Souls of Wisdom 2: Darkness Within

Beta Discussion is for discussing Zelda Classic betas (and ZC's development), not quests in beta. Beta quests go in Quest Announcements/Discussion, just like finished quests. Sorry if the forum descriptions were a bit unclear!

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Oh! I understand now. Sorry, I should have paid more attention.

Sounds great, can't wait to hear about it.

Still waiting for this great idea to be completed... :sonar:

Keep looking at the top of this page as I will be updating with more information. I will also being working on this project more extensively soon too, so keep an eye out for new updates.

Hope there's something good for the post-game part, similar to SoW's Temple of Cole....

...just please don't make any Super Like-Likes; I don't like Like-Likes... and Supers are worse x.x

Blademaster_Kuro wrote:Hope there's something good for the post-game part, similar to SoW's Temple of Cole....

...just please don't make any Super Like-Likes; I don't like Like-Likes... and Supers are worse x.x

All the enemies from the Temple of Cole will reappear, and this game will have a Temple of Cole. But it will actually be more difficult to find. No invisible mazes this time though.

NewJourneysFire wrote:All the enemies from the Temple of Cole will reappear, and this game will have a Temple of Cole. But it will actually be more difficult to find. No invisible mazes this time though.

...crap. Expecting a high death toll once I find the Super Monsters... x.x

Completed the first draft layout of South Faron. Also imported two maps from SoW1 for editing, the SoW1 world will be remastered for the revisiting sequence.

Spoilers

Current Objective that will soon be available: After the tragedy at the Temple of Time, Rash blames Link for the attack against Princess Zelda. Link and Rash battle, where it appears Rash is the victor, however, when Link awakens he finds it is Rash that is passed out, for no apparent cause. Link looks down at the six crystals in his hand that he just received in the Temple of Time. Almost as if it were telling Link to head East into a mysterious forest.

North Faron: North Faron is the location of The Temple of Time where Zelda resides. Link will also encounter his old nemesis here. Also, most of North Faron seems to be blocked from the rest of Hyrule. There are also rumors of pirates in the area, and a secret hidden palace located deep within a forest.

South Faron: Rash awakens, and word gets out. In South Faron, Link discovers that not only monsters are out to get him, but civilians who have heard Rash's story and believe Link to be evil. Link must find ways to avoid harm while also avoiding causing harm. To make matters worse, Link confronts 5 eccentric egotistical assassins who are Rash's personal loyal protectors. The leader, is said to be as powerful as Rash. South Faron is known for it's mountainous and swampy terrain. Link will have to find the palace, fend off the assassins and escape Faron alive, but Link is about to again an unexpected ally.

North Eldin: Link returns to familiar territory but is surprised to find new inhabitants, some friendly, some not so friendly. The monsters that have invaded these mountains are incredibly tough, but with the help of an incredibly powerful ally, Link is able to blast through all opposition with ease.

South Eldin: Link's home world, the world he saved from Ganon and the Undead Deity. Link decides to return to Hyrule Castle to report Zelda's tragic fate, and to ask for directions.

SoW2 will feature not one, but three types of bosses.

Standard Bosses: not standard as in Aquamentus & Gleeok kinda standard. Many boss will be mildly custom using the enemy editor. Standard bosses means that they appear at te end of a level, just like most Zelda games.

Big Bosses: Because this game adapts the Zelda 2 universe, the six palaces and their guardians make an appearance. But the palaces will no be the standard level. They will often come after beating a level, or before a new level. They are the 6 main bosses in Zelda 2 redone.

Story Bosses: They are pretty much random encounter bosses, probably the toughest of them all because many of these encounters forces you to evade the enemy that is more powerful than you are. Two examples being Rash and The Undead Deity.

Here are some images.

Looking good Cole. Those screen are quite tasty looking. You know I didn't see that you put these image's on your Topic over at PureZC...
You know you could update both of you topics here and on PureZC, that would get your game a lot more attention.

Thanks for the advice, but I'm not interested in getting the game more attention than it already has, it will sell itself. But I am interesting in using this game to get a bit more attention over to this site. Sounds conceded I know, but I absolutely don't mean it in a conceded way. When I realized AGN needed help, I decided to give a helping hand, and this was how I decided to approach it. I will continue to post updates here, as a promised.

I may continue to visit purezc to keep communication up with some members there, and perhaps link my updates to here, it might not be the most ideal decision for boosting popularity for this quest, but like I said, I am confident enough in this quest so far that it'll do fine either way.

NewJourneysFire wrote:Thanks for the advice, but I'm not interested in getting the game more attention than it already has, it will sell itself. But I am interesting in using this game to get a bit more attention over to this site. Sounds conceded I know, but I absolutely don't mean it in a conceded way. When I realized AGN needed help, I decided to give a helping hand, and this was how I decided to approach it. I will continue to post updates here, as a promised.

I would love to see this place in its former glory 😊

NewJourneysFire wrote:
I may continue to visit purezc to keep communication up with some members there, and perhaps link my updates to here, it might not be the most ideal decision for boosting popularity for this quest, but like I said, I am confident enough in this quest so far that it'll do fine either way.

Just to show people that I am making some recent progress, here are some half complete screens. I am kinda embarrassed to show what my 1st draft material looks like. But this is an interesting none of the less.

The ships is supposed to be level 3, currently it looks like garbage, and that's where I suffered my quest designer's block and took a break from the quest for several months. There is something very frustrating about designing this level that I can't wrap my fingers around. Ideally I want to make it a sneak level where Link avoids pirate stalfos, but eventually gets all his items back and kicks ass.

You may also notice the Zelda 2 like maps coming out, but also lack alot of accuracy. That's fine, because what's really important to know is that, this is not Zelda 2, it's Souls of Wisdom 2, and my series survives on creating new games built off the likeness of the old, it's not supposed to be accurate, but very similar, that's what Souls of Wisdom really is.

The last two will look like a fucked up mess, but if you look closely through the fucked up mess, you'll notice that it's part of the overworld of the Original Souls of Wisdom. I am having a chapter in my quest where Link revisits the overworld from SOW 1, because it is this game's version of the Eldin province.

Once I redraw the entire thing, I'm going to remaster the entire overworld of Eldin with a brand new look that's fitting for the SOW 2 graphics pack. I am also thinking in the future that I may import the entire SOW1 overworld into SOW2, but not for playable reasons. I am considering making a new file in the long future where the COMPLETE overworld is all available and linked together, but with no story, and call it World of SOW. It's purpose is to let any quest designer make a game using all the overworlds of SOW1 and SOW2 based on this new design.

South Faron improving. 😊

Yo, Grant Cole! Just thought i'd post a few major errors i found in your demo that you posted in PureZC. I mean, it IS a beta, so i thought i'd do this much to help you out in making such an awesome quest!

In this image, you can actually get STUCK, and you gotta F6 as a result if you don't follow the Undead Deity fast enough.

In this image, i'm sure you're not supposed to be able to move anywhere outside of the darkened area while chasing down the UD...

In this image, i arrived to that following screen from the left, and went down, then came back up, only to get stuck, meaning i had to F6 to get out of it.

Just thought i'd point these few errors i discovered so far in your demo. But other than that, this is even BETTER than the first SoW. My goodness, i had TONS of fun. Alas, with this demo, i'm not yet finished, for i have no idea on how to get the boss key.

Edit: I'm an idiot... didn't think to use that electric whip thingie on one of them statues... Well in any case, HOLY CRAP RASH WAS TOUGH. Anyway, I'm guessing the demo is done now that I defeated him, since there's practically nothing else to do.

The secret to open the door is located elsewhere in the dungeon. Try using electricity on different things.

Yeah... actually, i already figured it out after actually paying attention to the gossip stone/block.

Haha, fun. Anyway, I'm guessing the demo's done now that i defeated Rash, huh?

Pretty much, all is left to it is shopping and testing the level up system. Right now my largest focus is creating the overworld, than new betas will be released with story and dungeon progression.

1st draft of North Lanayru

Haha, alright. Also, i have a question!

Will you be having custom sound effects for this game or will you stick with the usuals?

Preferably I wanna make this game as custom as possible, for many reasons. When I made Souls of Wisdom, I built that game around the knowledge of the program, but there were things I wouldn't touch, such as custom sounds. Even freeform combos were never used in Souls of Wisdom.

Souls of Wisdom 2 on the other hand will include freeform combos, as you can tell with the cutscenes. But also scripts are included. I wanna test, try, and play with every feature Zquest has to offer in one way or another when building this quest. So expect to hear custom sounds eventually.

Souls of Wisdom 2 promises a whole new story dynamic not too often seen in many Zelda quests, or Zelda in general. Level 1 and Level 2 will set the main story arc. But afterwords, every level will feature it's own unique side story that doesn't dwell into the main story, but instead provide mini stories much like episodes. The object for most levels are to beat the main boss of each story, given each main boss a story of it's own. The big bosses mostly won't have their own story as they simply act as palace guardians.

After Link manages to escape the Temple of Time, he hears about the Stalfos Pirates invading North Faron who are extra curious abound plundering the North East Palace of Papara. Link ventures to investigate the area, but is captured by the pirates. Link must explore the mass amount of Pirate ships which become the 3rd level, than defeat the Pirate Leader. After defeating the Pirate Leader, he swears he will help Link on his journey only if he can defeat the Palace monster Horse Head who's been preventing his Pirates access to the Palace. After Link enters the palace, and solves the Palace Riddle, he defeats Horse Head and returns the crystal to the Palace, allowing the pirates access to the palace. You will meet the Pirates much later in the game, and the captain holds true to his word by blasting through the defenses of Ganon's fortress and allowing Link access to Ganon's Headquarters.

After Link defeats Horse Head, he ventures through a hidden path to South Faron. But little did he know, he has been followed since Rash's defeat in the Temple of Time. As soon as Link enters South Faron. Five Assassin's introduce themselves, who collectively have Rash's powers separately. While Rash is ill, they swore revenge on who's responsible. The Assassin's are named in tribute of SOW fans. The leader of the Assassins, Davis, is said to be as powerful as Rash himself and holds all Rash's abilities. Throughout all of level 4 you face each assassin one by one, but eventually encounter Davis who easily defeats you and knocks you out. You wake up in a magic torture spell you cannot escape. Davis continues to torture you for supposed crimes until a mysterious character saves you from defeat. The mysterious character tells you that Davis is in fact not as tough as Rash, and you are more than capable of defeating him. After defeating Davis, you gain access to this regions palace and defeat it's guardian.

After defeating the 2nd guardian, everybody in Faron discovers the accusation against you as an enemy of Hyrule. You and your mysterious new friend both most escape Faron without harming the villagers that are chasing you. You eventually use a flight spell which returns you to your home world Eldin.

There are much more story arcs from here. But I don't like creating huge spoilers. So I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

Woooooooooooooooow, all of that sounds EPIC!

My gosh, with that much planned, i can imagine how long it'd take to implement all of that into the game >_<

I'm stoked for the game, but i know it takes a lot of time to implement gallons of epic like that into the game, i'm sure. 😛
Keep up the good work, man!

Thank you.

And yes, making this quest will be a long journey. But the good news is that I don't commit myself to large quests such as these unless I am certain it will be epic. Even Shattered Courage can't be ignored. Even though it ban use a rebuild, as it is my first genuine quest and includes many noobish flaws.

Souls of Wisdom offered players a rich world full of eye pleasing locations. Every area on the map gave a different feel that no quest has made before. Simply enough it was a very colorful quest, from a Light World, to a Dark World, to an even darker forest and an even darker mountain. Not to mention the graveyards. Than there was a Fire and Ice mountain.

I wants to create that same magic again, but fell a little short on ideas for that out of this world feeling. You see, I don't want Link just exploring a sunny grassy field, it borders too cliche, and that same goes for snowy mountains. Now mind you, I will have grassy fields and snowy mountains despite the cliche, nothing wrong with cliche. But I like to explore things that aren't quite explored that much.

But as time goes by, it no longer becomes a dilemma.

- On an island, north east of Lanayru, what used to be called maze island because its distinguishable labyrinth like terrain built by the ancients, a huge factory was built in it's place by Ganon's army. Though most of the labyrinth's remains no longer exist, you can still see some of the ancient stone walls surrounding the huge factory. Though in Zelda days, a factory aint quite as advanced as we have today of course, but you'll be awed at how far Ganon's army has evolved in regards of weapons and technology, and the potential of Hylian culture. The most futuristic looking area in Zelda, all runned by Moblins and Hylians who has turned against their own country.

- With the eradication of the Dark World, Hyrule Mountains regained its former title as Death Mountain, in respect of the Gorons who would not return until their Mountains was returned to them. Now Goron filled and snow covers the whole peak now. However, the dark world did not disappear without leaving some fragments of itself within Hyrule. Mysteriously, Ganon's Castle, almost as if by pieces have been left within the Light World as a reminder to the Hylians of what Ganon was capable of. Theory is, perhaps Ganon took ruins of the Castle with him by pure coincidence when his spirit escaped into the light world. Some say, that even his ashes were retrieved on top of Death Mountain in the Light World, even though Ganon was defeated in the Dark World. Whatever the case, the entire mountain region has been reformed by fragments of what was Ganon's Castle. Not to mention that the aura of the area presents a shining mystical, eerie, but yet beautiful glow, as if to say never forget the battle that happened in the Evil Realm upon these mountains.

- South Lanayru will have a time aspect to it. Several times in the game you venture into the past in this beautiful ancient village. But when you finally reach South Lanayru, you'll find yourself in a desert full of ashes. What was once a beautiful forest now sets under snowy volcano ash, all vegetation in this area gone extinct, and the cold grey eerie feeling can send chills through anybody's bones. As you journey this land of ashes, you unlock the mysteries of what happened here. But it is not easy, as the enemies down this way are much more powerful, due to them having to adapt to such intolerable conditions.

- Nabaroo is a huge city which was built in honor of Yedit the great hero. What was once a small village where Yedit grew up, has now become a huge marketplace for shoppers and businessmen, and perhaps Hyrule's most powerful domain, even more powerful and more advanced than Eldin's Hyrule Castle village Karkariko. Rumors say that once Yedit returns, Nabaroo plans to build a new, more spectacular Hyrule Castle for the Princess and her father, leaving Eldin's Castle behind as a historical monument, and perhaps rebuild it as a church for prayer. Nabaroo is simply such an overwelming city as it covers most of the province of Lanayru.

- In East Faron, there is a huge graveyard managed by just one man named Dampe'. Good fellow at heart, always been known to lead people who are lost out of the graveyard, and it seems the ghosts and monsters do not torment him, which makes people feel safe. They say located deep in these graveyards is a Hyrule Castle from ancient times and deep within the castle houses enough treasure to start a brand new nation. But only Dampe knows the location of the castle they now call King's Tomb. You'll be awed by the combination of a creepy haunted theme mixed with the sparkling beauty of shiny rupee ores and gold.

Stupid question I assume, but do you have an ETA for completion? This is probably going to be the first quest I play all the way through for ZC.

The ETA for completion unfortunately, to make it exactly the kind of job I wanna make it, will not be for another year, maybe even 2 years. Though I got 60% of the overworld completed, and i reckon it'll be up to 80% in a few weeks. I still want to spend alot of my time in discovery and depth, searching for ideas that fit. Not only do I wanna continue my strengths, I wanna work on some weaknesses too.

So I'm constantly searching for puzzle ideas, themes, or even new ideas to the storyline. But as for the storyline, 95% of the storyline is in my head. Revealing it would lead to alot of spoilers that I do not wanna reveal other than the spoilers I already have.

The story will focus primarily around Link, Rash, Yedit, the Undead Deity and Ganon's army. Zelda and Ganon will actually have minor roles in this quest, but still be present for important reasons.