[5th Quest Entry] Nethis

Hello everyone! Here is a link to my submission:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/7b.../Nethis5th.zip

Thanks to the community for sponsoring the Official Fifth Quest Contest. I've had so much fun making this. I missed the deadline for the Fourth Quest way back when. I only found out about this one two weeks ago! I've played around with Zelda Classic since 2.10, but this is the only custom quest to date that I have seen through to completion. I hope that means more are on the way. :)

Please feel free to post any bugs, comments, or questions here. The quest is unpassworded, but I urge you to explore and solve puzzles the old-fashioned way. That's part of the fun!

Thanks again, and enjoy!

Hey man, I played through as far as I could go. There was a grave I could push but nothing was beneath it. I beat levels 1, 2 and 4, couldn't find 3 and got mostly through 7 until I needed the bow/arrows. Same with 6. I apparently need the ladder in level 5 and there was a portion of 2 that I couldn't get to because of the ladder. I found the white/magic sword the blue ring shop and two heart containers but couldn't find the bracelet.

The levels seemed pretty fun, but the difficultly ramped dramatically from room to room. I skipped a bunch of locked doors by bombing everywhere, but I can't find level 3 or 8 so I'm done for now. Your quest seems a little cruel for my taste, but more hardcore players will enjoy it.

PnW

Thanks for taking a look! I had only a week to smooth out the difficulty. I know some rooms need work and a few more hints will be put in. I really appreciate the feedback.

...

And here it is! Version 1.01 has been uploaded. Make sure to check out the info shops (and other places) as new clues are available. I'll be looking at the dungeons next to see where the difficulty is just too much.

Voting is now open for this quest. Vote for as many categories as you please, but be sure to vote before tax day!

Also, please post in this thread stating which categories you selected and explaining why you picked those categories.

Just played this for a little tonight. Found levels 2,3, 6, bracelet, letter, 2 HCs and white sword all before finally finding Level 1 (and feeling dumb for missing it). Completed the first 3 levels.. gotta say it's a little scary seeing some of the similarities between my own quest and this one (level 1 and 3 items, returning later to old levels with the ladder), but I guess great minds think alike right :)

Only complaint so far is that it seems pretty easy in terms of combat, though then again I did find a bunch of stuff early. Hopefully the later levels will be more challenging, but overall the dungeons are pretty solid. A bit on the short side, but I know you intended them that way to keep in line with the 3 maps of the original.

One bug I found, this should probably be a cave entrance and not stairs.
Attachment 109

Found another HC, beat level 6, then found 4 and then finished 5. Now searching for Level 7 and the Magic Sword. Found 8 and 9.

One design choice people might find frustrating: Level 5 boss is a Digdogger, but we don't get the Whistle until Level 6...

Ruined my 0 game run as I died 8 times in Level 7 so far, at least now I've finally found the Magic Sword O_o

Attachment 112
In this room the Lanmola carries a key, but the room gives a key when they are both defeated, so you end up getting two keys at once.

You got some statue rooms that are not firing in 1 and 2.

Heading to 8.

Another bug: Your ladders like where you're going to like Lv. 5 of the 1st Quest don't slow walk.
Bug 2: 2 screens west of the corner I think is a stair instead of a cave.

-James

OK, I finished.

Your score Nethis:

Difficulty: 30/100
I one-gamed it. While it might be harder than the 2nd Quest, it's still easy. Ridiculously easy. People will munch on it for breakfast. Your ideas of smaller dungeons didn't work out well.

NES Authenticity: 99/100
Almost perfect here. High marks.

Fun Factor: 50/100
I was really disappointed with the creativity of this quest. I didn't see any type of new enemy pattern or anything new in general. Rope Like-Likes were done by someone else in the contest, your Stalfos weren't anything special, and Moldorms, they're candle bait. The only thing this quest really had going for it was the puzzle in 9, and even that got dry when I got lost. This was an exercise in using the enemy editor and making new, inventive stuff that could work on the NES. You failed this, miserably. There was nothing to raise my eyebrow at, at all.

Overall: 59.67/100. I really can't consider this passable as a 5th Quest, I'm sorry. You took no chances in your development of this, and I have played harder direct Zelda 1 clones that place the enemies better and in more cruel positions. Worse, this quiest is possibly speed-runnable as well, which this quest should not be under any circumstance or without a tremendous amount of difficulty. While it's not the easiest quest on the lot of these, it ranks with them.

FATAL ERROR!

In Level 7, there's a room with 2 Lamnolas and traps. Upon killing both the creatures to retrieve a key, the game crashes.

Not sure if this happens with anyone else, but it's unacceptable.


EDIT: just read the post above; obviously, I'm not alone.

Well, won't be a big deal to just avoid that room and buy another key. Still, not good.

Just finished this quest. My thoughts.

I, for one, don't mind smaller dungeons. That you were able to squeeze in all 9 Levels in only two DMs, while maintaining a semblance of a good picture [Level 3 notwithstanding], was nice. The flip side, of course, was the relative ease of the dungeons ... at least in the early going.

'Strange Staircases' (in Levels 7 and 9, in particular) are not to my taste. In fact,

Spoiler: show

I missed the Wand completely, because it didn't occur to me to go back through the passageway I just came out of to find it.

Admittedly, you did warn of such in that level, so players do need to be mindful. Not sure if it's fun, though, having to channel one's OCDism to double-check every passageway. (Actually, there's a room in Level 9 with a big rectangle of blocks that has a passageway. If you start down that passageway but then turn around, you end up IN that rectangle, and cannot leave without restarting.)

The difficulty in terms of monsters was light: I did 'zero-game' this quest. The puzzles in Level 9, though, were superb! The red ring, in particular, was placed very deviously. (Not sure I like having to fumble around in the dark, so far as the Map was concerned. Very easy to get lost in there, especially with all the crazy staircases around.)

You must lose points for the 'fatal error' I encountered in Level 7 (mentioned earlier), and there were some other typos here and there. Still, I enjoyed playing through this one.

I can't see this making the final cut, but it's still a solid quest. Well done.

Just finished this one. No much to say that hasn't been said above, but here are my bullet points:
The dungeons were (with one exception - level 9) very easy. As Nightmare said, this is probably on a part with the second quest in difficulty.
Having to level jump is a serious no-no. I have no problem with sections of a dungeon being inaccessible until finishing a later dungeon, but the triforce piece should be obtainable using only tools from the current and earlier dungeons. So, the stuff in levels 2 and 3 are fine, but the whistle in 6 to finish 5 is not. If I hadn't looked here to see if I had missed something, I might not have even finished the quest, thinking it was broken!
The lanmola problem mentioned above happens if 2 keys are supposed to be present at the same time; If you grab the one being carried by the lanmolas before killing them both off, then you get both keys and everything is fine (I'm pretty certain I got 2 keys from the room).

Dungeon level 9 is where the big problems I have occurred. There are too many rooms with tons of rope-likes. This gets very annoying very fast. As I have said on a few other quests, an interesting challenge is good the first time or two, but not the huge number of times you have to complete (and, often, recomplete) the same rooms. After getting tripped up by various things the 3rd time (in particular coming up a stairway to appear ADJACENT to a rope-like was NOT fun), I started simply hitting retry each time I lost my shield, rather than having to gather yet another 90 rupies to replace it. The dungeon seemed to have complexity for complexities' sake,with large numbers of paths leading to the entrance again. Since getting caught by rope-likes is effectively a restart (with all the wizrobes, I wouldn't recommend continuing without a magic shield, and if you leave the dungeon, of course, all the monsters reset), this caused the level to have a very high frustration factor for me. Getting trapped in room 50 didn't help this any.

Anyway, there were some high points as well in the map. The clues for some hidden items were well done, and though small, the dungeons were generally well done. It was just a little too easy for a 5th quest.
My overall rating is still a very respectable 3.42 out of 5.