Legend of Zelda: Lost Isle

To start off I need to give myself some credibility. I'm 23 years old and am an oldschool gamer. I've played and 100% beaten Zelda 1, Zelda 2, Links Awakening(DX as well), A Link to the Past, Oracle of Ages, Oracle of Seasons, Ocarina of Time, Majoras Mask, Minish Cap, Four Sword(GBA), Four Sword Adventures(Gamecube), Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword. I HAVEN'T played Links Crossbow Training, or any of the three NDS titles since I don't own a DS. I don't count the CDI games so forget them. I am not explicitly a Zelda fan, but I have enjoyed them, some much more or less than others. I do play modern games, especially Halo since I did modding in Halo Custom Edition way back when(I'm not stuck in the past is my point).

Anyway, on to the review though.

As of writing this I haven't beaten the game yet, but I'm at 13 heart containers out of 16, most of the items, all magic upgrades, all bomb upgrades, got the death sword, and just entered plague fortress. I think I'm close enough to do a review.

Difficulty and Gameplay: 9.5/10
One thing of note is that the older games had a much higher difficulty for various reasons; higher enemy damage, more obscure puzzles, no slashing attack(zelda 1), more complex enemy behavior(looking at you darknuts). I honestly can't go back to the original Zelda 1 and have a good time anymore, partially because of this. But today's games are too easy; you have 4 bits of health per heart instead of 2 AND can carry a higher maximum of health, most damage is only 1/4 a heart but god forbid it goes to a whole 2 hearts, puzzles are much simpler(many of them anyway, how was I supposed to know to jump in what looks like a bottomless pit of death in Ganon's maze in Wind Waker, IT GOES AGAINST WHAT I'VE BEEN TAUGHT), and you can carry so many fairies and potions that you'll never die unless you just really suck.

The difficulty in this game is just about spot on though. There are times where I will stop playing a ZC quest because of bullcrap like unavoidable huge amounts of damage or long tedious pathwalks that are very easy to screw up. There was none of that here. The difficulty level is pretty high, but very fair. As long as I'm careful, attentive, and get all the powerups I feel I don't worry about dying except at a boss. I have beaten OoT doing a 3 heart no fairy run, I have beaten Links Awakening with no damage(if hit I turned the gameboy off and reloaded my save), but I have 3 accumulated deaths so far in playing Lost Isle, though all were because I was careless and had already done too much to lose in a restart.

The learning curve and difficulty are also very well planned out. The magic shields and potions are given in a good quantity, not too many not too little. I've already used about 3 potions and lost 3 shields. The shields were, again, because I was a little careless and had invested too much time for a restart. The heart pieces are slightly generously shown I think, but I honestly think that was done intentionally to encourage even the most light of exploring.

As far as exploring goes there's a lot of it to do. There's over 2x as much map as the original Zelda with lots of secrets to find and quite a few side dungeons. All of the dungeons are pretty large as well. There may be only be 6 main dungeons, but each one is at least 2x as big as a Zelda 1 dungeon, usually as big or even bigger than ALTTP dungeons.

The dungeon layouts and designs are also something that I love. They're each unique with their own feel and idea to them. I have thoroughly enjoyed the theme of every dungeon I've been in so far and I'm thinking I'll like Plague Fortress. The puzzles range in difficulty from easy to super difficult, but there is a pretty nice bell curve in the distribution of them. I did have trouble at the arrow/sword switch in the dark side of the second level just before the boss key. I shot it, but didn't realize I had to alternate between shoot and slash. I was stuck there for hours. Speaking of hours I've racked up over 20 hours so far and that's only including times where I didn't die and reset.

Graphics: 10/10
This is another reason I won't be able to return to the original Zelda, the graphics are too dated. Today they look like construction paper to me and I can't stand some of the contrasting colors in some of the levels(Ganon's bright red, black, and grey dungeon for example). This game not only has beautifully detailed graphics with pleasing color palettes, but even goes a step further with animated cutscenes(something I've only seen very little of in other quests and usually done poorly). Many of the enemies feel like they were just made for specific areas of the game(looking at you deathbos), which is something that really helps flesh out the personality of those areas. I did feel that link looked slightly bland, but it's hard to really give his tiny sprite much detail without making it too busy and complicated looking, so I can easily ignore it.

SFX and Music: 10/10
Man, the music in the Oderra Catacombs had me so tense during the playthrough which I think is what allowed me to focus on NOT LETTING ANYTHING TOUCH ME(Which is why I didn't die in there and took minimal damage). The music is quite varied, is custom made for each area(from what I can tell), and is incredibly fitting. There are times where I think a certain track should've been made quieter or louder, resulting in me using my controllers right analog stick's horizontal for music volume and vertical for sfx volume control. The music is high quality midi, doesn't sound repetitious, doesn't get boring, and most importantly isn't annoying. I feel like there were a few tunes snagged from some other games I've played, but I can't put my finger on them.

Story: 9.5/10
My only complaint is that some of the things said by the shadow creature could've been worded to sound more menacing and deserving of the status I feel he has. I'm most certainly not a good writer, but I can be severely put off by crappy narrative, dialogue, and story. I refuse to play most fangames because of this right here. This game's dialogue and narration are used in the right amount so as to be enjoyable, but not overstay their visit and become a chore to go through.(The intro sailing cutscene should be skippable though). Link narrating his thoughts upon entering a new area is a nice touch, especially since it's just a touch and not a full blown "LETS MAKE LINK SAY LOTS OF STUFF". As far as the actual story, I can say I'm genuinely interested in it. That's a hard thing to get me to say about fangames. I've quit playing the Quest "Isle of the Winds" because it just wasn't interesting after a certain point. Maybe I'll pick it up later, but maybe not.


All in all this is an outstanding game and every bit worthy of being held up there alongside other great 2D Zelda games like ALTTP, Links Awakening, Oracle of Ages/Seasons. Really looking forward to the ending and I'll update this review if I can when I get there. The only other Zelda Classic Quest I can compare this to in quality is Link to Tortuga, though that one has a lot more difficult puzzles that require intense Zelda puzzle cliche knowledge like headbanging.