reach 250 rupees when there is almost no grass seems a bit annoying and would cause me a headache.
While most of the gameplay is poor, there is some good-ish stuff. One thing that I'm going to share is that he uses the enemy editor a bit. Here's some enemies that I found:
Some interesting enemies....
I kind of like the snow Octorok. There are some other enemies that he's made too. Pretty good.
Story This quest has the same story as Zelda 1, but that's not a bad thing since it's focused on other things.
Design Attention This quest's design attention is pretty bad to say the least. In the overworld, after finding somewhere that I could go to, I entered a little town. However, there is a problem with the houses in them.
Really? Did you forget to beta test?
Yep. I can go through the door, which really needs to be fixed. Simple fixes like that would go a long way.
In other parts of the overworld, there are walkability problems. An example would be this:
As you might not be able to see, I cannot go through that, and there is important stuff after the pass.
This particular problem occurs multiple times in the overworld, and it even blocks the passage to Level 2!! How could you not notice something as obvious as that when you beta test? Obviously this proves that it didn't happen.
Another thing about the overworld is that it is SO EMPTY!! And to add to the point, screens can be copied and pasted many times, so everything is repetitive. There is almost no effort what-so-ever, and here are some screenshots to prove that:
Really? No detail?
Ya, it's pretty empty. Especially the last two screens. Please put a little more effort in your next quest. It would really go a long way. And yes, I realize that the quest is using the classic tileset, but that makes up no excuse for why some screens have only a single color in them.
As for the dungeons, their screen design is much better than in the overworld.
Nice screens, I'd say.
The dungeons screens are definitely better, but there are still some screens that have only the floor. But nice overall. However, the dungeons themselves are a little too linear, but not so much that no exploration is involved.
Music The music in the quest is good and bad. There is a little new music for the overworlds but the dungeons have the same music as Level 1 in Zelda 1, which gets annoying after awhile, and the first overworld has the typical overworld music. While this isn't necessarily bad, there should be at least some better music which would make the quest more entertaining as a whole.
Concluding Thoughts/Summary A Not So Normal Zelda Game isn't a good quest, but it isn't the worst quest either. It falls somewhere in between. Hopefully some of the bugs can be fixed, which would make the game tremendously better.
Ooh, I like the idea of in-depth reviews of all the quests like this. The first one was fun to read. I would have personally rated it lower because bugs that prevent the game from actually being finished tend to detract a lot from the score in my books, but still, I liked all your comments and criticisms. Looking forward to seeing your thoughts on the other quests too.
I decided to finish and review SpacemanDan's IMaQi6HWISHS2WA quest first since it is much shorter and I was having troubles with Gleeok's. I'm going to be writing the review now, so please wait until I finish it (probably around 1 hour at worst).
As it says in my previous post, I finished this one before Gleeok's two-week quest because it is much shorter. Also, sorry, but it took longer than 1 hour because I had dinner in between. Please enjoy!
Note: IMaQi6HWISHS2WA stands for "I Made a Quest in 6 Hours When I Should Have Started 2 Weeks Ago".
Gameplay
The castle of dooooom!!
This quest doesn't play like a regular Zelda 1 quest too much, which is good because in that way you are unique. To start out the quest, you appear in an overworld with only one place to go, the castle in front of you, because the quest essentially has no overworld and only contains dungeons. You also start out with 5 hearts, your sword, and a cool magic bar called "jimmies" which refills ever so slightly every time you get hit with an enemy. At first, this magic bar has no uses. We'll get to the item that can use it later. After you enter the castle, you enter the dungeon, and the door closes behind you, so, ya, bye bye overworld. The dungeon is three floors, and the enemies start out pretty strong: Darknuts everywhere. And that's not a good thing because it gets very repetitive after a little bit.
I get an item after a little bit of exploration:
The item I'm talking about is the lens looking thing.
So at first, I thought it was the lens. So I try it and nothing happens. This causes confusion at first but when I used the item when I had full magic it healed me 1 heart and increased the power of my attacks. I thought this was useful, but due to the amount of time it takes to reach full magic, it wasn't the best implemented item. But it was cool nonetheless. Later I get another item:
Oh, an arrow sock??
That was a little confusing too, as I thought it was a boomerang at first, but realized it was an arrow. But it was really useful for killing the Gels and Zols.
This quest has a fairly above average difficulty, which is fine. It wasn't unfair at all, and made the game very enjoyable. Though the last boss was kind of difficult for me:
Three-headed Gleeok. With only 6 hearts, wooden sword, and no ring. It was challenging to me at least.
Now, let's talk about this quest's puzzles. THERE AREN'T ANY!! This is not good because then the game is only focused on killing enemies to move on and open the high number of shutter doors (which in itself, isn't very good either). Most quests should have puzzles to slow the player down from completing the dungeon too quickly and also to avoid using shutter doors to slow the player down. Puzzles make the player think differently and makes the quest less repetitive. If this quest had 3 puzzles, one on each floor, the gameplay would be almost at its peak. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
One last thing I have to point out is that this quest is really short, and I would love for it to be longer and have more content. But that is obviously natural if the quest has been made in only 6 hours.
Story
This quest has no story, even if the player is not really Link. Would be better with one but is obviously never actually necessary in quests for them to be fun and playable.
Design Attention
First off, I want to start out with the fact that this quest has absolutely no bugs in screen design. Always a good thing to strive for. Great job!
However, it does have two little subscreen problems.
Just to tell you, the highlighted part is where the hookshot is, and I DID COLLECT IT.
The highlighted part in the screenshot should show the hookshot, but it doesn't. It is still selectable, so that's good. But a little detail like that should have been noticed when beta testing. The other problem is that the map you are on is unnamed, which is very odd to me. This is shown by other screenshots that I've made.
The dungeon design for each floor is pretty much nonlinear throughout. Most screens have splitting paths, requiring the player to remember how to get around the dungeon floors. The dungeon design was above-average, but not incredibly amazing. However, some of the screen designs are creative and stunning.
This quests uses a lot of mirrors to be able to defeat the Wizzrobes, and the design of them is neat:
Cool mirror placements, I'd say.
There are many rooms that have cool mirror designs, and I congratulate that.
Another good example of great screen design is actually on the first screen that you appear in, the outside of the castle dungeon:
Cool usage of the classic tileset.
I think that the castle side is very cool looking and looks like an epic entrance to the dungeon.
Overall, the screen design is a big plus. Congratulations.
Music
It's is good that this quest uses music other than the regular ones, the only exception being that the only screen on the overworld uses the regular music. However, the music chosen for the first two floors of the dungeon sound a little too happy and is a little repetitive. The last floor uses a different midi, which is much darker but still rather repetitive. Also, the music chosen doesn't use loops to continue the song for whatever reason, so the music can end abruptly and then start again, since it restarts once the midi is finished. But I liked the music that was chosen anyways.
Concluding Thoughts/Summary
IMaQi6HWISHS2WA is a very well made quest, but still suffers from some a little bit of minor problems which hurts it a little bit.
Strengths
Good first overworld screen
Good difficulty balancing
Cool scripted item
Fun to play the quest
No screen design bugs
Nonlinear dungeon layouts
Creative screens that use mirrors
No music from Zelda 1 (other than the 1 screen overworld)
Later today: I'm going to finish Gleeok's Green Ninja quest and review it. Then I'll start Theyran's Russian quest even though I won't finish it today. And please tell me if you guys are enjoying the reviews! I always love to hear feeback on how I did.
Okay, I'm going to start writing the review for Green Ninja, starting now. It'll probably take at least 1 hour and 30 minutes, so DO stare here until it comes up!
Gameplay This games gameplay is radically different from Zelda 1, which is always a good thing as well all want quests that play differently from that NES game. This quest has absolutely no overworld, since this quest's theme resides around that of an arena, which, in this quest, is implemented quite nicely and is very creative. Also, this quest features quite a bit of scripted abilities that use the EX buttons, which by default are (Q, W, A, S). Each of these buttons and combinations of them would great cool effects such as faster speed, a mana shield, teleportation, and a vampire state, which I thought was amazing. The only problem I have with this is that it should tell you how to use them in-game, but we have to read it in the description of the quest in the database. Quests that stand out in this way are very cool. But does it mean that it is good? Let's find out...
You start in a dungeon with no items and 8 hearts, which made me think instantly that the quest will start out with some challenging enemies already.
And I was sort of right.
The quest's first enemy is a red Darknut, which in itself isn't too difficulty. You get the wooden sword right away. The intro part of the dungeon is challenging, but not too unfair, even with all the statues and Zoras shooting at you all at the same time. I get to the final boss room, and I am greeted by this:
Was anyone really not expecting this?
The boss is two two-headed Gleeoks. I do have to point out that this out, that it is cool that they are not stacked on top of each other. But the boss was WAY to difficult. But I'm going to give Gleeok a break about this, since I understand that he told me that he had to beta test and balance himself, and since he is the Master of Gleeoks , I won't drop the score because of this boss (and I won't lie, I had to use his cheats to beat it, spamming heart refill). I finally get passed the boss, and I enter arena 1.
This arena was more difficult, and also, you pretty much have the same sword and no ring, so it definitely got harder.
This arena also introduced a cool new feature, a spawner tile, in which an enemy appears every second or so until Gleeok didn't want any more to spawn from it, and rooms can get difficult and crowded, shown below:
Millions of Darknuts, aaaaahhh!
And it doesn't help that the room contains so many Darknuts (more than 10, because with scripting you can make 255 or so, I think) because it can get difficult since they do 1 heart of damage still. And take long to kill.
Arena 1 also introduces a neat but sometimes annoying little gimmick, room timers, where you have to kill all the enemies that spawn from the spawner in a certain amount of time:
30 seconds in this room to kill all the enemies.
If you don't kill all the enemies before the timer runs out, you get damaged by half a heart for every half second or something close to that. Ouch! One thing that I think should be possible to script but wasn't implemented in the timer scripts is that the timer should stop working when all the enemies are killed, but it keeps going until you get out of the room... So that may kill you, which should be fixed, in my opinion.
Some of the enemies in the quest are cool and creative, ranging from 30 fireball long Moldorms to...
LIKE LIKE METROIDS!!
Ya, I thought those Metroids were a cool concept. Some of them scared me ...
By the way, there are many ghosts, and they appear and disappear randomly...
But, ya, I really like the enemies in here, even though when they are spawned by the spawner there can be just to many. However, one enemy in particular was confusing to understand for a little bit:
At first glance, I was like, what is THAT?
After a little bit of trial and error, I discovered that you can only hit its back as it is shielded from the front, left, and right directions. This is cool, but kind of hard to achieve since the enemy is made to turn towards Link (or the ninja) frequently. I still liked this enemy, even though it only appeared once.
The boss of arena 1 is cool; a statue that can shoot lasers, beams, and spikes at you, all at the same time:
Cool attacks, nice concept.
I really liked that boss, to be honest. It was really cool, and I had to figure out what hurt it the most, which should be fairly obvious when you play the quest yourself. One problem with it is that after you defeat it some of the weapons it created remain on the screen, which is bad because it might hurt and kill you:
Wait, those purple electric balls are still there?
I get to arena 2, and the same gimmick happens in there too. You also FINALLY get the white sword and blue ring (or tunic), which I really think should of been given in arena 1 and not two. Unfortunately, there is a game stopping but in arena 2, one that should have been very simple to notice, even if you were the only beta tester:
This room.
You should be able to see the 2 problems. One, the timer reached 0 and for some reason, didn't hurt me at all. Got confused. Also, the shutter doors didn't open once I killed all of the enemies. A game stopping bug, but it was obvious. I eventually discover that the top door is a 1-way shutter instead of a regular one, and I also end up using a cheat to get passed there, and continue forth. The end of the quest was near anyway, but still. So I reach the end, and it says I finished the demo. Cool! This quest will be expanded! Awesome! One problem is that after the text, it is just an empty room, and you have to F6 -> Save to finish the game. I was a little confused at first because I thought the quest would call the ending credits, but he probably didn't finish making it, so it is fine.
One last thing I noticed on arena 2 was that there was a there was a locked door, which was worthless, since I take it that arena isn't finished, but you could of taken it out for the two-week quest submission, because it may confuse people thinking they forgot something when they beat the quest. But that's it for arena 2.
One last thing I want to mention before I move on to the next section is that this quest also has no puzzles, but it is understandable that it wouldn't because it is an arena-type quest, but still, it can be better than enemies opening shutter doors all the time.
Story No story which should be obvious. But it would be cool if it had opening cutscene that showed why the ninja or whatever joined the arena, but it doesn't matter.
Design Attention Since the only areas there are in this quest are dungeons, this won't be too long of a section.
This quest has no screen design bugs that I know of, which is good! The screen design in the dungeons were pretty good and creative, especially this combo that uses the cycling mechanic and reverts from the dungeon floor to a block, which is really cool as places open up and close up at different times. I can't really show it, but I'll put a screenshot of it anyways:
Right now, once square is becoming a floor combo while the other is becoming a block.
I thought that this was really creative and well planned.
The dungeon designs for each arena are pretty nonlinear, which is good. There aren't many hidden passages, but that is okay since it is an arena meant to fight all of the enemies.
Overall, the design of this quest is great, but it could still be a little better nonetheless.
Music This quest only has about 2 midis, which is okay considering how short the quest is. It could be 3, one for each the intro and each arena, but fine nonetheless. Also, the music for the intro and arena 1 is a little repetitive, but it is catchy and fits well in my opinion. The arena 2 music is the same as the boss music for arena 1, which is a little strange, but whatever. Good music choices, so keep it up for the rest of the quest!
Concluding Thoughts/Summary Green Ninja is great quest but has a few problems and a game-stopping bug that make it less amazing. It had a great concept and good creativity, but the bugs weigh it down.
Strengths
Cool scripted items
Cool quest theme
Cool scripted spawner tiles
Room timers
Amazing arena 1 boss
Nice enemy editor enemies
No screen design bugs
Cool cycling combo
Nonlinear dungeon design
Nice music that fits the theme well
Weaknesses
High, cramped number of enemies in later arenas due to spawner tiles
Timer error in a room
Shutter error (game-ending scenario) in a room
Random locked door
Somewhat repetitive music
Rating: 8.2/10 (Great)
Database Rating: 4/5 (Good)
Edit:I removed a little section of this review. The reason for this is that when I was talking about the trap rooms and the getting stuck in cycling combos, I didn't think about how you could teleport your way passed them, to avoid the traps and get unstuck from the cycling combos. Due to this error, I have decided to edit the review, increase the rating, and edit out the parts that I need to. I removed the following from the review:
Edited out part...
However, it does have one little flaw, which I don't know if it was intended or not: If you stand on the combo when it is becoming a block, you will get stuck, and the enemies can hit you (especially if they shoot fireballs) and can be bad for you. But again, I don't know if this was intended.
One problem I have with the screen design of this quest is with rooms with traps:
Really? Non-escapable traps!
Traps in this room are very bad. There is no way to escape them, and with blocks everywhere, it is too crowded to avoid them. I got hit like 3 times before I was able to reach a point of safety, where there enemies push you back to the trap zone and they hit you again. This is very annoying and got me frustrated very quickly at that point. Please make more space or remove the traps for your actual quest of this quest. It would be much better without the traps or with more space.
I have one thing to mention, in the part where you talked about getting yourself stuck on the combo cycling blocks I was thinking "Why didn't you just teleport yourself?". Then in the next part, with the trap rooms, I was convinced. You completely forgot about teleporting there. No need to make more space in that room
Your third review is in quality better than the first two though. You're gettin better at this.
, I won't drop the score because of this boss (and I won't lie, I had to use his cheats to beat it, spamming heart refill). I finally get passed the boss, and I enter arena 1.
...
