The Hero's Memory

You know this is a legendary quest when reviews are still being posted 4 years after release...

Apparently I had commented way back in the day when this was first released I was going to play this because of something Eddy said, but turns out I never finished it. Well, I guess I decided to go again, and wow what an experience. About 12 hours of gameplay to 100% complete it, and more deaths than I'm willing to admit.

Overall, the your "love-letter to the Zelda series" idea fits perfectly in how this quest turned out. Your ability to be able to use NES-style to bring more recent Zelda concepts to life really created a thought-provoking and exciting experience. From your the basic melting of the ice in level 2, to the inverted Stone Tower in level 8, I was very impressed on how you created concepts that seemed a lot more complex into a simplistic light. In addition, the end of the quest you created your own dungeon of Vagnum's Lair, yet went back to the original Zelda by incorporating a classic NES level-9 dungeon full of challenging enemies and puzzling corridors. To top it all off, you used a small, seemingly simple yet heartfelt story to complete the long journey.

Personally, I am not a big fan of post-game side-quests, especially with great tools that would have been useful in level-9. Unless I missed something, it would have been awesome if we would have gotten a chance to complete that final gauntlet, then had the opportunity to go through the final dungeon in NES-style from your favorite Zelda game. Now THAT would have gotten me excited for post-quest material.

There were only nit-picky things that I could critique on, but they're so insignificant I can't even remember most of them (Besides the post-game quests)! This shows how great of a quest it was with how only nit-picky things come to mind when trying to critique this quest.

Well done Aevin. The Hero's Memory was truly a memorable masterpiece. Pun intended.

I can honestly say this is the first quest in ZC that I have finished and enjoyed the whole way through. It's nice to see a quest that doesn't focus so much on teeth-grinding difficulty or gimmicks (not to knock those types of quests; if that's your thing, there's nothing wrong with that), but rather creating an experience that is 100% true to the Zelda series. Nice work!

I absolutely adore this quest.

I think anyone who wants to design their own custom quest in ZC should play this game. Every element of this game is nailed, and shows that you don't need scripting to make a fantastic quest. The overworld is jam packed with secrets, and even though there isn't bomb cracks in all the walls or obvious differences in the environment that reveal the secrets, this game still does an excellent job at crafting mystery and intrigue in it's secrets. The overworld design itself is flawless; areas connect beautifully, conveniently, and sensically, and the world just has a nice flow to it. The difficulty curve is marvelous, and where many games drop the ball, this one does not.

The dungeons are outstanding as well. They are greatly designed, and don't fall into the traps other quests fall into. The first dungeon is straight forward and not a huge labyrinth, and the difficulty builds from there. The dungeons also do an excellent job at evoking the temple they're based off of while putting a new twist into their design. The only gripe I have on their design is that randomly, half-way through the game, the dungeons start relying on walkthrough walls. I'm not a fan of them to begin with, but the way they were implemented at first was a bit sloppy. Luckily, the Lens of Truth shows up at the same time as they are implemented, which remedied this issue for me a lot. (Even though players can miss that item as it is optional.) Also, a lot of the dungeons were water temples. (Temple of Droplets, Jabu Jabu's Belly, Ocean Temple) While I would've liked to see more variety, this didn't matter much to me as they felt very different from each other. One only felt like a TOTAL water temple. And they were great dungeons anyway, so in the end, do I care? Not really. I also didn't like the last dungeon that much, which left a slightly bitter taste in my mouth. These things, though, are only slight blemishes on an otherwise fantastic fan game.

The balance of good dungeons and a meaningful overworld makes this game a delight. This game, even though it is an NES-style quest, certainly doesn't feel like it. It is so fun, and I am more than happy to give it a 5 star rating. It is without a doubt my favorite quest in the database. I implore anyone to 100% this quest like I did; you will not regret it.

This quest was so much fun to play. Really enjoyed every aspect of it. I thought the dungeons fell a bit short at some points, though I really enjoyed them (except the last one, those doors always leading me back to the beginning nearly drove me insane xD) and I really enjoyed the whole concept. Saddened me a bit though, since I had a similar concept for the game I wanted to make, but oh well, i'll have to add some turns to it.
At any rate, great game, played it to a 100% and enjoyed every minute, and my little brother too, he loved it as well

This quest gets a 5 stars.

Of all the ZC quests i played this one has the best overworld, it has an awesome design, filled with a bunch of hidden secrets and it's just a joy to explore it.

The game has a great color palette, ranging from bright and colorful to dark and somber, reflecting perfectly each area.

The dungeons are well designed and never felt overly convoluted and none of them overstays their welcome.

The bosses are standard, but they do their job pretty well, each fitting their temple really well.

The challenge was just perfect. Nothing felt cheap and unfair.

Great music choice with themes from several official Zelda games. Each theme fits perfectly to their respective area.


So yeah, easy 5 stars. I can see the love and care that was given to this quest and it's easily one of my favourite quests in the site.

5 Stars and this means a lot since I hate NES-style Quests The few things I realized that are not perfect in my eyes (I use 2.50.1, also this includes Spoilers):

1) I actually was also planning to use a Slingshot and a Bow and understand the problem, but having them both using the same counter while the ammo tile clearly indicates a bag with stones and the subscreen-minitile as an arrow seems just odd to me.
2) In Level 1 in one room the enemys just vanish after a certain time, no idea why.
3) In Level 6 is a first walkthrough. This might just be me, but since I avoid NES-style quest I am unused to walkthroughs and without help I would have never walked into the wall. In my opinion a good quest should be able to be solved without any help-thread and since this was the first walkthrough, I thought I needed unterwater-bombs or so, a hint on walkthroughs as solutions (in common just to know they exist) from one of the info-guys would have been nice (though not sure if i found any info-guy out there). Also I would prefer a own Hookshot-Trigger-Combo (grey eye for example), since like it is now I obviously started to run around to test any fish to be a trigger.
4) The Staff of Byrna you gain is in an underwaterroom that uses the overwater-Subscreen. Also Underwater in the active subscreen you cannot go up from the bubbles (it seems potion -> bubbles works alright, but it is bubbles <- bubbles into the other direction). BTW, since there is no ranged damage weapon underwater, giving an underwater wand (lvl 1 and normal wand with lvl 2 disabled on underwater-Dmaps) with staff of Byrna-Sprites together would be a cool thing though there is clearly no need for it . Also it was a little letdown to not be able to dive into fairy-ponds in caves or where the Fisher is.
5) Yeah, there is a screen on the minimap that hints on it, but the early positioned shop for the blue mail... I totally dislike the walking above trees, it seems broken to me. Even making the two screen act as Nes-Dungeon and make a walkthrough would have been a better solution for me. A room
6) I know it is typical to only rarely use bomb-cracks and I found at least 90% myself, but since I have not endless ammo and the location can be anywhere on the overworld, I missed the right spot for the Lense-Shop. Since the Lense can help a lot and especially the walkthrough for the red mail is near to impossible to hit without it, I think to make at least bomb-cracks there would be a big help, also since you still have to dive there, it still is kind of hidden.
7) Since Dins Fire is a flame it is unavoidable to also use wind sprites, but it looks off. A solution could be to use "burning tornado" sprites fitting better to din and let them damage both, foes vulnerable to fire and wind. Also the digdogger-kids only vulnerable to wind are too easy if timed right after using the whistle and annoying like hell if not timed right. Also though I think that Standard-bosses should be rather easy (since you have fought them countless times already and I think of them rather as a distortion from standard-foes than as a really hurdle), the lvl 6 boss is a bit too weak since you have remote bombs.
Different to some otheres here I don't think that some odd looking tiles and no overlayer-tees and such are a problem, I even rather prefer it like this though it feels really a bit disturbing after playing only quest with overhead-trees for some time^^. Only what really need to be fixed are the rope of the mointain-bridge and the fairys (just flag them as overhead). Also the water behind statues and trees should be replaced by non-water combos with the same tile, since you can swim even in unwalkable combos and placing a solid combo on layer 1/2 above a water combo behaves like an unwalkable combo. (I am pretty sure you know this all already but wonder why not fixing such minor things.

Good game, i like everything.

I don't think I'll ever enjoy a NES-style quest as much as this one. It excels in almost everything without a bit of scripting.
The one thing that prevents me from giving this a 5 is that the water dungeons were much slower than they needed to be due to the slow walk.

Edit: the slow walk thing was changed at some point! I can now happily give this a 5.

Five Stars ! no need other words, just play it !

Best. Non-scripted. Quest. Ever.