105 replies to this topic

[Sheik]

I like your turn on it, though. Compare it with other forms of art. If a hobby artist was to make a painting, than the quality of that painting has nothing to with wether it was painted in her or his free time, or that she or he did not get payed for it. That's totally uninteresting regarding the quality of the product and should thusly not have an effect on the raiting of the product('s quality).

Edited by Yoshimi, 16 November 2011 - 01:00 PM.

[Kite]

Weekly Random Review #6 – 11/18/2011
Link's Quest for the Hookshot by Pokemonmaster64
Requested by Pokemonmaster64

Last Updated: 12/10/2010
ZC Version: 2.50 RC1
PureZC Rating: 4/5 (not that this matters much since I don't think everyone knows how to rate threads)

Welcome to our first Random Requested Review. Of the six entries we got, the winner was Pokemonmaster64's request to have his own quest reviewed. This is probably a good thing since I would have killed him if his other suggestion won.

It's kind of obvious what the other suggestion was, given how much people are anticipating that review. Let me say upfront that if I ever come across that quest, I am going to be trying a different review approach.

But enough about that. It's time to review Link's Quest for the Hookshot.

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I have to admit that the description of Link's Quest for the Hookshot piqued my interest before I even opened it. The whole premise of collecting rupees instead of triforce pieces (granted there are 8 money caches to collect) for an obvious objective shown to you at the beginning of the quest just felt unique to me. It would be hard to confuse this quest for another quest with an objective like that.

So does the unique description do the quest justice? Let's find out.

Gameplay

This quest sent me through a rollercoaster of opinions as I played through it.

Not even a minute into the quest and it has already messed up.

The beginning of the quest pissed me off. The very first thing you have to do is go through a cramped gimmick area (because glitch worlds are hilarious and have not been an overused gimmick by quest makers at this point). You get equipped with a red candle that uses (surprisingly very little) magic as your first weapon. While there is a place to get magic refills, it is considerably out of the way... and the candle sucks for being a sole weapon. Once you are equipped with the candle, you must go through an extremely cramped forest. Good luck killing moblins with just a candle and very little room to move! The forest, itself, is a horribly uninspired area that contains a maze I had to completely guess at to solve due to the old lady with the directions forgetting them.

And then the dungeons start happening. Pokemonmaster64 is a fan of symmetrical dungeon map design. However, he doesn't accomplish this by putting rooms next to each other logically. He accomplishes this with scrolling warps... making the dungeon map (that already doesn't show where you have been) almost entirely pointless. Many of the dungeons contain random gimmicks that will warp you back to the beginning of the dungeon against your will, making exploration even more annoying at times. Level 2 is also a horrible dungeon for containing Gibdos, Bats and the first of many uninspired endurance bosses (level 1's boss doesn't count) that almost require you to just take the punishment and spam weapons until it dies.

Not pictured: The machine gun spam of fireballs by this boss.

But I have to admit, I started enjoying the quest when I hit level 3. Despite my grievances with the scroll warping and the map, the dungeon design for most of the dungeons seems fairly solid. Many of the dungeon and area gimmicks are actually somewhat unique and interesting. The puzzles seem to actually have thought put into them. You also mostly get items in an order that allows you to use them against the increasingly difficult enemies you encounter. Overall, I was having fun and actually couldn't wait to see what I would run into next.

And then level 7 happened. Of everything in my notes text file for this quest, level 7 has the most expletives dedicated to it. Return to the beginning whirlwinds everywhere in what is pretty much an enormous tower, being required to go through a small part of the dungeon blind, pits, a horrible timing puzzle to get the boss key, and the custom boss made this dungeon a complete pain. The custom boss was especially a pain because it doesn't use any sort of event recognition (like the boss flag trick that can be done in 1.92) to flag it as defeated. This wouldn't be a problem, but there is an area at the top of the tower, meaning you have to fight the thing and go through its cutscene every single time you want to pass through. It also sucks that there are no shortcuts to trigger. I tried... and had to beat the boss three different times as punishment (granted one of those times is because I wanted to know what "Poke's Will" did... and discovered it was Farore's Wind).

This dungeon has all of my hate.

Level 8's custom boss also gave me some trouble. There is a bug either in the quest or RC2 that makes the part where you have to reflect the moon with your sword (it doesn't make sense in context either) mess up half of the time. The secret on what I'm assuming is the ffc will trigger, but Link will get hit as it passes on by anyway... only for the next scene to activate and show the moon being reflected back suddenly. At least you can beat this boss once then never worry about it again; otherwise this would have completely stopped me.

The reason I am focusing so much on only half of the quest (the light world) is because I technically only beat half of the game. That half was actually enjoyable overall and I feel it could have stood as a decent quest on its own. But in level 9, I accidentally skipped the first ending that would have left me partially oblivious to the rest of the quest.

"Second Quest" is not quite as enjoyable from the little I played of it (two dungeons). Considering the player can potentially be a tank at this point, Pokemonmaster64's design philosophy was to load almost every screen with boss enemies (usually patras) or enemies that will literally kill you in one hit with the red ring. Instead of adding a true challenge to the quest, I feel this just makes it tedious. You are also put into what doesn't even try to disguise itself as a triforce hunt, eliminating the uniqueness of trying to buy a hookshot. It's such a disconnect from the first half of the quest.

Narrative
This quest has a simple story: Link is out to grab the only money that exists in the land in order to buy the hookshot. It's the plot of a joke quest, but it works out rather well since it has the design to back it up. Many of the NPCs and area intros have wacky random things to say that can sometimes be funny.

This caption has nothing to say, because it is a useless caption.

With that said, some of the jokes littered in the strings are a bit annoying and at least one of them got in the way of actual quest progress due to a bad hint. It's also clear that Pokemonmaster64 enjoyed putting in NPCs that didn't even try to be interesting. "I have nothing to say, because I am a useless NPC," indeed.

Design Attention
Oh boy, where to start with this? A lot of what I talked about in the gameplay section could also be applied to this section.

I should have felt that coming for the Nayru's Love replacement, Poke's Awesomeness.

The overworld (at least the light world) is rather well structured. Even if you don't use a map, it is possible to remember where you are and know what areas are nearby. That awful forest maze to the first dungeon also isn't too difficult to navigate after the first time (it's just tedious). There are also secret challenges and heart containers throughout the map, making the overworld worth exploring. The quest encourages backtracking after getting various items in dungeons, so it is doubly worth it to explore.

As I said earlier, the dungeons are also well designed for the most part. The only dungeon I had real issue with was level 7. Level 8 is also kind of buggy due to its gimmick, but I'm not sure how much could be done about that.

The music choices are... unique, if fitting for the most part. Many of them are from video games, but some are popular culture songs. The graphics are a rather clashing mixture of elements, but I think it works rather well for the style of the quest.

Yes.

Pokemonmaster64 makes nice use of 2.50's non-scripting features. Many enemies have interesting behavior that you would not normally expect thanks to usage of the enemy editor. Most of the items seem to be used; including the scrolls that do things I couldn't remember or figure out. The main objective of the quest is possible because the item drop sets were modified to remove rupees.

Well. That was unexpected.

But the quest does have some issues beyond what I already mentioned in the gameplay section. My old friend, bomb farming, made a triumphant return in level 2. With level 1, there are many blue enemies from which to farm bombs. In level 2, the only in-level option is with gibdos. Outside of the level, there are only two nearby places to farm them (though one place is almost instant death at this point in the quest).

This quest also has the weirdest continue point system. With the exception of the very first area, overworld areas do not count as Save->Continue points. Dungeons, on the other hand, are almost always Save->Continue points. This is a double edged sword. It can allow you to leave the dungeon to find items and then Save->Continue warp back to the dungeon. However, if you want to save in a centralized location, you pretty much need to head back to the first area or you will continue at the last dungeon you entered again.

Secrets are also kind of annoying at times. There are switches that look exactly the same, but are triggered by different weapons. There are also secrets that trigger secrets in completely different parts of the dungeon with no indication of it happening.

Suggestions

• The glitch area gimmick right at the beginning is kind of stupid... especially since there are tektites jumping everywhere. If the area isn't completely removed, at least remove those tektites.
• The quest needs a better source of bombs near level 2. This could be a "shop" or a somewhat easy to kill enemy that has a high chance of dropping them.
• The level 2 boss needs a less cramped arena.
• The level 7 boss needs some event management put into it to keep from having to fight it over and over again.
• If there are going to be warps at the top of level 7, make it obvious they are one-way beforehand. Or better yet, make them not be one-way.
• If there are going to be remotely activated events (like lock blocks lowering), it needs to be made obvious that is what is happening. I'm looking at that lock block in level 4 when I say this.
• It would be nice to know what even half of the technique scrolls I picked up did.

Summary

Strong Points

• Solid dungeon design for the most part. At least in what I played.
• The quest has memorable areas.
• It has a unique premise.
• It has a mostly reasonable enemy difficulty progression.
• It encouraged exploration.

Weak Points

• The quest had a slow start. I didn't start having fun until level 3. Level 1 wasn't bad... but it wasn't really special either.
• The quest honestly should have ended after level 9 with a few optional dungeons on the side. "Second Quest" feels like it doesn't belong.
• Most of the bosses end up being endurance matches due to cramped arenas (especially level 2).
• The Save->Continue behavior became annoying if I wanted to save my place while in the overworld.

Overall, this was a fun quest to play. It just had a slow start and a few other issues that kept me from giving it a higher rating.

Score: 3/5

[DarkFlameWolf]

It's kind of obvious what the other suggestion was, given how much people are anticipating that review. Let me say upfront that if I ever come across that quest, I am going to be trying a different review approach.

I wonder what the other quest was...

[trudatman]

Ballad of a Bloodline, I figure. maybe Lost Isle, though.

[DarkFlameWolf]

ah something large, epic and can't be completed in one week. (maybe) lol

[LinktheMaster]

Weekly Random Review #7 –11/22/2011
Origins 2nd Quest by shadowfall1976

Some quests stand out for being amazing. Other quests stand out for being absolutely terrible. Finally there are the quests that just stand quietly in normalcy. Origins 2nd Quest fits into that middle ground very well. It’s neither great, nor terrible, though it is full of annoyances (to me). In all honesty, I don’t really have a lot to say, so I’m going to warn you that this probably won’t be the most interesting review I’ve written, but here we go!

Gameplay

Being a second quest remake, much of the quest feels very Zelda 1ish. You start out with nothing, and you have to roam about the overworld with little to no directions. The overworld is modeled mostly after the original second quest overworld since the same general layout is followed, but some things are tossed up a tiny little bit. The dungeons are at the same locations as in the second quest, most of the shops sell the same stuff as in the second quest, and all of the enemies are in the same location.

The dungeons are the main difference. They’re altered. In some instances, the changes are very minor, like adding boss keys in place of locked doors or shutters. Others are a little more significant, like changing paths in dungeons a bit by not allowing you bomb or walk through some walks that you could in the original second quest. Others are just frustrating, like making you boomerang a random wall that has nearly no graphical indication in order to move forward.

Does scream a bombable wall or a “pass through” wall? Well, the quest uses it for both.

This leads to my biggest gripe about the quest, and it’s a biggy to me. I got stuck in dungeons 2-4, and ended up having to stop the quest because of it. I just could not figure out what to do. I got at least ¾ of the way through each dungeon, but would end up hitting a wall with nothing visible to do. I tried pushing blocks, I tried bombing walls, but I could not figure anything out, and when I did stumble upon something, there would be no visual hint to it. However, I must admit that this is in the same fashion as the original Zelda quests, so I can’t complain too much. It’s just not what I care for.

In the end, I even broke down and looked up online maps of the original second quest, but the dungeons didn’t follow the dungeons in the second quest. Well, I should say that it’s sporadic. The actual rooms were exactly the same. Each one used the same enemies and the same layout. But the doors between rooms were changed. Some just weren’t there (mostly some bombable/pass through walls). Some were changed to locked doors instead of shutters. And some item placements were different. Some rooms wouldn’t give you keys when they were supposed to. Dungeon 2 actually didn’t seem to even give me enough keys. I could probably finish it, but I’d need to buy a key to do so. If you’re going to go to the effort of having the same enemies and dungeon screen layout, then you should stick with the second quest’s dungeons a bit more rather than screwing with details like that. If you want to change the dungeons a bunch, that’s fine. But it’s just confusing with the quest not entirely following the second quest.

Would you guess that you have to hit the wall top right wall with the boomerang? I didn’t.

To me, it sort of feels like a half-baked second quest remake. For example, there are some overworld secrets that are just not in Origins. I know of two heart container spots that just weren’t there. (I know because I wanted to try to get the level 2 sword to help me out.) Again, I checked maps of the second quest, and they just weren’t at the right place. There was also one huge overworld design choice that nearly broke the game: regrowable grass. Now, not only does this concept not make any sense (unless Link just sits there for a few weeks at least), it just allowed me to get money way too easily. There are some screens of the overworld that were filled with tall grass that regrows. It only took a few minutes to farm enough rupees to buy the first ring and the level 2 shield. Sure, you could farm that money in the first Zelda game, but it took a lot more time and effort. So much, I’d say, that it would be arguable as to whether it would be worth it in the original second quest (unless you knew the location of every “It’s a secret” room).

In the end, I finally hit the room before the boss in the 4th dungeon. This required me to use a hammer to continue (which would have been nice to have seeing as it would have made the dungeon 3 times as easy). However, I had had no previous indication that I had to have the hammer, and I had no clue where to even begin to find it. So, this is where I broke down and finally stopped playing. It would have taken me an hour (if I’m lucky) to locate that on the overworld.

Urgh. Another dead end for me.

Narrative

It’s the same as the original two quests. There’s next to none outside of a few random, obscure strings.

However, the game starts out like it has a big story option. Once you get past the title screen, there’s an option to hit up for the story, or down to go to the quest. Do you want to hear the story? Well too bad, because you can’t. It says it’s unavailable. Why even give me the option? If you’re releasing a quest to a database, it should be completed outside of maybe a few bugs that haven’t been found. This is obvious, especially since you see it every single time you start the quest up.

Don’t hit up! It’s a lie!

Design Attention

This is a mixed bag. The overworld is pretty detailed, but the dungeons are pretty empty. They’re not too bad, though, in comparison to the original Zelda. They’re filled a bit more than some quests, but there were still some vacant rooms.

The hodgepodge of tiles, however, was a bit more annoying. There were some custom tiles, some tiles from Dance of Remembrance, some tiles from the BS tilesets, and some other random stuff. Some things look good, but things… not so much. Most of the custom tiles are just ugly. The design isn’t bad, but the shading just isn’t that good, and most don’t fit in that much. The odd “bouncing” BS enemies don’t fit well with some of the other, normal enemies.

Some screens look nice. Others are filled with clashing tiles.

Overall, the quest looks okay, though.

Suggestions

• Use better graphical hints for odd secrets people don’t expect like using a boomerang on the wall.
• If you’re making a remake, you should stick by the original designs. And if you’re going to change things, change them a decent amount. Don’t just neglect secrets on the overworld, and don’t just remove random doors from dungeons. It should be one extreme of nearly nothing being changed, or a lot being changed.
• Try to be a bit more consistent with graphics choices. Randomly jumping around between tiles from completely different tilesets (along with custom tiles) just looks odd.

Summary

In the end, the quest does what it sets out to do. It feels true to the second quest. It’s a quest where you really have to roam around the overworld, checking every single crevice out to find secrets and items. Some people like that. Personally, I think that’s an obsolete design choice, but to each their own (which is why I’m going to be ignoring that in my score). Outside of that personal annoyance, the quest feels very average, being neither amazing, nor terrible. But, I guess that’s just something you get for doing a Zelda second quest remake. Most imaginative stuff has to be canned for the sake of staying true to the original. So, this gets a 3/5 for being average.

Score: 3/5

[Moosh]

Oh hey look a LQftH review I almost completely missed.

I think it's a good thing you didn't complete it, because the horrible stuff I pulled in the dark world would have surely taken off a point or two from the overall score. Literally the only redeeming factor there is the final level. As for most of the stuff you mentioned, I was already aware of it. Too bad I wasn't really all that shocked by your review after getting my first serving of humble pie from Sephiroth in his livestream of it.

[Kite]

Weekly Random Review #8 – 11/29/2011
Quest of Beings by Eddy23911

Last Updated: 2/27/2010
ZC Version: 2.10
PureZC Rating: 3/5

I have to admit that Skyward Sword distracted me a bit this week. Thankfully, I had started this quest before Random Requested Review was brainstormed, so I had a bit of a head start in playing it.

Random Fun Fact that has nothing to do with this quest: The first result for "Zelda Abei" on Google is my quest, Unification. I learned this while writing this review since I wanted to confirm that the Old Man was named Abei... which he actually isn't in anything except some ROM data and ZC.

But please don't derail this with discussion about that (or Skyward Sword). If you do feel the need to talk about that, please at least also talk about the review or something. Thanks.

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I was a bit apprehensive going into this quest since Eddy didn't even bother to put up screenshots on the submission. "I lost them" is a really bad excuse, since it only takes a minute to make a screenshot or two of a quest. The lack of effort for this made me worry that the actual quest would have just as little effort. After all, part of "selling" a quest is in the presentation.

Thankfully, I was wrong about the lack of effort.

Gameplay

This is a pretty typical classic quest experience in the classic tileset. You start out going into a cave to get the wooden sword and then journeying out to find dungeons in order to claim triforce pieces. The overworld is sectored in a manner that makes it clear a dungeon is nearby. If you get stumped, there are often rather clear hints from Abei or another NPC telling you how to get to the level.

The dungeons, themselves, are a bit more difficult than an average quest. Eddy was a big fan of traps in extremely cramped spaces. This is painfully noticeable in the first dungeon when you only have 3 heart containers. He was also a fan of the Enemies Always Return quest rule, which ramps up the difficulty some more. Another addition to the difficulty comes with rooms that contain slow walking combos with swarms of enemies such as gohmas.

This trap room design is used quite often.

While I only had one "official" death on the save file counter, I abused the continue trick to refill my health and warp around quite a bit. When I didn't do this, I abused the rather nice option of pity potions available for 5 rupees... and then wasted them by accident several times due to my own incompetence at L and R item switching. I also abused Quick Slash, which is a fairly broken quest rule in quests that don't have actual sword slashing since you can pretty much infinitely stick Link's sword out so long as you rapidly tap the A button.

However, I have to admit that I only made it to level 5 before writing this review. This is due to some of the more dickish design choices Eddy made with dungeons involving keys. I will explain this in more detail later. Needless to say, I hit a wall with level 5 and I simply couldn't figure out how to advance.

Beyond these things, this quest plays like a typical classic style quest.

Narrative

Like most classic style quests, this lacks a story beyond collecting the triforce pieces.

The strings in the quest pretty much directly tell you where to go and what to do. The one instance where this didn't happen involved some maze directions, but the hint was really obvious to me. There are also some silly strings at times, but that's almost a requirement in classic style quests.

Well. At least you told me, unlike other quests.

Design Attention

The overworld has a decent and memorable design. Even with a bare bones classic tileset, Eddy has made it possible to tell which part of the overworld you are in without having to refer to a map. It is also relatively simple to travel between the various sectors. But at the same time, the design may be a bit too simplistic at places and the use of the Twilight Princess Hyrule Field theme for the music is very jarring.

Imagine the Twilight Princess overworld theme applied to this screenshot.

The dungeons seem to be decently designed for a classic style quest. I mostly found them enjoyable when they were not throwing traps at me in cramped spaces. The dungeons are designed with backtracking in mind and try to make use of the dungeon item at least once or twice.

But level 4 was different. I found what is quite possible the most BS hiding spot for a key: on the opposite side of a walk through wall that goes off the map in a way that doesn't scream "hidden room." Had I not looked this up, I would have never found it. Level 5 was also somewhat annoying since the combination of the Enemies Always Return quest rule, darknuts, and shutters made it extremely annoying to traverse the small bit of the dungeon I could get through. I got stumped trying to find a second key despite bombing and trying to walk through every wall I could find. If I was supposed to do something before this dungeon, there was no real indication of it.

So many darknuts.

The quest also suffers from some sloppiness despite the okay overall design. Eddy used the Enemies Enter from Sides behavior incorrectly in several places on the overworld. Enemies often get stuck on the sides of screens due to not following basic screen design rules that have to be followed with this behavior. There were also several instances of tektites being used with this behavior active, causing them to slide around the screen like a shooting range.

I'm not sure if this is an issue with 2.50 or an actual bug in the quest, but I discovered that the whistle warp is completely broken. Instead of warping between levels, it warps me to a random screen and sticks me in a mountain.

Suggestions

• Give some hints about the contents of the dungeons instead of just their locations. This should especially be the case if something deviates from what you would find in Zelda 1.
• If not that, give more visual hints on what to do.
• There are screen design rules that need to be followed if you intend to use Enemies Enter from Sides.

Summary

Strong Points

• Memorable overworld that is simple to traverse.
• Decent dungeon design for the most part.

Weak Points

• BUT WHO WAS KEY?
• The quest did not follow proper screen design with "enemies enter from sides" on several occasions.
• That key in level 4.
• A lack of hints (visual or textual) on what to do inside of the actual dungeons.

Overall, the quest was an okay quest to play up until I got stumped in level 5. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't incredibly awesome either.

Score: 3/5

[Moosh]

Oh boy a new WRR! This always brightens up my day.

Imagine the Twilight Princess overworld theme applied to this screenshot.

I actually think Twilight Princess's overworld theme fits well with this screen. It's ALMOST as bland as TP's overworld, but I guess that's typical for a classic quest.

[Schwa]

So many darknuts.

Lightweight. I could clear this room in less than ten seconds.

Nice reviews though! LQftH and then this last one both had me laughing. I remembered LQftH's Glitch Screen and at first I was stumped too, I was like "Dude is this seriously playable terrain?" The only giveaway was that it had its own music for that screen. I thought it was creative once I figured out what was happening.

[Cukeman]

(Opinion Warning: Opinions can't be wrong... they're opinions...)

I for one, am totally cool with advanced music on classic screens. As long as the music works
with the environment. Maybe it's because I am totally into retro graphics, but with all the
modern/retro games today, I don't think there is really any disconnect. Retro graphics nowadays
are a visual style choice, not a limitation, so you should be able to choose any graphics for your music.
Just thought I'd share my view on this minor point.

I like having enemies always return, as long as it isn't a lot of difficult enemies that you have no choice
but to fight over and over.

[LinktheMaster]

I don't think that Nick really has a problem with it being something other than NES music. Personally, I have no problem if someone wants to use WW, TP, or some other newish song in a classic-style quest... as long as it fits.

But, to me, TP's overworld music is a song fitting a bold adventure out into a wide open field that's waiting to be explored. It's a very epic, adventurey song. And that's not how classic-style overworlds are, really. IMO, you'd be hard pressed to find many ZC overworlds that would be fitting for the TP overworld, even ones with DoR tileset. But, as you said, that's all opinion.

[Cukeman]

I don't think that Nick really has a problem with it being something other than NES music. Personally, I have no problem if someone wants to use WW, TP, or some other newish song in a classic-style quest... as long as it fits.

But, to me, TP's overworld music is a song fitting a bold adventure out into a wide open field that's waiting to be explored. It's a very epic, adventurey song. And that's not how classic-style overworlds are, really. IMO, you'd be hard pressed to find many ZC overworlds that would be fitting for the TP overworld, even ones with DoR tileset. But, as you said, that's all opinion.

Thanks for explaining your reasoning, a clash of mood is easier for me to understand than a choice of audio quality.
I had thought it was a matter of expecting NES MIDI music, but I obviously misunderstood.

Edited by Cukeman, 29 November 2011 - 04:43 PM.

[Kite]

@Cukeman: Yeah. It's like LinktheMaster said. I have no problem with the fact that music from Twilight Princess was in a classic style quest. The problem I had was that it didn't seem to fit the mood of the area it was used in.

@Schwa: That room wasn't really hard, especially with the equipment I had at the time. None of the darknut rooms I run across were really hard. I should have taken a better screenshot to show off how tedious the constant use of shutters with both red and blue darknuts got.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to remind people about Random Requested Reviews. Even though LinktheMaster has already chosen the next one (we forgot to remind people), everyone is still free to submit review requests for future Random Requested Reviews. We've added the rules for this process to the first post.

[LinktheMaster]

Weekly Random Review #9 – 12/06/2011
Power of Geduina by mudvayne
Requested by Avataro

Last Updated: 12/05/06
ZC Version: 2.10
PureZC Rating: 5/5

I want to welcome everyone to the second Random Requested Review. This time we actually got the 4th highest rated game on PureZC. So that brings up the question “Does this quest earn that title?” Well, we’re about to find out.

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First, before I get into the review, I want to warn everyone: do not play this quest in 2.5. Unfortunately, the quest is unbeatable due to a ZC bug, and I had to restart the quest. I also had to redo some other parts, but we’ll get to that later.

Welcome to Power of Geduina… or Gerdunia as my mind always remembered it as.

Unfortunately for me, though, the quest is in German, so I was unable to read any of the text outside of a few scattered words here and there. So, to make up for this fact, I made up my own story. The story revolves around a very quirky green-garbed mute named Joe. Joe, angry at the world and all of his life’s problems, goes around killing poor innocent creatures across the land of Murfville, collecting pieces of the Rosetta Stone in order to figure out how to translate the game from German into English. (It’s Rosetta Stone v2.5.2.5.2.5 that features English, German, French, and… I dunno… Chinese, or something.) So with that out of the way, onwards, to the review!

Gameplay

Good ol’ Joe starts out with basically nothing save for bombs and a potion (if I were setting out on a journey, those two items would definitely be my top choices), and he embarks on an epic quest to kill all creatures. Now, this quest sometimes had a tendency to make me feel dumb. I would go around a bunch, trying to figure out what to do, only for it to end up being something silly. The first of these moments was simply getting to the sword. I wandered around, found a key, found a small dungeon area, but couldn’t move forward. There were some rooms with keese, but I was stuck without another key. I only had bombs, so killing the keese with them would… not be easy. Turns out, there was a boomerang on a small boat. I went to the screen… I just… overlooked the boomerang. With this, I was able to get bloodthirsty Joe his sword so he could move on in the overworld.

How I missed the boomerang initially is beyond me.

The overworld is… not bad. It’s quite well designed, actually. There are small subsections, each actually depicted in the minimap, so you pretty much always have a good idea of where you are. Sometimes you’d get stuck at a spot and have to figure out a way to get around, but that made it interesting. If there is one complaint I have about the overworld, it’s that it’s a bit too… closed off. I guess that’s about the best word to use. Depending on where you have to go, it can take a while to get where you need to be, so walking around can be a bit tedious. Still, it’s not too bad, and the overworld is well-enough designed that it makes it interesting enough.

Unfortunately, after tons of screens of killing poor, innocent gels and moblins, Joe scored himself a ticket to the underworld, so he ended up being sent to hell. Thankfully, Joe took this on in stride, since before he could get into hell, he had to get a key to unlock its gates, which he was happy to oblige. And thus enters a part of the game that I really enjoy. Before every single dungeon, you have to locate a key somewhere. Usually these keys are just a couple screens away, but that’s not always the case. It’s a pretty good way of making you explore the overworld to its fullest. It’s a very nice touch that sets it a bit above classic quests.

Once Joe finally does make his way into hell… oh boy, was I caught by surprise. The feel of the dungeon was amazing. It doesn’t help that it had the Lower Norfair/Magmoor Caverns theme from Metroid, which is one of my favorite Metroid songs. But, still, the impact of the mood hits you right in the face since you don’t expect it, and it was great. And the dungeon design was great, too. It had me going back and forth, backtracking when I got new items, returning when I finally got a key, and so forth. The dungeon design in this game is amazing.

This is probably one of the best 1st dungeons I’ve played in a while.

When Link… err… Joe makes his way to the end of hell, he finally collects a piece of the Rosetta Stone and moves on. Joe decides to hang out with his old friend Jack Sparrow, but before doing so, he needs to get the flippers since, y’know, humans can’t swim without gigantic webbed feet. This is where mudvayne shows off his clever side. There’s a little tree with a rope attached to it. You have to burn the rope, which in turn burns the tree to move forward. It’s different, and it actually stumped me for a bit. Of course, why you couldn’t just burn the tree itself, I dunno.

With the flippers on hand… err… on feet, Joe could get the key he needed and get to the Black Pearl to find his old buddy, and this is where something became aggravating. First of all, you can’t actually get to this ship in ZC 2.5. Apparently there’s a ZC bug where you can’t go up onto land properly. But ignoring that, in 2.10 I was able to move forward and get into the ship.

Jack Sparrow’s ship itself is interesting. It’s definitely a different theme for a ZC dungeon, and I applaud mudvayne a lot for that. And, similar to the first, the dungeon design was great, making you constantly go back and forth. But… then I hit a bug. Because of the way mudvayne created one room, it’s possible for you to get stuck. There’s a room with a chest underwater, and this room has a potentially quest-breaking bug depending on what you do, but I’ll get to that later.

This is definitely an interesting choice for a dungeon.

Joe was unable to find long time bff Jack Sparrow, so he decided to go spelunking and visit some old ruins. Again, the dungeon design was as amazing as ever, and thankfully I didn’t hit any bugs in this dungeon. The puzzles were amazingly well designed, and again the dungeon has me a bit stumped as far as what to do. Dungeon 4 seemed to revolve around going back and forth between the dungeon and the Goron village. Unfortunately I had to stop before getting too far into dungeon 4. The setback with the several bugs simply made the quest take too long, and with finals coming up, I couldn’t spend too much more time on the quest.

There was one problem I could foresee if I were to have finished the quest: money. Some of the items in the game are ridiculously expensive. Super Bombs are 150-200 rupees depending on where you’re buying them from. The whistle was 999 rupees, and it looked to be a key item since I found myself knocking on Ganon’s door to find 6 or so digdoggers. And I hadn’t even gotten past the 255 rupee mark, so I could see you being forced into a big rupee fetch quest. But, I can’t hold that against him since I don’t know entirely.

Don’t ask me why this is in the quest, but you need a 999 rupee whistle to kill those “digdoggers”.

One final detail about the quest is the difficulty level. The quest feels very balanced. It’s a little tough at times when it comes to the enemies, but for the most part it’s very fair. The quest gives you tons of pieces of hearts, and the number of enemies was always reasonable. So, this is definitely an area where the quest shines.

Narrative

Unfortunately, with me not finishing the quest, I was never able to finish Joe’s heroic tale. Who knows what happens with him? Maybe he settles down with a wife and kids? Maybe his adventures just take him too far and he dies? Maybe he goes crazy and his bloodlust turns from innocent creatures to humans and he kills everyone. Who knows?

Here Joe grabs a piece of the illusive Rosetta Stone.

Seriously though, I’m a bit sad that I wasn’t able to understand the plot since I can’t read German. The plot obviously wasn’t too big of a deal, and you don’t need to understand German to be able to finish the quest, but there seemed to be a bigger effort to make strings in the quest than most quests. And there were areas where you could pay for information, so it would have helped a lot

Design Attention

So, I talked about a potentially quest-breaking bug earlier about a room with an underwater chest. When I entered the room, I thought “Oh! I have to dive, and I get a key or something!” Well, before killing all enemies, I did exactly just that and got… a green rupee. I killed all the enemies and moved on, only to find that I couldn’t move on without a key.

Urgh. This room sucks, and I hate it. One simple mistake makes you stuck here.

It turns out that what I was supposed to do was kill all enemies in that room first. You don’t dive to that chest at all, a key pops up above the sunken chest. If you dive and get that rupee, that key doesn’t appear. Now, this is definitely caused by a bug with ZC, but it could have been worked around easily. Unfortunately, this quest breaking bug seriously hurt the quest to me. You might think that’s a bit harsh. You might be thinking “quest makers can’t find every single bug in a quest they make.” That is true, and I’m understanding of that. But mudvayne was aware of this bug. He knew about the problem, and apparently fixed it. He just didn’t upload a fixed version. Apparently there are similar bugs later on in the quest (level 6 was one I saw). After that frustrating issue, I had to cheat my way past level 2.

The quest uses the Dance of Remembrance tileset, and mudvayne uses it pretty well. I didn’t find any glaring issues with it, but I’m not Radien. He tends to pick out when people mess up when using his tileset. But, the attention to detail is usually pretty good. Dungeons have a lot of detail, and the overworld is pretty.

A lot of detail goes into the overworld. Sure, it’s not the prettiest, but it’s still good.

However, there are some issues with the design of the quest. There are a few screens where you could walk off the edge of a screen in areas where you shouldn’t, and there were times that I walked to another screen on top of a tree (or met with a tree right in front of me, which is almost equally annoying).

The music is also a mixed bag. There are some songs I really enjoyed, but others weren’t so good. None were terrible, really. But, for example, a couple of areas use the dark world theme from A Link to the Past. I like the song, but it’s overused and there are really no good midis of it. And pretty much all of the songs that I came across in the game I had heard in other quests, save for a few… odd choices (like a remix of the Imperial March from Star Wars).

Suggestions

• If people complain about a quest-breaking bug, fix it and release a patched version!
• Maybe expand a bit more on the idea of getting keys before the dungeon. Make the mini-dungeons a bit bigger and revolve around more puzzles or something.
• Try to find better, less overused songs.

Summary

This quest is good. It’s really good. It’s definitely one of the best quests I’ve played recently. And it was getting pretty close to getting a 5, but the bug in the second dungeon just ruined it for me. Still, there’s a lot of attention to detail, the dungeons are amazingly well designed, the overworld is packed with detail and is divided off well into sections, and the difficulty was very fair in the quest. Getting keys before every dungeon is a nice touch that I would personally like to see more, and in the end the quest shines above most others. It’s just a shame that it got brought down by bugs that the quest maker didn’t feel the need to release fixes for.

Strong Points

• Really well designed dungeons
• Required keys before dungeons help make the quest feel more modern
• The quest is pretty well polished for the most part

Weak Points

• Quest-breaking bugs really ruin the fun
• Overused music

Score: 4/5