This quest is kind of average and buggy, but there is some funny side to it.
This quest is sort of a mixture between a Metroidvania and a Dungeon romper, and features four seasons like Oracle of Seasons. There are dungeons, and for each one you need a certain item to access, like a normal Dungeon Romper. But what is different here is that the overworld itself is also kind of a huge dungeon, much more complicated (and sometimes annoying) from what you can expect from a Zelda game. The main feature in this game is the four seasons concept: whenever you touch a tree stump you will be teleported to the next season. This navigation through seasons and the respective characteristics of each season make the quest feel 4 times bigger than a normal Zelda map. For instance: only in winter you will be able to walk on frozen water, only in summer are holes covered with grass, and only in fall can you climb vines. Itemization is also very unique: the order in which you get the items is way different, the first one being the magic wand, which works like a normal sword except it doesn't cut through bushes, and you get the sword for the first time later on.
The thing that I really like about this quest is that there has been a lot of thought put into puzzles and layout, they are all very fun and challenging. I never had the feeling I had to backtrack a lot, and instead everything seems to open up slowly and steadily like a sudoku. There is a lot of use of landscape features which have to be used to solve the puzzles, together with seasons switching and micro-backtracking. Difficulty is also very well balanced, not being too easy that I end up being bored, nor too hard that I feel frustrated and quit the game. Every enemy is unique in its own way, so at every dungeon room you will approach the fight in a different way, which makes the quest not feel like a "kill everything and go on". The game also feels huge thanks to the scaling of the map: everything seems to be compressed on the overworld map, there is not a lot of walking in straight line. Instead, you have to sort out a lot of narrow paths which feel like you are on a huge maze.
There are also a couple of negative points that need to be highlighted. First of all, the quest feels kind of buggy sometimes you hit something with the wand and the tiles will change completely, having no actual effect. The boomerang is now a banana and stays wherever you throw it. If you have no idea what the item actually does, you think it is just bugged. The keys and heart-quarters in the overworld map also stay there in the background even if you already picked them up. Nothing I have found which is game-breaking, but I can understand some people would have a hard time whenever they are stuck and they think the quest can't go on because of a bug. There is also an issue with overworld tile abuse. While I mentioned that the overworld feels huge because of this, there is a caveat. It just feels like there is too much stuff on the screen, too much different tiles packed in every corner with apparently no use. It makes the quest feel a little artificially elongated, because a lot of time you are just sorting bushes. Also: cactuses! They are really annoying. They are placed EVERYWHERE on the map and you lose a heart everytime you touch one. There a lot of different kinds of cactus, and very often you can't distinguish what is a cactus, what is a bush, or what is a tile you can walk through. You end up walking with fear of touching anything, and this kills the flow a little bit.
So, to sum things up:
PROS
-Fun puzzles
-Balanced difficulty
-Huge overworld map
CONS
-Feels buggy and unpolished
-Too much obstacles and cactuses
Tropicana Island
Overview
Feature Quest
Creator:
tox_von
Genre: Dungeon Romper
Added: 05 Mar 2013
ZC Version: 1.92 B182
Downloads: 386
Rating[?]:
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Download Quest (1.44 MB) |
Information
An OOS style game 4 overworlds representing each season you need to walk through the seasons to progress.Style like my other quest A Link to Power
