I'm the hugest BB series fan(probably), so I can say BB universe is really interesting, excting, and mesmerizing for me, although has a lot of problems.
I believe Eight Powers idea itself is an amazing tresure, and much better than so beautiful jem. Nature, Strength, Religion, Civilization, Construction(machine), and Virtue, etc.
Consideration for Eight Powers was my good delectation. I miss CastChaos left making quest but belive he did great works.
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Ballad of a Bloodline Deluxe
Overview
Feature Quest
Creator: Twilight Knight , CastChaos Genre: Story-driven Added: 14 Nov 2018 Updated: 27 Jun 2020 ZC Version: 2.50.2 Downloads: 1251 Rating[?]: |
Download Quest (9.15 MB) |
Information
The deluxe version of my favorite quest, Ballad of a Bloodline by CastChaos. The focus was on adding 2.5 elements (it was originally for 2.10), making the quest smoother, adding a few new areas and items, in other words: polishing what in my opinion is a gemstone.
About Reviews Comments Forum Topics
Description
First and foremost I'd like to make clear that this is NOT a remake. For some reason people assume that it is, but it isn't and I never claimed it is a remake. Please refer to the "Deluxe content" list on what to expect, just to prevent disappoints.
The quest is a story about a young couple from Hyrule who are on the hunt for adventure. And adventure they get, certainly much more than they wished for.
You can find the original quest description here: https://www.purezc.n...e=quests&id=229
Original Content:
The quest is a story about a young couple from Hyrule who are on the hunt for adventure. And adventure they get, certainly much more than they wished for.
You can find the original quest description here: https://www.purezc.n...e=quests&id=229
Original Content:
- Altogether about 8 full overworld maps
- 12 mandatory big dungeons
- 8 optional subdungeons
- 1 mandatory minidungeon
- 3 secret dungeons
- 1 small and 2 big sidequests
- 13 custom bosses not counting the final boss
- 3 main endings and some secret ones
- All 2.10 items used
- Big plot twists
- Many custom enemy and item tiles
- Cameos from games and of PureZC members
- New secret dungeon
- New minidungeon, in which you play as Myra
- 3 new, but small, overworlds
- 2.5 FFC bosses (almost no scripts)
- 2.5 strings
- Some utility scripts added, for a smoother experience
- Improved palettes
- Improved design
- Improved graphics
- Fixed commonly regarded misusage of tiles
- More hints on major directions
- More people to talk with
- Hard to find secrets improved (especially the mandatory ones)
- 2020-06-27: can use items on edge of screen; fixed a soft lock; and (slight) visibility improvements in Mt. Deadend
- 2020-06-18: enemies drop more magic; visibility improvements in Steaming Systems; various other fixes
- Some updates that I didn't log...
Story
There was a perfect period of complete peace in Hyrule, ended by a horrible war that never wanted to cease. Then came the Hero with the Sword and banished the darkness back to another world. Ever since, adventuring is forbidden to avoid such conflicts.
However, approximately 16 years ago, strange things started to happen including an otherwordly storm, a riot at the castle, hiring of Darknuts, yellow triangles flying through the air and isolation of the royal family...
Today there are two youngsters whose desire to escape the tyrannical oppression in Hyrule and its adventure forbidding rule. Their names are Knil & Myra.
This their story...
This is their ballad...
However, approximately 16 years ago, strange things started to happen including an otherwordly storm, a riot at the castle, hiring of Darknuts, yellow triangles flying through the air and isolation of the royal family...
Today there are two youngsters whose desire to escape the tyrannical oppression in Hyrule and its adventure forbidding rule. Their names are Knil & Myra.
This their story...
This is their ballad...
Tips & Cheats
You need to scavenge hunt for some items before being able to get even near the first dungeon.
Pay attention to the conversation that takes place while getting the wooden boomerang, it sums up where the first 3 dungeons are.
At Mt.Death, you'd better see the Gorons (south) before going to the second dungeon.
If you get stuck in Lost Woods, pay attention for an oddly coloured bush.
Later dungeons, that are accessed only once, don't have heart container pieces or comeback heart container pieces and their subdungeons are outside of them.
Listen well to the Happy Mask Salesman whenever you find him.
Use the Lens of Truth of a lot? Be sure to visit the area north of Hyrule Field!
Pay attention to the conversation that takes place while getting the wooden boomerang, it sums up where the first 3 dungeons are.
At Mt.Death, you'd better see the Gorons (south) before going to the second dungeon.
If you get stuck in Lost Woods, pay attention for an oddly coloured bush.
Later dungeons, that are accessed only once, don't have heart container pieces or comeback heart container pieces and their subdungeons are outside of them.
Listen well to the Happy Mask Salesman whenever you find him.
Use the Lens of Truth of a lot? Be sure to visit the area north of Hyrule Field!
Credits
Sorry if some of the names are by now incorrect. Please send me a PM if so, I'll fix it.
Tileset:
Radien (DoR/2.0), Wild Bill (Pure), Mr.Z (PTUX), Orion (ALttP set), Xavier (CoD), NoeL (TNA, Prophecies), Migokalle (Old Lufia set), Peteo (MMDWR set)
Title screen:
Anthus (background), Sludge (Triforce)
Loose tiles:
Sharon Daniel, NoeL, Radien, king-n, xXVolvagiaXx, Shadow Tiger, Revfan9, Prince MSC, Jonathan, The Shyguy Kingdom, Akkabus, Echo, Taco Chopper, Pheonix, Ricky of Kokiri, Master Maniac, blaman, beefster
Music:
Nuvo, VGmusic
Scripts:
Joe123 for the NPC script
Other works:
HttD tileset
Those who beta tested BB:
rocksfan13, Nuvo, Schwa, Sephiroth, Nine Lives, Zeldd, Ricky of Kokiri, jerome, Lord Ike
Those who beta tested BBDX:
Stray Sheep, judasrising, vaualbus, Zolias, CastChaos
Special Thanks:
Nuvo: music, story ideas
rocksfan13: taught one timed events
Must give credit to:
Origin Systems and Richard Garriot; Capcom and Keiji Inafune; Squaresoft; and if we are already at companies: NINTENDO
And YOU for playing.
Tileset:
Radien (DoR/2.0), Wild Bill (Pure), Mr.Z (PTUX), Orion (ALttP set), Xavier (CoD), NoeL (TNA, Prophecies), Migokalle (Old Lufia set), Peteo (MMDWR set)
Title screen:
Anthus (background), Sludge (Triforce)
Loose tiles:
Sharon Daniel, NoeL, Radien, king-n, xXVolvagiaXx, Shadow Tiger, Revfan9, Prince MSC, Jonathan, The Shyguy Kingdom, Akkabus, Echo, Taco Chopper, Pheonix, Ricky of Kokiri, Master Maniac, blaman, beefster
Music:
Nuvo, VGmusic
Scripts:
Joe123 for the NPC script
Other works:
HttD tileset
Those who beta tested BB:
rocksfan13, Nuvo, Schwa, Sephiroth, Nine Lives, Zeldd, Ricky of Kokiri, jerome, Lord Ike
Those who beta tested BBDX:
Stray Sheep, judasrising, vaualbus, Zolias, CastChaos
Special Thanks:
Nuvo: music, story ideas
rocksfan13: taught one timed events
Must give credit to:
Origin Systems and Richard Garriot; Capcom and Keiji Inafune; Squaresoft; and if we are already at companies: NINTENDO
And YOU for playing.
Useless Old Man Wisdom
Edited 07 December 2018 - 05:03 PM
I recall playing BoaB back in 2009-ish when the quest was still pretty new, so my recollection of the original is pretty foggy. What I can say is that, as I found out while replaying Hero of Dreams and some other classic 1.92/2.10 quests in recent years, is that, in many ways, these older quests have not aged well. Maybe we, as players, have all been spoiled by some of the great, seemless 2.5 quests in more recent years. Maybe those old classic quests were just really clunky and "meh" in a way we just never realized at the time, because we didn't know any better. Whatever the case, it certainly is a worthwhile goal to update a classic quest to the more modern experience and gameplay of 2.5 standards.
I do like the subscreen updates in this DX version, and as a whole, overworld screens and maps look much better than originally; but these changes are pretty subtle and, as far as I can tell, the only noticeable changes in this DX version that jump out at me. A simple but important improvement I can think of is that BoaB DX now has 8-way movement, which is a very nice thing considering the large amount of damage tiles and other obstacles made 4-way movement in BoaB a real pain at times. One important point I didn't see Russ bring up is that, while playing through, especially in those hybrid overworld dungeons with many entrances, is that it's a complete crapshoot where the player is going to respawn after saving or F6-continuing. I can't recall if that was a major problem in the original BoaB, but it is in this DX version. I quit in frustration many times when being forced with backtracking because my character respawned in an unpredictable place.
I understand why the plot is still very convoluted with "everything but the kitchen sink" seemingly thrown in, in terms of crossovers from other video games, because BoaB DX is afterall a fan reconstruction. I really can't forgive how the script is still a mess, in terms of grammar, proofreading, and needlessly-long dialogue strings, and honestly, it hurts my brain trying to follow along. The lens of truth is also still pretty much mandatory in BoaB DX, for why Russ mentioned, and you are going to be in a world of hurt
Those things said, I agree with Russ that BoaB DX fails in its purported mission to remake the original quest in much of any significant way. Russ' points are all valid and I also do not recognize enough changes in this DX version to call it more than an update/polish. If I were to go on the merits of the update alone, and how the update improves the original BoaB, I would rate the DX version a 2 as well. However, taking the quest as a whole, and what it is, and so as to not discourage new players who have never played BoaB, I will give this a 4. The good elements and gameplay from BoaB are still there and certainly worth experiencing if you never have played through, but be warned, there is still a whole lot of baggage throughout.
I do like the subscreen updates in this DX version, and as a whole, overworld screens and maps look much better than originally; but these changes are pretty subtle and, as far as I can tell, the only noticeable changes in this DX version that jump out at me. A simple but important improvement I can think of is that BoaB DX now has 8-way movement, which is a very nice thing considering the large amount of damage tiles and other obstacles made 4-way movement in BoaB a real pain at times. One important point I didn't see Russ bring up is that, while playing through, especially in those hybrid overworld dungeons with many entrances, is that it's a complete crapshoot where the player is going to respawn after saving or F6-continuing. I can't recall if that was a major problem in the original BoaB, but it is in this DX version. I quit in frustration many times when being forced with backtracking because my character respawned in an unpredictable place.
I understand why the plot is still very convoluted with "everything but the kitchen sink" seemingly thrown in, in terms of crossovers from other video games, because BoaB DX is afterall a fan reconstruction. I really can't forgive how the script is still a mess, in terms of grammar, proofreading, and needlessly-long dialogue strings, and honestly, it hurts my brain trying to follow along. The lens of truth is also still pretty much mandatory in BoaB DX, for why Russ mentioned, and you are going to be in a world of hurt
Spoiler
if you don't find that lens of truth before the one-way trip to the inverted world, because the lens isn't obtainable before a good 6-7 dungeons worth of play in the IW - barring possible bug exploit.
Those things said, I agree with Russ that BoaB DX fails in its purported mission to remake the original quest in much of any significant way. Russ' points are all valid and I also do not recognize enough changes in this DX version to call it more than an update/polish. If I were to go on the merits of the update alone, and how the update improves the original BoaB, I would rate the DX version a 2 as well. However, taking the quest as a whole, and what it is, and so as to not discourage new players who have never played BoaB, I will give this a 4. The good elements and gameplay from BoaB are still there and certainly worth experiencing if you never have played through, but be warned, there is still a whole lot of baggage throughout.
- Twilight Knight and CastChaos like this
Russ
Posted 02 December 2018 - 03:15 AM
I was pretty excited to see BoaB getting a DX version. While BoaB is hardly my favorite quest (far from it), it has lots of cool ideas. It always felt like, somewhere under the mess, there was a beautiful gem waiting to be revealed.
Unfortunately, BoaB DX is not that gem. While it advertises itself as fixing the problems of BoaB, the truth is that most of them are still here and still just as bad.
- The game still starts out slow and forces lots of money grinding. Money grinding continues to be a central theme of the quest.
- While a handful of secret triggers were fixed, you'll still be burning stones and hookshoting torches into oblivion and boomeranging hammer posts and generally trying every item you have on every random object until something happens. Better find that lens!
- While the text has been reorganized and now has better formatting, including text highlighting, and lots of text is now appended to NPC scripts, the writing is still mostly unchanged from CastChaos's broken English (with a few exceptions).
- Dungeon bosses are still embarrassing 2.10 messes. Some work has gone into cleaning up the presentation with FFCs and combo cycling, and while it is appreciated... it's still silly and outdated, much like colorizing a 1950s horror movie wouldn't improve the overall experience much. The final bosses, the worst offenders as far as bosses went in the original, are completely unchanged.
- Issues with overworld and dungeon navigation still remain.
- The plot is still a clusterf***, to put it nicely.
Now, there are a few improvements. Namely, some of the screen design has been touched up and a handful of new areas have been added. The loli material, for better or worse, is gone (and replaced with hilarious substitutions in one case). As mentioned, there's an NPC script which, combined with the reformatted strings, is nice.
But on the whole, very little has actually changed. This feels more like a minor update than a proper remake, and the original quest, flaws and all, is still proudly on display. The experience of playing through the quest felt more or less the same at the end of the day, and I can't really justify to myself giving it any higher a score as a result.
Unfortunately, BoaB DX is not that gem. While it advertises itself as fixing the problems of BoaB, the truth is that most of them are still here and still just as bad.
- The game still starts out slow and forces lots of money grinding. Money grinding continues to be a central theme of the quest.
- While a handful of secret triggers were fixed, you'll still be burning stones and hookshoting torches into oblivion and boomeranging hammer posts and generally trying every item you have on every random object until something happens. Better find that lens!
- While the text has been reorganized and now has better formatting, including text highlighting, and lots of text is now appended to NPC scripts, the writing is still mostly unchanged from CastChaos's broken English (with a few exceptions).
- Dungeon bosses are still embarrassing 2.10 messes. Some work has gone into cleaning up the presentation with FFCs and combo cycling, and while it is appreciated... it's still silly and outdated, much like colorizing a 1950s horror movie wouldn't improve the overall experience much. The final bosses, the worst offenders as far as bosses went in the original, are completely unchanged.
- Issues with overworld and dungeon navigation still remain.
- The plot is still a clusterf***, to put it nicely.
Now, there are a few improvements. Namely, some of the screen design has been touched up and a handful of new areas have been added. The loli material, for better or worse, is gone (and replaced with hilarious substitutions in one case). As mentioned, there's an NPC script which, combined with the reformatted strings, is nice.
But on the whole, very little has actually changed. This feels more like a minor update than a proper remake, and the original quest, flaws and all, is still proudly on display. The experience of playing through the quest felt more or less the same at the end of the day, and I can't really justify to myself giving it any higher a score as a result.
- Useless Old Man Wisdom and Twilight Knight like this
ZachAttack20192001
Posted 14 May 2020 - 02:10 AM
TwilightKnight, I played the original version and never got past Level 2 due to not finding a key. Played this version, and I beat it, I also didn't get the mirror shield... level 3 boomerang is broken XD. Can you give a hint to where the secret portal you mentioned is?
Colin
Posted 29 November 2018 - 10:57 PM
hoo boy! A blast from the past. Several of the songs I wrote have not aged too well...
Do me a favor and replace the midi used in the steam dungeon with this https://www.purezc.n...ge=music&id=468
The original steam midi has broken midi events which leads to some notes being sustained forever... and that's not good
While we're at it, 'blitzkrieg' in the last level should probably be replaced by https://www.purezc.n...ge=music&id=464
And "traps" which I believe is used in the oil dungeon was updated at some point https://www.purezc.n...ge=music&id=304
I am seriously considering polishing up the rest of the songs I wrote too.
Thanks for making this TK! And also CC for the original thing
Do me a favor and replace the midi used in the steam dungeon with this https://www.purezc.n...ge=music&id=468
The original steam midi has broken midi events which leads to some notes being sustained forever... and that's not good
While we're at it, 'blitzkrieg' in the last level should probably be replaced by https://www.purezc.n...ge=music&id=464
And "traps" which I believe is used in the oil dungeon was updated at some point https://www.purezc.n...ge=music&id=304
I am seriously considering polishing up the rest of the songs I wrote too.
Thanks for making this TK! And also CC for the original thing
- Twilight Knight likes this
Ballad of a Bloodline DX help threadStarted by Twilight Knight , 14 Nov 2018 |
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