I was originally going to give this a 3 or 4 because it started off pretty well, but as the quest went on, things got pretty bad IMO and I couldn't enjoy the quest anymore.

To start off, it's a decent quest at best, it isn't that good, but it isn't that terrible either. There are some cool ideas here and there and most of the dungeons are designed well (except for the last two). The difficulty curve starts off pretty well, until the 2nd overworld where things skyrocket pretty badly and the difficulty gets all over the place. Screen design in the dungeons are your typical Z1-style, which is always nice to see. However there are several oddities I found. For one, this looks really weird. You should at least use a different kind of tile to show that you can walk on this, since it looks horribly inconsistent with the other water tiles around the screen. This also looks pretty odd. Note the block at the bottom of the room. Other than that, the overworld is pretty empty and bland. Even if you were going for Z1 design, you still could've spiced things up and make things look less open and empty by adding more mountains and bushes and things like that (just think of Z1's overworld).

Furthermore, there were several illogical design choices. Without the help thread, I would not have been able to finish this quest. The hints in game are too vague sometimes and don't help out at all. How was I supposed to know that you had to use the Wand on a random tile in the lake? Things like that make no sense and really aren't good design choices IMO. Same can be said for shooting random bushes with arrows and using the wand on random parts of a mountain to get into Level 7. There is also that dreadful forest maze in the 2nd overworld where you got to wander around forever and hope you can get out of the maze on the way to Level 8. And getting into Level 8 itself makes no sense. I enter a screen, go back up and all of a sudden I'm in Level 8. A dungeon entrance really would've been better there. I also must say that it is a very bad idea to place triggers right on the edges of screens. When I got the Letter, I managed to go past the stairs and got myself stuck here. Also what is up with the subscreen map? Link and the map don't align correctly at all. I'd suggest to use another minimap that has smaller squares instead of those rectangles.

I said earlier that most of the dungeons were pretty alright and nicely done, but Levels 8 and 9 are definitely where things get pretty bad. I noticed that maze rooms filled with blocks started to appear, where you gotta find out which blocks you can pass through and which ones you can't pass through. They were a little irritating but not too bad. However, this is pretty terrible, and was horrible to get through. The gimmicks of Levels 8 and 9 were interesting, but were executed very poorly. In Level 8, you had to wonder around and find the correct path or else you get sent right back to the start. Alright, this wasn't TOO much of a big deal, but it really gets frustrating when you get near the end of Level 8 and you accidentally take the wrong turn, pushing you all the way back to the start. That was a bad idea IMO. Level 9 suffered the same problem, especially when you get to the 4 stairs before Ganon. Take the wrong one and back to the start you go. That was also really bad.

Overall, it was a decent quest at best, but had a lot of problems and issues. I eventually couldn't enjoy the quest that much anymore because of the illogical design choices and the gimmicks of the last two dungeons. I'll give the quest a 1.5/5, which rounds up to a 2. Don't feel discouraged by this review though, I don't mean to sound harsh or whatever, but this is how I felt about the quest. I hope you'll consider some of the stuff I've mentioned and good luck in your next quest.

Let me preface this by saying that I like classic tileset quests; they have a certain simplicity that I appreciate. So, when I saw a new classic-style quest, and it was called a "Simple" Quest, I knew I had to try it. In short, I was not disappointed.

Things I liked about this quest include how the difficulty was tuned very well (for me at least - finished with 2 deaths, which is about average for me.) What was interesting to me was the "inversion" in where the higher difficulty really happens. In the original LOZ, the overworld enemies are generally weaker than the dungeon enemies (especially later in the game). For much of A Simple Quest, this is flipped upside-down, and in the second half of the game, you'll be running for your life out in the open. I quite enjoyed this change, and it would have been a bit easier for me if I had found the potion letter earlier in the game. A small caveat with this quest was that the huge overworld is nice, but some of the screens/areas felt a bit empty or barren, and there were too many places where I felt like I was being punished for exploring. (There are multiple door-repair guys that charge 100 rupees or more. Why?)

The dungeons are reminiscent of the original LOZ style dungeons, but with a twist here or there, often involving creative uses of warps and items. For the most part, dungeon exploring was not too frustrating, and due to the point I stated before, the enemies usually did not overwhelm you. The later levels were quite "interesting" to explore.

The big caveat with this quest, and the reason for a loss of 1 star, is the "randomness" that happens occasionally. Sometimes the player will be expected to use a specific item in a specific location, without any visual indicator on the screen for it. The ways that these items are used may be quite "unorthodox" for veteran Zelda players. Kind of like how you wouldn't expect to burn a block or bomb a bush - we expect it to happen the other way, right? In a few of these situations, there are clues provided by old men in caves/dungeons, but these clues are usually too vague or cryptic to be of real help. Sometimes there are no clues (at least none that I had found) at all. Had I not gotten "external help" to get through these spots, it could have been quite frustrating and even game ending. I like exploring, and I like creatively using items, but I do not like being expected to try random combinations of things on various screens and praying that something works. My suggestion to the quest author would be to include visual indicators somehow (even if they are subtle), or to make the clues more specific/useful.

With these caveats aside, if you like classic style quests, you should definitely give this a shot. It was a lot of fun and a decent length quest, following the typical 8 triforce levels + Level 9 format. I will definitely look forward to the next game released by this questmaker.

Coolies! Reminds me of my "Lost Levels" project. Nice overworld, good dungeons, a true classic. I wish I could enhance this one with my modifications like I did with the classic two Zelda quests for the NES. ^^