294 replies to this topic

[matski]

Same case here. I wonder if the map was supposed to be there?

A map would be beneficial.  I am stuck currently.  I have the flippers and four keys.  I am struggling to find green or orange fragment. I also don't know how to lower the barrier by a locked door on b1.  You can only get there by swimming first. 

Edited by matski, 31 December 2023 - 01:42 PM.

[Useless Old Man Wisdom]

re: level 4.

 

Yeah, you can get the map early on in this dungeon, well before obtaining any of the glyphs. There aren't any empty chests in the dungeon, so I imagine if you found an empty chest in the location you said, there was supposed to be the map inside and that's a bug. I've had a fair bit of problems with the locked doors in "kill all" rooms not opening after defeating all the enemies, in this and Mayath Island: Remastered. Seriously, it seems like a 50:50 chance, or even worse, that the locked doors in "kill all" rooms won't open, which often necessitates an F6-continue if I enter the room through a shutter door. I'm only guessing that there's some sort of script responsible for the "kill all" door issues I'm having, as Sans' quests are the only ones where I have ever had this problem. Maybe the chest script is similarly messed up. Only, in the case of the chest script, that has the potential to cause major issues if there's nothing inside when you open a chest.

 

I recall finding a HCP in L4, but can't remember where - sorry.

 

Spoiler

the green glyph is in B1 of L4, the southeast end of the large water area. Bring some keys and be prepared for some walk-through wall trickery. The path to the orange glyph can only be accessed once you place the green glyph in it's slot. You have to lower several barriers to fully unlock the path to the orange glyph, and at least one of those barriers can only be unlocked once the green glyph is placed.

Edited by Useless Old Man Wisdom, 31 December 2023 - 03:28 PM.

[Demonlink]

So I'm not the only one either who has that shutter bug. I thought it was because I'm playing on 2.55. Yes, there are times when the shutter won't open and I need to F6 to start again... And so far, that particular chest in Desert Ruins I also found empty, not quite sure what issue is there, I did not find a map in that dungeon.

So far, almost finishing Level 5. Is there supposed to be a HCP in every major dungeon? Also, I love that the dungoens are giant labryinths, but I keep finding myself lost often. Wouldn't it be better if you could also see the dungeon map like the overworld?

Edited by Demonlink, 31 December 2023 - 04:49 PM.

[Ether]

The shutter bug is tied to fairies counting as an enemy for Kill All Enemies purposes. It appears in other quests as well. It's fixed in the latest 3.0.0 versions, and I don't believe it was a thing in 2.53, but it was definitely an issue in 2.55 for a while.

 

EDIT: The other quest I was thinking of where I kept seeing it come up was Flow of Time. Sans's shutter script credits the author of that quest, Obderhode. So it could also be specific to that script, actually. (It's definitely tied to fairy drops, though, and it's definitely fixed in current versions.)

[matski]

That's good then I didn't get the map (than another key important item; this empty treasure chests happened to me in Titan's Gate which I want to try to beat but...) but where do I go next with the flippers in level 4 as I am stuck?

Edited by matski, 31 December 2023 - 10:47 PM.

[Useless Old Man Wisdom]

That's good then I didn't get the map (than another key important item; this empty treasure chests happened to me in Titan's Gate which I want to try to beat but...) but where do I go next with the flippers in level 4 as I am stuck?

Check the spoiler in my last post.

[matski]

Check the spoiler in my last post.

The spooler does not help me.  I believe I need to go through this locked door in order to get the green glyph but I do not know how to drop the barriers...  How do you get them to drop?

https://imgur.com/a/YunM2zB

Edited by matski, 01 January 2024 - 12:50 PM.

[Demonlink]

@matski

That was a tricky one. You can go south, I think it was behind the 3rd armos? After you reach the next room, on the same wall you enter it from, there is another fake tile that allows you to return to the previous room, and from there you go east to light some torches that lowers those barriers.

Still, anyone know where the HCP are in Lvls 4 and 5? There is one in Level 1 that needs the Roc's feather just in case someone needs help collecting them.

Edited by Demonlink, 01 January 2024 - 01:11 PM.

[matski]

@matski

That was a tricky one. You can go south, I think it was behind the 3rd armos? After you reach the next room, on the same wall you enter it from, there is another fake tile that allows you to return to the previous room, and from there you go east to light some torches that lowers those barriers.

Still, anyone know where the HCP are in Lvls 4 and 5? There is one in Level 1 that needs the Roc's feather just in case someone needs help collecting them.

Thank you!!!  

 

Unfortunately I can't help you finding heart pieces.  It may be in a unmarked room?

[Useless Old Man Wisdom]

Still, anyone know where the HCP are in Lvls 4 and 5? There is one in Level 1 that needs the Roc's feather just in case someone needs help collecting them.

That L1 HCP was really cleverly hidden. I didn't think to note anything strange about the path that leads to this HCP, as I thought

Spoiler

those steps in the sidesrcolling part of L1 were just for asthetics.

 

I can't remember specifics for the other dungeon HCPs, but can reiterate some advice most of us have probably figured out by now: make sure you explore every room on every dungeon map and also be on the lookout for hidden rooms behind not-so obvious walk-through walls, tap with the sword to find hidden bombable walls, stairs hidden behind objects, or hidden fall-through floors. Always note what the in-level owl statues say - such as in L2, where you have to do a trick that you probably would never think to do without the info from an owl statue.

 

I'm taking quite a bit of notes while I play this quest, as there are lots and lots of hints and suspicious screens to remember, as well as secrets that require items from later in the quest.

Edited by Useless Old Man Wisdom, 01 January 2024 - 03:30 PM.

[Demonlink]

Thank you! I'm currently stuck at Level 6, what exactly happens when you light the 4 torches in the room with 3 staircases?

EDIT: Nevermind, I finished the dungeon.

Edited by Demonlink, 01 January 2024 - 04:26 PM.

[Deedee]

The shutter bug is tied to fairies counting as an enemy for Kill All Enemies purposes. It appears in other quests as well. It's fixed in the latest 3.0.0 versions, and I don't believe it was a thing in 2.53, but it was definitely an issue in 2.55 for a while.
 
EDIT: The other quest I was thinking of where I kept seeing it come up was Flow of Time. Sans's shutter script credits the author of that quest, Obderhode. So it could also be specific to that script, actually. (It's definitely tied to fairy drops, though, and it's definitely fixed in current versions.)

 
The shutter bug is fixed in newer versions of 2.55; that fix was backported.

Anyways I just beat Creation Pillar; this quest is a chore and I feel cheated for believing that it was going to be fun. I enjoyed the first two dungeons of gameplay because combat was fun and encouraged usage of your items and resources, and was willing to write off level 3 as just an exception, except things didn't really get better.

I guess let me start off with the positives. Combat bombs are really good, and I love how you give access to both remote bomb and the 60 bomb bag before you even enter level 1. The overworlds attached to the first 3 dungeons are generally pretty good; I'd like to highlight Mt Cronol as my favorite actually. Mt Cronol has the caves line up with the overworld and there's a cool optional secret where you need to notice a chest, realize how the cave system lines up, and realize that there's a bombable wall; and it felt super satisfying to solve it, even if it was just for a piece of heart. I actually think vires were a fantastic enemy to place there; they encourage you to either use Ember Seeds or Bombs to take them out instead of letting them split; I think if you were to nerf Mt Cronol just remove the bats and keep the Vires. 

I also really liked Level 7; it's a key hunt where theres a bunch of puzzle barriers blocking the way to the key and you have to deal with sidewarp shenanigans, but all the puzzles are self contained and the sidewarps have really clear logic to them that makes this dungeon play out in a very fast-paced manner where the way to unlock a barrier is always really close by; and you also have to memorize one way door paths that you can see ahead of time before being tested on them. It's hard to describe why I like it, but this dungeon was my favorite dungeon, and one of the only dungeons I liked (I think I liked level 1, 2, Elements Shrine, Mirrored Ruins, and Oil Factory? Though the latter had some annoying parts in it).

It's cool how you can get two different level 2 swords around the same time; I found the fire sword first and that made the crystal sword feel pointless cause it's worse (though I sometimes use the crystal sword cause it creates less visual clutter).

I wish I could say I liked the rest of the quest though. Level 3 overstays its welcome and makes the cardinal sin of using warp points that warp you to a random spot on the map, which makes remembering where you need to go to get to a place really tedious. Southern Shrine was a pain to navigate because of all the armos blocking the way that respawn and there aren't enough shortcuts to make navigating it not tedious. Dreams Gate was neat up until the way forward was behind an unmarked bomb wall, and the dungeon item really should have been a passive item used to talk to books. I ran out of bombs inside Dreams Gate, which meant I had to backtrack through the annoying to navigate Southern Ruins, because for some reason both Pegasus Seeds and Gale Seeds are only unlocked in the Dream World; it makes no sense that they're locked until then. Swim speed once you get the flippers is really slow and it makes using them annoying.

I don't really remember Level 4 or 5, but Magmarite Mines sucked. Magmarite Mines is such a pain to navigate, it has you going back and forth through tedious to navigate spaces, it uses passageways which lead to random places on the map which makes remembering where you have to go annoying, it's just not fun to play through, I've tried my best to wipe it from my memory. The only good thing I have to say about the dungeon is the dungeon item.

The Cursed Woods have a bad transparency layer over it and it would look a lot better without; here's some comparisons:

Cursed Woods comparisons

 

In my opinion, this quest would be improved if all the transparent overhead layers were removed, because in almost all cases they're an eyesore and make the gameplay harder to parse.

Level 8 pretends to be an okay dungeon for about half of it's runtime and then the second half becomes a bad ripoff of Hookshot 2's level 8. There's wizzrobe spam everywhere and they take 5 hits to kill with the level 2 sword and you have nothing better to kill with them, so it's just really tedious. You get the seed shooter in the dungeon but it's only purpose is puzzle solving, it doesn't help you kill enemies or deal with the dungeon's enemies better. This is a recurring theme starting from Level 7 onwards, the items you get don't give you any new combat advantages. The boomerang doesn't deal any damage and you're long past the point where stunning enemies is helpful and the slingshot is better at killing bats; the Seed Shooter is clunky and doesn't hurt anything better that you couldn't before and again the slingshot is better; the Hookshot doesn't deal any damage and again, past the point where stunning is useful; the Wand does the same damage and hits the same things as the slingshot except it has a delay, you get the point.

Intermission time: You know how I mentioned Mt Cronol as being cool? The quest repeats this multiple more times; you enter an overworld with a confusing cave system where you go in and out of caves pressing switches and unraveling a knot in order to unlock the next dungeon; am I describing Turtle Hill. Windy Valley, Mt Blaze, or Mt Snowhite? What was fun the first time is a chore on the second, third, fourth, and fifth times you did this. It's not fun, it's just exhausting.

Another tangent: Item selection. It's really annoying; the way you select seeds is really annoying, the lack of 4 button items is really annoying. I'm really confused that an attempt to upgrade to 2.55 and take advantage of at least 4 button items wasn't made; only 2 button items kills the pacing dead in the water.

Level 9 starts off promising; the beginning of the dungeon looks like a church and it's a big open space and I thought it'd be a much less cluttered dungeon, but unfortunately I went up a floor and was greeted with the usual cluttered stuff. I go to Level 10, oh boy what a surprise it's. also. cluttered. Ugh. I hate dungeons in this game, they're a pain to keep in your mental map of your head, there's no landmarks, things are generally claustrophobic and look samey. This is not dungeon design; it's filler noise, go to the end of this one winding dead end to hit a switch that opens something else, huzzah, gotta use every part of the screen, every part of the buffalo. (Level 10's boss isn't fun btw, don't really have a better segment to put this in, but it's a lot of waiting and if you die at the end it sucks).

I left level 10 midway through to go finish the trading sequence which arbitrary prevents you from progressing after level 6 until you've gotten the level 10 item. The Oil Factory was fine, and then I finished the trading sequence, went through the awful area that is Moonlight ruins (wow, cool maze. such good gameplay that isn't at all tedious (sarcasm)), entered the sacred realm, got two keys, and then got met with an arbitrary hammer check. Wow cool so I wasted my time; the only thing I've gotten out of this is the red tunic which I didn't have enough money for and had to grind up an extra 150 rupees to get which left me unable to use the slingshot as much as I've wanted, and a dungeon which I have to wait even longer to complete. I've beaten level 10 and I'm still stuck with the level 2 sword, and I have no guidance on where to go next; I came to this thread to see where it wants me to go next because I'm 200% done with this. This trading sequence sucks.

I guess this brings me to idea reuse. So much of this quest isn't original. It's using ideas taken from other quests, assets taken from other quests, music taken from other quests. Glory Squad uses the japanese pokemon theme song, and that's a really unique pick for music that nobody else would think to use, but then here's Dreams Realm reusing that exact midi and it's pretty obvious where it got it from. Banana Blood God's boss theme is an obscure remix of a Ys 4 boss theme, itself an obscure game; so here's Dreams Realm reusing that exact theme for it's Light World boss theme. Card Castle in Go Gollab used this neat remix of Midna's Theme, it's so obscure that not even I could find it because I thought it was a remix of Midna's Lament and even if you know it's quite a ways down and I had to ask one of my co-creator's for help, so guess what theme level 4 in Dreams Realm used (it also used the mirror tiles Joel used for his area in Gollab). Moosh's area in Gollab uses a piano remix of withered leaf from touhou- you already know where this is going Dreams Realm used it too, for a snowy area that looks similar to Moosh's area. I liked level 7, but we all know it got it's aesthetic and music from Isle of Rebirth's unhallowed chapel. I already brought up Level 8; it uses Necrofantasia, the exact same music used in Hookshot 2 for Sinner's Citadel, and it uses the same floor tile gimmick except watered down so it's barriers instead of entire rooms changing. There's spinning gears in some levels that use the exact same graphic and script that Banana Blood God uses; to my knowledge, that script nor graphic have been publicly released, but they are included in the quest if you crack it open. In Isle of Rebirth there's a dungeon called Prismatic Gate where you shoot an arrow into a 2x2 statue to change the element of the dungeon; in Dreams Realm there's a dungeon called Dreams Gate where you shoot your slingshot into a 2x2 torch to change the element of the dungeon (a hint statue even refers to them as arrows); at the end of the dungeon is an encounter with the main antagonist where if you beat them you get the Cane of Byrna.  I can't even list all of them the quest is so huge that I've forgotten most of it.
 

In isolation the things I listed above aren't bad, but it's a recurring pattern of just cribbing from other quests; in isolation you could argue that you just found the same music that someone else found, but as a pattern it's blatantly obvious you just ripped them from other quests soundtracks. I'm not going to say that ideas should never be reused or that inspiration shouldn't be taken from other stuff or that using the same music as someone else is inherently bad; I think taking inspiration from things can be really cool, it can allow you to expand on mechanics the creator didn't fully use or execute them far better than the source material; unfortunately Dreams Realm does neither of these things. The only real idea Dreams Realm brings to these ideas is the Roc's feather (which honestly isn't a great addition to the quest, the required platforming is almost always too tight); and the execution of these ideas from a game design perspective isn't that great. Technically, there's a lot of ZQuest mastery going on behind the scenes, but this mastery is rarely in service to good, fun gameplay. If Dreams Realm isn't bringing new ideas to the table, nor is it bringing well-executed ideas to the table... what is it bringing, and why should I play it? Why shouldn't I, when reminded of Isle of Rebirth, just go back and play that? At least in Isle of Rebirth I get a cool magic-sword damage wand that can hurt wizzrobes, and have access to the magic sword by the time I'm fighting wizzrobes. Why shouldn't I just go play Glory Squad, whose overworld is more fun to traverse and at least has interesting fun ideas? How can I even be sure that any of the ideas in this quest are unique, given that so many are just taken? It's self-sabotage. Hell I'm pretty sure the only reason the quest has 12 dungeons is because Isle of Rebirth did that, except Isle of Rebirth had dungeons that were fun and I looked forward to playing.

If I can give any advice, play your dungeons. Then play them again. Then play them again. If at any point you're annoyed at the dungeon or feel bored, you have a problem and you should know where that problem is. Design not for the sake of pushing out content, but design asking yourself "will this be fun?". If you're designing to fulfil a quota, maybe reconsider. I'd maybe have more points but at this point I'm exhausted typing this out, I have been typing this out for 4 hours at this point, I regret not sharing my thoughts as I went like Ether did.

[TheRock]

That's too bad you didn't like level 10! As it's something that I adore. It's my top 3 favorite dungeons because of I the way the layout is. It took longer to make the layout then to design the screens in the dungeon. The way that the floors go made it really hard to get my head around it.

 

A lot of issues you mentioned of taking ideas from other games, yeah that's true. Water gets used over and over again in games. My point is love for what the game is and not to hate it because it reuses a idea from a different game. No one complains about water getting reused in games or grass, so why gears?

 

Weird you didn't like level 9. I tried to make a very flowing layout and loved how it turned out and did my original goal. Level 11 is a rip of of Herald of Heroes Ganon's Prison with very different usage of stuff. The dungeon count? There's 13 levels in this game. . The new sword you can get after level 11 dungeon item. 

 

I think without the transparent it looks  way worse... Not sure why you don't like it... 

Edited by TheRock, 02 January 2024 - 01:08 PM.

[Deedee]

That's too bad you didn't like level 10! As it's something that I adore. It's my top 3 favorite dungeons because of I the way the layout is. It took longer to make the layout then to design the screens in the dungeon. The way that the floors go made it really hard to get my head around it.

The layout is fine, I like how the dual state turns stairs up into stairs down. I may have been harsh on it because I dipped halfway through to go pursue the trading quest and came back frustrated. My biggest complaint is visually, the barriers for blocking the wrong state are a mess and distracts from the gameplat, and it's even worse in the destruction state where the walkable state is very noisy. Psychologically, I also always get drawn to the topleft whenever I respawn, which leads to the deadend where you get the wand. Meanwhile, post-wand progress is behind two checks that you don't feel as drawn towards, which makes it hard to reorient yourself after you die unless you're specifically thinking "okay, I need to head through the narrow path to the topright to go behind the two puzzles I solved". Player psychology is a bit hard to grasp though.

 

A lot of issues you mentioned of taking ideas from other games, yeah that's true. Water gets used over and over again in games. My point is love for what the game is and not to hate it because it reuses a idea from a different game. No one complains about water getting reused in games or grass, so why gears?

I dunno, it just feels weird that something unique to bananas (the script and the sprite, neither of which I believe are public) was reused when it was a core part of one of it's dungeons identity. On one hand, we're basically reusing stuff from Nintendo, but the vibe feels different. I guess it doesn't really matter if the creators were okay with it though, could just be me nitpicking. The larger point there was that if you're taking ideas from other games, you should be mindful of how you're using them and whether or not you're bringing either fun execution or new ideas to the table; the gears were a lesser example because the roc's feather does bring something slightly new to the table; Level 8 was a big offender though because it actively watered down what made the original good (the entire room changing in the original both felt impactful and also helped keep the screen readable, it felt like you were falling into pits that kept looping back around to themself, and the music choice helped sell that it was the final dungeon for real; meanwhile here it's just a midgame dungeon so the music loses its impact and the gimmick is the same but with the visual flourish taken from it; it feels like wasted space in the quest; an entire chunk where "god I wish I was playing the better sinners citadel instead of this knockoff". 

 

Weird you didn't like level 9. I tried to make a very flowing layout and loved how it turned out and did my original goal. Level 11 is a rip of of Herald of Heroes Ganon's Prison with very different usage of stuff. The dungeon count? There's 13 levels in this game. . The new sword you can get after level 11 dungeon item. 

I have not reached level 11 yet, but I loved Ganon's Prison, so I'm curious if I'll like level 11. Level 9 wasn't too bad in hindsight, it played very nicely. My big problem was the giant ice chunks; they don't really look that good and they made it look pretty cluttered. The buildup to it was just tiring though, with me having to do a minidungeon to even unlock the dungeon, and maybe my thoughts on it weren't the best.
 

I think without the transparent it looks  way worse... Not sure why you don't like it... 

It might look nice in isolation, but IMO during gameplay it was a headache; the overlays make it hard to keep track of where Link is. There's something really nice and elegant about simplicity sometimes, and the screens on their own look pretty good, they have a nice palette and everything; added the overhead takes away from the nice, grim colors and just makes already dark screens even darker. Subjective though.

[Useless Old Man Wisdom]

I'm about 2/3 (?) through the quest now, I think, so I haven't seen it all; but I think I've seen enough to get a pretty good idea of how the rest will play out.

 

I have to say that I agree with DeeDee on the L6 hate. I went from disliking this dungeon, to hating it, to outright loathing it by the time I was done. In addition to DeeDee's criticism about the clutter, excessive barriers, and the huge number of passageways to arbitrary locations, you can also throw in a whole lot of "kill all" enemies rooms really also killing the pacing. Even if you aren't effected by the locked door problem I posted about, you'll still have to go through these rooms over, and over again. Then, there are the ladders in the sideview areas, where if you don't get your placement 100% at the squeeze point, you can't climb the ladder. Good luck getting that perfect placement. Overall, everything in this dungeon just looks the same, and there are so few visual distinctions, that you can't really remember where the passageways lead to. I actually liked the "countdown" to disaster gimmick in this dungeon, but that was probably the only bright spot I can speak of. For the record, this is the only dungeon I can say that I don't like so far. I even liked L3 alright.

 

I'd also add that, like other really long quests, this one has a lot of padding thrown in to artificially prolong things -- usually navigation-related barriers. Like some of those 2.10-style quests that have many, many overworlds (9 villages, Master Quest Chapter 2, for instance), this one also has a lot of filler screens amidst the overworlds. Don't get me wrong, the screens almost always look good, and there are plenty of secrets to find, but a healthy majority of the screens seem to exist solely for the purpose of padding the length of the play through. The navigation-related barriers also serve to make the overworlds seems larger than they really are, because you're traveling a long way due to all the winding paths, but not necessarily covering a lot of screens. This is one of the core-design principles from Nargad's Trail (2016), which I wasn't crazy about. I'm not quite decided if this is really a bad thing, though. I mean, in any real-world landscape, there are going to be a lot of acres that have nothing of note upon them. There will also be impassable terrain (to account for the blank screens on the 8x16 overworld maps), gates, impassable vegetation, and such. Maybe this will bother me more later on, who knows?

 

Some of the transparent layers do distort the screen and navigation, but in the context of where these are present, like the forest, volcanic area, and "spooky" graveyards and woods, the transparent layers make complete sense. I think that these transparent layers help establish a setting and "mood" for the areas where they are used.

 

I can't speak about an uncredited ripping off of a script from another quest, as it's been years since I've played the cited quest and don't remember anything about this script. If true, this would be more of a bad etiquette thing and I understand the criticism, but I consider ZC quests to be in the public domain, so am not sure how much such a hypothetical offense really matters in the objective sense.

 

Aside from that, I think it's petty to criticize the creators for retreading musical tracks or dungeon-related gimmicks from other quests.Let's face it: nearly every single Zelda Classic quest has memorable midis from other Zelda games, Final Fantasy games, the Castlevania or Megaman series, and, in the meta-sense, often other ZC quests. Very, very few quests out there have what I would call an original soundtrack, and I honestly don't even expect an original soundtrack based on what I've heard from playing Zelda Classic over 18 years or so. Likewise, yes there are gimmicks from other quests also being retreaded in Dreams Realm, but there are also some new, interesting gimmicks that I haven't seen elsewhere. Again, if you're holding out for a quest that has a truly fresh, unique approach or array of gimmicks to its dungeons, you're probably never going to play a new ZC quest ever again. I think you probably have to enjoy the other quests made by Sans or The Rock, or you're not going to enjoy this one. The dungeons in Dreams Realm are very consistent with the dungeons in the creator's other quests, so there's no surprise that the dungeons in DR are the way that they are - with the exception of L6, which was plagued by bad execution in my opinion. I happen to be a fan of the creator's other quests, for the most part, so that's what enticed me to play this one. Maybe for that reason, I'm more tolerant of some objectively-questionable dungeon-design choices.

 

 

Thank you! I'm currently stuck at Level 6, what exactly happens when you light the 4 torches in the room with 3 staircases?

EDIT: Nevermind, I finished the dungeon.

In case anyone else has the same problem, the four torches puzzle in L6 lowers some pegs that block the path to the boss door. You still need to use a key elsewhere (and I spent a long time figuring out how to get there) to fully open the path, though.

Edited by Useless Old Man Wisdom, 02 January 2024 - 05:29 PM.