Link and Zelda: Panoply of Calatia

In every way possible, this is the ultimate love letter to 80s Zelda.

This game is so good, i love it. I like switching from Link to Zelda so nicely done.*
The leveling system is nice.
We need more games with the Zelda II feeling, the weather system and also Day/Night system is neat.

The problem, i feel all the many options at the start of the game can be too confusing and should not be thrown directly at the player before you even start up the game.
The other problem, you should NOT Start without a sword cause you are just going to die a-lot trying to run around, -just to try and find it if you're lucky.
That type of game play frustrates a new player.

>That should be a Harder mode setting Option, i think at the start of the game.
How can you know what you want before you even ever first played the game?

I've been wanting to write a review for this for a looong time now, but I haven't been able to scrounge together the right words to describe my feelings towards it, especially not in a way that wouldn't reiterate what other people have already said.

So I'll just say it's good. It's real damn good. One of the best quests to ever have come out, and certainly the best of the last 5 years or so.

Alright, I've already spewed out so much high praise on the forums about this, so I might as well just repeat myself in proper reviewish form.

This is truly a masterpiece of a Zelda Classic quest. It combines the gameplay styles of both The Hyrule Fantasy and Adventure of Link beautifully, and fixes the platforming problems the latter had. There's so much effort put into this gem. There's a ton of items to collect, harkening from many titles of the series- secret seashells, hookshots, tunics, spells, and so on. The story is the one from the Valiant Comics, which I'd read before and enjoyed (it wasn't as cringey as the cartoon or cd-i games!), but expanded and reworked into game format. It's a real tribute to the "American" Zelda lore, with location names stemming from the various stories (the comic and its author, and some of the writers of the cartoon). And it doesn't feel out of place at all. If Nintendo of America did more than just localizations, I feel like that this is the kind of Zelda game they would make. It feels like a real sequel, a true Zelda game. While it may not be the 3 Party Member RPG Miyamoto wanted as "Zelda 3", it does have two playable characters with unique items and abilities, and to me, that's close enough. Highly recommend this quest to anyone who wants to play a fanmade Zelda game and comes across Zelda Classic. It's the most engaging and enjoyable quest out there imo, topping everything else I've tried. I don't think any other quests will have me as invested as I was into this one, though. It's sad as there are a lot of great quests I've tried and have been trying to get through, but I'm happy that I found something so amazing that it feels like a real Nintendo-made Zelda game.

Other things of note: had a couple bugs here and there, and the other modes are weird and goofy, plus there's a lot of non-Zelda music in it to choose from for dungeons. But you know what? It doesn't bother me enough to change my feelings about the quest. It still feels like a real Zelda game to me. To me, this will be a real Zelda III. And for that, I applaud you, Mitsukara. Thank you so much for this amazing game.

Very well made quest, also the most unique! The amount of customization with the items and Link + Zelda is the reason why this quest to so good imo. I also liked the fact that you allowed the player to choose the dungeon music!

This was a truly fantastic quest. I really enjoyed myself through almost every bit of it. This quest feels so NES-like, it's amazing. I really love the ideas you had with this quest, the idea of mixing in Z2 ideas into Calatia was pretty nice, and then managing to explore Hyrule again was great. The dungeons were all really unique and awesome in their own ways, with many tough puzzles and a fairly good flow. I really liked how open the world is as well, and I found it really fun to run around the overworld looking for stuff I missed out (I didn't manage to 100% the quest, but I think I was close). The overworlds and dungeons were designed pretty nicely. Some things looked a bit weird, like the ships over on the left side of Calatia and the odd perspective in dungeons with the layers (which ended up confusing me a lot). Other than that, screen design is pretty good, feels very NES-like. So yeah, this was a really polished quest and I really loved it.

While I wish I could end it there, there are a few issues and problems I came across. I do feel like some puzzles in dungeons could use a bit more obvious hints at times. I found myself constantly having to ask someone for help in dungeons due to some puzzles being incredibly hard to figure out, and that took a lot of time. I'd also probably say the same for hints NPCs say in villages too. The "treasure map" info was quite misleading IMO, as I thought the NPC was talking about a secret item on the screens. Instead, they were just coordinates to the three keylocks in Calatia. Better wording could've worked there. I noticed other puzzles can be incredibly frustrating too. For example, one puzzle in that one pink dungeon in Calatia (forgot the name) requires you to place a Cane of Somaria block with all these moving conveyors onto a switch. That got incredibly annoying and ended up feeling like a game of luck rather than timing. Similar thing with using the Spinner in some areas. IMO the Spinner in sideview is pretty horrible. Either the spinner works and lands on rails when I jump, or it just passes through the rails and lands me into lava. This got incredibly annoying later on in the final dungeon with that one puzzle near to Ganon, and it felt like a chore to try and get the Spinner in the perfect location.

The final was pretty epic and unexpected. I really like how that escalated and the final fight was pretty intense. Though as much as I did like it, I felt like the boss dragged on for a bit too long. I'm pretty sure I was there for at least 20 mins or so constantly switching over to avoid hitting the shield. That got kinda old after a while and I did wish the whole fight would've gone quicker. I also dunno if there was any way to avoid that lava rising from the ground, but that felt a little unfair at times. But the boss was still pretty awesome anyway, and the post game was hilarious and amazing, so I'm happy that made it up for the final boss. Lastly, a few weird things I found when playing: You can end up getting stuck here by walking on water one screen up, forcing you to F6 out. Not sure what's happening here but this appears when I collect the coins. Falling into the pits on this screen boots me back to the start of the dungeon, and that got frustrating really quickly.

Overall, this was a really fun quest to play. Some things did kill the experience a bit for me such as the lack of hints on most puzzles, wasting so much time, and others being really annoying. However, I still enjoyed myself quite a lot and this was still a really great quest. I'd probably go for a 4.75/5, which rounds up to a 5. Fantastic job, I had a great time beta testing, and I'm looking forward to any more future quests from you!

This quest is great! It has amazing ideas, cool puzzles and a neat concept. I really do like the song choices in this game But, as in other quests, this quest has a problem. The problem I have with this quest is the screen design; the overworlds screen design is better than the dungeons. Taking the screens from the top, this really looks odd. This is seen in many different forms in the quest and has annoyed me... though, I still enjoyed the quest.

From what I played, I found a few bugs. Some of the ones I found were intentional finds and some where unintentional. The unintentional ones are the more serious ones that I think you should take a look at, so I'll state them in detail only. Firstly, the intentional one, I managed to get myself stuck in this house. The only way I managed to get out was by "F6"ing. Secondly, the unintentional bugs. In TEZUKA, you will be able to push the barriers, which makes it look worse than it already does. The barriers in the first place look, in my opinion, not that great... so by pushing them you make them look worse. Also, while this is not necessarily a bug, I still wanted to point this out. The soil looks out of colour, it's red and green while the dirt on screen normally is pale. This is irregular, in my opinion. While playing through TEZUKA I found a really, really bad bug. You could call this game-breaking in some cases. In the sideview area of the dungeon, I hadn't realised that the coloured buttons were for the item of the dungeons blocks, so, I decided to place Link there. But then nothing happened, so I decided to backtrack and I left Link in the sideview area. I was looking around the dungeon and found nothing, and then I decided to head back into the sideview area. As you have probably already guessed, I couldn't get back into the sideview area; where I left Link. To actually enter the sideview area, you needed to activate 3 switches each time, and, without Link, I could only activate 2 of the 3 switches. This was really bad; if the F6 function was disabled, I would be stuck. Luckily, I could F6 out and I re-spawned will both; Link and Zelda. Still, I think that you should fix this, as it was (and is) quite annoying to me and probably other players who find themselves in the same situation.

I did not finish the quest, nor do I have the attitude to continue playing it. But, from what I have seen from my experience and seeing a few people play the game, this is not a perfect score. The quest has too many graphical issues and gameplay glitches. So, using all this information, I would have to give this quest a 4.4/5; which rounds down to a 4/5.

Big Variety of dungeons, true engrish style and a another big variety of 8-Bit styled music.

From the best to the not the best pro:

- Music selection in dungeons
- Engrish translation (Hope that you did not do it accidently)
- Many ways of exploration
- AoL sound effects
- Lots of brain-teasing puzzles.

Cons:
- Heart beep sound and shield block sound from AoL seems to be missing.

This is by the way the best quest since Light of the Heavens and The Darkness Within by Russ and Crystal Crusade.

5/5

im writing this review before i complete the quest but im not sure when ill get to that and i feel this quest deserves a review even if i dont have time to finish the quest. there is so much love and attention put into this game, and it feels so much like what made me enjoy zelda in the first place. id like to see the people who ruined skyward sword look backward instead of forward. there are to many pros to list on this game so im not even going to try. the only complaints that i have are the weather system. (great idea, just could be distracting screen to screen.) and the amount of weapons. and i cant complain about them they were all thought out excellently and a joy to collect it was just that scrolling through them became tedious because there were some that were used extensively and others rarely, but that does not even begin to distract from the game. 5 out of 5 with out hesitation. you are very talented, keep at it.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if the NES Zelda 1 and 2 were to somehow create a love child? I never did, but this quest sure answers that hypothetical question.

To start with, I should say that the Panoply of Calathia has that intangible quality of being tough to stop playing. The gameplay is stimulating and gripping in a way that is highly indicative of an excellent quest. Few ZC quests achieve that IMO. The huge amount of puzzles within, while requiring creative thinking to solve, are not bewildering or perplexing. That is to say you will need good problem solving skills to solve the puzzles throughout. Expect to cycle through your panopoly of items over and over again looking for a solution to apparent dead ends. At no time should one necessarilly have to go looking for help online because a puzzle is so esoteric or arbitrarily mysterious. The few times I was legitimately confused, the documentation in the support pack bailed me out.

On the other hand, this quest tosses in everything, including the kitchen sink, when it comes to scripts, items, and other elements from various Zelda games. I know the description says there is a panopoly of items, but I think there are way too many items. Many (like the superball shooter just to name one) would not be missed if they were not there. The excess of mostly useless items slows down puzzle solving and makes L-R switching pretty tiresome by the late-game stage. The EX3 autofire feature was pretty ineffective and distracting IMO. Sideview combat with ironknuckles-type enemies is pretty bad to be honest - not at all like in Zelda 2 - and its hard to get hits in the upper body and impossible for leg hits because Link can't croutch. Fighting these enemies is thus sort of a button-mash without real strategy. Also worth noting is that there are A LOT of possible ways to get stuck in walls or blocks via item trickery, but also via the raft in what should be normal travel. I found myself using F6-continue far more often in this quest than normal. Some of these things noticably detract from the overall experience, but not too far beyond just ordinary nitpicks.

Overall, without spoiling much, just believe that this quest captures the spirit I felt playing Zelda 1 and 2 back in the 80s when those games were new and fresh. While there are a noticable amount of features that don't work as well as they could, these don't detract too much from the overall gameplay. I haven't played any of the extra gameplay modes yet, so can't comment as to whether those detract from the overall experience. I spent about 33 hours beginning to end to collect about 99% of stuff. I would probably give this quest a 4.2/5 if it were a standalone Zelda game, which it could almost be considering the obvious time and effort poured in, but I rated it a 5 because it truly is excellent in terms of ZC quests. There are few other ZC quests of this quality.