Finished this up in about 20 hours, nearly got 100% but missing like 3 hearts but it's good enough for me. Overall though, this was a very enjoyable quest all the way through, really expansive as well and I wasn't expecting such a large adventure like this. The biggest positive is the overworld is amazing, definitely one of the best overworlds in any quest I've ever played. It reminded me so much of Lost Isle with the way the areas are designed and linked together. As the quest goes on, more and more shortcuts open up and makes exploring so much more fun. Not once did I really get annoyed with travelling from one place to another, and funny enough I barely used the fast travel options that were available to me, but it's fantastic you have that too.
The general difficulty of the quest is fine and usually well balanced, you can come across crazy stuff early on but it's always the case where you can just skip it and come back later which is welcomed. Nothing felt too cheap or too hard or too easy or anything, it was very nice all the way. General quest design is also very nice, like I said the overworld is beautiful, but I really love the aesthetics everywhere you go. The dungeons also look very unique and mostly look pretty wacky but neat (except for the final dungeon which I thought looked very bland imo). On the topic of dungeons though, this is also the weakest part of the quest I'd say. Graphically they're cool, but mechanically they vary greatly in quality. Some dungeons have very cool concepts and gimmicks which work out quite well (big fan of Level 2 and 4 for example), but others feel a tad too on the boring side of things where it essentially becomes a game of running from one part of a dungeon to activate a switch to then activate another switch to then activate another switch to get one chest for a key. And this happens quite a lot too. I don't mind it TOO much but towards the end of the quest it started to appear a bit more than I'd like. The screens also feel a tad cramped in places, also in the overworld, where there are a bit too many enemies in a tight spot and it feels a bit awkward to navigate around it. For that reason, I wasn't too sold on most of the dungeons although I did have a few favourites. I can absolutely tell this is CastChaos magic though because only he would design dungeons to be as strange as this (in a good way).
Lastly, I know story is not a major focus of this quest but I do feel a lot of the dialogue feels a lot more goofy than it should. Idk like I think in times where the story gets serious it usually has some weird writing to go along with it, especially during boss encounters because wtf is up with that lmao. And like others said, there are a few weird typos here and there but that's an easy fix. I'm a big fan of Urdolf though, no idea what purpose he has but his dialogue is genuinely funny. The 2.10 bosses are certainly a choice and it's kind of a lost art you can say since everyone has moved to scripting, but they are quite cool to see using modern FFC stuff, although they feel very dated and sometimes you can just easily brute force them and trivialise fights.
I probably missed a few other things that I can't remember now but overall it's a very solid quest. Dungeons are definitely it's weakest point but the great overworld makes up for it quite a lot. All this considered, I'm very much hesitant to give it a 5 but I'll do so in the sense that it's more like a 4.5/5 for me. Very fun quest though and I'm intrigued to see the original quest remade whenever that will come.
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Nargad's Trail: Crystal Crusades
Overview
Feature Quest
Creator:
Twilight Knight
,
CastChaos
Genre: Other
Added: 23 Aug 2016
Updated: 30 Sep 2020
ZC Version: 2.50.2
Downloads: 1480
Rating[?]:
|
Download Quest (7.03 MB) |
Information
Explore the vast lands of Krelaila in order to stop the invasion of the Rebonites, an otherworldly race. Travel together with Nargad through a huge overworld and 9 big dungeons, with an occasional sidequest for a nice reward.
About Reviews Comments Forum Topics
Description
This is the sequel to Nargad's Trail: Argon's Evil Lair, but the gameplay and concept is quite different from NTAEL. The quest doesn't put much emphasis on story, but instead focuses on an emerging world to explore. Besides that, there are 8 classical dungeons featured in this quest and 1 big final dungeon. While you go through the dungeons in a linear order, side quests and a massive overworld to explore change up the pace constantly.
Features:
2016-08-26: Several bugs were fixed
2016-08-28: More bug fixes and tampering with the item drop sets
2017-07-31: Bug fixes & difficulty tweaking in L9
2019-04-07: A lot of gameplay related improvements making the quest more pleasant to play
2020-06-29: Improved map system (now shows next quest location) amongst smaller gameplay improvements
2020-09-30: More (small) improvements based on the LPs by LordKronos and MeleeWizard
Features:
- A compelling story, but no heavy cutscenes!
- A vast overworld, countless hours of exploration
- 8 mysterious dungeons, all with a puzzling, unique theme
- 1 final dungeon, with two possible endings
- Many interiors, filled with witty, strange and funny characters
- A heavily modified version of DoR 1.0 as tileset
- Reappearing NPCs from NTAEL
- Discover more about Argon and the Orb of Fierce
- Custom (non-scripted) bosses
- Good quality graphics
- Many scripts to make the game smooth
- Energy resource instead of mana
- Some custom music
- Walking SFX
- Travelling system
- A few sidequests
2016-08-26: Several bugs were fixed
2016-08-28: More bug fixes and tampering with the item drop sets
2017-07-31: Bug fixes & difficulty tweaking in L9
2019-04-07: A lot of gameplay related improvements making the quest more pleasant to play
2020-06-29: Improved map system (now shows next quest location) amongst smaller gameplay improvements
2020-09-30: More (small) improvements based on the LPs by LordKronos and MeleeWizard
Story
The lands of Krelaila are under attack by a dreadful army called the Rebonites and Nargad is sent to retrieve an ancient artifact in order to stop that army. Unravel the mysteries about Argon and the Orb of Fierce. Learn more about Krelaila's past and find out who your true enemy is.
Tips & Cheats
Use the map signs when lost, since the last major update they don't only show where you are, but also show where to go!
You continue at the last village or dungeon you were in, or at the last place you entered or left. Remember this when dying much in the overworld.
When you've saved, you continue at the last dungeon or village you were in.
Exploration is key in finding Heart Container Pieces, nice money rewards or upgrades.
You always get a hint where to go next after each dungeon, so be sure to pay attention to the text!
The road to level 2 is very long, so prepare for a long travel!
Pay much attention to what Frozenblood says after each dungeon. He will usually give you a direction on what to do next, even if it seems irrelevant.
You continue at the last village or dungeon you were in, or at the last place you entered or left. Remember this when dying much in the overworld.
When you've saved, you continue at the last dungeon or village you were in.
Exploration is key in finding Heart Container Pieces, nice money rewards or upgrades.
You always get a hint where to go next after each dungeon, so be sure to pay attention to the text!
The road to level 2 is very long, so prepare for a long travel!
Pay much attention to what Frozenblood says after each dungeon. He will usually give you a direction on what to do next, even if it seems irrelevant.
Credits
Creators:
CastChaos (dungeons 1-8, interiors, spritework)
Twilight Knight (overworld, final dungeon, interiors, spritework, cutscenes, story, composing, maintenance)
Testing:
Judasrising
DBDjango
Zolias
Vaualbus
Stray Sheep
ZoriaRPG
Graphics:
Radien
Sheik
Zemious
Prince MSC
DemonLink
Linkus
Jupiter
Scripts:
Joe123
Avataro
Saffith
Moosh
Moscowmodder
LinkTheMaster
Design:
Moosh
Deathrider365 (feedback from his LP)
MeleeWizard (feedback from his LP)
LordKronos (feedback from his LP)
Forum help:
Artistic
Judasrising
CastChaos (dungeons 1-8, interiors, spritework)
Twilight Knight (overworld, final dungeon, interiors, spritework, cutscenes, story, composing, maintenance)
Testing:
Judasrising
DBDjango
Zolias
Vaualbus
Stray Sheep
ZoriaRPG
Graphics:
Radien
Sheik
Zemious
Prince MSC
DemonLink
Linkus
Jupiter
Scripts:
Joe123
Avataro
Saffith
Moosh
Moscowmodder
LinkTheMaster
Design:
Moosh
Deathrider365 (feedback from his LP)
MeleeWizard (feedback from his LP)
LordKronos (feedback from his LP)
Forum help:
Artistic
Judasrising
bigboylink
Edited 25 April 2021 - 07:02 PM
This is an amazing quest. I basically wrote a review in the quest thread, so I'll link that below; I put any spoiler-y stuff in spoilers:
https://www.purezc.n...70762&p=1061365
Heh, how did I miss this quest when it was released? <checks release date> oh duh, it was right before Breath of the Wild came out
Anyway, kudos to the creators. I hadn't played the first Nargad game, but if there's ever a third, I'd be thrilled to play it.
https://www.purezc.n...70762&p=1061365
Heh, how did I miss this quest when it was released? <checks release date> oh duh, it was right before Breath of the Wild came out
Anyway, kudos to the creators. I hadn't played the first Nargad game, but if there's ever a third, I'd be thrilled to play it.
- Twilight Knight likes this
Deedee
Edited 30 September 2020 - 03:55 PM
My biggest complaint with this when I played it two years ago was the endgame. You finish exploring the entire overworld right before level 6, and the last 3 dungeons have you explore exactly one (or in the case of level 9, 0, but I'm more willing to forgive it cause it's a central area) new overworld screen in an area you've been to before. It would've been cool to explore more of the volcano beyond a simple town inside it (maybe climbing the volcano to reach the sky dungeon?), and it would have been cool to explore a new area right before level 8. Instead, post level 6 just feels bland on the overworld side of things, which sucks cause the overworld was the thing the quest had going for it (the only dungeons besides level 2 and 3 that stood out to me was levels 8 and 9, which means the quest goes through a boring bland spell the moment you set foot in level 6 until the moment you set foot in level 8 ).
- Twilight Knight likes this
Russ
Posted 23 October 2016 - 02:33 PM
So this quest, it sure is something. I was actually a bit torn what to rate it, but more on that later. Let's start with what's good.
First, the overworld. This may just be the best overworld in ZC. It's big, it's varied, it's interconnected, and it's full of secrets and sidequests. Honestly, even if the quest lacked any dungeons at all, I think it would still be an amazing quest based off the overworld alone. You've outdone yourself Twilight Knight. It's truly spectacular.
The world itself. Unlike most quests, I actually felt somewhat invested in the world. It feels like a real world you're exploring, not just a collection of maps. The NPC dialogue is also incredibly funny most of the time.
There's also the attention to detail. Just little things like the sunglasses or hat that you can wear add a lot of detail to the world. Or things like talking to the trees after completing the nature sidequest, or the "gypsies" (which was a brilliant twist tucked away in an obscure line of NPC dialogue).
Of course, there's also the graphical style. I don't how much I can say here. It's good. It's really good. I love what you did with the Pokemon mountains combined with old-school DoR. It's got a unique graphical style that's fantastic.
The dungeons... the dungeons I'm mixed on. Some of them, namely 2, 3 (especially 3), 5, and 6 were great. There was certainly a bit of style clash going in terms of design philosophy (i.e. it was really clear I'd walked from a TK quest into a CastChaos quest), but they were CastChaos at his best. I feel they incorporated everything I like about CC's design philosophy (the creativity, the surrealism) while eschewing all the bad (confusing triggers, cluttered rooms, etc). 7 and 8 weren't bad, but they had some minor annoyances. 1 and 4... Not a fan of anything in 1, really, and 4 did some annoying side warp shenanigans I'm not too fond of. The final dungeon was cool, but relied far too heavily on backtracking. In general, the dungeons were what I want to see from CC, but there were a few missteps along the way.
Custom bosses were kind of hit or miss. While 2.10 bosses have basically fallen from favor, some of them were pretty nice in a nostalgic sort of way. The boss of level 3 especially comes to mind. Her sweeping the room with lasers was really fun. But a lot of the later bosses seem to quickly devolve into hordes of enemies or bosses that stood in one place doing nothing. It was kind of disappointing whenever that happened because I know CC can do better than that. With the final boss, for example. He has a phase where he just summons enemies, which was boring. And then suddenly there's bullet hell patterns and giant energy blasts and escape sequences and it's awesome. It seemed weird that even within the same boss fight, there could be such exciting and such dull moments.
Now the story... I know I praised the worldbuilding and the NPC dialogue, but the plot left a bit to be desired. The Rebonites were interesting, as were the three artifacts (setting aside that the name "Orb of Fierce" is kind of hard to take seriously sometimes), but... well...
While we're on the subject of the story, there's an elephant in the room I feel like we have to address. We all know English isn't CC's native language, and his writing can be awkward at times. In his solo quests, I look past that because I know he's doing the best he can do. But in a collab project like this, it was incredibly noticeable every time a CC string showed up. I feel like I could point out every single string he wrote. I have no objections with CC writing part of the plot, but I don't understand why TK didn't edit his strings from grammar afterwards. It seems like a simple thing that would've done wonders for immersion.
So where does that leave us? A quest with a well-constructed world, the best overworld I've seen in ZC, dungeons that range from "not perfect, but pretty good" to "well it's not awful but it's not really good either", an average (albeit unique) story, decent 2.10 bosses, lots of interesting secrets, and a one-of-a-kind graphical style. I feel like, overall, it should come out to a 4/5. But the weird thing is that, for me, it feels like the quest is more than the sum of its parts. It's got its fair share of mistakes, don't get me wrong. But those mistakes never really stopped me from enjoying it. Even at it's worst, when I had to skim the help thread to find some obscure secret in a dungeon, it never felt like any more than a stumbling block to keep me from reaching the next awesome bit of world exploration again. So I'm giving it a 5/5. That doesn't mean the quest is perfect by any means, but it appeals to me in all the right ways. Great job, both of you.
In conclusion, Urdolf.
First, the overworld. This may just be the best overworld in ZC. It's big, it's varied, it's interconnected, and it's full of secrets and sidequests. Honestly, even if the quest lacked any dungeons at all, I think it would still be an amazing quest based off the overworld alone. You've outdone yourself Twilight Knight. It's truly spectacular.
The world itself. Unlike most quests, I actually felt somewhat invested in the world. It feels like a real world you're exploring, not just a collection of maps. The NPC dialogue is also incredibly funny most of the time.
There's also the attention to detail. Just little things like the sunglasses or hat that you can wear add a lot of detail to the world. Or things like talking to the trees after completing the nature sidequest, or the "gypsies" (which was a brilliant twist tucked away in an obscure line of NPC dialogue).
Of course, there's also the graphical style. I don't how much I can say here. It's good. It's really good. I love what you did with the Pokemon mountains combined with old-school DoR. It's got a unique graphical style that's fantastic.
The dungeons... the dungeons I'm mixed on. Some of them, namely 2, 3 (especially 3), 5, and 6 were great. There was certainly a bit of style clash going in terms of design philosophy (i.e. it was really clear I'd walked from a TK quest into a CastChaos quest), but they were CastChaos at his best. I feel they incorporated everything I like about CC's design philosophy (the creativity, the surrealism) while eschewing all the bad (confusing triggers, cluttered rooms, etc). 7 and 8 weren't bad, but they had some minor annoyances. 1 and 4... Not a fan of anything in 1, really, and 4 did some annoying side warp shenanigans I'm not too fond of. The final dungeon was cool, but relied far too heavily on backtracking. In general, the dungeons were what I want to see from CC, but there were a few missteps along the way.
Custom bosses were kind of hit or miss. While 2.10 bosses have basically fallen from favor, some of them were pretty nice in a nostalgic sort of way. The boss of level 3 especially comes to mind. Her sweeping the room with lasers was really fun. But a lot of the later bosses seem to quickly devolve into hordes of enemies or bosses that stood in one place doing nothing. It was kind of disappointing whenever that happened because I know CC can do better than that. With the final boss, for example. He has a phase where he just summons enemies, which was boring. And then suddenly there's bullet hell patterns and giant energy blasts and escape sequences and it's awesome. It seemed weird that even within the same boss fight, there could be such exciting and such dull moments.
Now the story... I know I praised the worldbuilding and the NPC dialogue, but the plot left a bit to be desired. The Rebonites were interesting, as were the three artifacts (setting aside that the name "Orb of Fierce" is kind of hard to take seriously sometimes), but... well...
Spoiler
Frozenblood. It was so painfully obvious he was evil right from the get go. Like... his name is Frozenblood. Frozen Blood. As time went it, it became more and more obvious, to the point where I was hoping the big twist was that he wasn't evil. So in that sense, the big reveal was pretty disappointing.
While we're on the subject of the story, there's an elephant in the room I feel like we have to address. We all know English isn't CC's native language, and his writing can be awkward at times. In his solo quests, I look past that because I know he's doing the best he can do. But in a collab project like this, it was incredibly noticeable every time a CC string showed up. I feel like I could point out every single string he wrote. I have no objections with CC writing part of the plot, but I don't understand why TK didn't edit his strings from grammar afterwards. It seems like a simple thing that would've done wonders for immersion.
So where does that leave us? A quest with a well-constructed world, the best overworld I've seen in ZC, dungeons that range from "not perfect, but pretty good" to "well it's not awful but it's not really good either", an average (albeit unique) story, decent 2.10 bosses, lots of interesting secrets, and a one-of-a-kind graphical style. I feel like, overall, it should come out to a 4/5. But the weird thing is that, for me, it feels like the quest is more than the sum of its parts. It's got its fair share of mistakes, don't get me wrong. But those mistakes never really stopped me from enjoying it. Even at it's worst, when I had to skim the help thread to find some obscure secret in a dungeon, it never felt like any more than a stumbling block to keep me from reaching the next awesome bit of world exploration again. So I'm giving it a 5/5. That doesn't mean the quest is perfect by any means, but it appeals to me in all the right ways. Great job, both of you.
In conclusion, Urdolf.
- Rambly , Epsalon ZX , Soma Coreaix , and 3 others like this
Accr89
Posted 21 September 2016 - 04:13 PM
Im giving this quest 5 stars because not only did it draw me back into zc again, but there was a lot of work that went into this project hopefully I can start my big review didn't have much of a chance yet. Anyways great Job with this compelling and extensive quest def one of my top 5s for sure!
- Twilight Knight likes this
Nargad's Trail: Crystal CrusadesStarted by Mister Snooze , 23 Aug 2016 |
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Quest Club 1 - Nargad's Trail: Crystal CrusadesStarted by Ether , 16 Nov 2023 |
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