Link's Quest for the Hookshot 2: Quest is a Zelda Classic quest made by Moosh (no, not that one, though he does appear in it). After the events of the first Link's Quest for the Hookshot, Link and Zelda are transported to the mysterious land of Quest, Zelda is kidnapped once again, and all of Link's equipment is stolen and pawned off by a strange old man. Link must now collect Moral Compasses from each of the seven Deadly Sins; only then can he defeat a new enemy known only as Sin. But not all is as it seems...
The quest is best described as both an Homage to the Zelda Classic community and an Affectionate Parody of many entries in the original franchise. It also boasts countless new mechanics and a uniquely effective sense of humor. Download it here
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This game provides examples of:
- 100% Completion: Clearing the main story, obtaining every prize from every bonus dungeon, and solving the riddle presented in Level 8 allows you to open the cliffside door in Moonshade and fight Autimecia. Clearing that earns you the Darkmatter Fedora.
- Affectionate Parody:
- The quest as a whole is one of the original franchise, primarily the top-down installments.
- Near the end of the quest, you can buy a 3-dose potion called the Russ Potion (Russ being another Zelda Classic quest developer). The potion's description mentions a "great man" having once said that the best way to address imbalanced difficulty is to "give [players] a crapton of potions. Except [the great man] never actually said that."
- And I Must Scream:
- Poek has been driven insane by not being able to die.
- The Seven were the heroes of legend, but their souls were warped by Sin into the Deadly Sins. Their "shambling husks" are what you fight in various bonus dungeons.
- Body Horror:
- Everything about Sin. At first, he resembles the skin and organs of a human torso, with a bone-like face near the bottom, but his final form is all of the Deadly Sins fused into one massive ball of flesh, a la Romancing SaGa 2.
- When you enter Sperg Space for the first time, Satan meets you there, welcomes you to his secret cave... and then his face melts out of his robe. Only somewhat mitigated by the reveal that he was a corpse being used as a physical body the whole time by Autimecia, who did that just to scare you.
- Boss Rush: Subverted. There is a Boss Rush location, but it only pits you against previously fought bosses one at a time (and defeating them earns you an amount of Rupees dependent on the boss).
- The Cameo:
- Each member of The Seven corresponds to a particular member of the Zelda Classic community, the seventh being Moosh himself.
- Thwomp and Genocide Heart appear as bosses.
- Cast from Money: One of the LPer weapons.
- Critical Status Buff: The Salt Knuckle increases in power as you take damage, but the only ways it can decrease in power are if you die, save, lose the weapon, or activate its Limit Break.
- Easy-Mode Mockery: The original Level 7 allowed you to choose between an easy and a hard dungeon layout. Choosing the easy one would result in this. Can still be seen if you play in Legacy Mode.
- Eldritch Abomination: Sin/Poek.
- Fedora of Asskicking: Autimecia's trademark.
- Having a Blast: The green Wizzrobes' only attack is a massive explosion centred on them that heavily damages everything else in range (other than other green Wizzrobes).
- Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: Very Easy, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Anarchy. With the exception of Anarchy (see
Nintendo Hard below), they only differ in the damage you take. - Infinity +1 Sword:
- The so-called "LPer weapons," which are only available at the end of a chain of three difficult bonus dungeons.note
- The Darkmatter Fedora is a Smart Bomb that instantly kills any enemy or boss other than Autimecia. It can only be obtained through 100% Completion, though, so it's much less useful than the other examples.
- Interface Screw:
- Taking damage from grey Wizzrobes in any way causes the screen to be obscured by an image of their face for several seconds. The effect wears off immediately if you either leave the room or kill the Wizzrobe that hurt you.
- Autimecia can glitch out the quest to the point of crashing and force you back to the file select screen. Fortunately, she only does so when either she's on the brink of death, or you're approaching her Boss Rush room for the first time.
- Joke Item: The Lance of Longi-NES becomes this when you pick up the axe subweapon. The axe flies through the air... in a game where nearly all enemies are ground-bound. Its upgraded form only makes it fly higher.
- Lethal Joke Weapon: Dimentio's LPer weapon gains power for every Moral Compass you don't have. You're very likely to have them all by the time you reach it, which turns it into a useless rubber duck, but it's the second-most powerful weapon in the game at full strength, and you don't actually have to collect the Compasses for any reason (see Minimalist Run below).
- Limit Break: When the Salt Knuckle's rage meter is fully charged, punching four times in rapid succession spends it all to activate a lengthy and painful Hurricane Spin-style attack.
- Meaningful Name:
- Old Man Blankslate has an obsession with making people start their new quests with... well, guess.
- In exchange for helping you, Satan demands that you pay him with your soul. He's joking, though.
- Old Man Manhandalaha is essentially a harmless Manhandla with old men for heads.
- The superboss, Autimecia, is basically Ultimecia from Final Fantasy VIII saturated with "autism" memes.
- Medium Awareness: Autimecia seems to possess this to some degree.
- Minimalist Run: A variation of this (no Moral Compasses) is required in order to maximize the potential of Dimentio's LPer weapon. Bringing said weapon to the Chaospire at full power allows you to enter Level 8 without the Compasses, so the full run is doable.
- Mook Bouncer: Wallmasters, Windrobes, and (exactly once) Autimecia. If you're playing on Anarchy, every single enemy and boss with projectile or beam attacks (except Hookrobes) becomes this.
- Naughty Tentacles: The Tentai is a parody of this concept.
- Nintendo Hard: The original version, which has been preserved as Legacy Mode. In both versions, there's also Anarchy difficulty, which is a joke difficulty in which most enemy projectiles and lasersnote are replaced with wind. The latter was only partially tested, and it wasn't proven that everything can still be completed on it until years after its release.
- One-Hit Kill:
- Sin's "ridiculously long JRPG-style" counterattack, Septentrion, is this on Hard.
- The Darkmatter Fedora is this to everything not named Link or Autimecia.
- Autimecia plays with this after killing you six times. She blasts you with wind, then states that she "didn't actually kill you" but will "count it anyway."
- Point of No Return: Once you enter the cliffside door in Moonshade, you can't leave until you defeat Autimecia. Subverted in that saving and quitting also works, though.
- See-Thru Specs: The Manhandleye.
- Shout-Out:
- The lore of Quest is reminiscent of that of Romancing SaGa 2. This is confirmed as deliberate by Sin's final form using both the theme music and the general concept of the game's final boss.
- Dimentio's LPer weapon is one to Cave Story's Nemesis gun, and NewJourneysFire's is one to Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts.
- One bonus dungeon in each version (the Legacy Mode one being called "Veni Vidi Vici") is a reference to VVVVVV. The Standard Mode dungeon, in turn, contains several other references, including to Undertale and the "744" Zelda Classic meme.
- Everything about the final Optional Boss fight is a reference to Sans from Undertale. Seemingly harmless character you meet early on who gets dangerous over you killing someone close to them? Check. Calling you out for soullessness and thinking save files preclude consequences for your actions? Check. Interrupting her intro speech at various points for a brutal Alpha Strike? Check. Physically interacting with your menu as a means of attack? Check. Counting how many times she's killed you? Check. Same theme music? Check... sort of (she uses Song That Might Play When You Fight Sans). When she's given up counting your deaths, she even starts directly quoting the "bad time" misquote meme!
- Smart Bomb: The Darkmatter Fedora.
- Take That, Critics!: A notoriously harsh critic in the Zelda Classic community gave the original version of this quest a poor rating for excessive focus on content too hard for the average player. Moosh addressed most of her specific complaints in a major update, but, in doing so, replaced one bonus dungeon with a long string of jabs at her gaming philosophy in the form of the Dangerfree Dungeon. To those outside said community, the new dungeon might look like it's aimed at something else entirely, but the entrance room contains a literal straw man to discourage taking anything about it too seriously.
- Troll: Autimecia acts like this to drive you to give up.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can kill Old Man Manhandalaha in what is easily the most tragic and brutal scene in the entire quest (and possibly Zelda Classic itself).
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Doing the above is required to reach Autimecia, but she isn't exactly impressed by your actions.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Poek is trapped in the same sort of cycle here as Ganondorf is in the original franchise, but remembers everything between iterations and has been driven mad as a result.
