163 replies to this topic

[trudatman]

I just want to point out that I never claimed that the final "half" of trudatman.qst is an example of good quest design. I only typed a conveyance of the fact that it was done deliberately and intentionally and was thus not in any way "rushed." I certainly don't expect any part of my first quest to hold a player's attention. thanks again for the review. keep them coming!

[Moosh]

Moosh's not so random review 4: Master Quest: New BS Edition
By Radien

Oh man, the nostalgia. It is strong with this one.

So let me say something right away before I start this review: I'm not too fond of traditional classic style quests. I'm not fond of remakes and third quests and whatnot. They're just not my thing. I'll even go so far as to say that without a guide handy, I wouldn't have even enjoyed the original Legend of Zelda. So naturally, when Radien requested that I review Master Quest: New BS Edition, I was reluctant at first. Nevertheless, in the end it was an enjoyable experience and I was glad to have played the quest. With lots of assistance. I'm a dirty cheater, as shown by the two super bombs .

 hr[/hr]

Gameplay:

This quest plays much like Zelda 1's first and second quest did. There is no mandatory dungeon order for the most part, so as soon as you get some essentials like the ladder, you can just head to level 8 if you feel like it. It isn't advised, though, and it certainly isn't easy. The first obstacle I had with this quest is that almost all the dungeons are hidden. Well...not exactly hidden. There are some hint guys who will help you out with vague clues like one guy who says something about growling under a dock, but many of these hints are rather cryptic and of course the hint guys themselves are hidden oftentimes.

Believe it or not, these are dungeon locations.

The dungeons' gameplay is also very cryptic at times. In the very first dungeon, I killed what appeared to be the boss only to have the door not open. I was very confused and had to check in ZQuest (thank you Radien for not passwording this quest) to discover that I had to walk through a wall in the boss room to access a second half of the dungeon. Later on, this would become commonplace. Many dungeon rooms would contain lots and lots of blocks in a mazelike pattern, one of which being pushable. The location of the pushable block never moved when these mazes were reused, but the first time finding it was always quite tedious and god forbid you should ever forget which block is usually pushable in a room's layout.

This dungeon's name as well as this room pretty much sums up all the dungeons in this quest. But hey, it's a third quest. It's supposed to be brutal.

Tedium is no friend of mine. I was not raised on Nintendo hard games.

Another thing I found very annoying about this quest was the reuse of dungeon rooms. This was no fault of Radien's. It was one of the restrictions he set on himself when he chose to make a semi-authentic third quest (I say semi-authentic becuase he DID break the wools in a few places). Still, seeing the same layouts over and over again made some of the later dungeons feel a bit dry, but Radien managed to make up for that with his clever dungeon layout designs and clever trickery (the good kind).

One of the few screens that was not to my knowledge copypasted elsewhere in the quest.

At times, secrets were somewhat obscure. A couple examples of this would be push blocks where you don't expect them (layouts that normally have push blocks or...um...the triforce room!?) and particularly Level 5's gimmick of playing the whistle everywhere to turn water into sand . It really would be helpful to put a marker of some sort somewhere. Actually that's pretty much all I had a problem with in this quest. The lack of any sort of marking as to what you need to do. I'm going to pull out a pretty hefty comparison here, but let's take Ballad of a Bloodline as an example. A lot of the times there's one object in a room that stands out that you just have no clue which of your 15 thousand items to use on it. This quest is similar except you usually know what item you need to use, but not WHERE to use it. Who knows, maybe this is something like Heisenburg's Uncertainty principle and you just have to be either uncertain where or what with to trigger a secret...

Link's whistle can defy all known laws of physics.

Something I rarely ever take into account is map shape. I guess this is because outside of a third quest scenario, you don't really NEED to take that into account. The first quest made the maps look like something, the second quest made the maps look like something (Kinda. Most of them were letters or something...), so logically the third quest should have maps that look like something. Radien did a very good job making clever map designs that the dungeon flow fits into. I applaud him for this feat of questmaking might. Unfortunately, something that interrupted the dungeon flow is that every key in the dungeon corresponds to a keyhole. This was not so much the case with the first and second quests as you could often find ways around keyholes and stockpile keys. The only way I managed to do that in this quest was by skipping a dungeon item (the wand). Another dungeon item, the magic key ended up being completely pointless as I didn't see any locked doors past Level 8 where I found it to my knowledge...

Majora's Mask. He shaped a dungeon to look like Majora's Mask. *Cries tears of win*

 hr[/hr]

Music:
Radien did something interesting with the music in which for the first few dungeons he alternated between two MIDIs: a remix of the Zelda 1 and Zelda 3 dungeon themes and Hyrule Temple from SSBM. I really liked it but for some reason after dungeon 5, he just used the first song, only bringing back the Hyrule Temple song for level 8. It could be that the pattern in the earlier dungeons was accidental or it could be that he just set Level 6's music to the wrong MIDI and didn't notice...

I also noticed that there were some MIDIs in ZQuest that I never heard in the actual quest. I think one of them was supposed to be for the graveyard area which inexplicably had the regular overworld MIDI...

Also, whenever the Hyrule Temple MIDI played, I couldn't get Brentalfloss's goddamn lyrics out of my head...

 hr[/hr]

Design:
"How do I comment on the design of a quest that reuses screens and uses another quest's overworld (nothing is majorly changed from the first quest's design)?" I thought this as I started playing this quest. I honestly couldn't find anything really unique about the quest's design to comment on. Nothing majorly good or bad. Then I walked into some cave...

...and ended up here...

...and then this happened...

It was like I was suddenly walking through the promised land. This here is the final stretch of the quest, where Radien FINALLY decided to bend the rules and got to really show off his skill with the BS set. It was beautiful. Words can not describe how un-classic this place is, so I'll let some pictures do the talking.

Nice Zelda II reference having to blow the whistle here.

I'm fairly sure the secret on this screen was broken by a Zelda Classic update or whatever, so I cheated. If it wasn't, well then I'm sorry.

While I'm at it, I might as well mention this subsection of Level 7 here. I love seeing outdoor sections in dungeons. An awesome point for you, Radien.

So while we're at the gates to the final dungeon, that elusive place nobody ever commented on, that place seemingly nobody ever reached, let's take some time to talk about this quest's enemies. I feel this quest was really fair with its enemy placements. For the most part it remained consistently difficult, while almost never crossing the line into insane. By level 9, it seemed that Radien had run out of enemies that could provide a decent challenge on their own, so he threw in some rather crafty combinations to add on an extra layer of difficulty. That said, there were a couple of rooms that got on my nerves.

Traps are technically an enemy and their placement here is horrible. You literally cannot avoid them if you enter from the left, which I believe may have been the only way into this room.

This room. THIS ROOM. Maybe it was just the way the bubbles chose to spawn, but I nearly soiled my pants several times going through this.

So Level 9 itself. How bad was it? Was it really so difficult that only one person ever beat it? Honestly, no. I don't think Level 9 was that difficult, it just didn't do very much to differentiate itself from the rest of the quest other than being FREAKING MASSIVE. There were some rather nasty enemy combinations like the one pictured above and a couple very benign ones (Keese rooms can be such a relief sometime, you know?). It wasn't insane and the multi-floor navigation really didn't get in the way too much. All the staircases were *gasp* MARKED for once with dungeon shapes from the first and second quests, and although there were some walk through and bombable walls, I don't think they were NEARLY as bad as in previous levels. I remember only a couple part that really got me, one being the room I showed above and the other being a room of 10 red bubbles surrounding the stairs leading to the home stretch. Radien intentionally put those bubbles there in hopes that the player would get hit and have to go on a little trip to find a blue bubble and darn it, he got me there. I'm just glad I didn't get 1-way-doored during my little detour. That would have sucked. So yeah, Level 9 was pretty cool, but nothing really all that special. Honestly, it was undermined significantly by the area before it.

Imagine if Level 9 in Zelda 1 marked its passageways like this. SO MUCH LESS CONFUSION!

 hr[/hr]

Concluding Thoughts:
Master Quest: New BS Edition is not a bad quest. It is not a great quest either. I'd say it's safely within the zone of a good quest. It had good areas and bad areas. It wasn't afraid to deviate from the formula at times. It had its strengths, it had its weaknesses. Hey speaking of those, let's move on to strengths and weaknesses!

Strengths:

• The new overworld area is BEAUTIFUL.
• Enemies are balanced well
• Radien did some really clever stuff with his dungeon layouts

Weaknesses:

• Reused screens bring down some of the later dungeons
• Secret combos can be a bit too well hidden
• Locked doors are a mandatory obstacle (Radien said he felt having keys be somewhat optional in Zelda 1 was a flaw. I tend to disagree.)
• Some rather useless items (Wand, magic key, ect. This was a problem in Zelda 1 as well.)

 hr[/hr]
Rating: 3/5

This is a pretty good quest. I'd recommend playing it (but be prepared to either do some cheating or ask a LOT of questions).

And now, a nerdy joke:
How do you completely break a classic style quest like this one?

answer

CODE

import "std.zh"
const int bombtile=60;
const int walktile=40;
const int bombcset=7;
const int walkcset=7;
global script showmethelight{
    void run(){
        while(true){
            if(Screen->Door[DIR_UP]==D_BOMB)Screen->FastTile(6, 120, 16, bombtile, bombcset, 0);
            if(Screen->Door[DIR_UP]==D_WALKTHRU)Screen->FastTile(6, 120, 16, walktile, walkcset, 0);
            if(Screen->Door[DIR_RIGHT]==D_BOMB)Screen->FastTile(6, 224, 80, bombtile, bombcset, 0);
            if(Screen->Door[DIR_RIGHT]==D_WALKTHRU)Screen->FastTile(6, 224, 80, walktile, walkcset, 0);
            if(Screen->Door[DIR_DOWN]==D_BOMB)Screen->FastTile(6, 120, 144, bombtile, bombcset, 0);
            if(Screen->Door[DIR_DOWN]==D_WALKTHRU)Screen->FastTile(6, 120, 144, walktile, walkcset, 0);
            if(Screen->Door[DIR_LEFT]==D_BOMB)Screen->FastTile(6, 16, 80, bombtile, bombcset, 0);
            if(Screen->Door[DIR_LEFT]==D_WALKTHRU)Screen->FastTile(6, 16, 80, walktile, walkcset, 0);
            for(int i=0; i<=175; i++){
                if(Screen->ComboF[i]==2)Screen->ComboC[i]=7;
            }
            Waitframe();
        }
    }
}

As usual, feel free to comment and stuff.

Edited by Moosh, 07 October 2012 - 02:30 PM.

[Radien]

Well, I felt like commenting in response, but I don't really like "retorting" people's actual reviews, so for the most part I wanted to comment on certain screens.



Yes, this is definitely one of the harder rooms in the quest. And make no mistake: stuff like this can kill me a good deal of the time, too. I'm not some Zelda 1 wizard who has an overinflated opinion of how good everyone "should" be at the game. But what's weird is that even at this difficulty, Master Quest is still easier than a lot of 3rd Quests out there. For the parts where Poke says it was very difficult, but not insanely difficult, those are the parts where I believe I succeeded with fine-tuning the difficulty level.



The problem Poke had with this screen is that I was making an assumption about the player that didn't hold true in his case. You see, in 1st and 2nd Quest, the pushable block on any screen is always the same: it's the left-most block on the middle row. If you happen to realize/remember that, you only have to check one block per screen, max.

(By the way, the map for this level matches the symbol you see in "Ocarina of Time: Master Quest." You know, the one that replaces the crescent moon and star that appears on blocks, the Mirror Shield, etc.)

Anyway, in the New BS version, I made sure that the pushblock location pattern was really consistent with 1st and 2nd Quest. Even this non-copy-pasted screen has a pushblock in the 'standard" location (two tiles north from Link, then three tiles east)...

Another dungeon item, the magic key ended up being completely pointless as I didn't see any locked doors past Level 8 where I found it to my knowledge...

Well, here's the thing: I consider the Magic Key to be the most broken item in the entire Zelda series. With level 8, I created an entire dungeon revolving around an attempt to alleviate the problem. I would never use the Magic Key in most quests... old-style quests like this are the only exception.

Master Quest may offer keys for sale, but I wanted to be 100% sure the player would never be FORCED to buy one, even if they used a key in the wrong dungeon. Making Master Quest fit that description is probably what caused it to feel more "restrictive" to you. (Now that ZC has an option to use "level-specific keys," I could have dealt with a lot of the problem by using those instead of universal keys. But I don't think they were available at the time I released this QST file.)

One of the things I did to that purpose was put the Magic Key in a very dangerous dungeon that CAN be completed without unlocking the doors, but if you beeline it straight to the Magic Key, you can use it to unlock a bunch of shortcuts in the dungeon, and thus avoid all (or nearly all) of the "sub-bosses." That made the Magic Key a bit of a "one-trick pony," and mostly just a bonus item, helpful for completing level 8. Flawed idea? I dunno, I leave that one to you.

The thing about the idea of having locked doors in level 9 (without keys for them) is that they would be an empty gesture to say "congrats, you have the Magic Key" without really changing the gameplay. BUT... it's true that you can't even enter level 9 without the whole Triforce, so perhaps I should throw in a few anyway. (There's a tiny chance that'd make it possible to screw up your game file by using keys in a really weird order, but if the Magic Key is accessible by simply fighting your way through an extended series of Dodongos, Manhandlas, Gleeoks, and Digdoggers... well, maybe it's worth trying, eh?)

Majora's Mask. He shaped a dungeon to look like Majora's Mask. *Cries tears of win*

Well, my "instruction booklet" Word doc vaguely states that it is shaped like "a mask," but it definitely ended up looking like Majora's Mask in particular, yes. Of course you could also imagine it as looking like a fox mask. But either way... Majora's Mask reference!!
...The Zelda series really needs more masks...

Music:
Radien did something interesting with the music in which for the first few dungeons he alternated between two MIDIs: a remix of the Zelda 1 and Zelda 3 dungeon themes and Hyrule Temple from SSBM. I really liked it but for some reason after dungeon 5, he just used the first song, only bringing back the Hyrule Temple song for level 8. It could be that the pattern in the earlier dungeons was accidental or it could be that he just set Level 6's music to the wrong MIDI and didn't notice...

I don't think it was a mistake. I think I was just very carefully trying to match each MIDI theme with the dungeons that suited the mood for that track. This led to some themes being used closer to others, especially if you broke sequence from the level order.

Another reason I used the "Zelda 1/LTTP" dungeon remix a lot is because I made the remix myself, and I was happy with it. I hope it wasn't too repetitive.

Anyway, perhaps you think it would have been better if I found a different MIDI for every single level? That would be a fair opinion to have.


This probably ended up being the most infamous puzzle among anybody who has played the quest. I don't think it was unsolvable; it was just a little too convoluted for Poke (and other players, most likely). To summarize, the point is to divert the flow of the water (anyone who has played the DoR first dungeon demo knows I'm fond of this concept). But perhaps the steps you need to take to do it are a little over-the-top. I'll say one thing: you can't do it from the area where Link is standing in this image. You have to find another entrance to the screen.

While I'm at it, I might as well mention this subsection of Level 7 here. I love seeing outdoor sections in dungeons. An awesome point for you, Radien.

Thanks! Me too, I love 'em! From Zelda 2 to Skyward Sword, I think outdoor areas in dungeons are awesome and should be in every Zelda game.

Traps are technically an enemy and their placement here is horrible. You literally cannot avoid them if you enter from the left, which I believe may have been the only way into this room.

Actually, there is another way to enter this room. You're meant to enter from the south door and unlock the north door.

This is one of those times when I used room difficulty to punish someone who missed an easier route that was subtly hidden. In fact, level 8 was almost ENTIRELY comprised of "shortcuts around really difficult fights." Fortunately, from what you told me on IRC, it sounds like you actually found all (or most of) the shortcuts in that level.


I just wanted to offer a personal apology for this room. It was a cruel thing to do to a fellow human being. Can you ever forgive me?

All I can say is that practically every room of enemies (without shutters) in level 9 is best tackled with a "boomerang 'em and RUN" approach. 1st and 2nd Quest's level 9s are somewhat similar in that respect.


ANYWAY... This may be a remake of sorts, but it's still a remake of my first ZC quest project, and I didn't change it as much as many remakes do, either. Mostly just fixed the stuff I didn't like. So... expecting it to get perfect scores would be rather unreasonable. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get a 4 out of you, but I'm glad you at least enjoyed it. And your appreciation for the final area was very encouraging, since it's something I'd like everyone who plays the quest to see.


P.S. - I don't know whether you noticed, but I hardly used secret passageways at all in this quest. Personally, I always felt that they made the subscreen maps too useless by negating the benefits of being a good navigator. I hope that improved the experience a little bit. Level 9 has lots of staircases, but they always lead straight down to the room below on the next floor down.

[judasrising]

Maybe Lost Isle next or Time After or Swansong Genesis or Tower of Shadows

[Moosh]

Maybe Lost Isle next or Time After or Swansong Genesis or Tower of Shadows

Whoa, that's a lot of requests. I know you guys want to see me review all your favorite quests, but I think I'm gonna put the requests one the back burner for a while and review some quests I want to review.

Edited by Pokemonmaster64, 05 December 2011 - 09:36 PM.

[kurt91]

To be honest, I think you should try to pick quests that don't get too much attention. I mean, let's face it. Lost Isle is popular and played enough that people will most likely already know what they're getting into if they decide to download it and play it. To me, the point of a review is to help give attention to quests that deserve to be played, and to keep people from downloading the ones that are utter garbage. Some of the reviews I've been reading have shown me quests that I would never have considered playing before, whether it be from an uninspiring name for the quest that prevents it from standing out, or from the poor screenshots that don't show the highlights of a quest that makes people want to play them.

When you do reviews of already popular quests, the draw to them is simply your opinion. That's why snarky and snide reviewers, such as the Nostalgia Critic for movies, are so popular. I mean, it seems to me that a long review consisting of nothing more than stating that the graphics are pretty and the dungeons are well designed would only draw the appeal of the one who created the quest. It's mainly the viewpoint of the reviewer that brings in people to read them.

Anyways, before I lose my original train of thought and start rambling, I think you should pick quests that are not as well known. Help get them a bit of attention they deserve, whether it's to draw people in or warn them to stay away.

[Moosh]

To be honest, I think you should try to pick quests that don't get too much attention. I mean, let's face it. Lost Isle is popular and played enough that people will most likely already know what they're getting into if they decide to download it and play it. To me, the point of a review is to help give attention to quests that deserve to be played, and to keep people from downloading the ones that are utter garbage. Some of the reviews I've been reading have shown me quests that I would never have considered playing before, whether it be from an uninspiring name for the quest that prevents it from standing out, or from the poor screenshots that don't show the highlights of a quest that makes people want to play them.

When you do reviews of already popular quests, the draw to them is simply your opinion. That's why snarky and snide reviewers, such as the Nostalgia Critic for movies, are so popular. I mean, it seems to me that a long review consisting of nothing more than stating that the graphics are pretty and the dungeons are well designed would only draw the appeal of the one who created the quest. It's mainly the viewpoint of the reviewer that brings in people to read them.

Anyways, before I lose my original train of thought and start rambling, I think you should pick quests that are not as well known. Help get them a bit of attention they deserve, whether it's to draw people in or warn them to stay away.

This is actually a very good point. Lost Isle and pretty much any of DFW or Freedom's quests already have sufficient attention. I'd prefer to review something less known, but not to the point where it's something terrible. I'm thinking I'll probably do Link to the Shadows next. What do you think? Good idea? Bad idea?

Edit: Oh wow. That one has gotten a lot more attention than since I last remember...I'd still like to review it some time though.

Edited by Pokemonmaster64, 06 December 2011 - 12:20 AM.

[LinktheMaster]

To be honest, though, reviews can have many different purposes. One of those purposes, yes, is to bring attention to quests that tend to get overlooked. Another purpose is to analyze quests and simply tell people if they need to play the quest or not. And another is to give advice as to how to make quests better. Finally, the last is merely for entertainment value. All of these are perfectly good reasons to review quests, so you can't really fault Poke for going one way or another.

[Moosh]

To be honest, though, reviews can have many different purposes. One of those purposes, yes, is to bring attention to quests that tend to get overlooked. Another purpose is to analyze quests and simply tell people if they need to play the quest or not. And another is to give advice as to how to make quests better. Finally, the last is merely for entertainment value. All of these are perfectly good reasons to review quests, so you can't really fault Poke for going one way or another.

Still, I'm really trying hard to make my choices at least somewhat diverse so I don't fit into one groove.

One part of kurt's comment that stuck out to me was this:

I mean, it seems to me that a long review consisting of nothing more than stating that the graphics are pretty and the dungeons are well designed would only draw the appeal of the one who created the quest.

I don't want my reviews to only appeal to the quest maker. Anyone have suggestions how I can make them more interesting?

Edited by Pokemonmaster64, 06 December 2011 - 12:27 AM.

[DarkFlameWolf]

I'm not going to ask any of the reviewers to review any of my quests. I'm pretty sure people are aware of who I am and what I've been able to make. But in the end, I can't stop people from reviewing what they want.

[kurt91]

One part of kurt's comment that stuck out to me was this:

I mean, it seems to me that a long review consisting of nothing more than stating that the graphics are pretty and the dungeons are well designed would only draw the appeal of the one who created the quest.

I don't want my reviews to only appeal to the quest maker. Anyone have suggestions how I can make them more interesting?

I wasn't using your reviews as an example. I enjoy reading these, they're fairly informative, and any complaints made are genuine and well thought out. You don't go into tirades about how horrible things are that are only a matter of opinion. (Like open corners. I don't have a problem with them, and when they're done well, they make a space seem much larger and more open. A lot of people here will practically lynch a person for leaving a single corner uncovered.) I only meant reviews that are like extended versions of the comments most quests have that don't go into any more detail than "Loved it. Great Quest!"

If you have a quest that you can't find many faults, if any at all, and you review it, there's no problem there. It's still a good review as long as you explain in detail exactly why it did well. What was so special about that particular quest that you feel others could learn a thing or two about good quest design by emulating it.

Edited by kurt91, 06 December 2011 - 03:44 AM.

[Eddy]

These reviews seem pretty interesting and quite funny and I love them! I especially love the 'sheer lunacy' on the first review. I think that these reviews are going successfully right now (even though you've only done 4 yet) and I see it's attracting quite a lot of people's attention to read them.

I have a suggestion you should review: Link's First Day

It's not really a quest many people know but it should atleast be known. It was made by joelmacool12 by the way. I really hope this gets reviewed soon though (I think the quest was pretty decent, not sure what you think though).

[Moosh]

Moosh's not so random review 5: Cousin of Powers
By Castchaos

Ever get that feel that you just wanna get a quest over with so you never have to play it again? That's the feel I got with this one right from the start. It started out frustrating and it kept on growing more and more so exponentially. Writing this review is difficult in itself because I have so much pent up frustration and anger and really want to keep things civilized without resorting to trolling. I guess to sum things up in 5 words: I didn't like this quest.

 hr[/hr]

Story:

What the heck are you playing at, Moosh? You start with the gameplay and whatnot, don't you? NOT TODAY. This quest is heavily story based and that's the big problem with it. Castchaos does not speak English as his native language. This was OK with his earlier work which was simple and cliché (which in this case isn't that bad), but then he started adding in a ton of crossovers and before you know it, you have a full blown Hans Von Hozel style crossover fanfic. And that's the problem. I don't want to read an Engrish fanfic. I want to play a quest. I want to see at least some creativity that isn't based on mashing a bunch of things together a la Sonichu.

I think this is a plot twist of sorts, but the Engrish befuddles any meaning it should carry.

So what exactly is CoP's story? From what I can gather, it starts where the previous game left off with Coral (the protagonist of the previous game) trapped in a sword and sent back in time with her sister, Alma. Then we see Alma land on a pirate ship and there's some dialogue by the pirates about a bunch of characters who haven't been properly introduced and then something badly explained happens and Alma is trapped in an iceberg. Did you guys catch all that? Good because now comes the introduction of 50 million bland Mary-Sue side characters. Basically there's these children on this island called Exile and you need to take them to the past so they can do some stuff to change the flow of time and at this point I don't know who's who. Aside from the children, there's some other important guys like Lord Labreoux, the Tyrant, Sird'Alom, and the Lunatic. These four are connected somehow but because of Castchaos's Engrish I have little clue how other than that Tyrant is apparently a bad guy and Sird'Alom is a hero.

Describing a race of evil people who just happen to have brown skin. Racism? You decide.

 hr[/hr]

Gameplay:

So you start out on the island of Exile. What do you do next. You go to a dig site so you'll be able to use the sword that you ALREADY HAVE WITH YOU. From there it all goes downhill. You have to slash and bomb random pots to get the Ocarina and Lens (you will NEED this), but first you need to find the bombs which is a whole other ordeal. But I'm not writing a walkthrough. Essentially from there it all goes downhill. Castchaos has some issues with his secret combos. Serious issues. Shooting random pots with arrows bad. Boomeranging random glowing rocks and other things bad.

Would you believe those ice blocks are slashable? Would you believe one of them has a key under it?

There really isn't much to say for the gameplay. None of it really makes sense and I can't think of any areas I particularly enjoyed. You might notice most of these pictures are from late in the quest. That's because I kinda lost some of them and there's no way in hell I'm going back. Why? There's one place in particular, one dungeon, that I will go right ahead and say is the single worst dungeon ever made by anyone.

I may never play another one of Castchaos's quests again after being put through this.

Fort Boyard. Castchaos has a story behind this. A lot of the dungeons in this quest were based on stuff from his childhood apparently. You should go check in the old development thread. It's quite fascinating really. But anyways, this dungeon has almost 40 keys in it if I remember correctly. All of them are marked on the map for you but even that doesn't help. It is the single most frustrating and confusing thing I've ever played through. Also some of the keys you got from killing the worst enemies ever created: Peahats.

A later dungeon also gave me key problems. This was because it was possible to unlock the wrong doors and screw yourself over. Castchaos fixed this problem, but I feel it's still worth mentioning. Make backups, guys.

Overall, the gameplay was less than inspiring. Much less than inspiring. I feel that with some tweaking and extra effort, it could have worked out. Castchaos has accumulated a lot of advice on how to improve his gameplay thus far and to my knowledge completely ignored almost all of it.

Gigantic maze paths like this are just a pet peeve of mine. I hate them.

 hr[/hr]

Music:

This quest has some problems with its music. For me at least. It isn't that the music choices were bad, it was that half of them had MIDI bugs on my end. I don't know why but no other 2.10 quests I've played have given me this problem. Exile's MIDI blew out my eardrums after one loop when the percussion randomly went crazy. That was when I realized this would not be a pleasant experience for my ears. Later on I just muted the sound.

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Design:

Design flaws. Everywhere. This quest is full of bugs and generally poor design. Very early on in the quest, you come face to face with patras that can pretty much instantly kill you. A lot of enemies have needlessly altered graphics of other enemies, for example leevers are gels. Other enemies make absolutely no sense. Pols voices turn into floppy discs for no reason. From no matter what angle I look at it it's stupid. Castchaos said that it was something he made up in his childhood but the thing is, children make up some pretty silly things. Floppy discs that turn into rabbits is one of them. Almost nothing looks like it should.

A whole cave full of batrobes...*Seethes with hate*

Anyone wanna make a guess what these enemies are? If you said sliding spike traps, what have you been smoking because you're correct.

Then there's the screen design itself. It's acceptable in some areas and abysmal in others. Some screens were clearly rushed. Because of this, the maps don't fit together too good. You can walk from a decent screen to an empty one and it just feels unnatural. At times like I said earlier about that one level with the key bug, maps just lack decent planning.

What is this, classic set?

This screen is not only blandly designed, but if you stay long enough, random WATER!!!! *SPLASH* comes and kills you.

Sometimes, the crossovers just get overwhelming. I want to see something Zelda-y, but know I never will...

Why is there a random jiggy on the floor, why is that detail necessary?

If you see any boss sprites from an actual Zelda game (besides Vaati), let me know. Also these bosses have VERY choppy movement.

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General "What the hell" moments:

This quest really knows how to have some pretty random stuff here and there. Just as the plot is advancing, something goofy pops up and completely ruins the moment. Also, I noticed a lot of children in this quest, some of them wearing very little like a random little girl in a bikini in level 6. I can't help but get a bit creeped out by some of Castchaos's inclusions in his quests like the numerous hidden naked little girls in BoaB. I guess it's gotten to the point where I'm constantly on the alert for this kinda stuff...So let's have some pictures of some notable "What the hell" moments.

Thatssssss a very nice bikini you have there little girl. (you could argue it's the heat, but I don't see anyone else in a bikini)

Reusing jokes from BoaB? Oh Castchaos you silly Billy!

Spouting random memes ISN'T FUNNY!

It's never pleasant seeing your work made into a mockery...sadly, I brought this upon myself. Silly old newb Moosh requested this cameo. I have gone on to regret it. A sad page in my history has been branded into Castchaos canon.

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Concluding Thoughts:

Cousin of Powers is a confusing, rushed mess. It had some pretty areas and some clever tricks and whatnot, but it missed the whole point of making a game. Games are supposed to be fun. Castchaos went too far with the story, didn't focus enough on gameplay, and basically overstepped his linguistic capabilities.

Strengths:

• Pretty in some spots
• Dungeons were for the most part well designed
• Clever item uses/graphics (Candle as Cane of Somaria)

Weaknesses:

• Overpowered enemies in some spots
• Secret combos are about as non-intuitive as they can get
• Keys can be a problem
• Not very fun
• Bugs everywhere
• Engrish (CC could have gone with a simpler story and had less Engrish issues)
• Custom bosses are choppy, rushed and confusing (if you want to see 2.10 custom bosses done well, check out Hero of Dreams)

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Rating: 2/5

Edit: Changed the score to a 2/5. I wasn't really thinking at my best when I chose the original rating. Technically I should have given an extra half a point at least for all the effort that went into CoP so that rounds up to 2. I'm sorry about the original score. It really wasn't very tasteful of me to put this quest in the same category of Twitch TV Lunatic when there was clearly so much thought and effort put in.

If you're a die hard Castchaos fan, I know you're obviously going to go play this quest (if you haven't already) so I won't try to stop you. Otherwise I say steer clear. I've actually been dreading posting this because I know some people will inevitably get mad and call me a troll and whatnot. Remember these are just my opinions. I'm not forcing them on you.

If you disagree with me, feel free to post any counterarguments.

Edited by Moosh, 07 October 2012 - 02:32 PM.

[DarkFlameWolf]

well can't say I've played Cousin of Powers, but based on the quests of Cast Chaos I did play, I never really was drawn in to the point of continuing anywhere past the first level myself.

[judasrising]

Hi Pokemonmaster64

Did you beat CoP?