So, I was originally going to give this quest a 3, but as the quest went on, things just got worse and worse (but not so bad to the point where it was a disaster, thankfully). I'll explain more on that a bit later, but first lemme get through the positives.

I had a bit of fun in the early game, with decent difficulty (with a few exceptions). The 2nd dungeon is probably the most fun IMO, since I really like how it resembles Bottom of the Well from OoT and kinda plays a bit like it too. Screen design in the Light World is probably one of the strongest things I could find about the quest, with some screens looking really nice a pretty, and some of the design concepts you had were really neat. Overall on that, there's a few things that are quite good with the quest, like I just mentioned.

However, there were a ton of bad stuff which brought my score down to a 2. For one, while screen design is nice in the overworld in some places, I do feel that there were quite a few screens that were lacking detail. The biggest issue with the overworlds though is that I felt like they were too "boxed". A lot of the mountains were far too straight and without any curving, which made everything looked quite unnatural. The Dark World managed to look a bit better, but some screens (especially in the snow and mountain area) looked kinda empty and lacking of detail. I noticed one of the complaints you've addressed is money problems. While it's nice you have better ways to get money now, the next problem is that I think you added a bit too much money in the quest. I noticed getting to max rupees way too much throughout the quest, getting to the point where money became kinda useless since I would always get my money back from drops.

Dungeon design was quite good, though it isn't as strong as overworld design IMO. I feel like some of the dungeon design is very empty and bland, and maybe you can try to add more detail (even just adding floor bordering can make a really huge difference). Maybe also try to add some wall detail as well, like torches and wall designs. IMO though, I do feel like you probably should've picked a different tileset to work with since it takes a lot of practice to use DoR Hybrid really well, and while this is a good start, maybe using more simpler tilesets can give you more confidence to make better maps. That's just my advice.

Finally, we have my biggest complaint, and that's difficulty. I feel like the difficulty curve in this quest is completely non-existent. I mean, you come across 3 splitters the moment you start the game, and that is an instant "no" from me. Throughout the quest, the difficulty just was all over the place, with splitters everywhere and the abuse of bosses (especially towards the end). It doesn't help that enemies were horribly buffed. Early on, enemies would take forever to die and they would deal too much damage. This got worse as the quest went on and quite honestly, I would recommend to just leave the enemies with their default stats to make things more fun rather than buff everything to become a huge spam fest (which isn't fun). Boss choices are really questionable, I mean, Fire Gleeoks so early on is never a good idea, and cramming bosses together into one room later on just makes things unavoidable and just gets boring and repetitive. I'll have to be honest, I did have to use cheats a few times to get through some excessively insane rooms with enemies and bosses all crammed in tiny areas, since it was literally just unbearable for me to try and go through rooms like that legit. A big recommendation I'll give is to try and balance out the enemies, make them get progressively harder as the quest goes on, and try not to over-buff enemies. I'll also recommend to stick with just one boss on a screen, rather than a thousand of them clumped up together, you'll get a much nicer looking product, trust me.

Overall, this is a decent start into ZC, and while there were a lot of problems and issues, I do feel like you have potential to make even better quests in the future, and I'll definitely be here to help you out with anything if you need it. As far as this quest goes though, I'm going to give it a 2/5. It isn't bad nor good, but it's a decent start. Looking forward to what else you have in the future!

Im giving this a 4. There's a few reasons I'm not giving this a 5.

One of the reviewers said (More monster variety would be good, especially late game. Saw SO many gleeoks, darknut splitters, dodongos. This would help a lot with late game difficulty too)

I had that same issue. You put WAY too many Darknut splitters in this quest honestly. The Gleeoks were also a bit of an issue, and the buffed HP for the early going was annoying for the most part.

All in all, solid quest. I would probably play this again in the future, but this is not a quest I will wanna remember for years to come.

Too many high powered enemies early game if you ask me. That doesn't hurt the rating too much however for me.

Solid 4 overall.

Finished v1.0 of this quest fairly recently, over all I like what was done here, but was not entirely without problems.

Pros:

• Good starting difficulty, with some very important items definitely leaving you feeling like you earned them.
• Most screens have something going on with them, not a lot of pass through only parts.
• Scenery is good looking for a ZC mod, some are a little bleh, but not every part should have a lot going on either, so it works out fine to me.
• Has a good amount of hints and clues, is some stuff left out/I missed, but not everything should be given away anyways.
• Music is pretty good for the most part, although I am no fan of the cave music, at all.
• Puzzles are not immediately obvious, makes you wonder for awhile, which in my opinion is a good thing.
• Environment is used fairly well to make monsters more difficult than usual.

Cons:

• Knowing where to go, what to do to progress is extremely difficult to figure out near the start, especially if you aren't able to find the mini dungeon with the boomerang. This issue is mostly negated mid game and further, a non issue almost.
• Difficulty greatly dissapears mid game, and starts to make an appearance again late game, but never really gets back to early game level at all in my opinion.
• Certain mechanics are greatly over used, in particular, the tiny room, fast moving monsters thing. Especially the splitters.
• More monster variety would be good, especially late game. Saw SO many gleeoks, darknut splitters, dodongos. This would help a lot with late game difficulty too.
• The one and only town in the world hides its shops, enough said...
• The NPCs in the world who don't sell items may as well not exist. Besides some old man saying to blow up an old well, the rest are fairly inconsequential. Admittedly though, I let the statue girls feed my ego plenty.
• Ganon/The Entity are the only ones who seem to know what is going on at all, and the story doesn't always make a lot of sense. I'm not typically used to the arch villain being the one to throw me item ups and helpful clues, at least not as obviously and often as it was done. This goes more into the NPCs needing to have more value story wise.

Over all, I would recommend the quest to others, but is definitely some things it could do better. The things it could do better is why it gets a 4 from me, instead of a 5.

This quest reminds me of Path of Shadows, with the numerous short dungeons. The quest is also fun and a little challenging, but has numerous issues in terms of balance.

Pros:

- Good looking tiles everywhere, not really a bland screen to be found.

- Secrets abound on almost every screen.

- Semi open ended in that you don't need to do dungeons in the light/dark worlds in a set order.

- Dungeons and caves are to the point, but offer lots of exploration opporitunities at the same time.

Cons:

- Enemies, by and large, are buffed with too much HP through a large portion of the quest. While it seems the object is to use potions strategically, and to utilize the hookshot to stun enemies, it soon became incredibly annoying to have to defeat another splitting darknut in a confined space. I counted 12 hits with the lvl-2 sword to make the darknut split, and then each blue darknut requires another 6 hits. Other enemies are the same.

- This complete lack of offensive power vanishes once the player can find the lvl-3 sword or hammer. That period where you are stuck with poor offensive capabilities is woefully out of tune with the late game, where you can spam some powerful attacks infinitely and roll over any and all enemies.

- There are no real good spots, bushes, or grass to grind for rupees, and enemies don't seem to drop much.

While I recommend this quest, less skilled players will probably be very frustrated in the early-mid game stages.

Well, based on the screenshots, I was expecting a bit more on this quest. But sadly, my hopes didn't live long for. Another thing worth mentioning is that I didn't finish the first dungeon, but I cheated my way in the quest, so I saw enough for me to write a review on. Still, I can imagine this is a first quest attempt?

First, the overworld is a bit bland, with a minor lack on details. Second thing would be questionable design space. There are some screens that have a lot going on them, a bit crammed in and a few that are too simple as well. A few combo errors here and there as well. Not only that, but a few screens with enemies you shouldn't face until later in the game. (By the way, be careful where you place them, having them on the edge of the screen isn't a good idea). That's my take on the overworld.

Next, the dungeon/cave carving. While some are structured good enough speaking of style design, what really bugged me was the backtracking involved in a few cases. Not only that, but literally, some rooms were just mine traps; filled with enemies (and in the early areas, with enemies not worth taking down until have stronger equipment). Speaking of enemies, take note on how you design and balance their difficulty. An example I can give is the Royal Crypt. Being hugged by a Gibdo that sucks your health but dies after about 10 sword slashes isn't good difficulty. Cramming in enemies (especially powerful ones) on small rooms isn't a good idea either. (I'm looking at you Bomb spitting Gleeok).

In any case, for a first attempt, it's good enough, although a bit basic. Then again, Rome wasn't build in a day. Hopefull you'll get better at quest development.

So the April 16, 2020, update is not the "final" version of the quest? More changes are coming?

While I don't play video games as much as I used to, I feel like there's no direction in this quest. The enemy placement is weird (see Epsalon's comment) and I have no idea where to go (explored, pushed things (cannot find power bracelet, ladder, etc) and bombed as much as I could).

Helpful suggestions:

• putting in a shop indicator above the cave shops in the village (for bomb and potion),
• including 8 way movement,
• more hints as to where dungeon 1 is,
• rebalancing enemies,
• include trigger hints (like a crack in the wall for bombable walls, or a slightly different color for bombable rocks)

I love the design and feel of this game, but some of the mechanics in this version make it hard to get into.

What is up with the difficulty? From the very beginning...Darknuts (blue and silver) and Gibdos everywhere. Thank god there are no wizzrobes too. The bosses so far weren't exactly easy either. I see there is high emphasis on Potion use. I finished the first two dungeons. Have eight hearts, and the ladder, raft, bow, ocarina and Peril Beam. Am trying to get the hookshot...and all I have to ask is why?

A Fire Gleeok..wtf? I have no upgraded sword...and no ring. Its absolutely impossible to defeat this thing...and I don't see any other paths anywhere else in the game. Am I supposed to somehow be able to defeat this thing to make any progress? If so...I'm completely stuck and unable to move any further in the quest. I'd like to play this through to the end, but the enemy difficulty needs some serious balancing. If I"m missing something...please let me know.