The puzzles, omg the puzzles. Easy 5 stars

I almost dropped this game at World 3 because of very linear design and abundance of backtracking required.
But! Starting from World 3 dungeon, the game becomes much much better, bland and linear level design suddently becomes excellent, full of unique puzzle mechanics.
My favourite dungeon is perhaps Level 4, the most complex and maze-like dungeon in the game.
If you're a player like me, who loves long and complex puzzle-heavy dungeons, please do not drop this game early on, give it a chance to shine.

Warning! Play strictly in 2.55 Alpha 107, other versions make the bosses very buggy.

This is one of the few quests I can give 5 stars to. I played when it first came out, and just recently started over again.

gameplay 5/5, A lot of effort when into making each world unique, which is the shining star in this quest. A few pet peeves, having to go back to the previous level to get a heart piece. I know a lot of quests use the mechanic, I suppose it is optional but a bit annoying. Bosses, they all seam similar, hit with sword, avoid a bunch of stuff, they warp, hit again, they warp, repeat, repeat, repeat. Would have liked a little more variety in bosses.

story N/A - Not much of a story, but it is fun going around and finding and talking to all the NPCs. Hint -- they all basically say the same thing which is that their area is the best. Still fun to find them all though as sort of a side quest for fun.

music 5/5 - Very relaxing and appropriate for the quest. I feel that while you are wandering around a level it is nice to have a good soundtrack to listen too.

design 5/5 - The dungeons are very complicated and yes each follows the theme for its world. Hint -- It took me 2 playthroughs to figure this out. I suggest making a map as you go along, of where chests, locks, and switches are, where warps take you, etc... I found that I did a lot of retracing my steps forgetting where stuff was. The quest is very linear, and you will find that if you do not make a map as you go in dungeons you will backtrack a lot. A lot of effort when into where things are in relation to others, how paths on overworld work, where trees are placed ect. Very well polished.

combat 5/5 - overall it is not too difficult, can get hard though in some spots, there are some areas where it is tight space, or there are obstacles, or enemies move in a certain way that makes them annoying. But again overall it ramps up fairly with each level. Bosses as I said above a scripted similarly and aren't too hard once you learn the pattern.


So overall this quest deserves high praise.

After a hiatus from playing ZC, I decided to start back up with this quest. After all, The quest maker has made some really good and under-rated quests that I have enjoyed a lot. Regrettably, and really unfortunately, this quest disappointed me in a few, but significant, ways. I honestly felt a strong urge to just quit by the end of level 3, but persisted to the end of level 5 before throwing in the towel. Thus, because I didn't come close to finishing, I hesitate to leave a rating number; but on the other hand, I saw enough content to make an informed review of sorts and offer some constructive criticism.

The plot of Cambria: Lost Worlds, while being fairly simple, is nonetheless somewhat philosophical and interesting enough. Overworld and dungeon mechanics are very familiar if you've played the quest maker's other quests. I really enjoyed the musical choices that I heard, which are both unfamiliar and tough to place, but also quite appropriate to the individual dungeons and overworld maps.

The token one-NPC-per-overworld expands on the plot in a limited but effective manner. I think some other lore added throughout the quest, like book passages or text statues/tiles would be a good way to further expand and develop the plot.

Unfortunately, what killed the enjoyment of this quest, for me, were some of the same things that I disliked about To the Top. The quest maker is obviously influenced by triple-T, as can be seen in his past quest design and even the credits in said past quests. More specifically, these things that weighed TtT down are on full display here: too many screens that demand precision and perfect movement in spite of clunky 4-way controls, overly-long and tedious boss fights, and the worst, overly-long boss fights that also require pin-point movement and timing throughout.

A perfect example of these problems would be the boss of level 5, the Mechanical Temple. 2.10-style bosses are what they are, but the bosses in C:tLW are frustrating well beyond the 2.10 limitations. While the bosses of levels 2-4 were also a slog for the same reasons, I'll single out the level-5 boss because that's where I rage quit for the last time. This boss fight involves conveyor belts, multiple floor switches, spike-damage tiles, and an actual charging boss that does 2 hearts of damage. The movement on conveyor belts in order to activate the floor switches, while avoiding spikes, is just completely frustrating with the limitations of 4-way movement. The screen shot below is a key example.



I kept, over and over again, getting stuck on the conveyors, or accidentally running into a spike, or plain having to guess when to make the control inputs in order to attempt navigating these screens.

This would probably be OK if there were a L2 ring available by the end of level-5, or ideally, much earlier, but as far as I can tell, there isn't. Instead, the player basically has to attempt to play perfectly and with much trial and error through this and previous boss fights. There isn't enough health and defense to just tank damage and be done with it. Instead, you're almost certainly going to take hits inadvertently, and so you better save the health for phase 7 or 8 of the boss fight. There is indeed a lot of trial and error required to learn the individual boss movements and formulate a strategy; however, there is just as much repetition required to learn how and where to move in order to avoid projectiles or damage tiles during these boss fights. The boss fights all seem to be overly long at 7 phases or more, so there are a lot of screens to basically memorize and prepare for.

I can and do tolerate needing to make many attempts at a boss fight, but in C:tLW, I also had to figure out the limitations of the 4-way movement in order to navigate and that was too much. As far as I can tell, control inputs are counter-intuitive and often have to be made before the intended action due to some sort of delay or other imprecision inherent in Zelda Classic. Think the raft mazes in Mike's Funhouse, which also has 4-way movement, where you had to figure out the perfect input delay for a steering movement. Now, imagine that these sort of screens also extend beyond a few mazes like in MFH and were actually pretty common in C:tLW.

The trampoline mechanics in the Sky Shrine are another example of how 4-way movements are a major limitation and headache. Here, steering in mid jump was incredibly frustrating because there's no way to move diagonally. Also, I noticed a strange quirk where it seemed I had to step on the trampoline tile, jump straight up once or more, and then press the direction button before actually rebounding on the trampoline, or my character just wouldn't be able to jump far enough. I honestly came very, very close to quitting in the Sky Shrine, because on top of these quirky jumping mechanics, there there also several screens with actually moving trampoline tiles that introduced another dimension of needing to achieve precision in spite of the limitations of 4-way movement. The screen shot below is an example. Interestingly enough. I found it impossible to use the green trampoline tile in what (I guess) is the intended way. Trying to jump from the trampoline and use the hookshot in mid air, I could never complete the turn after jumping in order to hookshot to the target. Instead, I figured out a way to jump directly to the platform below (the green trampoline) from the green trampoline.



I thought the dungeons in C:tLW are pretty underwhelming until level 4, where the design, puzzles, and maps become a lot more interesting all of a sudden. Levels 4 and 5, but not their accompanying shrines, made me forget how much I loathed grinding through the preceding bosses to get there. These levels don't have block puzzles or other head-scratching elements like many of the quest maker's other dungeons, but instead feature a really clever map design with fun mechanics. I honestly was wishing for some head-scratching puzzles, but enjoyed these levels quite a lot in spite of the lack of difficulty from puzzles. The enemy selection does seem to lack variety throughout the quest, if that's important to you, and the enemies can get a little spam-like if you aren't into combat, but the enemies were never close to overwhelming in my opinion.

Like To the Top, this quest is a perfect example of something that would be much, much better either with 8-way movement or some editing of those boss fights and other screens that are movement-centric. I get that this is a Nintendo-style quest, and was probably designed with 4-way movement in mind, but I have seen other Nintendo-style quests that have 8-way movement and are better as a result. I would definitely have appreciated more difficulty from head-scratching puzzles and winding maps containing secret passages or something. Instead, all of the difficulty, for me, was in trying to keep patience through the clunky protracted boss fights and other dungeon mechanics that require precision movement. I wanted to see what more the quest has to offer, but not badly or masochistically enough to slog through the boss of level 5.

You can really tell how much love went into making this quest, and I think that’s what makes it so good.

The story is a simple one: You can either progress through the worlds to find the best one, or you can quit and not do that. But, if you never progress, you’ll never make it to the Dream World. I feel like the whole premise mirrors real life: we can either fulfil our dreams and try to be the best we can be, or we can be content right where we’re at.

I love this non-antagonistic approach to story, (there are no real villians) and I wish more games would do something like it. The whole game feels harmless (despite all the enemies and bosses) and it doesn’t feel like the game would penalize you for stopping once you’ve had enough. If the going gets tough, (and believe me, it will) You can always choose to stay in a nice, friendly world instead of doing all this hard stuff and that’s perfectly ok. All of the NPC’s act like children and I feel like that was intentional- they were just born, after all. (why some were born elderly people is beyond me)

The story is very short and simple, though, so what really carries it is the excellent music choices. They’re just about all from Final Fantasy, and there were only about 2 that I actually disliked. The music helps motivate you to keep going despite all the difficult challenges.

The game is pretty quite linear, and follows the pattern of an overworld, followed by a mini-dungeon and then a dungeon. (with some surprises every once in a while) There are plenty of heart pieces to find, and not much else. Very simple, but I always found myself excited to see what the game would do next, and I found the overworlds to be very relaxing after the difficulty of the dungeons. The dungeons have some very, very cool ideas, and only get better as the game goes on. There are puzzles, but they’re not so difficult that they’re unreasonable to beat (unlike Maze of Hyrule 2.) While they do require thinking, you are an intelligent human being and can probably handle it.


And now for the divisive part: the bosses.

The bosses are very cool 2.1-style bosses. While I found them very cool, some people may find them too difficult and be ‘done with the going to the next world’ as a result. They are designed to take multiple tries so you can learn the boss’s every move before defeating it. I beat the game with 209 deaths, most of them from bosses, to give you an idea of how many tries they take. I am a noob, however, so if you’re better than me you can probably beat them faster. Some of them require very precise movement and can seem unfair. (I’m looking at you, Octorok boss) that said, because they are so difficult, they feel that much more satisfying to beat. Especially when you’re rewarded with the aforementioned overworlds.
My personal favorite bosses are the ones that are synced to the music. Really enhances the experience.

This quest also has an oddly large number of push-the-button-to-push-the-next-button puzzles. There’s nothing wrong with them, they just take a while. There are also a lot of push-the-button-to-lower-the-barrier-so-you-can-use-the-key-to-lower-a-DIFFERENT-barrier types of things, but I’ve come to expect this from TheRock at this point.

Overall, while this quest has plenty of flaws, the experience was magical enough for me to easily give it a 5. If you’re a fan of really good dungeons, and/or final fantasy music, absolutely give this one a play.

And if you can’t make it to the dream world . . . that’s all right. There are plenty of other wonderful worlds for you to stay!
P.S. this game uses stab and no diagonal movement. Get used to it haha XD

now stuck on lvl 3, seams to be a bit of a key logic problem. Looks like you need 3 keys to get arrow, bow, and quiver. But there are only 2 available keys.

Looks like an interesting quest. There is a game breaking bug in the first level. When you lower the water level, if you F6, die, or fight the boss, it kicks you out of the dungeon and into an infinite loop of screen scrolling.