This quest is quite a mixed bag of frustration and immersive, compelling gameplay. Fortunately, while there were enough good themes and execution to keep me coming back to play until the end, there is a sad degree of lacking in refinement and polishing to keep this quest from being truly great. I'm going to lay down my feelings here in a simple pro-con format:

Pros:

- There are a ton of sidequests from beginning to end. This creates an excellent pacing between advancing from one dungeon and event to another.

- Related to the variety of sidesquests - the player can become very powerful relatively early on by taking the initiative to do sidequests. Spoiler because there are some issues that can ruin the difficulty scale if a challenge is what you play for:


- Dungeon design is clever, cohesive, and never too gimmicky. The custom bosses are all well crafted and bug free.

Cons:

- My biggest gripe here is that I felt the dialogue, writing - independent of plot - and character developement was incredibly unpolished and hamfisted. I get that English might not be the author's native language, or if there was no proofreading or what, but the script was downright embarrassing at times to go through for the degree of simple errors. The script of this quest is in desperate need of an editor. The protagonists, antagonists, and other characters overall came across as one-dimensional, corny, "Muahaha-type" evil-doers versus confused good guys. Add in plenty of deus ex machinas as well, and you get something that just doesn't amount to good writing. Being that this is billed as a story-driven quest, the story is inexplicably lacking in refinement compared to the rest of the quest, and that drags the quest down a lot.

- As Moosh mentions, warps, traps, and damage tiles are so overly sensitive that it gets very frustrating at times. Some obvious instances that come to mind are dodging the "eye traps" in the "glory base," and the "skull traps" in sector 4 of level 7. However, dodging traps in general was a big pain throughout the quest and this is one of those quests where it's obvious the author loves spikes and other damage tiles. Maybe consider spacing these obstacles out given the sensitive combo point that Moosh brings up.

- The author likes using barriers in later parts of the quest that require items you found much earlier. I guess that this is intended to avoid the impression that said items are still relevant later on, but ultimately, result in a whole lot of L-R or start-menu cycling in the later levels.

One final point I will bring up, and this is more of a neutral I guess, is that I actually took notes when playing this quest. That is because the plethora of side quests, caves, and barriers one finds are often impossible to complete without items found later. If you're the type who has a bad memory like me, take notes while playing this.


I can tell that there was a ton of effort poured in to crafting the Glory Squad, but unfortunately, some simple things like editing and design philosophy weigh down what could otherwise be a 5-star quest. I would objectively give this quest a 3.5 rating, but I am compelled to go with a 4, because I appreciate the effort poured in - and there haven't been many quests released in recent years with this kind of effort - but also because the quest was a very good gameplay experience in spite of the cons.

I had a blast playing through this quest. While a little rough around the edges at times, it brings something to the table that I haven't really seen much in ZC in some time: an immersive story experience. There's a downright scary level of effort that went into some of the cutscenes and events in this quest I can tell. The story gets quite silly at times, but I didn't get the sense that it took itself too seriously, so the goof factor served to improve it. The overworld and dungeons as well I had quite a good time with. The dungeons are some of the more inventive ones I've seen in a while, and once again very impressive for the tools you had to work with. I think my favorite was Warlock's Tower. It was a multi state dungeon, but it was multi state done in an interesting way. Plus there was the Nietzsche reference, which had me rolling with slightly confused laughter. Close second would be Level 3 or Level 7.

But there are some rough edges, and they did bring down the experience at bit by the end. One common problem I had was block puzzle fatigue. In most mid to late game dungeons there'd be at least one block puzzle where I'd walk into the room and just think ugh because I'd solved so many already. Another issue I ran into was the dreaded ZC feature that is sensitive combos. There were a couple rooms, one area in level 7 in particular that stands out, where warps or damage combos would be sensitive and these parts I found quite frustrating. But the biggest problem towards the end I think was the dungeons got a bit too lengthy and the enemies a bit too difficult. Beyond level 7 I had a real rough time because late game enemies deal so much damage and the red ring item, which I didn't find until basically the final boss, was hidden behind a difficult enemy gauntlet. Much as I hate to say, by the end of the quest I ended up resorting to cheats to get by.

In conclusion, despite the problems I had towards the end, this is still a great quest and I'm glad I played it. This is a solid 4/5 and I'm looking forward to your next project.

I really appreciate this quest and his mystery adventure. I do notice you used a non scripted shutters and put a secret trigger when you defeat an enemy or solve a puzzle. May i suggest that you can also uses the Simple Shutters scripts i did post in the script detabase ? I'm sure that'll be more like oracle games so you'll not have to use always the permanent secrets triggers. But it's up to you 5/5 for me.

Did you fix this, or why don't you warn people here?

NOTE: Do not F6 in cutscenes. The reason for this is because I use a lot of string control codes. You will break the quest if you do.

So, I might be just totally blind, but I can't seem to find the boss key in the forest dungeon. I got to the sign that says To bomb where the arrows point Except that could apply to pretty much every room, and nothing I've tried seems to work. I've spent countless bombs trying to figure this out at this point, and this quest is so new that I can't just look up a walkthrough. And I don't wanna wait until someone streams it cause I'm enjoying it waaaay too much, so I'm hoping someone here can lend some advice.

Hot damn, I'll have to give this a shot. I got a lot on my plate, so I probably won't get around to it until after the new year, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Timezones may ruse us, but mark my words, this quest is a genuine Christmas release in our hearts. That's what really counts!

(Also looks pretty cool, looking forward to playing it sometime)