I finished this quest a few days ago but haven't yet had time to properly review it. Below is my post-game review of this quest.
This quest does some things exceptionally well. I found the pacing of the beginning of the beginning of the game to be excellent. The difficulty of level 1 seems just right (I think it's appropriate to be 2nd-quest difficult), but if a player is struggling, it's possible to have the white sword before the level 1 boss (if you have the bracelet and the not-too-difficult-to-find message to "use the candle near the lakes"). That sort of optionality is great, and the pacing is great for a variety of player skill levels.
Level 2 is excellent. While there are blue darknuts, you're not required to kill all enemies in the most difficult rooms (the room with four shooting statues and four blue darknuts comes to mind). The script mentioned in the first post is a nice touch.
The "pick the bait or shield" merchant was a great idea. As I said previously, it's nice that it's actually a close decision, unlike choosing between the heart or potion.
The enemy editor is used very well. As the author previously described, most of the new enemies hit harder instead of having much higher defense.
During the end-game/late-game, I was very impressed with level 7. I would humbly propose that something akin to level 7 be included in whatever the winning quest entry is. Unless you dungeon-skip to acquire the magic key, you will most likely want to make a pen-and-paper map, which I think would be great for one of the fifth quest's dungeons. (At the same time, I can understand if making a paper map turns people off.) The dungeon item,, makes it possible to exist as a standalone dungeon, though of course it would need to be checked that it's impossible to sequence-break any subsequent levels.Spoiler: show
There are some aspects of this quest that may prevent it from winning.
I found the location of overworld secrets, especially the dungeon entrances, to be disappointingly easy to find. For late-game secrets, the entrances to levels 7, 8, and 9 were way too easy to find. I admit that my expectations may have been too high, given that the author's overworld was used for the 4th quest, deservedly so. For instance, I really liked where level 7 is hidden in the fourth quest; similarly, it would have been great to place a dungeon entrance (instead of a moblin) in the cave one screen east of where this quest's blue ring is located.
Getting the wand in level 6 is one of the explorative highlights of this quest (I was especially tickled by the nice re-use of "You are going the wrong way"). However, prior to fighting that dungeon's boss, it's possible to burn several keys on unnecessary locks (such as is possible in level 2 of the first quest). I suppose that since it's possible to map out much of the dungeon without using all of your keys, this could be seen as only a minor drawback. However, given how well level 7 works where there are just enough keys for its locks, I think the preceding dungeon needs to be just as tight with its keys and locks.
The last two dungeons unfortunately need some improvement. In level 8, it was very easy to reach the boss, and that put a bad taste in my mouth (of course, getting the triforce wasn't the end of that dungeon). The difficulty of enemies felt too easy, like a rehash of level 6 (perhaps use more of the black darknuts). Level 9 went too fast for me; while the difficulty is ok, I think it needs to be bigger (on the 8x8 grid, there are basically two whole columns that are unused). Having to backtrack after getting the silver arrow felt to be a chore rather than lengthening the exploration.
Overall, I think this quest is a solid contender. There are some features of this quest that are truly exceptional. Due to the easy overworld secrets and some gripes with late-game dungeons, I don't know if I see this quest winning it all. But I've played about 8-10 entries so far, and I could realistically see this quest finishing in the top 4 or top 5 if it doesn't win.
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