Two-Week Contest Review #4
Russian by Theryan
Gameplay
This game's gameplay is roughly similar to Zelda 1, so basically, the quest's gameplay is composed of exploring the overworld, finding and defeating dungeons, and redoing that process until the last dungeon is defeated, and you win the game.
It's my very own home!!
You start the quest in your little own house. The first thing I did was to go up to see what was there:
...And someone else lives in my house! Yay? And he's a communist too!
As you might see, this quest is fairly humorous, which I enjoy, but only when the humor is actually funny! And the good thing is that in this quest it is! 
So I leave my house, and I go here:
The Russian Octoroks are after me?
Beautiful screen, but we'll talk about that later. Anyways, you have to find another house in the area, and then inside the house is a mysterious book in the ground. So I go to it and figure out that it is a tile warp. And where does it take me? Here:
I'm in a book?!?!?!?
I actually really liked this place, it was a very creative idea. It is black and white for the most part, other than pretty much only fireballs. There were pencil enemies too, and they were cool! 
The only complaint is that the pencils are the only enemy, and I wish that there was more of a variety as that would be much better since I kind of got bored of them after a little while.
I find Level 1, and it is also black and white. One thing that I dislike about that is that some enemies are hard to distinguish from others; such as blue bubbles and red bubbles. But even then it is kind of obvious which one it is. Another enemy problem I found is that in this one room the Darknuts where for some reason colored instead of black and white:
The Darknuts are colored here... Okay?
That confused me a bit. I don't know what happened there. I continue the Level and finally reach the boss. But there's a problem.
Do you see it? Hint: I came into the room from the left.
Ya, I can skip the boss. Cool, right? But you should probably not do that unless you don't want the heart container.
I get the Triforce (which looks like a mushroom for some reason ) and head to the next area: A desert. I go through it, and eventually find a little tent. Guess what's inside:
Yay! I love blue!
It's got to be the best shop ever created. There is another one later in the game that has the red stuff, and it was amazing too!
Anyway, the enemies are nicely balanced in the desert, though, again, it is basically only Leevers. You sort of need variety to make an area less bland. Because it got repetitive again.
I find Level 2, and it has an interesting gimmick that I've never seen implemented before in another quest (this quest is VERY creative):
There are many more palette changes, and they happen every second.
It is really interesting. It can get annoying to your eyes, but it is clever and creative, which I like. Level 2 hasn't too difficult, but the boss gave me some trouble. It was a 3 headed Gleeok, and those always annoy me, since you still don't have beams with the white sword! (How dare you! ) Beams can be very useful against Gleeoks, but after killing it, I was glad.
The last area that contains Level 3 is a forest, which, yet again, composes of a repetitive enemies, this time being Moblins.
As you will probably expect by now, Level 3 also has a gimmick:
What are those fuzzy white things that are circling around a point?
I'll tell you what they are: They're things that if touched, will make you dizzy (drunk). And the sound they make when you do sounds like a fart. One problem I have with this is that they are in every single room, and it gets so annoying because they can't be avoided and will make it hard for you to fight, especially if the level is composed of Wizzrobes! It can get confusing, and made me extremely annoyed at one point.
In the dungeon, you get the fire boomerang, but it has an additional cool effect:
It can reflect the magic of Wizzrobes! COOL!
Again, more creative thinking by Theryan. It was really cool to be able to do that, and I really like it because it requires more focus than just having the mirror shield in front of you when magic tries to hit you.
I eventually beat the dungeon, and realize that I have all the Triforce pieces.
So since the quest description says that you need to kill the Russian in your house, I went there, and he is GONE! So I continue forth to the next room where horrors await me:
Aaaah! Where's Ganon?!?!?! Has he been replace by a Russian version?
Yes, he has. And frankly, it was WAY to easy, like any Ganon fight. I would suggest making him stronger or have more health. Or else he is underwhelming. And then I am greeted by this:
Um... So Taylor Swift, okay?
Ya, this quest was very sarcastic. And I liked that!
Now for the final comment on gameplay, and you probably know what it is; puzzles. This quest literally has none either. Okay, maybe one, but it wasn't really a puzzle. You just had to push the block into the triggers. It would be better because this quest is already full of enemy shutters, and this can get annoying. Puzzles slow the player down and make them require thinking in another way. So, a quest that plays like the NES quest should have at least some puzzles in each level.
Story
Okay, the story is a little different, but it is basically kill the Russian and save Taylor Swift. Not a story, but okay.
Design Attention
Finally, where here! This quest's screen design is simply amazing and beautiful. It cannot be described with words, but I can let you soak it in using screenshots:
If every quest had this amount of beauty and detail, we'd live in a perfect world
Ya. Once of the best screen designed quests I've ever played. Simply amazing.
There is only one screen design bug that I found:
Undercombo works on sand, but not in the other place?
If I move the block onto somewhere other than the sand, it makes black combos underneath. But that is the only error that I found, so good job!
The dungeon design of this quest was fairly linear, and they were quite small too. I would love if the areas were larger, and have more splitting paths then it already does. It seems a little sad, truly, after the amazingness of the overworld.
Overall, the design attention of this quest is phenomenal, but not exactly flawless.
Music
This quest has different music for each area, and I love that. Also, the music choices are great and they aren't repetitive at the slightest. Very impressed at the choice of music especially since the quest was created in only 2 weeks. Great job!
Concluding Thoughts/Summary
Russian is an amazing quest with unbelievable amounts of detail, but it still has some flaws that lower the score down slightly, but almost so unnoticeable that it barley influences the quest's greatness.
Strengths
- Humorous quest
- Creative areas in the overworld and dungeons
- AMAZING and BEAUTIFUL screen design in the overworld
- Implements ideas very well
- Great music choices that enhance the experience
- Balanced difficulty throughout the quest
Weaknesses
- Repetitive enemies
- Coloration errors (the Darknuts in Level 1 sometimes are colored)
- You can skip the first boss
- No puzzles
- Small and linear dungeons
- 1 Undercombo bug
Rating: 9.0/10 (Amazing)
Database Rating: 5/5 (Amazing)
Edited by DaviAwesome, 02 August 2013 - 04:14 PM.
