May 2008 - SwanSong

SwanSong
(Reviewed by bobrocks)
Score:**** 4 Stars out of 5

Disclaimer: I did not completely finish this quest in the time alloted. I was able to play up to level 6 but hit a roadblock, and, this close to Tuesday (11:26 PM here), there was no time to ask and wait for a reply. Please keep this in mind.

Gameplay- 8/10. Nothing special. Some unique things for the time that I'll mention later, but gameplay-wise, it was a typical Zelda game.

General Design- 9/10. Very nice quest. A general arrangement of various islands along with a long mountain range to the north. Good concept, especially for the time.

Overworld Design- 9/10. Again, very nice.

Dungeon Design- 9/10. Nicely done. The dungeons kept the same feel of the overworld.

Music- 7/10. While the tunes themselves were not the problem necessarily, it was the fact that most of the music started off very sharp and loud and usually stayed as such throughout the song. Other than that, the tunes weren't just from Zelda games. They had some nice variety.

Storyline- 3/10. There wasn't much in the way of story, just your basic save the world type Zelda game with next to none further story development in-game.

Graphics- 10/10. For the day and age of this quest, the graphics are stunning. Tons of sprites are completely custom such as torches, bushes, cattails, butterflies fluttering over leaves, etc. and several other things. Simply gorgeous for an older quest.

Bosses- 5/10. Not custom, but the rooms occasionally had a twist and the graphics were always custom.

Misc./Uniqueness- 9/10. This quest had several things in it that I haven't ever seen before or yet in ZC. There was a small 'map house' as well as a map screen connected to the title screen- they showed you the entire overworld for the game in a nice map. In the dungeons the passive subscreen told you what items you would receive in the dungeon as well as what additional items you might need other than items from the other dungeons. There were, however, some minor annoyances (that may have been because this quest was built in 1.92 b183) such as no select-button map that showed where you'd been on the overworld. The good definitely outweighed the bad however.

Overall- 79/100. **** Stars out of 5

This is a very good quest made by Freedom, a veteran here at ZC. I would definitely try it.

Wow, nice review. I think you have just given me reason to play this quest.

I have begun to send respective authors word that their quests have received the Gemstone award, and I'll continue to do this. Just thought it would be nice for the authors, especially ones that don't visit here very often anymore(Mr. Z hasn't logged in for about a year now), to get some word that one of their older works won an award.

Yes the map unable is annoying but in the 192/183 you had no other choise or zelda would crash by using it twice , so you can't take points away for things like that .
It's kinda hard to write reviews of older quests with what you know right now , in those days nobody had custom bosses , now they think you only can make a good quest if you have custom bosses :scared:
and to be quiet honest give me a good old boss that I know how to deal with then some of the new ones that already kill you before you even saw it and you have to kill it time over time before it really is killed .
Hope you still will finish the quest Bobrocks ..........see you at the end ;)

I now the feeling with older things and I'm sure that if I reviewed it back then, it's score would likely be higher.

I need help in the dungeon I'm in though. I'm sure I'll eventually figure it out however...

you can always ask for help here or look here
There are already a lot of answers you can find there ;)

Hey, isn't the poll for the next one supposed to have started already? I'm going out of town soon, and won't have time to play it, so maybe we should just pick a nomination I've already played.