163 replies to this topic

[James24]

Agree with you Yowza, the balloon thing was a winner!

I don't think there's much interest in a review of AQ/AQF and Liberation so it really wouldn't be worth a reviewer's time. I started reviewing AQ but I stopped coz of lack of interest. See my thread on "challenge quest reviews". See, we challenge quest players are the minority in ZC. Most players like lots of really fancy graphics, nice midis, interesting puzzles, flowing storyline with lots of talking and low difficulty. That's the standard taste of the ZC player - its just the way it is. Our tastes are somewhat different. Besides, Poke might not be in the mood for an AQ/AQF review for other reasons...

[MasterPlayer2342]

You made some really darn good points when reviewing this quest. I remember playing this game and dying and dying and dying! and shunting the game off after 10 minutes. Good review.

[SofaKing]

I find these reviews interesting and would certainly find reviews of some of the more difficult quests in the database interesting as well.

[James24]

If I were to continue my walkthrough or review, I'd need to see plenty of visible support. I mean at the end of the last section of my review/walkthrough there were like 0 posts or replies in my thread after two days or so. Even a blank post if you didn't have anything to say would suffice - just to let me know that there are people out there that are interested in hearing what I have to say. There'd also need to be several players who were interested. Otherwise, if you need help just PM me or post in AQ, AQF or LoH thread.

[Shane]

I find these reviews interesting and would certainly find reviews of some of the more difficult quests in the database interesting as well.

Sorry but Lost Isle is next on my list, but even without that my hands are full.

Edited by Shane, 05 May 2012 - 07:27 AM.

[Moosh]

Aww man, it's been a while, but I'm back in the review mood (today at least), so it's time to lay down my usual Moosh criticism (whoa, this is technically Moosh's not so random reviews now, isn't it?).

Moosh's not so random review 6: The Liberation of Hyrule
By James24

Oh boy, challenge quests. I do love me some challenge quests, but I suppose I'm also opening a can of worms by reviewing Liberation of Hyrule, seeing as it's caused some controversy lately. To make a long story short, as of the time of this post this is the hardest quest ever made, ever. So that makes it the best challenge quest, right?


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Story:

Story, what is this? Well, in my humble opinion story isn't something that really belongs in a challenge quest. The story is basically Ganon has invaded Hyrule and you gotta take it back, which is perfect for a challenge quest except that the way James24 goes about telling it is in a manner not at all unlike that of Tim Buckley...



Edit: Oh, also I just realized that the story is a self insert story. Not gonna call good or bad on that, just thought it's something I should point out.

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Graphics:

So let's see what we have in the graphics department...

Oh Jesus Christ!

Cacti grow in perfectly straight lines on the very edge of the screen borders in nature, didn't you know?

Waterfalls. Don't. Work. That. Way.

Chocolate rain! Some stay dry while others feel the pain!

K, so moving on.

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Music:

While graphics aren't the most important aspect of a challenge quest, music is very important. If you're going to be dying 400 times in one dungeon you'd better be listening to good music in the background. Sadly, James24's music choices are less than optimal for the type of quest this is. It's not that they're bad tracks, it's just that there are a LOT of cliché midis used here. We're talking like One Winged Angel for an overworld section here and various Castlevania tracks for some of the dungeons. Also, some of the music really DOESN'T fit. One Winged Angel for example. Try using that successfully in a quest, I dare you.

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Design:

Design is what makes or breaks a challenge quest, and for Liberation of Hyrule, it breaks it. For example, the overworld, the one thing in Armageddon Quest / Forever that was actually reasonable difficulty is now overcrowded with enemies. You won't find many screens that don't have the max number of enemies onscreen. If you look at my screen flow tutorial I go over how enemies can enhance or take away from the screen and filling up all 10 enemy slots on an overworld is one of those taking away instances. Other than that, the overworld sections are rather bland and unstructured. Most of your obstacles are just powerful enemies leaving the overworld very open to the persistent. One thing I liked about Armageddon Quest / Forever was that the overworld actually made use of the dungeon items. This quest I recall using the raft maybe once. It all feels so uninspired and pales in comparison to the dungeons.

Oh hey, now I get to talk about the dungeons. They feel like harder rehashed versions of old Armageddon Quest ideas. Using bubbles to avoid getting hit, we got that. Long gauntlet runs, we got that too. Every dungeon has its own gimmick and they just feel recycled. I'm aware that James24 did not make use of the enemy editor and some other 2.5 features because the player can fight best in a familiar environment, but I personally feel that that familiar environment is old and dried up and it's time for change. One thing that was changed from Armageddon Quest / Forever was the addition of sections that rely almost entirely on luck.

I estimate about half of the time those digdoggers screw you over and box you in or at the very least waste your time.

Armos x My luck = ∞ hours

Putting this guy in level 1 is just mean and beating it relies mainly on the AI not screwing you over...

Some other stuff feels a bit off too. Some of the hint guys are less than helpful and the goriyas that charge 20 rupees for hearts are just a pain. Either give me a refill or don't, don't make me grind rupees.

Thank God I'm not at all short on rupees.

Who goes into a quest of this difficulty without knowing this trick?

The difficulty while for the most part crazy hard, but now and then it was somewhat inconsistent. Every now and then I'd see a room that actually gave me time to rest. This isn't a terrible thing, but I think it would be even better to have a consistent level of difficulty that's somewhere in between insanely hard and actually manageable.

Hey, this looks like a normal quest screen...if you disregard that I have 2 hearts max and whatnot...

A mandatory death to progress. Well if this doesn't sum up the game all over...

The final boss is pretty boring, all things considered...

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Hey Moosh you cheating jerk, what's with the gold ring you cheating cheater?

I know this is gong to get brought up eventually so I figured I might as well address it now. I played through a good solid chunk of this quest when it was released (I believe I had it about halfway completed) and then I lost my save data. I started doing a second playthrough for this review, but it was taking forever and I had had enough grief with my first attempt, so I resorted to cheating after getting the sword. I also haven't used any screens from beyond level 1 partially to keep you a little bit in the dark as to the later areas in the quest and in part because it's friggen hard and I didn't feel like expending any more effort than I already have. In case you haven't picked up yet, my initial enthusiasm to play this died along with my saves.

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Concluding Thoughts:

The Liberation of Hyrule feels much like a rehash of Armageddon Quest which is certainly not a bad thing, but it doesn't bring enough new content to the table to keep me hooked and the difficulty is somewhat iffy, bordering on unfair at some times and almost too easy at others. If you love challenge quests and don't mind repetition, give it a go. Otherwise, best steer clear.

Strengths:

• Has some creative points
• A quest you can't zero game for once! (if you can, you're a MACHINE, dude)
• Makes the player really think when going into combat
• Isn't afraid to challenge the norm (Much respect, James. We may not agree on everything, but I respect your courage in speaking out.)

Weaknesses:

• Inconsistent difficulty
• Unneeded focus on rupees (grinding sucks)
• Poor screen design (not the most important in this case, but still noteworthy)
• Poor replay value
• Relies too much on luck
• Reuses a lot of ideas from other similar quests
• Cliché midis
• Boring overworld

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Rating: 2/5

So now that you've read my review, here comes the real challenge: Can you formulate your own opinions based on these reviews and use these opinions to better our own work? I think all of us, not just the quest creators, have something we can take away from my reviews.

Edited by Moosh, 18 September 2012 - 04:28 PM.

[Shane]

Nice review Moosh, you nail my thoughts precisely.

[Evan20000]

I appreciate your addition of humor into your reviews. It always keeps them interesting and fun to read, regardless of your actual opinion on the subject matter. ^_^

[Shane]

So my next review, which will be Lost Isle will be here by the weekend. And yes, before anyone tries to say I didn't complete it, I have, more the once actually.

[DarkFlameWolf]

Yay, can't wait! *quivers with excitement!*

[Eddy]

Oh yes, Lost Isle. I remember playing through that VERY well. I think I made it to Level 3 before my saves somehow got deleted (I guess it was an error) but that quest was possibly the best quest I've played so far.

Great work, DarkFlameWolf!

[James24]

After having reading and studying the review carefully, I must conclude that the reviewer has done this for political reasons. I present reasons for this to the public and leave it to them to make their own judgement. Firstly, earlier in this thread he specifically said "you won't get anything reviewy out of me anytime soon". Yet he does this and its pretty soon. Second, we all know that he relies on the support of his team members, Shane and Dragonite (who are known opponents to LoH) to help him complete his current quest. If he were to write a positive review of LoH or remain silent, the team could very well fracture spelling disaster for the author. One wonders as to the extent that Shane and Dragonite have threatened to quit unless he wrote this, thus pointing a figurative “gun” to the reviewer's head. Third the timing seems rather coincidental to the conflict I had with Shane. He only posted the review a few days after the incident. Very suspicious...and lots of circumstantial evidence.

Further, the fact that he has used the gold ring leads me to believe that he got beaten too many times. We all know what happens to a review when the reviewer has been beaten too many times... Sadly, the review can never quite come across as completely unbiased after that due to political reasons. Also, the game was never supposed to be played with the gold ring. How can a review be based on a mode of play which the author has specifically not approved of? Surely, the game must be played without any ring or otherwise cheating to ensure that all its beauty of challenge can be appreciated. If the reviewer is incapable of skill, then he should not be reviewing LoH.

All the screenshots that the reviewer has taken are to be of fortress 1. I don't see any screenshots of the remaining levels or mini-games and I for one do not believe his assertions that he is “keeping you in the dark”. There is nothing “dark” about LoH nor was there any intention of darkness. Anyone can view the levels by buying the gold ring and walking through it to see all challenge before they get serious. One must wonder how he is able to write properly informed criticism without having played through ALL of LoH. Is the reviewer to say that ALL the levels are bad simply based on what he saw on fortress 1? If the reviewer “didn't feel like expending any more effort” then I question how he is able to form a proper opinion on LoH. As the staff of PureZC have previously stated, it is very poor etiquette to rate a quest without playing a decent portion. Therefore, it is the DUTY of a reviewer to review a decent portion the quest before posting a public review despite what they feel. They MUST keep going no matter how bad a quest is at present because there might be good portions later which the public deserve to know about.

Anyhow, notwithstanding the reasons above, I shall rebut the main points in his review in my pdf here.

[Shane]

*Facepalm*

Sorry, but this is never going to end, is it?

Edited by Shane, 12 May 2012 - 10:19 AM.

[DarkFlameWolf]

We all need to just chill. This is all based on reviews on games that are freely shared on a franchise that really isn't ours to build off of, yet we do. So take pride in the fact you are being graced by Nintendo to continue making these quests with their property and take each review with a grain of salt.

[Shane]

We all need to just chill. This is all based on reviews on games that are freely shared on a franchise that really isn't ours to build off of, yet we do. So take pride in the fact you are being graced by Nintendo to continue making these quests with their property and take each review with a grain of salt.

By the way, the Lost Isle review is coming along nicely. It's around 75%-ish done.

I'm going to take a different direction with my future reviews, this is certainly more easy to work with.

Lost Isle
By DarkFlameWolf and Peteo

The story is centered on a mysterious island Link is shipwrecked on. Long before he discovered this island, civilization once was filled with peace and happiness. But that peace and the civilization itself have disappeared, all semblance of life are bones and tortured souls floating around in their village. Soon as Link enters a newly discovered temple he is confronted by a demon who clearly states he doesn't want you on his island. The villain himself at first thinks you're just a meddling explorer and assumes if he continues on he will fall cowardly. He will compliment you after completing the first dungeon, for having more then just a pretty face and will unleash one of his powerful minions. From there on Link will find the villain's true story and motive, which he latter discovers that if the villain succeeds his home kingdom, Hyrule, will be ruled by this evil demon too. All though it was a little too gruesome, but I guess it gives that sense of doom.

Bones and the undead are whats left of the villagers.

I feel that the story is what makes this quest unique and different. If you ask me, you can't get any more better then this! But for design, the best way to put it is that this quest is a playable work of art, from start to finish each screen looked like it was made with effort and care. DarkFlameWolf created a vast and beautiful overworld, not only vast but open too. It certainly made exploration fun, finding new caves, dungeons, and areas felt very adventurous. The design of the dungeons were made by Peteo (and a bit by DarkFlameWolf), all the dungeons had a unique feel, from an ancient temple to a floating garden. Level 2 gave a big impression on me. I could safely say it must have took at least eight maps due to it's gimmicks. Some might call it overboard but I'll call that hard work that's paid off.

You can easily see the graphical effort just put into these screens!

Let me tell you, these are some of the best dungeons I've seen ever.

But despite the hard effort in Level 2, there were a few bugs I found that can skip a major portion of this great dungeon. I won't be showing them and I'm sure they've been taken care of. The gameplay features no scripts, but who says scripts make good gameplay? Each dungeon had a fair share of unique array of puzzles and gimmicks. But I feel like exploration is the key element of the game: you have to search the sword, items, dungeons, caves yourself, don't rely on linearity - it will get you nowhere! I felt every area that I had discovered felt really rewarding especially Glathriel Canyon and Sky Gardens.

Exploration is the biggest part of the game in my opinion, it has it's fair share of rewards.

Overall this quest is one of my favorite games. It focused on all quality on the quests, which I kind of see rarely nowadays. I do see some slight flaws, such as a few difficult enemy placements (especially at the end) but it didn't stop me from enjoying this quest one way or another. This is one of the quests where people need to look at - stop and think why it looks good and how it's so fun to play through; it's because they have the passionate for a grand adventure that is packed with fun from start to finish. This is what I expect when I open and play a quest.

4.75/5
Bottom Line: This quest is my all time favorite. But there were two bugs (that I might of have been fixed a while ago) and a few overly difficult situations that kind ruin it.

Edited by Shane, 12 May 2012 - 10:48 AM.