35 replies to this topic

[SofaKing]

I finished it and agree with most of what's been said.  I included it in my quest club recommendations based on my fond memories of it and how often it seems to come up in "overlooked gems" type-threads.  I'm not sorry I did.  It's unique, engaging, not overly long or difficult, and did a lot of really impressive things for a now 12-year old 2.10 quest.  But all of the criticisms are totally fair.  The randomness of some of the secrets and triggers, the one-way push blocks, some continue bugs here and there, the fact you can completely miss things and not go back, there's a lot here that could be polished up.  It's not quite the experience I recall.  But I still like it, I felt myself motivated to finish, and the last few levels do get better.  I REALLY hope, based on what you've said about it, that you finish the sequel.  I'll be first in line to play.  I'll be first in line to test.  I sincerely hope you get better as it sounds like life has dealt you a shit hand.  Hang in there.  You clearly have a lot of talent for this if you did this at the age you did.  

[Valientlink]

If you don't care to read anything beyond this (especially since it's long and I also discuss some things some may find uncomfortable to read regarding mental health and my response to Russ' review): tl;dr: I can give out demos to anyone who wants them, just DM me either here or on Discord, Discord is best but if you aren't on Discord then here is fine. Any positive feedback could help push me to finish it or improve upon some things.

 

 

Thank you SofaKing. 16-17 at that age wasn't too impressive, when I was 11 I was cooking up some cool stuff and cutscenes similar to the Sarissa one people thought was cool, so really I didn't use anywhere near my full potential around the time I finished God of Power, not even close. But dialogue... not so good for an 11 year old. This was a rushed mess, so I'm not surprised this didn't receive positive comments, because I think it's not great. I suppose you and I share an overall similar view of the quest, it's alright and I have a lot of nostalgia for it. But I do wish I'd kept it harder, 6 deaths from Haylee makes me realize that. That will probably be 60 if you're playing the next one, I can manage under 10 but I've tested the thing a million times, I know what all is coming. I guess it has a Megaman style difficulty in that sense.

 

 

 

Anyway... I'd at the time thought it was a pretty special quest despite knowing it was severely flawed. Obviously many 2.10 quests would've outclassed this, many 1.92 quests from 2004 would have as well. Anything Freedom built in 1.92/2.10, Petoe, DFW. Maybe one day, I'll actually polish this one up a lot. I can't just have this amazing sequel to a bad quest. That'd be like if Ocarina of Time was the sequel to Faces of Link, or something, it's really that level of difference. Not to say God of Power is Faces of Link bad but the point is it's so far inferior to Revival of Link it's not even funny.

 

 

 

I'm surprised the Sarissa cutscene was highlighted as that was pretty rudimentary to me overall. I mean I guess it does look pretty cool but again I was doing stuff like that when I was 11-12 in 2005, unfortunately I lost most of my early stuff. Overall the majority of what I was capable of with zquest just didn't come through due to building in such a rush and also not caring that much about how it looked overall. I was both lazy and trying to rush at the same time. In the end, I did build pretty much 90% of this in 2 months and didn't really expect any real praise. So when I found some good reviews it meant a lot to me. I could've made a lot of areas not look so shitty, I just didn't care, I was following in the footsteps of Exate's early quests, including constant maze paths that serve no real purpose other than to waste time. I like these personally but I recognize that they're used as an "obstacle" in some of the worst ways possible like before you find Maura. Cryptic and just plain annoying.

 

 

I do like it because it reminds me of the happiest time of my life, age 16, summer of 2010, and obviously because I know where everything is. I also have fairly low standards when it comes to quests. But I know I did something really special with this sequel and I think people generally have higher standards in an age where 2.5 can allow you to do anything, or just have higher standards anyway, so even the sequel they might not be too impressed with, but there's no doubt that to anyone, there's going to be some things that are very impressive. Again the 2 playable characters in 2.10 is something I don't think anyone else ever did.

 

 

A Link to the Darkness 5, one of Exate's old quests would probably receive horrible reviews by anyone here but it's one of my top 3 favorite quests due to both nostalgia and the fact that he was able to use 1.90 in a unique way. That tileset was the basis for God of Power, so really in general I didn't come close to utilizing everything 2.10 could do. I didn't add slash tiles, bushes or anything because for some reason that 1.90 style had this great appeal to me. I think the dungeon design was overall OK, but yeah... the superbomb thing, that's horrible, and originally if you left the house, you couldn't even go back in. I should've made the superbomb trigger way bigger, I figured just putting it over where the stairs had been would've been enough.

 

 

 

Anyway, the huge mess that is God of Power is, again, exactly why I tell the whole plot of this quest in a text file bundled with the sequel. The concept and story of this quest is so simple and I made it out to seem a lot more complex than it really was with way too much dialogue at times. I am interested in giving out some demos of Revival of Link (goes up to the last dungeon) and I'm sure there may be similar complaints of linearity, lots of backtracking, the fact that every time the time of day, or event certain events take place you can find new items in places you've already been to, but I really like that personally, and as I'd mentioned, if a heart piece happens to be somewhere for a brief period which isn't usually the case, there's 3 extra. If a heart piece sticks around an area for multiple time of day changes that's when you know you'll be able to get it eventually. But again with 3 extra heart pieces it's unlikely someone won't finish with 16.

 

 

Sometimes there are clues, like a dive spot when you first can swim might have money the first time, but you go there at night and it's a heart piece. As far as the day transitions go, they're executed pretty much perfectly compared to this which was an experiment really, that I ended up adding a story to one day. It's not told in any way that makes proper sense for the most part, it's all a fragmented mess.

 

 

I really need to work out some more dialogue and story related things so if I were to give out demos, I'd likely cut it at a certain point. I did attempt to make a custom boss of sorts late into the quest but it mostly ended up being a barrage of enemies. It'll probably stay that way, but it doesn't have to be so difficult. It's that specific area I think which needs the most fixing, so I'll debate on where to cut it. Regardless, when I plan to would be after a pivotal moment in the plot very late in the quest after the last "triforce" dungeon. If anyone is interested just let me know, some positive feedback would probably help push me to finish it.

 

 

Anyone interested just let me know. I can PM through discord or here depending on if you have discord or not, and I can send a demo. I'd say probably just PM me on either one if you want a demo, though I do fear some things haven't aged. I think at the end of the day even if I were to only finish it this year, it was mostly built in 2012-2013 and nothing too significant compared to what you can really all do with 2.5 was added besides some custom enemies and taking triforce out of the pause screen since, it's just 2 pendants. How could that add up to be 15-20 hours of gameplay? You'll find out. But I think any of you who've just freshly played it might understand exactly why a sequel was made in the first place. The key is in the credits to God of Power. I never really planned it exactly, the reason in which I ended up coming up with it is in itself a longer story than God of Power.

 

 

It does sadden me a bit to see it roasted because I remember how happy I was to see that anyone had liked it, but I can't disagree with any of it. I would disagree with the icicle you have to shoot in level 6 though which Russ mentioned, it's purposely isolated from the others and you only have so many items. So to me that's a fairly simple secret. I understand the fire arrows to light a torch instead of the candle is inconsistent, that's why it's the water arrows now, to put out torches.

 

 

Just not being in a very great place mentally it's hard to see it scathed in such a way, and I have to say a lot of it came off a pretty egotistical and rude. There are better ways to articulate criticisms, Russ, especially to someone depressed battling thoughts of suicide quite often... I'd mentioned physical and mental health issues a few times in this thread but obviously wasn't this specific. I'm only bothering to do so now because you never know how your words may affect someone. Have been living through hell for pretty much the last 2 years but August 2022 is where I really started to fall apart and fast.  But I'll shove that aside... Just don't forget everyone is facing a battle you don't know about and come off so condescending. I knew this quest wasn't great, but you could've reviewed it in such a way that strikes a happy medium. It just went over medium to me

 

 

Nobody else in this thread gave off the same energy, it has admin/been around awhile vibes that just came off condescending to me. I spent most of my time away from ZC because of speedrunning 2013-2020 and have seen it time and time again. Maybe it's just bad memories from all the toxicity within it, because a lot of it was quite horrible. People would badmouth me as a newbie and say I sucked and then years later set 12 world records in Ocarina of Time. Completely outclassed every single one of the people that hated on me, but it didn't exactly make me feel that much better. It didn't make me forget the truly horrifying shit some people would say, like "get good or kill yourself" type of stuff. Due to the level of toxicity that was in the speedrunning community a decade ago, I burnt out early. People now are lucky to have a welcoming community full of helpful people.

 

 

 

If there's miscommunication here, I'm sorry. I don't mean to trauma vent on here, but it struck a nerve. I've edited this post several times because I don't want to come off like I'm hating on you, I'm not, and I also didn't know if I should even disclose what I have. It's probably the worst thing you could possibly do in a thread like this, so if you really must, you can omit any talk of me feeling suicidal so long as you understand why it got to me. I was very upset when I originally wrote those things because I'd already mentioned mental health struggles throughout the thread, and this is what made me pop. Having OCD doesn't help. After taking some Valium I don't see your review quite as negatively, you tried to like it, but it still doesn't sit too well with me. It doesn't help the matter that I've been having bad interactions with some of my friends the last 2 days. I just really dislike the way you presented your review overall and remind you that people face battles, some more than others, and it's been a more than others situation for awhile. I'll just remove the talk of this myself at some point should you suggest. Given I'd already brought up mental health, maybe it's important that I disclosed it, better than not should I just randomly vanish one day. But maybe it wasn't the proper way or place to. This was originally closer to the top but I didn't want anyone to have to read all this shit before my other comments, most of which I seem to have already made regarding the sequel.

 

 

I would've likely never mentioned my mental health to this extent if it wasn't for the fact that this kind of tone just does not set well with me and discourages me from even wanting to finish building the sequel. You might find something impressive but I doubt it'd live up to your standards, it's still pretty linear like Illusion of Gaia and there aren't huge overworlds to explore. There are just many other parts of the world in clusters. Would it seem exponentially better, yes, and maybe you'd try finishing it. I guess just watch TK's lets play if you want to see what happens after Level 6.

Edited by Valientlink, 24 January 2024 - 05:05 AM.

[Valientlink]

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. 

This is new to me, your comments about level 3. You're the first person to have had any bugs with warps, do you know where they happened? I could only assume it might be based on if you played it in a modern build because there were cases at least in the past where shops could be missing items and such, but I kind of assumed the latest stable version of 2.5 would have no issues with old quests.

I'm also not sure which cutscenes had oob stuff, maybe one comes to mind. I will at least polish God of Power a little bit so these things aren't as horrible, such as make the super bombable rock huge. I thought just the rocks over where the stairs had been before would've been enough but it's not like people don't forget. As far as updating or re-making the whole quest though, I don't think it'd be worth it, or maybe it would be and wouldn't take all that long if I use the updated sequel mechanics. I'm sure I could do that in a week, but ADHD, mental health, etc...

Edited by Valientlink, 23 January 2024 - 10:38 PM.

[Moosh]

This is new to me, your comments about level 3. You're the first person to have had any bugs with warps, do you know where they happened? I could only assume it might be based on if you played it in a modern build because there were cases at least in the past where shops could be missing items and such, but I kind of assumed the latest stable version of 2.5 would have no issues with old quests.

I'm also not sure which cutscenes had oob stuff, maybe one comes to mind. I will at least polish God of Power a little bit so these things aren't as horrible, such as make the super bombable rock huge. I thought just the rocks over where the stairs had been before would've been enough but it's not like people don't forget. As far as updating or re-making the whole quest though, I don't think it'd be worth it, or maybe it would be and wouldn't take all that long if I use the updated sequel mechanics. I'm sure I could do that in a week, but ADHD, mental health, etc...

Here's one of  the screens where the warp was broken. It also features a second bug where when I did the seemingly correct solution and pushed the block from the north, it didn't work because there's two secrets on the screen and triggering any secret triggers the fail state warp in the middle. 

 

It put me on this screen in the top-left. Cause seems to be lack of a warp return square. My best guess is in an older version like 1.90 a return square at 0,0 would always place you in a default position in the center of the screen. Currently caves and item cellars do this but other warp types do not. Only thing is I'm pretty sure the return screen has a block on top of that default position, so it still should've looked odd.

 

Here's one example of an out of bounds in a cutscene. It says go back, but if you don't do as you're told there's nothing blocking the edge of the screen. I don't remember what the other one I was alluding to in that session was. It might have been from somebody else who was playing alongside me.

 

Here's another more serious bug I encountered much later in. This bugged secret trigger and side warp appear to be present on versions of this screen after they're first used. After level 6 I triggered the buggy secret (I'd found it at least one time before) and got side warped to an earlier point in the story, softlocking my save. Dumb move on my part, but I assumed the copy/paste you did wouldn't have copied side warp data. So I figured it'd just be another harmless out of bounds. Fortunately the dmap list in this quest is straightforward so I could pretty easily goto cheat back to where I was supposed to be.

[Valientlink]

Here's one of  the screens where the warp was broken. It also features a second bug where when I did the seemingly correct solution and pushed the block from the north, it didn't work because there's two secrets on the screen and triggering any secret triggers the fail state warp in the middle. 

 

It put me on this screen in the top-left. Cause seems to be lack of a warp return square. My best guess is in an older version like 1.90 a return square at 0,0 would always place you in a default position in the center of the screen. Currently caves and item cellars do this but other warp types do not. Only thing is I'm pretty sure the return screen has a block on top of that default position, so it still should've looked odd.

 

Here's one example of an out of bounds in a cutscene. It says go back, but if you don't do as you're told there's nothing blocking the edge of the screen. I don't remember what the other one I was alluding to in that session was. It might have been from somebody else who was playing alongside me.

 

Here's another more serious bug I encountered much later in. This bugged secret trigger and side warp appear to be present on versions of this screen after they're first used. After level 6 I triggered the buggy secret (I'd found it at least one time before) and got side warped to an earlier point in the story, softlocking my save. Dumb move on my part, but I assumed the copy/paste you did wouldn't have copied side warp data. So I figured it'd just be another harmless out of bounds. Fortunately the dmap list in this quest is straightforward so I could pretty easily goto cheat back to where I was supposed to be.

Wait... I was almost 100% sure I fixed that bug with the warp after level 6. I updated this in 2013 after watching Jubbz run into the same issue, but apparently I must've watched him afterwards. I can't believe that's still there. As to why you started in the corner I'm not sure, I tried what you did here and it warped me back to the beginning. Maybe I did do bugfixes and just completely forget to put it back up. Since I think Jubbz did his lets play in June, I'd have to assume I didn't fix that bug but then I'm not sure why I would've posted an updated version in May 2013 because I wasn't even aware of that bug. I'll post a properly bugfixed version at some point, and probably eventually just revamp the quest if I can ever get myself out of this slump.

Edit: yeah, I did fix that buggy warp. That's major, I don't know why I didn't upload it after Jubbz lets play. I guess that's just when I started getting more into speedrunning, because I started work on the final area of the sequel in June 2013. Most of my attention seemed to be on that, but then I wonder what I even updated? Did just updating the description or something count as an update?

 

My version also again does have the level 3 warps working properly, so apparently I must have fixed that. But what happened, you pushed the block down and it warped you? I was always pushing it down and that wasn't happening. Strange though... when I was first building this, it always sent me to the entrance. Maybe I moved the map over by 1. I guess this is what happens when you don't have anyone bugtest. I don't think the sequel really needs it because I paid extra close attention to everything, but that's also why I got burnt out. I wanted to make a 100% bug free quest without any help. But at this rate, I'm more interested in feedback than people finding bugs.

Since I have no choice but to post a less buggy version maybe I'll just change up some stuff in general. I know there was a really cheap Gleeok in Level 7 in a narrow room. Originally it was a block puzzle, the best one I'd ever made, and then Zquest crashed. I was mad so I just got lazy and threw this dragon in there

Edited by Valientlink, 25 January 2024 - 03:00 AM.

[Moosh]

Now that I've beaten the quest, I'm gonna write up a quick summary of my thoughts. Keep in mind that while it may run a bit negative, design quality and enjoyment are two vastly different things. The last Quest Club entry, Link to the Heavens is one of the highest rated 2.10 quests and I struggled to get through it. Meanwhile this was a rougher production with numerous serious bugs (apparently due to being an outdated version) and I still enjoyed myself quite a bit. To finish a quest at all is something to be proud of and to have people enjoy it is ideal. So anyways, here we go in no particular order:

Graphics:

Visuals aren't a big focus for many questmakers so I'm using this to talk more about the tileset and how it's used. This being a Newfirst (or I suppose LttD5) quest it has a pretty unique look that somewhat dates it right out the gate, perhaps intentionally so as it was started in 1.90. Screen designs aren't all that detailed and many of the overworlds are very boxy and angular, making the world feel a bit unnatural, this being amplified by the disconnected nature of its linear progression. Dungeons fare a lot better, and are oddly freeform for the style. The quest starts off looking fairly generic but gets more interesting as it goes with some later areas like Maura and Jalee being more memorable. I want to say some of the later areas might have had some custom palettes? Though it could also have just been more creative uses of the built-in ones. It never really hit the tileset's full potential. Newfirst is a tileset that's very easy to pickup and use but harder to use effectively I think. Also I don't really have a good place to put it in, but the big chest tiles used here are dope. A striking tile edit lost to time.

 

Flow:

This is the trickiest bit to comment on because there's a delicate balance here. The last quest I played was frustrating because it was way too open ended. This one I'd say was hurt some by its linearity. But that linearity is a direct result of the quest's story focused nature. I'd have liked to see more optional content between dungeons, but that would be asking you to design way more overworld and create way more permanent missables. I'd have liked to see more complex dungeon designs where I could hold multiple keys at once and tackle dungeons in different orders, but the linearity is also part of what made the whole quest so accessible. The dungeons were solid but definitely have some room to grow. I quickly learned to simplify them down to a winding, mostly continuous line, which is easy to read but isn't the best to have if the player happens to die. I also noticed some flow issues in individual screen designs. There's a lot of winding screens that have the player travelling a large distance of the screen's walkable space to traverse. These can be visually pleasing to a designer, but come at the detriment of the player. This quest had a trend with them that seemed rather disrespectful of the player's time. It was offset some, however, by the overall smallness of areas, particularly in the overworld. If you were to make a larger quest I would watch out for these.

 

Difficulty:

I thought the enemy difficulty throughout the quest was pretty spot on. There was one dickish mirrorrobe placement in level 9, which was also a pointless dead end, but that was my only gripe enemy-wise. Puzzle difficulty is another story, and I think my biggest complaint with the quest. There's a lot of "guess the trigger" going on, a Pandora's Box opened by ZQuest's trigger system allowing anything to be placed anywhere with little difficulty. It lead to some stuff I've brought up earlier like the superbomb spot. But there's also the moments of esoteric logic. Having to boomerang a curtain tile in one spot when I used the sword on it previously. Having to shoot an icicle on the wall that's within candle distance because "the arrow is fire and also the item that was obtained more recently". The general process of guessing which tile to trigger out of a series of identical ones. The maze path where the hint was half the game earlier in a permanently locked off zone. Did I miss a second copy of that one? Then you get the lens and the game gets both easier and a bit more devious with some of the trigger placements. And then there's a random boomerang trigger in level 9 that's completely invisible to the lens in a room with enemies it looks like you're supposed to kill. Things like this do not feel like puzzles to me. They feel like "guess what the author was thinking." Trigger consistency and logical consistency are both very important when placing trigger flags. Then there's the other classic ZC puzzle: Sokoban. I won't complain about these as much as I usually do, because this quest does them way better than most by giving a permanent switch to keep them solved if you scroll back a screen, but I wish they were better marked in terms of block directions, smaller, and trickier overall. Most of them amount to figuring out which blocks are one-directional and then moving the rest into place. More busywork than puzzle solving and they're not scaled to suit their level of complexity.

 

Pacing:

I split this off from difficulty because I had way too much to say about the puzzles. I talked a bit about this stuff in other sections, the pacing between dungeons is okay but definitely could be improved. Stuff like shops and hints fall off past the start of the game, though some of the things provided there remain relevant throughout anyways. Heart piece locations feel less than substantial a lot of the time. I can't even recall where I found most of mine. Past the half way mark the quest becomes a lot more objective focused. Find the trigger, do the dungeon. And then at the very end it feels like the game got a bit rushed. There is nothing at all between levels 7 and 8, just back to back dungeons. Then the space bridging 8 and 9 is also quite short. Earlier on when designing areas that get revisited the smaller areas made sense, but I guess I just expected the dark world to have a little more meat on the bone. Some of the item progression is also unusual. You get the magic sword and then one dungeon later the master sword. The blue ring comes a little late, but then because of the level 7 and 8 pacing it feels like not long before you have the red one. That's not a bad thing but it's definitely unique among quests I've played. 

 

Music:

For the most part I don't have too much to comment on the music. There's a handful of really common stuff. Your Zelda, your Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, the works. Not a lot stood out as bad, though I guess there was that one short dmap that used Dancing Mad. That was incredibly goofy due to the gravity that song has and a general overexposure. There were a couple songs I'd say were quite memorable in a good way, though. Level 6's theme I enjoyed, didn't recognize, and would like to know the source of. And then level 7 I have to applaud for using Catfish's Maw, a short loop that I actively dislike, for a dungeon where it felt like it fit. And it wasn't because I disliked the dungeon or anything, it just...it just worked. Crazy.

 

Story:

I didn't really get the story here. I rarely do with these quests, but it's interesting to see different people's takes on what a "Zelda" story, or even a video game story in general is. There's a bunch of disconnected events without much payoff, a lot of long walls of text as was the tradition for the time. As I mentioned earlier there's some cool moments that wowed me for their technical implementation, but I would've appreciated a more consistent throughline, or at least some more depths to the more isolated areas. I would've liked to see more of supporting characters like Sarissa or Vaughn, or opportunities to just learn more about the world. One thing that really got me fooled was the ending. Throughout the whole thing I was certain Triaga had a betrayal cooking. "I know these quests. Triaga's totally gonna be evil. Just you watch." "Oh look, the statues of Ganon use the same base sprite Triaga was edited from. Ganon is Triaga...for some reason. I knew it." Got a bit blindsided by the lack of a twist, though I think it was the right call to play it straight. The ending though I'm not so sure about. I'm cool with the heroic sacrifice but it all felt a bit contrived, especially with all the other magic handwaving death away that went on. Story may not be my cup of tea in ZC, but I'd still be curious to see what you could do with your current ability.

[Valientlink]

I take it you'd maybe be interested in trying the demo then.

Your assessment of all the winding paths is understandable. For some reason I just really liked them. I do use them somewhat often in the sequel but nowhere near the same level. I think they're utilized better and generally there's a shortcut once you get a certain item or something.

here was a custom palette used for level 7, yeah. And the ending definitely was rushed. I don't know why I had this "I need to finish it before 2011" logic was, I didn't even upload it until 2011. I was very impatient and did have some dickish little triggers that might be hard to figure out.

The story is written just... not very well. It's almost like I wanted it to not make sense. I had a lot of very weird things going through my head as I built this. That's part of why I include a txt document with the sequel (which also has an item guide telling you what all can be found in each area which are broken into chapters). So it might say "heart piece x5" but these are all spaced out a lot just for the fact that I didn't want anyone using it to spoil anything. Maybe it'd make more sense to just have individual txt documents, chapter 1 just being called 1 or something.

I didn't even attempt to make the Hyrule Mountains look good. Like I basically really was just using the tileset the way Exate did, which wasn't very well in that quest either. He had tons of those winding paths which is also a big reason I used them too, but they really are a pain. When you end up back there at the mountains in the sequel it looks better in general but it's not like I could really add much. I basically pulled a "gen 2 pokemon" where it mostly looks the same but some things are graphically changed or some areas just aren't quite the same looking. You can re-visit level 5 in it I think for a heart piece or the bigger wallet, I don't remember off-hand. I did allow you to re-visit the temple you got your first sword in but it's only one room, I think I want to actually just finish that, copy the map over.

You can re-visit 1, 2 and 5 and each of them have items hidden in. Typically harder or the same enemies will be present. Whenever time of day triggers take place, you're never forced to make them happen for the most part. But even if it's not time a day, just an event change, you might repeatedly find a different item at the end of level 1 for instance, it's only important a single time though and can't be missed because it's required. From there it's just like, money, potion, that's the kind of stuff you'll usually find if you re-visit an area after a time of day or event change.

sually after a dungeon one will happen, at least a major dungeon. There are quite a lot of dungeons, more than overworld, but there's still more overworld in general. It always pays to re-check areas you've been during time of day changes because almost always there's some little item you can grab. Usually it's not a heart piece, sometimes it is. Due to the whole idea of missables is the whole reason I decided to add 3 extra pieces of heart. I recognize that there were just way too many

I honestly forget what the level 6 MIDI was, it was just something completely random from vgmusic. I know it's a SNES game, some puzzle, but I don't remember. You would definitely not recognize most of the stuff in the sequel, I don't even. It was spin the wheel on the vgmusic for a lot of those MIDIs.

Sarissa does play more of a role in the 2nd quest than the first, giving you your first weapon, helping repair a hot air balloon, it's not huge. Vaughn... well, it's complicated, he plays a massive role but it's not exactly what you'd think. This is basically explained in the intro but it's kept slightly vague. If you'd like to give a crack at it you can just DM me on discord or something, I'm interested in feedback because I tried to iron out everything that was wrong with God of Power. I'm definitely going to at some point, or at least hopefully, change some things, put heart pieces in different spots so they aren't so missable and need to fix the bugs immediately. I'd classify the sequel as a story driven mostly dungeon romper for the most part. There is plenty of overworld at times but for instance the first 2 hours about, you're in an area where you need to conquer 5 towers, kind of like Terranigma. I do have a long list of things I wanted to update still, so I don't know where I'd want to cut the demo exactly but I have a pretty good idea, before the final area.

[Shane]

I haven't played this myself, I watched Haylee play almost all the way through. While I couldn't grasp the story entirely, I do respect how over the top and melodramatic it is. The cutscenes are pretty impressive for the time. However, I'm most impressed with how the world constantly evolves. It's wild that not even a 2.5+ quest really attempted anything like this. The closest things I can really think of is Light of the Heavens and Wanderlust. This quest certainly has its faults, but I think it is to be expected given the circumstances of its creation (age, version of ZC, etc.).

 

I am very curious about the demo. I don't know if I'd have the time to test it out, but I do wish you good luck on getting it finished. 

[Valientlink]

Well if you do just let me know. I could always cut the demo at an earlier point although that would be kind of pointless in a way since you could simply stop playing. I think OldSkool, or whoever they go by now had better use of different days and times, although I'm vague on that one. The day to night transitions were generally pretty poor here, I made sure to fix this the best way I could, not blocking you off from going back to places for the most part giving you more a feeling of freedom.

Edited by Valientlink, 25 January 2024 - 08:01 PM.

[Moosh]

I take it you'd maybe be interested in trying the demo then.

Sure, send me that demo. I dunno if I'll have the time to play all the way through but like you said, no harm in playing as far as I feel like. Do you prefer if I play it on stream in the Pure voice channel like I did the first or on my own time? Dunno how much you wanna keep people spoiler-free.

[Valientlink]

I'd probably avoid streaming it, there are a lot of significant plot elements and many of them are very shocking, surprising and kind of disturbing at times. I'd probably cut the demo off as you reach the last area, you travel by hot air balloon in this little cutscene so I could cut it there. I think that area needs quite a bit of work in general appearance wise.

The dungeons are good there, minus the fact that I've done very little on the final dungeon. But yeah, I can send you a demo like this. It's up to anyone else where they'd want it cut, I mean feedback is something I'm looking for in general and I'm sure some may dislike the difficulty. As long as you're careful it doesn't have to be that hard, there are sometimes cheap secrets like pushing something that isn't a block but this only happens like twice that I can recall. Basically the entire plot is laid out by then, it's just a matter of what type of cutscenes I'd like, I want it to be like Chrono Trigger where you re-visit areas, an interactive ending. I've envisioned that since early in the quest.

I guess voice channel is fine if you simply have comments to make. I do intend to make some areas less crowded, at least one in particular with a gigantic lake, but it wouldn't really make much difference in the end if I added more room, you're only really that crowded on the bottom of it but that leads to a village. I'll DM you a demo cut just after the hot air balloon sends you off. Anyone else interested maybe I'll just give you the whole thing but make "level 9" inaccessible since it isn't complete. Warp you to an area saying "the demo is over" or something. It's a very long quest though, like I might as well just finish it but I do think some feedback would help.

Perhaps I'll do that, cut it entering the last dungeon because I think at least one of the dungeons on the continent may not be good. The first major dungeon I think is also not the best, I realize I need to work on it. It's too linear, the mini-dungeon before it is better in general. I'd just hate for people to get to the end and then realize, I'm gonna have to replay this all over again, but with some tweaks it could be made better. As I'd mentioned you can basically access every area at any time, but some of the time a shutter won't open, that's something I intend to change. I'll give you the item guide that goes along with it as well, it helps to see "heart piece x5" for instance in an area. In a quest like this I think something like that is appropriate although it is a lot easier to not miss heart pieces.

Edited by Valientlink, 26 January 2024 - 03:00 AM.

[Valientlink]

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.

So it is built with 2.53, but I've been suggested to finish it in 2.55 because there seem to be bugs that happen in 2.55 in particular that weren't present in 2.53. What are your specs and in what way does 2.55 not work?

[SofaKing]

I'm going to give it another shot.  Do I want the 32-bit version or the 64-bit version?  The download gives you the choice of either.

[Ether]

There's instructions here for how to check what your computer uses. (If your computer's 64-bit then you can use either; if it's 32-bit then you can only use 32.)

 

If you still can't get it to work, connor.clark might be interested? I told him about the situation but I don't know if he contacted you from there.

[Valientlink]

I'm going to give it another shot.  Do I want the 32-bit version or the 64-bit version?  The download gives you the choice of either.

Most likely you're on something 64-bit, generally that's what people are anyway. Let me know if it works, because I've been encouraged to finish it on 2.55 (or finalize it at least)