163 replies to this topic

[Kite]

It's good to see other people doing somewhat in-depth reviews.

I have a question, though. What is the difference between the "critical" and "casual" ratings? I have a vague guess of what it might be based on your concluding thoughts, but I'm kind of curious as to why you decided to go that route.

[Moosh]

It's good to see other people doing somewhat in-depth reviews.

I have a question, though. What is the difference between the "critical" and "casual" ratings? I have a vague guess of what it might be based on your concluding thoughts, but I'm kind of curious as to why you decided to go that route.

I was kinda split on what to rate it so I rated it both from an extremely critical standpoint and a more casual one and took the average to get what I feel is a less biased score. I could have just given it a regular end score of 2.5 I guess.

I suppose some of the visual errors didn't bother me when playing as much as when I looked back at them and I wanted to account for that.

For example, aside from the initial shock, I barely noticed that the dungeons were in the overworld palette because I was focused on playing through them.

Edited by Pokemonmaster64, 30 November 2011 - 11:49 PM.

[blue_knight]

That's cool Pokemonmaster64. Maybe you can review my demo as well when it comes out (if you want).

[Moosh]

That's cool Pokemonmaster64. Maybe you can review my demo as well when it comes out (if you want).

Of course! I'd love to! I'm sure it'll get a solid 6/5!

[trudatman]

too cool. I'm sure I'll have lots to type after work. thanks!

[Schwa]

Of course! I'd love to! I'm sure it'll get a solid 6/5!

The fun part about doing "casual reviews" instead of "critical" ones is that giving things a 6 out of 5 don't count as "unprofessional".

Of course, I'd probably give it the same in the creativity department. I know I must've said this before, but blue_knight, your quest totally screams Super Metroid to me. In every sense. In Zelda Classic. That's pure gold right there, bro, pure gold-- probably pure freaking platinum actually.

[Moosh]

The fun part about doing "casual reviews" instead of "critical" ones is that giving things a 6 out of 5 don't count as "unprofessional".

Of course, I'd probably give it the same in the creativity department. I know I must've said this before, but blue_knight, your quest totally screams Super Metroid to me. In every sense. In Zelda Classic. That's pure gold right there, bro, pure gold-- probably pure freaking platinum actually.

Haha yeah. That was kinda a joke but I really do believe if giving a 6/5 wasn't "unprofessional" blue_knight's quest would definitely deserve it. Yours too, Schwa.

So my next review is going to be Light of the Heavens DX as requested by Russ. I breezed through it and will probably have the review up later today.

[Schwa]

Haha yeah. That was kinda a joke but I really do believe if giving a 6/5 wasn't "unprofessional" blue_knight's quest would definitely deserve it. Yours too, Schwa.

Don't say that, do not say that, until you've tried it. I'm so serious, man, even though the rewritten sword and stuff look phenomenal in the video and the screenshots, I'm actually really really nervous that people will hate playing with them when they actually get to. That's why they'll be a demo soon(ish), so guys like you can provide me extra firepower in tweaking it into total excellence. I've really been stressing over it.

Actually Poke, you would probably be one of the best people to give feedback for it, since you're wonderful at ZScript and you can probably play with it and immediately go "Ohhh, I see how he did that! I bet he could probably do this and this and it would clean these issues up or reduce these ones". And then I would fall in love with you, and buy you so much coffee...

[Moosh]

Moosh's not so random review 3: Light of the Heavens DX
By Russ

So Russ requested that I review LotH: DX and his timing could not have been more perfect because I had already planned to review it. I'm probably going to be overly critical for this review simply so that Russ can make improvements. I will say ahead of time that I LOVE this quest and have endless praise to gush on it, so I'll try to keep my bias on a leash and not go overboard with the praise.

 hr[/hr]

Gameplay:
Oh man, this is where it's at. Light of the Heavens DX has possibly some of the best gameplay I've ever played. Ok, there I go with the bias already. Maybe not the best, but it's definitely amazing. The whole quest flows together very nicely and although often frustrating, I never want to put it down. The overworld fits together very nicely and the dungeons are fun to play. Some of the later dungeons have some REALLY creative puzzles.

This is a very well designed block puzzle right here.

Russ uses scripts sparingly, but enough to give the quest that extra 2.5 flair. A good example of his use of scripts is the ice block puzzle pictured above. I dare you to run headfirst into it. You'll fail.

The first dungeon in the quest is called the Tidal Sanctum and not only is it visually beautiful, but also really fun. Russ designed it so that you have to go around the dungeon pressing switches (which for some reason give no indication that you've pressed them) that change various other things in the dungeon using screen state carryovers. It really makes you have to explore and trace back your steps to see what each switch does. If there's one thing I feel the dungeon did wrong, though, it's the lack of non switch related puzzles.

Russ did a good job hiding this bombable wall, but it WAS marked, and with the map it's not TOO hard to find.

Russ's boss design is both clever and unforgiving, and I feel this challenge is a good thing. I feel it provides a much needed difficulty that isn't seen a lot in Zelda Classic quests. By the first boss in the quest there's already fireballs everywhere. The second boss introduces floor hazards, and the third boss...that boss has all my hate. It has a slight flaw that I DO believe Russ said he'd fix eventually using Schwa's platform script that made it near impossible. Let's say expect to fail these bosses A LOT.

Suggestion: Have the boss take less time to appear. It's just really tedious. Also it shoots fireballs from its TAIL?

I'm not going to spoil the rest of the dungeons, but I'll say that the first couple are very similar and it's not until the third and fourth that things really start to go from good to amazing. Now let's get to some of the quest's gameplay problems: the bugs. This quest actually doesn't have a lot of bugs because Russ went and fixed them and I assume will fix the bugs I talk about here too. Most of these bugs are pretty minor, but I feel I should show them off. Picture time!

There are a few instances of solid objects like this on the side of the screen that you can walk into. So far, none of them have gotten me permanently stuck.

This...I don't know how to describe this one...It's actually kinda a Zelda Classic bug, but it can be fixed by making the tiles under the dungeon entrance not water tiles.

I reentered a cave at night that I had already entered during the sunset phase and found a second sword. This can be fixed with some simple screen state carryovers IIRC.

I randomly ran into this when walking down from the screen with the geyser on it...I have no clue.

I got out of bounds by leaving level 3 and walking north through the door. Set the top of the door tiles to solid to prevent this. If they are solid, it might be the pit FFC script messing with solidity.

 hr[/hr]

Story:
This is probably the strongest point of this quest. It has good design and some beautiful screens, but the story is the best part by far. The basic story is that Link is at sea when a storm hits and he washes up on Palm Island. There he sees a sorcerer named Dracus threaten an old man that if the island isn't evacuated in three days, he will kill everyone. Link sets out to stop Dracus and save the people of Palm Island, and the adventure begins. There are multiple plot twists and I'll admit that at some points, I even cried a little. That's how good the quest's story is.

There are a few string errors like this, but Russ is only human, after all.

 hr[/hr]

Music:
I feel that I should comment on the quest's music. It's great. It's not quite as original as trudatman.qst's music and some of the MIDIs Russ chose have become a little cliché (Molgera theme? Stone Tower Temple?) from overuse, but at no point did the music feel like it didn't suit the area. Also the final boss's MIDI is possibly the most amazing thing I've ever heard. Bravo, Russ!

 hr[/hr]

Design:
There really isn't much to say about Russ's design. It's amazing. Russ is a master screencrafter and it's quite evident when you play the quest. I didn't see a single screen in this quest that I could call bad. My only real design complaint is that the sky area has near invisible walkways that served no purpose but to confuse me. Other than that, the quest was beautiful.

Imagine a whole map full of SotW screens. Now imagine a whole quest. I am in love with Russ's screens.

There's a small graphical glitch with this waterfall I think (it really wasn't meant to be used with SD3 water), but now I'm just nitpicking.

As far as enemies go, they usually suit the style of the quest. Occasionally I'd run into a spot where I'd ask "Really, Russ?", usually involving goriya 3s, but for the most part the enemy difficulty was fair. One issue I had was with the fire gels in level 2, but that was mainly because I'm very impatient. I should note, though, that I took the very best path through the quest and I believe got every single item and still found some enemy patterns rather tricky. I imagine some of these enemy combinations would be brutal if you were to miss say the upgraded sword or blue tunic.

Imagine this enemy setup with the wooden sword and green tunic. It's possible for you to get here with those items and be stuck here.

 hr[/hr]

Concluding Thoughts:
This is not a perfect quest. It still leaves a little to be desired, but it's damn close to being perfect in my opinion. I would DEFINITELY recommend this quest to pretty much anyone. It's a really fun quest overall.

Strengths:

• Amazing overworld design
• Decent dungeon design
• Nicely done custom bosses
• Good MIDI choice

Weaknesses:

• Enemies are mainly geared towards the best path
• A few minor bugs

Suggestions:

• Put some more diverse puzzles in the first couple dungeons
• Maybe use a script to change enemy difficulty based on Link's gear in the later areas, specifically the final dungeon?

 hr[/hr]

Rating: 4/5

This is a great quest that's very close to being a 5. A few minor issues, but nothing that really breaks the experience for me.

 hr[/hr]

Whoa, I'm really starting a pattern here...I assure you this isn't a daily review thing. That would be sheer lunacy. Twitch TV lunacy.

Edited by Moosh, 07 October 2012 - 02:27 PM.

[Rover]

So I was introduced to this gem of a quest by Rover, who told me (I hope) jokingly to give it a 5/5. I knew from just a glance that this quest was obviously not 5/5 material, so off I went to play it. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into...I thought I knew the nature of the beast I was about to play...

Haha wow, wait why did you actually do this? Anyways keep up the good work I guess.

[Russ]

I got out of bounds by leaving level 3 and walking north through the door.

You're not a good person. You know that, right?

A 4 out of 5? Thanks! The review was incredibly amusing, and very helpful, because I actually haven't gotten too many suggestions, other than "MAKE HYDRA EASIER", which I did.

Imagine a whole map full of SotW screens. Now imagine a whole quest. I am in love with Russ's screens.

This made my day. Thanks!

Put some more diverse puzzles in the first couple dungeons

Can do, probably. Maybe. I'll see what I can come up with. Puzzles are honestly difficult for me.

Maybe use a script to change enemy difficulty based on Link's gear in the later areas, specifically the final dungeon?

This might be doable. I'll see what I can do.

and the third boss...that boss has all my hate. It has a slight flaw that I DO believe Russ said he'd fix eventually using Schwa's platform script that made it near impossible.

This one's most likely gonna be in the next update. If I can get off my butt and actually work on it.

http://img822.images.../9955/loth6.png

Is it bad that I stared at this for a minute before I caught the error.

I randomly ran into this when walking down from the screen with the geyser on it...I have no clue.

I actually have no idea what caused this. O_o

Also the final boss's MIDI is possibly the most amazing thing I've ever heard.

Prepare to be blown away. That's a MIDI version of this: https://www.youtube....h?v=_mCdgRD7poc The lyrics actually fit Dracus's story somewhat too, so added bonus.

There are multiple plot twists and I'll admit that at some points, I even cried a little. That's how good the quest's story is.

This is what was my favorite thing to hear, I think. The story's the thing I worry about the most. I always wonder if I've made it too complicated and hard to follow, or if it's too cheesy/predictable. Thanks

And overall, again, thanks for the high score, the praise, and the great review!

[judasrising]

Good review of Light of the Heavens DX and i agree its a very good quest.

[Moosh]

You're not a good person. You know that, right?

Yes, I do know that. I was just curious since I saw a door at the top of the screen and sometimes people forget to make

A 4 out of 5? Thanks! The review was incredibly amusing, and very helpful, because I actually haven't gotten too many suggestions, other than "MAKE HYDRA EASIER", which I did.

Hyda honestly isn't that bad, although the tail fireballs are nonsensical.

Also, something I forgot to mention is that you use the fire 2 eweapon TOO MUCH in my opinion.

Can do, probably. Maybe. I'll see what I can come up with. Puzzles are honestly difficult for me.

Well even if they're hard for you, you're certainly good at them.

Is it bad that I stared at this for a minute before I caught the error.

Naw, I can totally understand. I had my share of typos in LQftH that took me forever to see even when shown to me...

I actually have no idea what caused this. O_o

Neither do I and it does no harm, so I guess you can just leave it...

Prepare to be blown away. That's a MIDI version of this: https://www.youtube....h?v=_mCdgRD7poc The lyrics actually fit Dracus's story somewhat too, so added bonus.

I actually already knew this, but didn't say so I wouldn't spoil anything. I tried to stay as spoiler free as possible.

This is what was my favorite thing to hear, I think. The story's the thing I worry about the most. I always wonder if I've made it too complicated and hard to follow, or if it's too cheesy/predictable. Thanks

You did awesome, so you can stop worrying.

[trudatman]

....one of the tricks he used involved pushing a block off the screen which was apparently "fixed" at some point after 1.90....
so many "fixes" are why I recommend playing all of my quests in 1.90, if at all popsicle.

....trudatman had been nice enough to give me cheats....
in fact, all games I make are free and open to be altered by anybody. I will never be offended by tile ripping, screen copying and straight up hijacking of my works. there is an editing code. 723.

....I'm not even sure if I officially beat it....
if you killed Puto's two 40-headed pets, you beat it.

....it appears trudatman didn't know how to change dungeon palettes when he made this....
sadly, I am still bad with palettes, but, really, whay pettle.

....there was no triforce check room....
what is terrible quest design, Alex?

....Unfortunately, this quest was not without its bugs. I got stuck on multiple occasions and had to continue quit, but for the most part these bugs didn't interfere with the flow of the quest....
well, you weren't using 1.90, so continue bugs are the program's fault. this thing was incredibly well tested, but I'm pretty sure it was all done by myself, so there are probably a few real errors I never found because I knew what to do correctly at each stage. I would love to know about any real errors that anybody finds.

....In place of story which is pretty much absent in this quest, I'm going to take a little time to comment on the quest's music. It is AMAZING. I have no clue where it's from, but I really love it! I see a lot of quests using the same midis over and over and over (Stone Tower Temple, Zelda 2 Dungeon theme, Norfair, ect.) yet every MIDI in this quest seems unique and refreshing....
I haven't heard any in-game ZC music since about 2002, so I cannot attest to anything about the music except that it was probably just stolen from whatever unpassworded quest I was scanning when I started this thing. I really don't know.

....This quest is full of custom and edited tiles and it looks REALLY GOOD in my opinion, save for some slight style clash. Trudatman has edited many of the enemies and for some of the others made new tiles from scratch. I found it very cool that the gravestones are police stations and the ghosts are cops. Also, trudatman's gohma tiles for this quest kick ass in my honest opinion. I might even have to ask him if I can use them in the future....
slight style clash?! how about no style paired with horrible classic edits? I imagine a lot of the custom tiles would be useful for classic set users, but I personally find them to be offensively two dimensional and awkwardly ugly. I changed the gohmas? those are the spider bosses that require the arrow, correct? didn't I just use the classic ones? I'm not really sure. I don't think I've played this thing in at least eight years.

....So when designing a quest, sometimes you just run out of inspiration and just throw something together without much thought. This clearly happened in a certain portion of the overworld that was made all in CSet 8 that was very bare and filled with random enemies and bosses. This is also where I found Ganon, so I assume it was one of the last overworld areas made, possibly explaining why it felt so rushed. Oh yeah, also it's not marked on the map for whatever reason and is FREAKING MASSIVE....
it may have seemed rushed, but it was not. there was intent. the second half is sparsely active and I believe it was to give it a different feeling than the first half of the map while hiding the final scenes from easy discovery. the first half was very "look everywhere" and the second half is very "everything looks empty."

....I found enemies like cracktoroks and death knights on some screen and although the cracktoroks were easilly dispatched and the death knight could be dodged, it still felt way to early to be meeting those enemies....
but you were able to kill or avoid them, so they were just frighteningly early and not too hard.

....Items were rarely found in dungeons and as I said before, the lack of a triforce check made the dungeons seem pointless....
the dungeons gave mostly heart containers, so I agree. it seems like if you use the walkthrough (don't), you can choose to skip about half of the quest. my indifference to this quest prevents me from caring enough to continue to think about such issues. this thing is what it horribly is.

....As far as the dungeons themselves go, they had enemy balance issues too, for example the boss of Level 8 was an aquamentus. I sincerely hope that was a jab at Zelda 1....
me, too. especially if it was only one of them. it had to have been, right?

....The boss of Level 4 on the other hand was 4 blue wizrobes (good old trudatman and his non-conventional dungeon bosses) which honestly felt way too early to be fought....
another bias against "tough" enemies that I doubt presented any real difficulty. this quest isn't all that hard, enemy-wise, as long as you are collecting appropriate quantities of heart containers. the real difficulty lies in the search for movable blocks and burnable trees and the likes.

....I found a dungeon that I thought was level 5 only it was really long and winding and I had to cheat to get through (although it could have been rushing/not enough gear) only to find that the triforce in the dungeon was a decoy and it was apparently just there to F*** with me....
I'm hoping that the walktrough will guide you to understanding what this part was and that you will then let me know. fake triforce, eh? did I have a decoy dungeon? did the newer build you used announce the map number when you got there? I would like to better understand this, as I do not know what it was that you described.

....Mandatory triggering an armos from the south? REALLY?...
yep. gave you a heart back right away, too. not so strange, to me.

....I must commend trudatman on making a walkthrough for this quest seeing as it can be very confusing at times....
and I must disclaim that the walkthrough originally existed so I could release chapters to people instead of holding their hands through parts they struggled with. it was not meant to be used in its entirety, but when I was cleaning out old computer files and preserving stuff from expiring websites and found the text file, I figured I would just post it on our boards and be done with the whole silly thing. it has been fun reexamining trudatman.qst, though. it's good to know that my ZQ/ZC skills have not grown, but have only lost some elements and gained others.

....badverage....
I laughed aloud. accurate comma very. it was bad in that it was underwhelming and ugly, but it was good in that it worked all the way through without "bugs." at this point I will again invite anybody to point out any real (non-continue, non-"up"grade-related) errors in the quest's design. in 1.90, it should be nearly flawless (as far as errors in execution, not errors in style, which it surely has more than its fair share of).

I very much appreciate the review and the trip back to Zelda Classic from a decade ago. aside from the declaration that "Exploration can be confusing, especially in the endgame," I have to disagree with all of the summary points Poke made. nothing was rushed and the enemies were all fair at the worst. visually pleasing?!?!?! how blind are you, exactly? it is as ugly as any terrible classic-based quest, but it all should work, assuming it is played in the program it was made for (which was current at the time this thing was being built). maybe I don't remember the puzzles well enough to staunchly disagree on their level of cleverness, but none stand out in my memory, so were they really all that good? well, that quest was my first -- the first screen I ever made was the opening screen and I didn't work on my second quest until trudatman.qst was nearly fully completed -- so it is nice to see that I had item ideas and puzzle concepts right away. it's kind of sad that I have progressed almost immeasurably. I feel bad for the kids today that start with a program that can do nearly anything; where would you even start? how would you ever feel like something is done when the possibilities are endless? limited to six pages of sprites, there is only so much a questmaker could do and I think that most of my creativity comes/came from testing such limitations. anyway, I invite you all to try this foolish thing and learn to hate me for tangible reasons.

thanks again, mister Master.

[DarkFlameWolf]

@trudatman. Just because it was intentional that the first half to be more exploratory and the second half to be empty on purpose, does not make it good game design. Even if its creatively inspired and purposefully meant to be sparse and empty, if the player loses connection with the game because of that design utilization, it still is bad gameplay design, despite what the creator thought of it at the time. Its a fine balance you have to tread between great design ideas and what will keep the player's attention.