Reviews - The Liberation of Hyrule - Quests

Moosh

Edited 05 May 2021 - 12:22 PM

I've got quite a history with this quest having made many many attempts at it over the years. I've also written several reviews of varying qualities and varying levels of salt. After playing both Armageddon Quests, I had a real itch for more of this kind of content, and then Dimi started streaming the quest on Discord and I sort of roped myself into playing as well. It took quite a bit, but I did finally beat it and so this will be my final review.

I think the best way to go about this is to just give some quick thoughts on all the dungeons in order, so here we go:

Fortress 1: This place is the bane of my existence, roller of RNG, bringer of salt. A lot of the sections pale in comparison to things I've played since, but I still can't help but feel the difficulty is a bit off. I said in the past that I thought the quest had an inverse difficulty curve, but I think I was partially mistaken. It starts off really hard, then tapers off and then gets hard all over again. And this dungeon is one hell of an introduction, so much so that I went out of my way to sequence break and skip most of it.
Fortress 2: This dungeon however is my least favorite overall. It has some cool ideas but they're just overshadowed by the finnicky and precise first gauntlet leading to the boomerang that overshadows everything else. I think without that this place would've been pretty average if not very memorable, but good lord that gauntlet gave me trouble even with sequence broken gear. Also every time I play this section, I forget that the spikes in the gohma room are arbitrarily slow walk and end up eating shit for it. Winner of the Worst Gauntlet Award
Fortress 3: This was my level 1 pretty much after getting the sword, my strategy being to rush this dungeon early and get the white sword and heart container as soon as possible. It was pretty slow due to my lack of gear, but I'm cool with how this dungeon works. Getting the money for some of the items and fighting the bosses was just rough with starting gear. The darknuts at the end were one of the more fun encounters for me, I just generally enjoy fighting darknuts. And it certainly helped that I liked the music as well. Winner of the Smoothest Tunes Award
Fortress 4: I think the game starts to pick up at around here. There's some cool encounters and challenges, I especially liked the fight with the gleeok boxed in with no enemy tiles. I was less fond of waiting for wizzrobes to line up to kill them with bombs. This is another spot where I decided to sequence break, this time jumping into Fortress 7.
Fortress 5: This was my second favorite dungeon. I really dig the creative use of deathknights and I much prefer isolated challenges to longer gauntlets. It's also hilarious how early you can come in here and nab some good items. Winner of the Most Creative Dungeon Award
Fortress 6: I wasn't as much a fan of this one, mostly because it feels like a rehash of Fortress 3's ideas, just harder. The third path was a pretty inventive idea, but didn't particularly land for me, mainly because the darknuts at the start are so damn tedious and the batrobes at the end are so damn random. I had some heartbreaking moments here. I think the level suffers some from reusing the same enemies on all three paths, though it does have the cool effect where rooms that are easy on one path become hard on another.
Fortress 7: I love the section at the start here for the fire boomerang. It's like the part of Forest Restaurant that pissed me off in Armageddon Quest, yet feels more elegantly done. A bit harder too, but made bearable due to the shortcuts. After that point the dungeon is alright. It's a mix of Forest Restaurant and B Button Pyramid and devious one at that. The gauntlet for the hammer gave me the most trouble on this one, especially the last room. Part of it was that rude setup where I had to pay for de-bubbling on every attempt. At some point I refused to keep paying it and so slowly worked my way through the first gauntlet again instead. On the way to the boss key I also made a rather unfortunate oversight. I didn't realize room right after the dodongos was a shortcut, and so ended up doing that section twice. Oof. Winner of the Most MooshBlind Moments Award
Fortress 8: In a shocking twist of fate, the 8th fortress somehow came out to be my favorite. I don't know how this happened, seeing as most of this dungeon is one long gauntlet, but I found the implementation of shortcuts to be perfectly executed and the challenge reasonably paced. It felt like I was playing Armageddon Quest again. The gauntlet at the end is also positively dreadfully rude, but has some setups that I found really cool and creative. I think I lucked out because I've heard that this dungeon was apparently nerfed shortly after the quest's initial release. If I had the version Evan played I'd no doubt have ragequit there. Winner of the Best Dungeon Award
Fortress 9: The final dungeon is easily one of the hardest if not the hardest outright. I wasn't as fond of this one as previous ones, but it's mainly a matter of length. There's no shortcuts here and no sequence breaks to ease the difficulty. Study the rooms and don't make any big mistakes. There were a couple rooms I never fully figured out no damage strats for, the leever room, the first goriya 3 room, and the second darknut room. I was able to squeeze by unscathed a couple times but my damage was incredibly variable and I had to waste a lot of heals as a result. The final boss is thankfully not that difficult and only took me two attempts, but god is it stressful after going through all that. Winner of the Hardest Dungeon I Guess Award

So that was my thoughts more or less. I stand by some of what I said in previous reviews, the early game being too hard, the difficulty curve being all over, but some other things I was definitely wrong about. The game never gets easy, it keeps the pain on consistently, and honestly I think this is why for the most part this style of quest isn't for me. My favorite thing about Armageddon Quest is the sense of power in finding items; there's an ebb and flow to the difficulty where you'll get a new item and briefly get to revel in it and go on a power trip. This is disappointingly absent here, with the quest instead cramming difficult challenges into every crack. This comes down to a matter of taste I suppose.

There's of course a handful of other problems, the botched "difficulty" settings, the horrible overworld experience, the unfitting and at times grating music choices...I've pretty much driven those into the ground at this point. The stuff James put the most effort into does genuinely have some fun moments in there but it's a very mixed bag for me.

I'm gonna hold off on assigning a numbered rating to this one because who fucking cares anymore, right? If you're into gauntlet based hard-as-balls difficulty, definitely gives this quest a try. If you're not, stay the hell away. If you're burning away at a nearly decade old grudge that just refuses to die, eh, why the hell not? It's free real estate.

James24

Posted 06 May 2021 - 12:13 AM

Yes, its been a long time since I made this. Looking back, there are many mistakes in LoH and things that I could have done better - but I think I did a good job because I couldn't script at the time. I could have fixed them but I think I'll leave LoH as a vintage quest and all the good ideas go into LoH:IU.

Fortress 1 - many people say its too hard. But I don't think it is, to me its balanced. Balance is in the eye of the beholder I guess and there's no way for a quest maker to know what everyone else will think of their balance before they release their quest unless there's been mass testing. And people don't test quests on mass unless you're paying them or you're making them their dream type A game. Well you'll be happy to know that every dungeon got a lot harder in LoH:IU so that should erase any complaints about the difficulty curve.

Fortress 2 - I never intended this to be a linear game. There are points where I myself when playing jump to higher levels to get equipment and then come back to the lower levels. The idea is that if a player is finding something too hard they can do something else, come back and make that segment easier. So there's always this option available and that makes the quest more interesting. So, the fact that you got items to help with that gauntlet proves that it worked. And the slow walk is not arbitrary, its purposely there to make the challenge beautiful (beautiful to me that is).

Fortress 3 - Meant to be played with 6 hearts and a wooden sword until you get the white sword. Going to be a rough ride if you try it with less equipment. But well done to you.

Fortress 4 - Yeah the bomb section could have been done better with individual combats instead of a sequence. Fixed for LoH:IU.

Fortress 5 - I'm glad you like the concept. A lot more interesting battles have been made for LoH:IU using scripting which I didn't know at the time. Looking back, there are a few "bad" battles here which I got rid of - like the spike room and the waiting room. Individual combats were a new idea in LoH and only featured in fortress 5 and I only really started making them in LoH:IU. I like individual combats a lot more if they are a one-off and very difficult encounter.

Fortress 6 - The idea behind this was to have 3 paths which have the same enemies but your equipment varied on each path. And this variation was to present a different challenge for each path. So, if I was to have different enemies for each path then it wouldn't be the same thing. The batrobes using the mirror shield is pretty consistent if you simply stand where you exit the shop.

Fortress 7 - Bubble dodging is something you either hate or love. I don't know anyone who is in the middle. I love it and I tuned it up a little but and put in checkpoints. The later section of level 7 was a bit too cluttered with shops everywhere I think so this got trimmed in LoH:IU.

Fortress 8 - I didn't keep the beginning part of level 8 because it just felt a bit too tedious and looking back, its just didn't have any challenge flair. Its just a bit bland and boring so it got axed in LoH:IU. The main part of fortress 8 should be the dodging, then sword fighting then item using section where the patra 3 lurks. So that was kept and nerfed just a little bit so the player can get back to the patra 3 quickly. This dungeon was never nerfed. In fact LoH has never had an update besides one that was for 2.53 because of a game-breaking bug. So you are playing the version that Evan played.

Fortress 9 - Gold arrow for the leever room. Goriya room can't be done with no damage as far as I know because you need to lower your shield to attack with a superbomb after planting bait. Super bomb facing South for the second darknut room and be ready with the hammer.

The difficulty was a mistake. I put in that gold ring and it didn't work. I guess I learnt from that in LoH:IU and simply only had my envisioned difficulty with a big warning for others not to play unless they also shared my vision. And yeah, the focus of this quest isn't on beauty. Its on challenge - music took a back seat.

Correct about ratings. It matters very little unless your rating is backed by action.

Moosh

Posted 06 May 2021 - 12:51 AM

Embracing the nonlinearity definitely helped to clear it, though I do know I've gotten much better at ZC since when I first attempted the quest and just getting the sword was a crazy ordeal. I'm currently in a similar position with the sequel, so who knows, maybe I'll get better again and give that one another shot someday.

Odd that level 8 wasn't actually nerfed. Evan seemed insistent that when he played, you had to do the whole last gauntlet without getting hit for an honest chance at the patra 3. I guess he must've gotten duped by the level design, not found the fairy, and not bothered with the gamble game.

James24

Posted 06 May 2021 - 11:18 AM

No wonder Evan found it so hard. He missed two things which were hinted at which would have made life a lot easier. First there is a blue fairy which can got by killing the pols voice to the left of the patra. The blue fairy fully restores health so if you get hit in the gauntlet then you still had at least one try at the patra 3 with full health. Second, if you pay off the goriya with 500 rupees or a heart container there is access to a shop which sells a full heal for 100 rupees. So you would have at least 5 attempts at the patra with full health. If you ran out of all those, then you have to redo the whole gauntlet again as a punishment for losing.

The Liberation of Hyrule

Moosh

James24

Moosh

James24

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