It's ashame that I get permastuck. Eddy, you are a great quest maker, but it seems like I can't finish it, unless I get a cheat to get out of the wall. Again, 3 out of 5 at this point.

I'm almost certainly in the vast minority here in that I have never played any of the official Zelda games that followed Link's Awakening. LA on the original game boy is the most modern one I have played. I never had a N64, GBA, and have just never had the motivation to play the roms on an emulator. I mention that because this Amy Rose 3 is supposedly heavily based on Oracle of Ages. I can't comment on how AR3 compares to OoA, so instead, I'll say that AR3 reminds me a lot of the ZC quest Flow of Time: the same time travel gimmick and execution of that gimmick, familiar screen design, dungeon dynamics, and high-degree of linearity. I liked FoT, so that's good. AR3 seems to branch out though with a storyline that I just couldn't get into. I guess I just don't "get" the love for the Sonic characters, even though I did play the Sonic games back in the Sega Genesis days. I had the same gripe with AR2, which I also played some years ago. The Sonic the Hedgehog obsession is just way over my head. That is to say that AR3 is a vast improvement over AR2, pretty much in all metrics - but especially in dungeon design.

With that out of the way, the main strength where AR3 excels is good old fashioned gameplay. By that I mean the overworld is easy to navigate, dungeons are very short and approachable - usually easy to beat in 10-30 minutes at the most - and the combat is very balanced for lack of any defensive upgrades. Exploration is rewarded and there are plenty of sidequests to do. The difficulty ranges from easy to mild with bosses in particular being between easy and "doable" to beat on the very first try - without knowing the quirks, attack patterns, or really needing to see the bosses a few times to form a strategy. There is little to no artificial difficulty built in, which is appreciated IMO. Like I said, AR3 does a lot of things right in terms of good, fair gameplay.

As far as gripes I have, besides not feeling the story, AR3 was too linear IMO with an over-reliance on MacGuffins to advance the game. This was especially a con in the chain of events between the end of level 7 and the beginning of level 8. During that part of AR3, in particular, I found myself groaning at the wild goose chase I was on. I have read about the GBA oracle games being quite linear as well, so that makes sense. I also felt there were too many "just because" obstacles in places like mushroom hill and the underwater areas that force the player to take the long way around, but perhaps there's a technical reason for that and making these screens more open would break something.

Overall, I feel like the gameplay dynamics kept me in this quest and kept my attention to the end, which deserves at least a 4. The storyline was "meh" for me, and I don't have a frame of reference to the official oracle games, so if those things resonate with you, you may very well throw down 5s for AR3. I got a good 11.5 hours out of AR3, including the post-game content.

This is indeed Eddy's best quest. Taking on a much different tone from the other Amy Rose quests, this quest focused on polishing a short and sweet experience rather than going on an epic journey that has had questionable polish.

Balance-wise, AR3's difficulty is very carefully balanced and tuned around what is available to the player (for the most part. I'll get to these exceptions in a little bit); the difficulty always curving up while never spiking or putting the player into outright unfair situations. The game is well-polished in general and most of my complaints about it are nitpicks at this point. Gone are the badly recoloured out-of-place Sonic Advance Sprites in cutscenes, being replaced with sprites that fit in with the setting. The story is much what you would expect from an sequel to Oracle of Ages, mixed with a little bit of Sonic fanfiction that didn't go over the top and the cutscenes are all nice and short.

The overworld in particular stands out for being easy to navigate while still feeling and expansive. Especially after factoring in the warp network you are rarely, if ever, far from any key location. The dungeons are overall solid though they, especially the early dungeons, could be refined to make them a lot more memorable and stack up better against the original versions of these dungeons from the Oracle games. You put a lot of cool and clever ideas to use, showing a lot of creativity using a mostly scriptless enemy and item cast.

Perhaps my biggest complaint about the quest is how there is no way to review your current objectives and it is easy to wind up getting lost at certain points if you forget where you need to go next. I found myself getting stuck on what to do going from Level 5 to 6 and especially after Level 7 where I spent a literal hour looking all over the overworld for where to go next. Having the Maku Tree review your current objective would be more than sufficient to fix this problem. My next biggest complaint has to do with a bunch of obscure or nonsensical triggers in the later half of the game, like the cutscene trigger to open the passage to underneath Angel Island and some of the triggers in Level 7. In the case of the Angel Island trigger; I'd recommend leaving that entrance to underneath Angel Island open because you would gain access to it at the same time you gain access to that story event and have the dialogue change slightly to reflect the possibility of doing that Angel Island segment first. For the Level 7 triggers; adding in more indication that they have been triggered would help.

Other suggestions I would make is to flesh out a lot of the bonus areas (especially Lynna Fort and Castle Sewers) out more; instead of being just long detours for Heart Pieces and/or for the trading sidequest, to tone down the number of enemies in Level 9 (especially with the Splitting Darknuts) to make fighting them a more viable option over skipping them where possible and to nerf the enemies that summon because they tend to summon way too fast and flood the screen with enemies before you can kill them.

Final score: 4.5/5. It is close to being a 5 from me; but it needs just a little bit more polish and fine-tuning (like addressing the complaints I have) to get a 5 from me

I just finished playing and I have to say, this is a pretty great quest. I found it had a bit of a rough start, I wasn't too invested for the first couple dungeons, but once I got into it I had a good time, even with crown dungeon...ech.

The quest has a lot of polish all around, I only ran into a couple of bugs and maybe one questionable design decision (some unclear secret triggers in level 7). The dungeon length felt perfect, and pacing on the whole was really good. Similarly the difficulty always felt right. It's rare to see a quest that doesn't use rings, but this one didn't and got it right. The story and cutscenes, compared to the previous two Amy Rose quests, are a noticeable improvement. The quest doesn't do anything too overly ambitious with them, but they're smooth and unintrusive this time. Gone are the days of the magic materializing Sonic Advance sprites. The music choices can be hit or miss, but when it hits you it hits hard. I was not prepared for those sick Sonic Mania beats. The worst cases music-wise are where the quest is just being faithful to the Oracle games.

The one thing that holds the quest back, I think, is the source material it uses. This quest is a sort of reimagining of Oracle of Ages with some Seasons mixed in, and as in most cases where a custom quest invites itself to comparison with an official licensed game, it just can't compete with the original. I mentioned the first couple dungeons are the weakest and this is also the cause of that. The early dungeons in the Oracle games were the weaker ones and on top of that, not all of the dungeon mechanics have been replicated in ZC. On the flip side, my absolute favorite point in the quest is probably the final dungeon which is fully original. I would've loved to see more like that.

On the whole this is a great quest if you're okay with some serious Oracle of Ages deja vu. I give it a 4/5.

Eddy finished AR3.
What? Eddy finished AR3?
WHAT??!??!

Well, he must have, because I just finished it. Yes. Cukeman finished AR3 too.

I played AR1 and AR2 in the weeks leading up to AR3's release (although no one knew if AR3 was going to be released or not TBH). AR1 and AR2 had some serious flaws, and were really painful to get through in some places, so I was hesitant to get started on this quest.

AR3 starts out as an Oracle of Ages clone, set some time after the events of that Game Boy Color classic, but as you continue playing, AR3 becomes less and less dependent upon Oracle of Ages, and becomes more and more of its own game, with new layouts, dungeons and areas (such as Mushroom Hill ).

So what do I think? I am surprised to say, I quickly started loving it! Great visuals, music, very nice dungeons that are interesting, but never get too long, hard or confusing. I couldn't put this game down, and I beat it in about 3 days. It took me about 9 and a half hours to get to the credits roll, and there is some content after that.

I really have to praise all the hard work, effort and careful, thoughtful design that went into this! There are some really creative enemies too, some of which are scripted. Dungeons have sensible layouts, don't take ages to retrace your steps (thanks to shortcuts and warps [sorely lacking in the previous two games]), and even the overworld is linked together through a tunnel system so you're never unbearably far from buying a potion or whatever (as long as you enter those red warps whenever you see them).

Story is what you'd expect from an 'OoA revisited' type game, but is presented much better than before and even has some hilarious charming NPCs here and there. There is definitely a lot to do in this game, and a lot of variety, and even some optional side quests.

Is it perfect? No, but it's really close!
By far my biggest complaint is the final dungeon before the Veran fight, and the complaint is that the enemies' attack power is definitely set too high. The strategy you'll want to use is to just jump across the room and flee to the next, because it's not worth the health drain to clear the room, and that's not good design (encouraging the player to clear the room by just skipping it). This was a big flaw in that dungeon, however it wasn't something that I encountered anywhere else. All the other dungeons seemed reasonable in that area. Just this one dungeon with bunches of overpowered enemies. This flaw made me consider dropping the rating a whole star, but there's so much excellence in this quest, I can't let this one dungeon tarnish my overall rating. My rating will just overlook this issue. Eddy just got carried away with this final dungeon.

There's also some key trolling in the last threeish dungeons, but it's thankfully absent for the first 75% of the quest, so it's not too bad. The key trolling was much more severe in the first two games, where you were forced to go back across the entire large enemy-laden dungeon just to get a final key.

However, I don't want to compare this quest to the first two. I don't even want to say this is part of that series, because this game is excellent, and the previous two are flawed (and sometimes outright painful).

Let's get off the topic of AR1 and 2 though, because this is an awesome quest, totally worth your time, and it even has some really fun and clever surprises I won't spoil.

A couple minor notes:
1) The Ice Boomerang was a really neat idea, and I would've liked to see it get more use. Maybe freeze some more lava falls to reach areas in the dungeon and overworld, and maybe even freeze some raging waters so you can cross, or freeze some oncoming obstacles in their tracks.
2) I did explore the entire sea before speaking with a character who lowered a post in the sea. The only reason I hadn't explored that one area was because I hadn't been asked to yet. The character didn't do anything story-wise to lower the post, it was just blocked off behind that dialogue. I question the logic of that choice.
3) I would've preferred the trading quest to take place during the main quest, rather than after. In a game like Link's Awakening, the overworld is smaller and it's easier to remember where you found characters asking for trades in each distinct little zone, AR3 doesn't have that "I immediately remember" factor, recalling where the traders are isn't second nature, especially after you've been distracted by the final dungeons and end boss. Still, it's just a small thing, they do give you hints on where to trade next, and I was able to remember close to half. Just food for thought.
EDIT: Oh, and it would help if the spikes in sideview screens were a full tile instead of half, you wonder why you're taking damage when they appear to be shorter than the combo.


For it's great fun, flavor, careful design, and quality, I have to rate this (to my surprise) 5 stars.

Question though.. Why, just why a Zelda game about Amy Rose? :/ i still don't get it.

https://www.youtube....tMDUYKhQO-WdDU oh my

AR3? brb, replaying the first 2.

AR4 finish Eddy.

OMG! Can it be??