97 replies to this topic

[David]

I think I'm going to keep going in order so, Tales of Christoph next. Don't worry Goriya, yours is coming up soon!

Edited by DaviAwesome, 04 August 2013 - 11:18 PM.

[David]

Two-Week Contest Review #5

Vault of Souls by Russ

Gameplay
As I said in some other reviews, there are quests that play very similarly to Zelda 1. In fact, the majority of quests fall into that category. But then there's the other side; quests that play very differently from Zelda 1. And this quest is one of them. Quests like that tend to me more unique and creative. Shall we find out if that is the case for this quest?

Where's the icon thing?

Before I clicked to play the game, I did notice that there is no icon next to the quest name. I don't know if this is an error, or intended, so I'm going to forget out that. Anyways, I start the game, and for the first time out of the quests I've played from the two-week contest, there are cutsceens! Yay!

So sorry that it happens to you so much.

And then the dad's kid walks up. What happens now?

Looks like he's not afraid of his dad. Is that normal?

Anyways, after a bit of cutsceens, you enter this chamber where this glove says to pick up. The kid, Elliot, goes outside and leaves his father, and the glove explains some things. The subcreen for this quest is entirely scripted, which, in this case, is very good because it's very well made and fluid. There are tabs for each section, and in those tabs you can find upgrades and abilities to increase your strength in combat. I really liked this system, and I really enjoyed it throughout the quest. And the glove even explains the subscreen if you didn't understand it yet. Very nice!

The overworld is nicely made, and I'll get to the detail later. I love it, to be honest. Also, it has three main sections: the forest, the mountains, and the desert. Each are is very nicely spaced. I really enjoyed playing through it as there are secrets everywhere and the enemies keep the energy high and make the overworld fun. The overworld does have a little bit of problems sometimes, but really minor, like below:

This Lynel is technically in the water of the background. I think Russ forgot to place no enemies there? I don't know.

In this quest, you can start with any dungeon, and then go clockwise from there (electricity beats water, which beats fire, which beats electricity) if you want the game to be easier on you. But the cool thing is that enemies get more difficult as the game progresses, which is good because that way there is no wrong dungeon to start on, but bad because, to me, made the upgrades section of the subscreen seem a little pointless, since every time I increased my damage to the max, my attacks would still need to hit the enemy the same number of times before it dies, and etc. But it was necessary if you wanted to even live in the game.

Talking about the dungeons, each dungeon introduces these cool new scripted items (in addition to the fireball attack that you start out with in the beginning of the game) which fits with the theme of each dungeon. Also, the bosses are creative and well made. The forest dungeon, you get the fire attack, in the mechanical ruins you get the electricity attack and the dungeon can go turn on and off the power, and in the sandstone caverns you get the water attack. I really love all of these items, as they are amazingly creative and they can every interact with the environment, such as burning trees or freezing water. Very cool. I will now share a screenshot of each dungeon to see them, as they are neat and not typical NES rooms:

Really creative dungeons, and not typical NES rooms, which is always cool!

Now about this game's difficulty. While almost every enemy is scripted very nicely and are very creative, the quest has a very early difficulty curve, and combined with the fact that you have to learn how to use the attacks (you'll never get any NES B items or the sword), the game is very difficult from the very beginning. I believe that it should be fixed, as the overworld is pretty hard when the challenge should be kept a little more in dungeons and equal throughout. However, there is a new way how you die, and your sprite literally falls over, and makes a death groan. But there are two problems with this: if you press the subscreen while the death animation is going, you will appear on top of it. The next problem is that if you leave the screen like right before the death animation takes place, you can actually survive somehow. I think this is due to the fact that your health is regained instantly when you die instead of when you respawn. But little problems like that barely influence the gameplay at all.

Another really creative thing that Russ made is that there are three minigames, one hidden well in each dungeon as they usually require an item from another dungeon to access them. Here's what it looks like:

Cool! I love light spheres! Yay!

You have to collect a certain number of spheres that increases as you complete each one in any order that you want, and what happens is that there is a background that just moves around randomly from the overworld while you shoot Patras that try to take your spheres away and collect them. Don't get hit by the Patras, as they will make you lose light spheres and there is a limited number of them! This is very creative, and it got hard later, but still manageable. Very nicely implemented, and if I were you, I'd finish them all (you'll see what they do once you play the game).

Now one last thing before I go to the next section: puzzles. This game actually has a few. Here's on example of a good one:

Really like the creativity on this one.

Those are cool and there are a few more of them. But in some of them it is actually possible to trap yourself, which isn't good since you can't continue. You can only save using the subscreen. Other than that, none of the other dungeons have block puzzles, which isn't as bad in this quest as there are pretty much no shutter doors at all. But having puzzles would be nice.

Story
Now, was anyone not expecting for this quest to have a story? Of course it will, it was made from Russ himself!

Anyways, the story is very creative, and I really liked it. It is composed of Elliot and his dad, who treated Elliot badly. The dad was trying to find the Vault of Souls, and Elliot had no idea. When Elliot picks up the glove, the adventure starts. He has to collect three key shards in order to lock the vault before his dad tries to open it.

I really like the story, and it really made the game more enjoyable. And of course, the 2 endings make the game have more of a replay value.

Design Attention
The screen design of this quest is amazing for the classic tileset. Russ used layers to make the big trees walkable from behind, which is pretty cool. I really like the detail and effort put into the overworld, and the careful designing to avoid getting stuck anywhere, as I never experienced that (other than that one puzzle). I'll share some screenshots instead of talk about the overworld, as it is easier to see the effort and diversity put into each screen.

Really nicely made screens. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

I have found no screen bugs anywhere, which is always nice. Great job!

Anyways, on to the dungeon design. The dungeons were creatively made, and they weren't linear at all. Each screen could go to numerous others, and I really enjoyed how the dungeons looked like the were more outside then inside, other than one dungeon. The dungeons also didn't use shutter doors a lot, which is good. However, I really like the mechanical ruins because turning on the power would open certain shutter doors but block of others, and you had to turn on switches to open doors and remove blocks to be able to get certain items. Again, the dungeons were very well made, and I really liked them.

Music
The music for this quest is amazing. Russ has selected some really good music, and they fit very well with the theme you are currently in. As a miniquest, this probably has the most music out of any of the other two-week quests that I've played so far. Also, the music isn't repetitive in the slightest, as some of the midis can last for 5 minutes before looping. Great music, and the great thing is that it really enhanced the quest itself and made it that much more fun to explore and beat the quest. Exceptional job on this.

Concluding Thoughts/Summary
Vault of Souls is definitely, by far, one of the best quests in the database right now. It is very creative and has great screen design and music that make this quest a must-play by any quest maker out there.

Strengths

• Very fun gameplay
• Lots of cutsceens
• Scripted subscreen
• Scripted items
• Scripted enemies for the most part
• Greatly balanced overworld
• Creative minigames
• Amazing story with two endings
• Great screen design
• Great dungeon design
• Amazing music choices

Weaknesses

• Very early difficulty curve
• Some extremely minor death animation errors and enemy spawning errors

Rating: 9.8/10 (Amazing)

Database Rating: 5/5 (Amazing)

Edited by DaviAwesome, 05 August 2013 - 02:40 PM.

[Avaro]

What a very fitting review for this quest, Davi! I'd not be surprised if Vault of Souls actually wins the contest. I agree with everything you said, also about the hard difficulty at the beginning, wich is not so nice because the beginning of a quest is very important. But other than that it really is amazing. I think I found a few more bugs than you though, like getting stuck in the water or things like that.

[David]

Sorry for the REALLY LONG delay. I finished Tales of Christoph and I'll review when I come back home at around 8 P.M EST time. Thanks for your patience! And I will hopefully be able to finish the other quests as quickly as possible!

[David]

Sorry for another delay. Starting right now....

[David]

Two-Week Contest Review #6

Tales of Christoph by Moosh

This quest is one of the quests that fall into the category in which similarity to Zelda 1 is assured. This, however, is NEVER a bad thing. There are some tremendously great quests that play like Zelda 1. But there are also a few that are just plain ridiculously bad. Where does this quest lie? Shall we find out?

Gameplay
This game doesn't start out in a random screen on the overworld. There is a line of text explaining the pre-story, as seen below:

Interesting. Can't wait to see what the story will turn out to be!

After reading that, you do get placed in a screen on the overworld. The overworld of this quest, while small, is very interesting and nicely made. It was quite enjoyable, and it is littered with secrets. Literally! Not every screen, but a high percentage of them, have secrets containing shops, money, and items that may or may not be immensely useful later in the game. The only part that was weird to me is that I literally had to only walk one screen to reach Level 1. And the screens are FULL of Peahats! NOOOOOO! Check it out:

Really Peahats! They SUCK!

Ya, I pretty much died on the first screen instantly because I Peahat came near me and hit me many times. Too many.

Anyways, this quest has three areas in the overworld, some mountains, a little field, and a "swamp-like" area. They are accessible from many sides, so that makes the overworld appear open and free, which is good. Even though you were constrained to two screens at the beginning. The overworld is also nicely designed, and it was fun throughout. Really great job on that! Also, the NPCs that talk are funny, making this a lean slightly on a comedy quest, and that's good as I like to chuckle from time to time.

On to the gameplay in dungeons. The first dungeon didn't have the typical NES layouts, and it was more of a cave filled with Keese everywhere:

Keese! Easy prey!

Anyways, the later dungeons were also interesting, even though they had typical NES rooms, which I enjoy! Also, when I reached the bosses, they were custom bosses, which is cool because I had to figure out how to kill them. And they were highly creative too!

Now let's talk about the difficulty. Let's just say something. The first dungeon was very easy, and I was lucky enough to find the blue ring very early, so the next dungeons weren't too hard either. But then, at Level 4, the game throws an immensely sharp difficulty curve, and my blue ring was essentially rendered useless.

Yikes! Blue Wizzrobes and blue Darknuts?

Ya.... And that was the first room to the right. Imagine what happens later... I don't want to talk about it. And the Windrobes got so freaking annoying as they became frequent unwelcome guests too. Too hard. And Level 5 wasn't any better, though you do get the red ring there (though pretty much at the end of the dungeon after suffering horrors).

And let's talk about the custom bosses. While cool, they were incredibly hard, even since Level 1. I died quite a lot of times for each boss, until I finally found a strategy against them. And the final boss was WAY to hard! It had too much health, too many attacks and fireballs (bullet hell), and the only way to damage it was to reflect a basketball at it, launched at a variable speed that can be so fast most of the time that your reflexes have no way of even pressing the button quickly enough. Also, the basketball is only launched very minimally, so almost the entire match was to survive which, in itself, is extremely hard (if not impossible), even if you do bring a red potion with you. It got so frustrating to the point that I had to activate the cheats (he gave me the quest password, since I asked him in case the quest got to hard and also because I couldn't beat the Level 1 boss). After that, I was relieved, and so happy. I'll give you a preview of a screenshot that I took a little too late after an attack, so the fireballs sort of disappeared, but there were at least this many fireballs in the screen at the same time, some homing towards you:

No, please don't kill me!

So ya, please tone down the bosses for later games. Just please.

Let's talk about puzzles now. Like many quests so far, there are none. The only extension of puzzles that I can think of is that you have to push many blocks in dungeons to get what you need, so I guess that might count, but still no actual puzzles. Instead of repeating what I've said about their benefits, I'll just move on.

Story
This quest at least has some story, though it is sort of combined with Zelda 1. There is this god named St. Christoph that had came to the land long ago and the people had a pleasant time. Then he left, and when monster came, they prayed, but he never showed up, so the hero comes to save everyone. And then a plot twist occurs at the end, but you have to play the quest to figure it out! ;D

Design Attention
As you should have seen, this quest uses the classic tileset. And it is used very well, I think. The screens are very nicely made, and I really enjoyed them. It made the game very enjoyable, and that is very good. While it doesn't use layering, that is fine, as most classic tileset quests don't anyway, so you should be used to it. And the good part is that there are no bugs! So let's share some screenshots as usual and move on to dungeon design.

Nice screen design, and really enjoyable

Actually, before I go to dungeon design, I have to mention something about the screen design. In this quest, there is a secret tunnel to access Level 5, and it is very, uh, well, no good. Here's a screen from it...

Oh, this again?

Ya, the screen is copied like 10 times, and there are no enemies in any of them to test you, so, ya, not really well made. At least make it a better tunnel with some enemies. That would be better.

The dungeon design of this quest is very, very good. It is not linear in the slightest (other than Level 1, I guess), and there are many hidden rooms using bombable walls and walkable walls to access them. And they sometimes contain very useful items. Really impressed with the nonlinearity of this quest, and it made the dungeons that much better, considering the fact that they got ridiculously hard. Very impressed, and really like it. Congrats on that too!

Music
The music of this quest is very well chosen. Very nice overworld music, and the dungeon music fits in nicely and is very catchy and overall pleasing. I really have to say that playing a quest without music on must be a pain since a lot of them feature amazing music that would otherwise make the quest less enjoyable if there wasn't any at all.

Concluding Thoughts/Summary
This quest is very great and well made and designed, but the sharp difficulty spike hurt the quest, considering the boss toughness.

Strengths

• Interesting and nicely created and thought out overworld
• LOTS of secrets
• Comical NPCs, which boost experience with quest
• Nice short story
• Nicely made screen design in the overworld
• Impressive dungeon nonlinearity
• Nicely chosen music
• Custom bosses, which had a nice concept

Weaknesses

• Sharp difficulty spike
• On that note, bosses were too hard, especially the final one
• No puzzles
• Repetitive screen design for the secret tunnel

Rating: 9.1/10 (Amazing)

Rating: 5/5 (Amazing)

Edited by DaviAwesome, 06 October 2014 - 08:33 PM.

[David]

Sorry guys I was supposed to have the review up for A Boy and His Cursor but I came down with a cold with a bad soar throat last night so I didn't feel like doing anything but sleeping. I still feel sick today so I might do it but I don't know. That's all!

Edited by DaviAwesome, 11 August 2013 - 10:28 AM.

[strike]

David, sorry about your cold.

I hope you get better soon! Get some rest. I have enjoyed the reviews!

-Strike

[coolgamer012345]

I hope it is not a curse (Russ said he got sick too), Get well soon.

[David]

Thanks guys! I rested a bit and I actually feel better. The sore throat has stopped for now, so I may be able to do a review. And coolgamer, that's what I thought too! I was like, are Russ and I (and others) cursed by someone or a sudden outburst of the common cold or something. At least I didn't have a fever of 104 degrees like Russ did...

Edited by DaviAwesome, 11 August 2013 - 05:27 PM.

[trudatman]

sore.  soar is a verb:  to fly.  glad you feel better.

[David]

Fixed.

 

Anyways, starting review right now. Get excited!

 

EDIT: Also forgot to mention that I'm raising the score for Tales of Christoph because I thought about it a little and I came to the conclusion that I was a little too harsh on it. Changed to a 9.1/10 -> 5/5. Hope you like that Moosh!

Edited by DaviAwesome, 11 August 2013 - 05:31 PM.

[coolgamer012345]

The more I think about it I think I am starting to get a sore throat too..... hmm... freaky......

Edited by coolgamer012345, 11 August 2013 - 05:53 PM.

[Theryan]

The more I think about it I think I am starting to get a sore throat too..... hmm... freaky......

It's either placebo or Ganon's Curse. Either way, blame Avataro.

[coolgamer012345]

I don't know what it is but I know I started playing Hero Of Dreams (Awesome quest BTW) today and that is when I started to get a sore throat..... Oh well, It is probably nothing much (though I think soon after this post there is going into something that is something and it is not going to be nothing much anymore).