I'm gonna use this post to give a few thoughts on the quests as I play them. So yeah, updates as I go...
Thinking Without Logic
Man, this is a fun little quest. I was expecting at first that it'd be just another portal clone, but I shouldn't have underestimated Avataro. The gimmick of having game rules that change in each room was really cool and has plenty of room to be expanded on in a future quest. It was really fun and rarely frustrating finding out how the game works in each new puzzle. The two rooms that did frustrate me were where I felt the game got a little too meta. One solved when I reset the puzzle and the other I think had to do with saving and quitting out of the quest, but I'm not so sure. At least nothing required that I open an online strategy guide like a certain other puzzle game with meta solutions. Another small complaint I have is that the jump button is mapped to Up. Since ZC only recognizes the control stick on my gamepad and doesn't let me play with the D-Pad, that was a little frustrating. I would have much preferred an EX button. Also, while it's hard to tell with this quest, I maaaay have found a bug.
Final Rating: Illogical Puzzle Solution/10
I Wanna Be the Superboss.
So the first two things I noticed when I opened this quest: First, I'm an aquamentus. Second, the world is made of CSet 8. Despite being CSet 8, this is one of the better uses of sprite csets in an overworld I've seen I guess, so I'll give it a pass for now. Aquamentus has three scripted attacks that come in the form of a multi level charge. The first level is a single sword beam projectile, the second is a triple sword beam projectile, and the third is a fast moving fire shot that deals more damage. I found I never used the uncharged shot because regardless of if you charge there's a huge delay between shots. The level 1 and 2 shots also travel really slowly, at the same speed as the player, which looks really weird if you walk in the same direction as your shot. The quest is decently fun despite the imbalanced charge shot, but there seem to be a few bugs as a result of it being a rushed last minute thing. There's a few spots that can get you stuck and need to F6, but the most serious problem I found was that one enemy is completely immune to your basic attack when it isn't supposed to be. I talked with Dimentio and apparently I used some keys in the wrong order and was therefore permastuck. Because of this, I wasn't able to beat the quest. I also don't really see the crossover connection in this quest aside from the name and the backstory given.
Final Rating: A Slow Moving LWeapon/10
You Don't Belong Here
This is a really short quest, probably the shortest here I'd bet, but it's incredibly effective in its simplicity. What starts as a lighthearted adventure as a walking Tetris piece to find out where you belong quickly devolves into a brutal massacre of your fellow Tetris pieces, all presented in a silent film style of storytelling. It's worth a good laugh, until I look back and realize I don't belong here...
Final Rating: Alas, Alack/10
Legend of Pokemon Warrior
Well, this one sure knows how to start off right. A picture of me, right at the start! But I won't let my vote get bought off that easily, I think...that this is an outstanding quest, good job HeroOfFire, you win the contest. Okay, so I haven't actually beaten this one yet, I found the second floor but haven't completed everything on the first yet. In typical HeroOfFire fashion, it's heavily focused on item collection. There's tons of items to find all over the place, almost too many I'd say. I found a lot of items well before finding a use for them. I found a bow and arrows but no quiver, an ocarina, wand and hammer that I have no idea what to use on yet, two bracelets with no rocks that seem pushable yet, and the raft and ladder. More important items like the bombs and candle I have yet to find and that's what I think is the real downside to this approach of item collection. With all the caves in this overworld containing various types of items all holding the same weight in their difficulty to find, it's very easy to overlook something really important and really frustrating having to go back and find it. A cave somewhere said to thank Ben when I get lost, so thanks Ben. Moving past the complaints, the visuals in this quest are pretty great given the contest restriction. Screens are plenty detailed and from the sound of things I've barely even scratched the surface of this one. I'm amazed how HOF manages to complete stuff of this scale time and again. The music choices are also refreshing and enjoyable so far. And while I've criticized some aspects of the gameplay, it's still very much enjoyable and fun. I look forward to finishing this one.
Edit: And then I created a new file and realized it's all randomized. I am not a very smart Moosh. So you can scratch my complaints about useless item placements, I still feel bombs need some kind of weighting to their placement that makes them easier to find.
Final Rating: Ben/10
Zeldius
I am not good at Zeldius.
Final Rating: Option/10
The Apixelypse
This is a great example of a fantastic quest marred by one fatal flaw. I started off the quest and it was amazing: Great cutscenes, graphics, music, and gameplay. Then I died and got sent back to the file select. "So it's going to be one of those quests," I figured. My second try I played more carefully, I figured as long as there was a save at the end of each world I could beat it. I got to the second world, no save tile, but there was a spot I figured you might've cleverly slipped an autosave into a cutscene so I wasn't that worried. Then I hit a bug that required I F6. This was when I looked at the quest description again and saw the part I missed: There's no save points. But I figured the quest's pretty short, I can cheat back to where I got bugged out and try one more time. So I did. And then I died again. Until the save system gets changed, I'm giving up on this one. I can't stand losing all my progress every death and when cheating through the game I don't feel like I'm getting the intended experience. Even if I did keep trying, the experience would be ruined by the constant paranoia of dying and losing progress.
Final Rating: Permadeath/10
Metroid: Origins
This quest is unplayably buggy. I hate to say it, but that's just how it is. At times I found it hard to even discern what's going on, ladders being a good example. Sometimes I couldn't get on the ladder, sometimes I couldn't get off the ladder, sometimes I got halfway on the ladder and it said that was good enough. Then sometimes I could actually climb the ladder and sometimes I couldn't, and don't even think about trying to jump off a ladder. Another buggy thing is the health bar. I don't know what that number up there means but I can assure you whatever it was wasn't representing my health. It just stayed at 07 until I died...Until I saved and suddenly it was working again. And then sometimes when I died, it would play a custom death animation that doesn't actually do anything, then would take me to a Save and Quit screen, if I chose not to quit would loop infinitely. Slopes are weird as well, as is probably to be expected of any time you mess with solidity behavior. Instead of moving the player fluidly, they jerk them about and when on a slope you cannot jump. Sometimes it fails to detect being on a slope altogether such as when in morph ball form. One time I just teleported through the screen, for no apparent reason. There wasn't even anything remarkable or noteworthy happening at the time, it just happened. One moment I was falling off the screen, the next, up I flew. Another time I unmorphed in a wall and realized I could jump up through it and get stuck at the top of the screen. Using the bombs (which are more of a space jump) in an elevator cutscene lets you go out of bounds too. I could probably list a different glitch every few minutes of playing. Another subject worth bringing up is the graphics. A lot of them look like you didn't even recolor them. They use random colors with no visible ramps in places. In other places they're still visibly Zelda 1 tiles, like the background in the first area. It just looks incredibly lazy.
Final Rating: A Debbie Downer/10
Edited by Moosh, 12 February 2016 - 02:35 AM.
