3 replies to this topic

[Nightmare]

James Quest: Remastered has officially concluded development as of 9/10/2013 at 4:02 PM.

I am putting out Release Candidate 1. While it is designed to be borderline romhack hard, please report any of the following:

1. Bugs
2. Unbalanced spots
3. Really cheap spots
4. New Enemy comments

Pending everything gets wrapped up in a timely manner, Gleeok will be making a LP and I will be streaming "some" of this at the end of the month to commemorate its release.

Enjoy guys!

-James

[yowza]

I'm not used to the new site layout, but is there an official thread for this or do we just post wherever in these update topics?

It's been a while since I played the original James Quest, but I definitely notice a difficulty increase when I start to see those slimes in the overworld (I just got either the blue ring or level 3 sword, and by then in most games the overworld is a joke). For some reason, those and the brighter blue moblins seem to hit me way more often with their body sprite than most other enemies, don't know if there's an issue with the hit boxes.

I really liked that white gleeok at the end of level 9. After just getting the red ring (green tunic), it felt like the game was won, but all the HP on that boss made me stay cautious against it.

I had 80 deaths when I finished this in 11 hours, but surprisingly beat level 10 in one try without needing to leave and refill on potions after clearing the norespawn bosses or know which rooms were the trap wizzrobe rooms. I was very close to death a few times but was saved by the blue potion drop late in that dungeon. I don't think this means level 10 was too easy, most of my deaths came from me not caring to refill on hearts after death and just brute forcing through sections until I got through.

I didn't care to buy the second boomerang, but if that one stunned the slimes/etc whereas the wooden one didn't, I might have considered doing so. Speaking of Level 8, that room with the blue zol/gels was very good for farming hearts/rupees as you can walk one room away and come back to a full room of them. Also in level 8 I killed the death knight boss with half a heart left, but died to a stray bullet a second after, how sad. I liked those modified super darknuts, or slowed down death knights I guess. I think they might have been a tad too slow? The dark link fight in level 10 also felt slightly slow but its HP felt reasonable.

If you plan on remastering James Quest 2, I would really appreciate that. I tried to replay it some time ago but there was a bug with the flippers in newer versions and I couldn't beat a dungeon because of that It's funny because I tried so many times to run older Zclassic versions on my vista computer, and I figured you'd never come back to update games that are basically a decade old, so I gave up hope on ever being able to play JQ2 again.

[edit] - Hrm, I guess there's some hero dungeon in this? I'll go check that out soon.

[Nightmare]

Sorry for not replying to you earlier, you covered the bases well and glad you enjoyed it.

How you doing with the Hero Dungeon? Did you find it?

-James

[Gleeok]

Beat it in 2:59:35.

8 through 10 were more interesting, and all those stacked Gleeoks and bosses were replaced, all which are very nice.
The rest of the levels were balanced similar to the original so no issues there except a few which I encountered.

--Major money problems:
Here is my gripe: For pretty much the entire game I had to conserve arrows and bombs which makes the red candle the only weapon I have that I don't have to keep tabs on usage. Got a little boring. In the original JQ there was still a little leeway here.I also skipped buying these:
* 2 bomb upgrades @100
* 1 meat @100
* 1 HC @150
* 1 Boomerang, 1 magic boomerang, 1 money bag worth quite a bit.
Now I don't mind leaving my life at the 100 or over life/money rooms every time, but that's just me.
In the original you could grind some OW enemies for rupees but not anymore as they are replaced with stronger ones - these enemies kill your money because the best weapons to fight them are 1)Boomerang, 2)Arrows, and both take money to get or use. I think the average challenge player might use more potions than what I used also (I used 250 worth IIRC), so that's worth considering. All in all this adds up to an extra 650+ at the 2nd overworld crossing.

Anyway, just saying I would have had a LOT more fun with it if I had an extra 200 rupees (one for a bomb upgrade, and 100 for arrow fodder) at about LV 5-6 break without grinding enemies. This would have made fighting more interesting.

Also minor things:
* White Gleeok has a bit too much HP. Heh..
* I would drop 1 or 2 heads off the Gleeok in the passage to the 2nd OW. (Felt a little cheap)
* Mega rope-likes might be a bit too fast! lol

I think more item usage without grinding is the biggest bottleneck I've seen from you so far. If you balance that out I think it will be great!