35 replies to this topic

[Ether]

The Legend of Zelda: The God of Power by ValientLink

 

  

 

 

I started building this quest in February of 2009 in 1.92 but moved it up to 2.10. In May 2009, I stopped working on it, until July 2010 when I began again. The tileset used was a very strange choice. You may recognize this from PolygonX8's (Exate) "A Link to the Darkness 5". Why I ever chose that tileset I don't know. This quest was initially a test of day to night transitions but it transformed quite quickly. A majority of this quest was worked on when I was 15. At the time I wasn't too mature, so some dialogue may seem cheesy, if not all of it. But that's what I think is the best part. The dialogue is like something you'd get out of an early 90's RPG...But this quest was my attempt to make a Zquest with a decent story, and show you players to not care so much about a great tileset. I do know how to do just about everything in Zquest, which you may not see right away. But I think this is one of those quests you should take a look at and try before you see a screenshot and say "pass". I was inspired a lot by Illusion of Gaia, the way heart pieces are obtained are like the red jewels. If you don't get a heart piece at a certain time, you'll never be able to get it again. So it keeps you checking areas if you want them all. There isn't tons of exploration, just like there isn't in Illusion of Gaia. Speaking of which, after I finished almost all of the quest, I played Terranigma and noticed some resemblances in the story... kind of. But anyway, enjoy if you choose to try this.

 
 

Unique and with an engaging story, has held up well over the years

 

 

I've never heard of this one! I'm a little apprehensive toward 2.10 quests in general, but we'll see how this goes.

[TheRock]

This is one of my favorites. Happy to see it played next.

[Haylee]

Wait I actually was interested in playing this a couple days ago. Baller. Looking forward to tackling this one.

[Valientlink]

This quest hasn't aged well, the dialogue is sooooo bad (at least considering I graduated with a BA in English Studies) and there are times where there's like 10 minutes of it. Some of the cheesiness was on purpose though because I was always amused by early 90s RPG translations, so it's like I was trying to make bad dialogue lol... Then again with 3 lines of text sometimes the dialogue simply won't be great. It's not a good representation of my best work. I'd began working on a sequel in August 2011 which I built a lot mostly from summer 2012 to summer 2013, then I became an oot speedrunner, set a dozen world records and came back to zquest.

 

What thread did SofaKing make that comment? I'm just curious. I'm surprised anyone would think it's held up over the years, but I guess Zquests in general haven't changed a whole lot the past decade, which I don't think is a bad thing at all. It's just most people weren't still on 1.92 or 2.10 at the time. Actually God of Power started in 1.90, I was always obsessed with that version for some reason. But when I realized I wanted there to big this elaborate story I moved to 1.92 and then 2.10.

 

I still really need to finish it, because, humblebrags aside I do things in the sequel that are brilliant given the limitations. I did have to move it to 2.5 though because I ran out of maps, was hesitant to. But honestly it did need some customized enemies and new sounds (this was possible already though through a different method).

To all the weaknesses in this game, particularly addressed in the comments, I made sure to get rid of in the sequel, so you can go back anywhere any time pretty much, even if there's nothing, just to give you the feeling that you're free. Day to night transitions work similarly but you generally have more time before things transition. You can miss heart pieces in God of Power like jewels in Illusion of Gaia, but the sequel allows you more time in each area to get heart pieces and there are 3 extras just in case you happened to miss a few which isn't unlikely.

 

It seems most people who played it had an alright time, I just think it's terrible when compared to the sequel. 2 playable characters in a 2.10 quest is something nobody ever managed to achieve I don't think and took some clever workarounds. There's a lot of clever and creative ideas in it. I suppose the same goes for God of Power, I was just lazy about a lot of stuff given I wanted to complete it within a certain timespan.

God of Power does attempt to be heavily story driven, and the sequel as well, but there aren't huge stretches of dialogue. I mean, there are, but there's a lot more gameplay overall and there's only a lot of dialogue if something significant is happening in the plot. I really wanted it done by 2023 because i'd started building in it last fall, but I'm too hung up on small things to finish the final dungeon and the interactive credits sequence. I do think my music choices were quite good overall in this, but especially the sequel. I probably would need beta testers, although I was firm for awhile on not needing one, leading me to play the quest like hundreds of times and start to hate it. There are absolutely zero bugs left but might be doors that you get stuck from there not being secret combos. There's this chaotic list I made of things to change and they're in absolutely no order.

Graphically this quest kind of sucks, but that was also intentional. I wanted to focus more on the story and such and not get hung up on 1 tile or undercombo being wrong, which is the kinda stuff I've been hung up on with the sequel. I need to just finish the final dungeon, just seems like I used my creative juices up or feel that they're stuck in place until I fix the small stuff. I did develop OCD in my early 20s, so God of Power is almost hard for me to play now lol..

Edited by Valientlink, 16 January 2024 - 07:15 PM.

[Haylee]

Largely through the 2nd dungeon, and I'm instantly seeing some of the cracks here. The World changing as you go through the quest is a very cool concept, one that I don't entirely think has been fully explored in ZC before, but naturally, it's one that really breaks in 2.10. This is definitely bolstered further by the fact that as you've mentioned, it started as a 1.90 quest. I don't entirely mind permanently missable items in quests, but it's pretty immediately clear to me that this one is quite unkind to blind players. I am enjoying what I'm playing so far, though it comes with that clear caveat. I likely see myself keeping ZQuest open to see if there's anything missable between each dungeon that's important for progression. I appreciate the ambition here, to be frank, I just can't help but think it reaches too close to the sun for what it is.

 

 

What thread did SofaKing make that comment? I'm just curious. I'm surprised anyone would think it's held up over the years, but I guess Zquests in general haven't changed a whole lot the past decade, which I don't think is a bad thing at all. It's just most people weren't still on 1.92 or 2.10 at the time. Actually God of Power started in 1.90, I was always obsessed with that version for some reason. But when I realized I wanted there to big this elaborate story I moved to 1.92 and then 2.10.

These are comments made by the quest club curators in the private curator's list thread. SofaKing is a curator.

[Moosh]

A couple dungeons in. This one's pretty interesting so far. It's flawed for sure but it has some original ideas which is something I value in a 2.10 quest more than the usual polish. It also has the benefit of being one I haven't played before. I must have missed its original release somehow, because I wasn't even aware Valientlink made a quest. Excited to see where it goes.

[Valientlink]

Largely through the 2nd dungeon, and I'm instantly seeing some of the cracks here. The World changing as you go through the quest is a very cool concept, one that I don't entirely think has been fully explored in ZC before, but naturally, it's one that really breaks in 2.10. This is definitely bolstered further by the fact that as you've mentioned, it started as a 1.90 quest. I don't entirely mind permanently missable items in quests, but it's pretty immediately clear to me that this one is quite unkind to blind players. I am enjoying what I'm playing so far, though it comes with that clear caveat. I likely see myself keeping ZQuest open to see if there's anything missable between each dungeon that's important for progression. I appreciate the ambition here, to be frank, I just can't help but think it reaches too close to the sun for what it is.

 

 

These are comments made by the quest club curators in the private curator's list thread. SofaKing is a curator.

Actually there's an instance where something game breaking happens if you leave level 3 after getting the hookshot. So, to anyone who's thinking of doing that... don't, lol. I mean you can go grab the piece of heart but the hookshot lets you skip the Triforce, locking you out of entering level 9.I do need to update this quest some. But you're right.

 

However, the way I do the daytime transitions in the sequel, which 90% of which was done in 2.10 was near flawless. I mean it's executed so well that I can't help but be really impressed with myself. I didn't have to rebuild the same maps over and over and over and over again, but I wanted to, to give the player the feeling that they really are free to go anywhere at any time. There are exceptions, but for the most part this is how it's done, with 3 extra heart pieces in the quest in case you missed some of the temporary ones (which stay around a lot longer in general). It's really only heart pieces you can miss out on in God of Power, and the big shield I guess, but I put in the notes to get it as soon as you can, before level 2 is best.

 

God of Power was just an experiment, originally called Adventure of Time. So to make a sequel that's so much better in every way is kind of silly, and why I included a txt file with the quest revealing the entire story to God of Power since it has not aged well.

 

I did make some other quests back in 2005 (Link to Hyrule is the only one I can remember that I uploaded to ZeldaClassic), but they were standard LoZ style and I was just an 11-12 year old kid. It's too bad I lost one of them, Link in Jajara because the custom tileset I made looked really cool.

 

But yeah, this is one of those quests you either love or hate. I kind of hate it, and I did want it to be punishing. It was originally way harder, then looking back now I think it's way too easy. The sequel is brutal though. Expect to run into level 3 stalfos before you can even survive being hit by them. All God of Power really has is being unique and unusual, but due to the fact that I put a time constraint on it that it didn't need, a lot of stuff did get rushed after around level 4. And the story kinda... makes not that much sense. Then again, does most of Dragon Ball? Not really. I think it makes enough sense but wasn't properly written, that's also why the txt file for the sequel exists. Even if you did play it, you probably want a better explanation as to what exactly all happened.

Edited by Valientlink, 17 January 2024 - 08:14 PM.

[Valientlink]

As far as it starting in 1.90, that's only because it was built off of A Link to the Darkness 5. I moved it to 1.92 pretty quickly. Again it was basically just a day to night transition experiment, I'd tried this some years before also. But yeah, due to the flaws people had mentioned in the original quest comments, that's why I bothered to make a sequel, to capitalize on all the weaknesses and turn them into strengths.

 

I just wish I could just sit down and finish the thing, I've just had to deal with a lot of physical and mental health problems in the past 2 years, but especially the last few months. I'd been back into building from August to October and then I lost my job because apparently death of a family member doesn't matter to Walmart, and then I stopped altogether pretty much.

[SofaKing]

So I played this in like 2011 and then probably again in 2017 or 2018.  I just fired it up again and played through part of Level 3 (don't worry I didn't leave, just died lol).  Yeah my comment about it aging well may have been a little revisionist.  It's...clunkier than I recall so far.  The one-way push blocks, the random things you have to bomb or walk through, the fact that I couldn't go back and buy something I encountered in a shop early and didn't buy but really wish I had, there are issues here for sure.  Having said that, there is a certain charm about this and just a vibe that makes you want to keep playing and see what's next, to see if in the next day/night phase you can reach that stairway or door you couldn't before and find out what's behind it.  Some quests just have that "I want to keep playing" quality and this still does despite flaws that I perhaps didn't appreciate when I had played far fewer custom quests and had a less-developed sense of my preferences.  You do some things here that are unique, engaging and do still in fact hold up. 

 

Also, on a personal note, I hope you are doing better.  That stuff sounds like it sucks a lot and yeah, often times big corporations sadly don't care.  I hope you find the motivation to push on because it sounds like you are working on something amazing.  Good luck and hang in there!     

[Valientlink]

Thanks. I'm not exactly doing too well unfortunately. Just so much on my plate, I just turned 30, have dangerously low white blood cells which I won't find an answer to for a month or more. Hopefully it's something simple, because that can mean cancer quite often. I wasn't mentally my best making God of Power either, at least to come up with a story that sad. I was pretty happy at 16, but it was obviously evidence that something would develop later in life, by my 20s. The sequel has quite a backstory to it and a lot of personal issues of mine are addressed cryptically through different characters. I used pain as a motivator, I wish I could be as stoic now but I'm not 18 anymore. That transition out of high school into college was very hard for me, I had a lot of fun in high school and most of my friends either didn't go to college or went to a better one, so I was pretty isolated for awhile.

 

Either way shock value was always a big thing with me and writing, it certainly shows in God of Power, but I was also trying to really create emotional scenes, match the music the best I could. I do this even better in the sequel (how many times am I gonna say that...). I actually just downloaded a ton of MIDIs from games I've never heard of. I'd like, close my eyes on VGmusic and download whatever. Usually some obscure Japanese game, MIDIs no one has ever heard before that happen to be very unique. I lucked out in that regard, but I always did try to make the music match the environment as much as possible, playing the MIDI while I'd build areas in both quests

 

Anyway, there are some issues actually that not everyone had. I think when TK did a lets play, the level 2 shield wasn't in the shop at all for some reason. It's there morning and sunset, but I guess if played in 2.5 may not always be there. It's always been there for me on various versions of 2.5.

 

Your comments about wanting to keep playing, it just makes me want to finish the sequel so bad to completely blow your mind. If you think anything about this quest is clever or unique, your jaw will literally drop. I put every ounce of creative energy I had into it. I only put about 25% of it into God of Power. I mean jeez... my bio says hopefully end of 2022, it's 2024. I need to finish the damn thing already. Maybe if I send out some demos and got feedback it might inspire me to change some things or just getting positive feedback would push me forward.

It's a much longer quest, I'd say for a first time player easily 15-20 hours. You largely spend time in lands outside of Hyrule, but when you return you can go to the old dungeons from God of Power, at least some of them. In Revival of Link, every day to night transition results in a new item being found somewhere. There's never nothing, even if it's just money, a potion, a heart piece. So the point is to deliberately explore every area after each transition and you're rewarded for that exploration.

 

It just baffles me it's been 13 years in July since I began work on this, though most of the work was between April and November 2012. I wanted it done by The end of 2012 but that wasn't going to be easy, and would probably make it suck. I mean, maybe I never had to add custom enemies when I had to move it to 2.5, they are just derivatives of normal enemies. But that's all really besides custom sound effects, having arrows use magic (don't think 2.10 could do that). I'd call it 80% 2.10, 20% 2.5. The 2 playable character workaround is something I'm especially proud of though. Maybe people have done this in 2.5 with scripts or something, but to do that in 2.10 definitely hadn't been done before.

If I can get the damn thing finished, there's a lot of personal backstory with myself that I think wouldn't hurt to share, especially why I even bothered to make a sequel to something that basically ended perfectly... or did it? There's a key moment in the credits that serves as the basis for the next game.

Edited by Valientlink, 18 January 2024 - 01:54 AM.

[SofaKing]

I would be willing to help test if that helps, although I've never been able to get 2.55 to work right on my computer so hopefully it's for 2.53 or lower.

[Valientlink]

Yeah, I've been building it in 2.53 dated April 2019 I think. Never did try 2.55 so maybe it wouldn't work well for me either. I do dislike how they changed the GUI, it seems the version I'm using is the last one to use the 2.10 appearance.

 

I had thought of upgrading because I wanted to be able to customize the HUD more which I guess you can do, among a lot of other things that would be made easier with simple quest rule changes like secret combos staying permanently active for instance, meaning I wouldn't have to put a switch under a door so you don't get stuck. I've checked every door and I'm pretty sure I've fixed them all. Many went over my head, like you might go through a passageway and then try to go back to a certain room (there is usually almost no real reason to go back in some of these situations) but still, I don't want people getting stuck.

Ultimately that would feel like cheating, considering I wanted it to stay mostly 2.10. Wanted the magic bar to work like Ocarina of Time too, magic below the hearts with over 8 hearts underneath, but once I realized it was either that or some kind of script, I just said screw it. It was supposed to be a 2.10 quest anyway, so I didn't really mind reverting back to hearts above. It already looks like Ocarina of Time before you get 9 hearts, closer to the magic bar. If I wanted LTTP style, the magic bar would end up way below the hearts.

I think in general it's probably 98% bug free, there may be some doors I missed. All I know is it's really hard, brutal really. I've tweaked it up to make it easier for the most part but I do want it to be a very difficult quest. But not too difficult, so having some other people demo it to find if it's too hard in general. I did have a lot of dialogue to update, maybe build some extra maps. Was going to remake one particular area but there isn't exactly a reason to, and it's around a part where the maps change a few times so I probably won't.

God of Power is so easy, and to think someone in the comments said it was too hard. It used to be way harder, blue darknuts in the sword dungeon for instance, no free bombs but I'd changed them to red. I was afraid the average ZC player wouldn't be good enough for that but then just seeing 2 LPs of it I realized I was wrong, and then re-playing it myself. Way, way too easy.

Edited by Valientlink, 19 January 2024 - 03:46 PM.

[Moosh]

A couple dungeons further in. I'm definitely seeing some of the ways this quest isn't that good. Level 3 had a bunch of really buggy feeling warps that stuck me in a wall, a couple cutscenes had very easy out of bounds tricks. And then there's the superbomb trigger. Oh lord, the superbomb trigger. That is indeed a special kind of awful. But then I got to the cutscene in the town where Sarissa runs away and flipped out. I'm not particularly following the quest's plot but for the version this quest was originally made in, that was wicked cool. 

[Russ]

I... I tried to like this quest. I got some ways into level 6, enough to say I gave it a fair shake. I always hate coming across too critically, but I have a lot to say and not a lot of it is positive.

 

The general concept of the quest is cool, especially for its time, and seeing the world change is neat. On the other hand, running back and forth over it for missables is less neat. The overworld is pretty linear, with long and winding pathways leading to objectives. There's a few exceptions, like the part around Hyrule Castle, but the general rule holds. There's a lot of screens that just force you to go back and forth through a winding path with nothing going on, and I have to question what purpose they serve. I'm aware it's more the tileset than the creator, but man do the mountains look ugly, on top of everything else.

 

The dungeons... the overall flow isn't terrible, but my lord, the walk through walls and arbitrary triggers are bad sometimes. There's no internal consistency. Some rooms, ladder will cross one tile pits. Some rooms, it won't. Sometimes, the candle will light fires. Sometimes, it has to be the fire arrows. The blocks that only push one direction are particularly infuriating, and I eventually dropped the quest when, looking in the editor, I found that I couldn't proceed because I didn't figure out to shoot a random section of the wall with an arrow to make a doorway.

 

I have to give special mention to the superbomb trigger. You're given one opportunity to buy a super bomb before going through a one-way passage. The game warns you that if you accidentally use it, you'll be perma-stuck. You proceed through a dungeon to finally reach the spot it tells you to super bomb: a collection of rocks. Trying to bomb them... does nothing. It's actually a separate rock away from the main pile. Shame you just used that superbomb; better reset the game.

 

I will give credit where it's do, the Sarissa cutscene was well done for 2.10. The writing in the quest in general though is... less than great. So many words to convey so few ideas, on top of a plot that's fairly nonsensical and falls apart if you squint too hard. It tried, and that's more than can be said for most quests of the era, but it certainly hasn't aged the best.

 

Overall... it's an interesting piece of history. A relic from a bygone age. But I don't think I can bring myself to actually enjoy it. Some of that may be 2.10 shortcomings, but I really enjoyed Link to the Heavens, which we did for the last quest club, because it was generally pretty smart about doing the most it could with those limitations and avoiding design pitfalls. God of Power just... isn't showing that same degree of design and wit, and fumbles in a lot of important ways.

[Haylee]

 

Finished with a pretty solid amount of time. I think the quest gets better after level 6. It's a clearly massive mess of a quest, but I definitely enjoyed my time with it. I think some of the ideas are quite cool, and in general, I like the tileset choice, if only because Link to the Darkness 5 has one of my favorite aesthetics in a quest. Something to keep in mind is that I definitely did unfortunately have to have ZQuest on standby to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

 

Beyond the quest being buggy, there's definitely some pretty rude secrets in this quest (Which are partially mitigated by getting the lens a bit past halfway.). Many item triggers are super inconsistently marked and sometimes even ask for a different item than it usually asks for. I think there's stuff here that can be looked at for inspiration for ideas in modern quests, even if the execution here feels a bit messy. In general, I would consider this quest to be at least pretty good. There's plenty of issues with it, but it's also quite creative and does a lot of interesting things with what ZC could do at the time.

 

Apparently I rated the quest years ago back in 2012. I played the first dungeon back then and just dropped a 4. While I would probably feel the same way I do now about this, I think my rating is closer to a 3/5, if only because I had a bit of a mentality back in the day that ANYTHING I liked was a 4 or 5 (Then again, I think the entire community did). Good luck with your future projects! I had fun with this one.

Edited by Haylee, 22 January 2024 - 11:01 AM.