[5th Quest Entry] BigJoe

[bigjoe]

Spoiler: show

if you remember, the shape of level 3 is a zol. That clue is meant to send you back to level 3 for the whistle. The raft is the dungeon item.

[justin1]

the "eyes" in level 4 don't help your clue. the whole time i was thinking, why is he calling this level shape a zol, does he not know what a zol is? would be a lot clearer if your level 4 shape didn't have eyes as well.

also, the level 4 boss room door locks behind you, forcing the player to exit the game if they don't have the whistle yet.


edit: through level 5. i enjoyed it a lot more than 4. the charging darknuts are the best new enemy i've seen in the contest so far.

[Zweldron]

Just finished this one, so without any ado, here's the lowdown. I have decided to just give a general review, rather than the point-by-point description in previous maps, but I will give my overall rating.

Overall the map was good. It had several clues to where to find things- although there are a few locations that I found during my normal overworld searches, for which I don't recall a hint- in particular dungeons 6,8, and 9 (although 6 is in a classic hidden spot, so that one is understandable). Dungeon 8, in particular was in the very last screen on the overworld that I gave a thorough check to (yes, I checked all 128 screens for every burnable bush [after getting the red candle], bombable wall, pushable object, and whistle) In the map's defense, it was on a screen that usually has something, just not in the usual location on the screen.
The music was very annoying (yes, I got the file in the zip), and so I quickly deleted the file so the game reverted to the ZQ-standard remix.
There were several locations in dungeon with pushable walls that didn't do anything- I found one in each of dungeons 5,7,8, and 9. This, of course, needs to be cleaned up if this map eventually wins the contest (but should be fixed regardless of the contest outcome!) Several twists in the dungeons are things which I saw in other contest maps (though I, of course, don't know if this is conincidence or not; they weren't too unusual), but they were not overused, which is always a plus to me.
The only real complaints from a difficulty standpoint is what others commented on earlier in this thread- several rooms with darkness, narrow paths, and like-likes in the later dungeons were very annoying (the darkness because you need to see the walls to avoid being overwhelmed; sometimes you don't have the time for that), and Ganon needing 16 hits is a bit much. He wasn't powered up, so as long as you have a potion (or full health entering the battle), the fight is long, but dull.

Overall there were a few problems, a few high points, mostly a decent, solid map. It earns a 3.07/5 from me.

[bigjoe]

Thanks for playing and for your feedback Zweldron. After hearing that the music was annoying from several different people I decided to revert it to zelda.nsf. Fixed a couple of bugs as well. Link will be in first post.

[bigjoe]

I finalized the bug fixes and added a new custom soundtrack. I hope I'm not stepping on any toes by doing this, but I practically designed my levels around having a custom soundtrack. The original score I made wasn't that good, so I went back to the drawing board and made a better one. I guess I'll revert it if anyone complains, but its not like I'm changing anything gameplay wise. As before, a different theme plays based on the enemy set and in Level 9.

Also, as a bonus, I'll name the shapes of the levels

1 - Hourglass
2 - Block
3 - Zol
4 - Horned Lizard
5 - Sword
6 - Grail
7 - Moon and star
8 - Cross
9 - Ghost

[CJC]

Looking forward to playing with the new soundtrack! I'm not running ZC lately but when I get back around to it this'll be my first stop.

[Coyotek4]

After starting this quest, then leaving Zelda for a while, then restarting this quest, I have completed this one.

Simply put: this is easily the most 'authentic' 5th quest I've played, and very well created. I actually liked the musical cues regarding the denizens of each dungeon (though I did have to adjust to the 'Nightmare Fuel' Darknut music. I did find a couple 'typos', but those can be fixed if this quest wins. And this quest has now jumped to the top of my list.

Not a whole lot of 'unique' ideas; all new creatures were basically off-color versions of existing creatures, and many ideas were used in other quests. But to me, that only adds to the authenticity; this quest doesn't need strange 'bells and whistles'. It is, in fact, solidly made, with a good ramping of difficulty.

Kudos!

[bigjoe]

Updated with link to original entry in compliance with contest rules.