It's Dangerous To Go AT ALL: Let's Play Zelda Classic

Thanks for everyone who joined in on the streaming fun today! Spoilers: I beat the game. But I'm busting up the long stream into four more episodes, so if you missed the stream, you're going to have to wait to see how it all turns out.

Or just go watch the uncut footage on my twitch page.


In this episode, Ganon has special guest hosts, discusses good game design, and gets trapped by bad game design.

Featuring the Internet's Brickroad and Nodal.

Spoilers from when I overslept and caught the end of all this:

Apparently, McClain succeeds in not using keys on all these doors except for the one he should. The rest all lead to a locked room full of blue wizrobes and statues that then dumps you back to the start with your key just wasted.

Level 9 everybody!

Haha wow oh man I was pretty out of it. Next time I'm invited to a stream I'll have to make sure to not do so much meth first.

You're supposed to share with the others.

That was some fun banter. I wish I'd gotten up earlier so I could join in on the real-time MST3k action.

In this episode, Ganon brings in some outside help, gets very lucky with his door selection, and encounters the most ridiculous worm yet.

Apparently me telling McClain that the dungeon is Link's face BLEW HIS MIND.

Actually the criteria for this particular contest is perfectly suited to a collab quest, because it dictates such strict limitations. It basically does an end run around the fiddly bits ZQuest can't individually combine. We can pretty much design our group project around ZC's import/export features and expect few complications.
The flipside of this is, if you want to build dungeons, you have to come up with the entire dungeon by yourself. The same is true for the Overworld; it should be handled by one author only.
All we really need is for someone to build a Dev Quest containing the intended rules, items, graphics and monsters, and then combine all contributions back into a single, finished quest.

We also need a list of our own rules to work by so we can keep the difficulty curve consistent.

In this episode, Ganon has a case of the Nodals, laughs at possessive sprite artists, and is trapped with 42 Wizrobes.

"I can see how this is objectively funny."

OBJECTIVELY NOTHING.

THAT THERE'S COMEDY GOLD.

this whole game is comedy gold
10/10 LP

BrickNod?

For what it's worth, there is one regular key in this dungeon, being visibly carried by a monster, in a room McClain would have found "early" on (like 20 rooms from where you start) if he hadn't just bought one on the way in.

The basic idea is to go as far as you can without a key, and then.... something?

... the room you are standing in will have a key in it, so you pick that up (and the red ring along the way), and then backtrack, and hopefully correctly guess which of the locked doors you pass leads to the magic key, before taking that and backtracking to the locked door that leads to like 5 more locked doors, and then Ganon.

It's still totally a horribly designed troll-y dungeon, but you don't need to go buy a key in a shop unless you guess wrong on a coin flip. Which, again, is a pretty big if.

Yeah, up until Level 9 the dungeon layout was actually pretty good. Like I said in the stream (not sure if it made the edits), this game followed a lot of the "Find a key, use a key" formula of modern games. The way that Level 9 completely betrays that design and the trust of the player is pretty unforgivable. Even if they added an old man who said something like "BUY KEYS TO MAKE PROGRESS" or something would have been better. Even almost clever.

Y'know I'd really be interested in seeing an LP of a good ZC game. Sure there's all kinds of bad ones where you can laugh out of schadenfreude, but to see one that uses the resources available with the engine correctly would be more entertaining and educational.

....Are there any out there? Like at all? (Aside from the random generator quest upthread which sounds time-consuming?)

I actually sincerely enjoyed the 3rd Quest here, and I'm told this Lost Isle thing is good, but from what I've played it's less "good" and more "something that took a lot of time and effort."

Like... hey, this is a very pretty island and everything, but maybe things that take off 3 hearts aren't something I should be fighting on the overworld while still trying to find the first dungeon.

I don't think there are any genuinely good quests. Everyone gushed over Lost Isle but it's really excruciatingly bad. The overworld and cave system are a poorly designed mess, so it's miserable to navigate on top of dumb monster placement everywhere. The dungeons are also gargantuan and full of terrible details like one way doors that don't show up on the map, so they're pretty painful too. No sense of flow at all, you just wander through a series of nonsensical mazes until things happen and you get to the poorly designed custom boss. Version 2.10 custom bosses. Damage floors are also extremely common. There's one area where the damage floor doesn't just hurt you; it drags you down into a cave and you have to start the area over. Of course that floor isn't static. It cycles continuously and you have to weave through it.

The quest I mentioned upthread (Link's Quest for the Hookshot 2) is something I have fun with, but I can't deny it has a lot of heinously aggravating segments. The insane things it does with the engine are a big part of its appeal. There's also an old one I like, Isle of the Winds. Very open overworld, and the dungeons aren't extremely bloated. That may be nostalgia talking, though, since it's the first custom ZC quest I played that didn't seem painfully bad. It also takes its music largely from Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3. I love those games' music.

The map was never great to begin with. It will only show doors that are open when you enter the room. It will not show bombed walls. It will not show sealed doors, even if unsealed. It will not show locked doors, even if unlocked. It will not show false walls. This was in NES Zelda, I think.

It's the penultimate episode, guys!


In this episode, Ganon asks for help from the future, is tormented by a respawning enemies, and is rooted against by his cohorts.

That video was amazing.

It really is the best climax for the series. The final video is satisfying, but I don't think anything can top getting tolled by the worm and Ganon in the same video. It helps (?) that the three of us were getting loopy as shit by then, hahaha

So tentatively planning on streaming tomorrow early afternoon. I'm going to jump into The Third Quest, either as the start of a new LP or as a bonus video if it's too bullshit.

An HP boosted Ganon? How unexpected. And by unexpected I mean par for the course.

Dat wirm!

Going to start a stream around 2 this afternoon.

Jesus fucking Christ, those videos.

And now, the thrilling conclusion!


In this episode, Ganon finally comes face to face with his own fears and conquers the world. Or something.


Thanks to everyone for watching! It was fun. I'll leave you guys with this screengrab:






Yep. That's my favorite HP-boosted stupid-long respawing black worm drawing a crude cock-and-balls at me. I think that pretty much sums up this quest and this LP!









I know I promised you guys I'd give the Third Quest a shot, and I did ... for about ten minutes on a stream this afternoon. I just don't think I have it in me right now. I'm a broken man. I'll upload my attempt as a bonus video in a day or two.

So the question is... what next for you McClain?

"No, no, Link is the hero of Hyrule. McClain didn't do SHIT."

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahaha