Nargad's Trail: Crystal Crusades

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.

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 ).

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.

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!

Edit: I recently replayed NT:CC after it's April 2019 update, which promised a lot of gameplay related improvements making the quest more pleasant to play, so some of my original opinions of the quest may have changed.


This quest is certainly unique in many ways, and an enjoyable enough 24hours of game time, but in my opinion, is also oddly balanced and deceptively hollow.

The biggest balance issue is the long, long journeys to the 1st and then second dungeons. This in and of itself isn't the worst thing in a quest that is created with exploration in mind. On the other hand, surviving the overworld and trekking long distances to the first and second dungeons eclipses the difficulty of the actual dungeons. The first, second, and to a lesser extent third dungeons are simply underwhelming compared to the journey just to reach them. In fact, an ongoing theme I found is that the dungeons and bosses both seemed to get easier as I progressed further. Part of this might be due to naturally finding health, weapon, and armor upgrades, but opting to find upgrades usually doesn't make games or ZC quests as easy as NT:CC becomes.

Once you pick up certain items, you figure out that this journey, and the rest of the overworld, isn't really that big at all; but rather, the overworld just seems that way early on due to lots of hammer pegs, rocks, or other obstacles forcing you to take the long way. The overworld, while looking excellent, can be a real pain to navigate, because there are too many obstacles, arbitrary-item triggers, and other purposeful obfuscations thrown in seemingly just because. For such a large overworld, there seems to also be a shortage of secrets. Many, many, many screens are seemingly just filler and would be totally irrelevant if the overworld design did not force the player to transverse them. That is why I call the overworld deceptively hollow: at first it looks like a marvelous journey across an entire country, but the longer and deeper you look at things, the more you realize the countryside is remarkably empty.

One could say that opting for the built in "donkey-ride" service, which I admit is a pretty great idea, both in terms of practicality and creativity, does help reduce the chore of overworld navigation. However, the donkeys don't go anywhere near levels 2 and 3, so you are required to do a lot of walking. Another frustration I have is that it was surprisingly unpredictable where my character would respawn after I save the game. I'm not sure about the technical feasibility of it, but I kept wishing my character would just respawn on the last map I stepped foot on. I just didn't find the respawning rule as simple as "respawn in the last town or dungeon you were in," and so was forced many, many times to do 5-10 minutes of overworld traversing just to get back to where I foolishly hit F6-continue/save.

Another balance issue is that it just didn't seem worth it to explore much until late in the game. This is because of an abundance of item triggers to get secrets, but also because the quest throws large amounts of rupees at you when it's not possible to get the 999 or 9999 wallets until relatively late in the game. Sure, you could spend that money on potions, but as I said, with the dungeons becoming easier and easier, there is no real need for potions if you are like me and an experienced-moderately skilled ZC player. Rupee rewards are a pet-peeve of mine in ZC, so take this criticism with some salt. Just as well, if is also possible to find enough health and upgrades to become overpowered, so if you desire a challenge, exploring can dis-incentivize the experience For a quest created with exploration in mind, there just seems to be little incentive to do so until too late in the game.

The dungeon design is slightly above average with no major flaws I can remember. I'd say the dungeon style is pretty LTTP-like and navigation is straightforward. The dungeons don't interconnect to the overworld with several entrances, nor do they really have secrets one can come back for, in a metroidvania fashion, so each dungeon is pretty forgettable. In some of the early dungeons, it can be tough to see necessary hints, but I didn't find muted palettes or darkness to be a serious problem. Overall, though, I say that the attention and detail given to the dungeons does pale in comparison to the attention given to the overworld. The 2.10-style bosses are what they are, and usually require no strategy except "use the item(s) you received in that dungeon."

While it might sound like I find a lot wrong with this quest, I actually had a great time playing just the same. Almost all of that enjoyment comes from the overworld and, I too would be just as happy with this quest if it was built with no dungeons at all. I originally rated this a 3, but in replaying and rethinking, I think now I would give the quest an objective 3.75 - which I raise to 4 thanks to the intangible fun factor I enjoyed while playing. This is an enjoyable quest with some quirky design philosophies that somewhat subtract from, but don't nullify the experience. The overworld is quite splendid, but you have to progress far into the quest's less splendid dungeons and put up with some frustrations in order to enjoy that overworld.

I played twice until the good ending, I felt this quest is a bit hard on first playthrough, but didn't feel hard on second. I really enjoyed gameplay and seeing doubtful Frozenblood. Also overworld is very beautiful. I felt some areas are a bit too hard or complex for average players especially before Lv3. Travelling systems except for secret one don't go further Sandgaze Village or Blooms Ville, it doesn't help to travel a long distance.

Hi Twilight_Knight and CastChaos,

I really like you quest you and CC made. It was fun and entertaining, surprising and challenging. The overworld was pretty amazing. I liked the different areas. The bosses were quite different. They weren't too difficult once you figured out how to beat them. Level 1 did seem like it was cluttered, what to bomb and not what to bomb. The arrows were a little small but I do have to say once you saw the arrow and the place to bomb, it was more noticeable. For me that is.

I would play it again, but not right away though, that trip to level 2 wore me out. Next time I know I'll have to pack a lunch.

It takes a lot of work to make a quest I know I've tried and it's still on the drawing board. I think you and CC did a great job. Even with the few errors I found I still would have to give it 5 stars.

Thank you and CC for making it.

This is a wonderful quest, very fun as well as challenging. I can see a great deal of work went into this and it was worth it. there were some minor bugs but nothing too bothersome. Many hours of enjoyment. I recommend it!

Fun, engaging, and challenging quest! I played it pretty exclusively in about a week's time. Minor bugs have already been presented by others. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this!

I can see the work that was put into this quest. As a quest creator it is rare that I will sit and play a quest and actually care to complete it before I lose interest. But this quest had me glued instantly. Not rage inducing, but rather very nice balance that makes it very enjoyable to play. I can't stop playing it and I am very determined to complete it as it has me very intrigued. The bugs are very minor and easy to look past. If I could, I would give you more stars than allowed. I'm so impressed! Great work to all who were involved in the making of this.