And now a review from me, my very first one.

I recalled beating this quest sometime in 2016 and liking it but I have recently replayed it and time has not been kind or considerate to this quest. My experiences with this is one is a mixed bag. I love the atmosphere and subtle story-telling going on this quest and some of the puzzles are brilliant and somewhat charming, while others are insanely frustrating and counter-intuitive. A couple bits of useful notes for Future!Me and anyone else playing or replaying this quest

• The tier 3 Wallet is in the Temple of Knowledge. Once you get to the room with the Magic book (which is cleverly hidden behind a set of bookshelf tops in the upper right you can walk through), use the lens of truth on the bookshelves to the right to reveal a pushable wall. This one stumped me consistently on both my original playthrough and my recent revisitation of this quest.
• Check the waterfalls on every screen you can reach one on foot. The HCP Shop is hidden behind a Waterfall in the Shallow Forest.
• For TwilightPrince123's benefit, I suggest going all the way through the Garden Ruins to change the time in the Ceramic Forest to night, Which will cause the old man guarding the gate to fall asleep. Push up against the old man to get a boss key and head north. The crypt on the small island north of the sleeping old man will contain the slash upgrade.

As I was alluding to, Time has not been kind to this quest. There a quite a few instances of frustrating and counter-intuitive scenarios in this quest as my advice to future quest players illustrates. I especially hate the endgame pre-final dungeon for a frustrating and panic inducing element it chose to include in the end where you have to solve push block puzzles quickly while under constant assault by tornado shooters, get hit once and back to the start of the pre-final dungeon which has a series of rooms where you are required to kill all the enemies to progress and normally this wouldn't be a problem except AtrusW0nder thought that throwing a few death knights and mirrorrobes in there would be a good idea, it ends up becoming a battle of attrition and that is what ultimately broke me and utterly killed my desire to complete my second playthrough of this quest.

There's a part of me that still wants to like this quest for what it gets right but I cannot in good faith overlook it's flaws, I will have to rate this quest a 3 out of 5.

Finished this quest a while ago and just gotta say that this quest feels fairly balanced until near the end but still enjoyable, design is great and game play is awesome! overall this is probably one of my most favorite quests ever!

Edit: Seven years later I've come back to this quest considering how fond I was of it at the time, this quest still absolutely holds up to this day, little to no handholding paired with several worlds and sub-worlds that all feel like a collective dungeon, there are a few gimmicks at certain points that definitely felt a little unusual at times, but hey every quest has those, if anyone in this community is still active or anyone who pitched in on creating this gem, just know you made a wonderful childhood memory for me seven years ago and I will forever appreciate this.

Here is another quest I have just now gotten to playing.

I'll come out and say that I couldn't find the store that supposedly sells heart pieces, so I only made it to 6 hearts of health very early in the quest and stayed there until the very end. This unintentional low-health run made things challenging, whereas I think if I was able to stock up to maximum health, the quest would have been too easy. Only the various rings and purple mail made it possible to finish the final level with 6 hearts.

I'm not sure what other new points I can raise that haven't already bern brought up, so I'll just address some already said.

Yes, the flow of this quest is unusual (as is the plot), but that's mainly due to the large amount of backtracking required. However, at least in this new version of the quest, I found I wasn't backtracking for keys like others. Instead, I was backtracking mainly to deplete my full wallet. My wallet was often full because this quest throws a lot of rupees at you and, as I said, I never found the HCP shop. I also found that after early in the game, I didn't actually need to buy keys because the dungeons had the keys for all of their locked doors. I also agree that this quest isn't very open-ended as it claims and there is a forced progression more or less.

Some things I liked were the book animations and accompanying cutscenes, custom enemies, and screen design. The quest is imaginative and was unconventional (due to low health) in my playthrough and took about 10 hours.

I just finished the game, so I figured I'd rate this.

Some people may find the back and forth between dungeons to be annoying, and while I admit it can be a bit tedious, this quest seems to make it work The difficulty spike is also fairly strong with this, where while it's not impossible (I mean, I managed to finish it, and I'm definitely a mediocre ZC player, so yeah... it's doable), it WILL be punishing to the unprepared. The difficulty spike at the end really jumps, but it's also nothing you haven't seen before, so it's still manageable.

The flow is whack, but that's actually what makes the quest fun. Entering a dungeon, finding something you can use, leaving to another area, only to come back later when you're stronger and have more gear adds to the image of re-exploring a dungeon, in a way, making it fresher by having more stuff available per dungeon (3-4 items, for example, that you can't get in one sitting), while facing stronger foes the deeper you go into the dungeon.

TIPS FOR NEW PLAYERS:

Make sure to explore the Old Grotto the first chance you get; it's the preliminary dungeon that explains functions of the tools like the compass (it's not what you think), and gives a useful inventory item for an upcoming area.

After every dungeon or two, farm rupees to get more life; otherwise the quest WILL punish you severely. Also farm rupees for at least 2 hearts, if not more, in the early game, so you've got some survivability.

Do as much as you can with the Thieves' Guild as early as you can!!! I can't stress this enough: the tools you get are amazingly useful!!!

Finally, if you need help, post in the comments section; I'm sure Atrus will get back to you, or look through the comments to find an answer (especially through mine, since I think I needed the most help lol)


MY RATING

My experiences (as well as my mistakes, and a few things that could be considered mistakes with the quest itself, as few as there are), I have to give it a 4.3 (rounded down): Not THE best, but definitely within the top 10 Definitely would play again.

I'm not good at reviews, but I'll give it a go.

One of the best I've played in awhile. The reason being is that it focuses very highly on exploration. It reminds me a lot of Metroid, or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, in needing to go back and forth with certain items to make further progress. In light of that, it helps to remember where you've been, and what item you needed so you can go back when you've found said item. The item design and scripting was done rather well too. I like how it focuses on you using the arrows and bombs more to handle situations. It feels much more like a survival type game. Even the Link sprite was uniquely drawn.

Music and graphics were well chosen. The story was good too. Nice ending too...foreshadowing a possible sequel? I like the idea of the guilds. It added a unique element for side quests, that net you some really good items. I also enjoyed the hidden bonus dungeon, though it got really tricky on the very end. The direction of the game on where you should go isn't very clear, but its not too difficult if you remember where you've been and what items you were lacking. Buying keys as a requirement was interesting, though a bit tedious. More backtracking than necessary, but thankfully money is easy to obtain. Buying Heart Pieces is a unique idea too, and very forgiving. The dungeons and battles to get difficult at times.

All in all,I give it a 5. I love exploration, and this approaches that in a very unique way. Its very different from most quests I play. I look forward to seeing a sequel. I'm going to give this quest another go. I haven't played a bit, and I want to try it again since now I have a good idea on how to play through it. I see this being one I will be replaying on occasion. Thanks for the great game, Atrus.

Where can i find the final sword for myst isle?

Where is the 3rd wallet?

From what i have played of this quest so far is awesome it has lots of exploration and challenge to it, and i love these kinds of quests, good job making this Atrus.

I been playing this quest for a bit and I got the green and blue relics, as well as a few other things. Right now I can't afford the Whistle and I would like some info on either finding another wealth medal or the next wallet upgrade. Likewise I would like to know where to look for the other two relics and the red ring.

Do you still have the link for the old Myst quest? I beaten the new one and trying to beat the old one but I am running into a bug in the dungeon where you supposedly get the mirror. One of the rooms I try to enter and I get trapped because the game won't "walk" me into the room. Instead it traps me outside on the wall. I did find the big key.