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1.How long did it take to beat each of the two locations?
It took me longer to beat Keepers Village because of the puzzle. Probably four hours total.
2. I beat Ruins before I beat Keepers Village... if I can say that I did beat it at all.
3. I tried these quests with three heroes. One hero was just a lvl 3, and needed some help beating the last large group of skeletons. I took a combination of stone age and classic age fighters, two each, total 10. This was successful.
4. In all three cases, Lester followed me to town. I found him and talked to him. I could not get the Main Keeper Kanen to let Eleuia go.
5. The Juliana quest is interesting. Again, I had three experiences here. As soon as she gets the brooch, she is gone. So, if I didn't question her enough about "who is in charge", I don't ever get to find Keeper Kanen. In two cases I did find him, in one I did not. She does stick around long enough to hear about my slaying of Fargred. But after that I had better be quick or I lose her.
6. I have beaten the puzzle in Keepers Village. Of my three heroes, one puzzle was easy, and paved the way to the other two. I needed help with this, and even after I was given a hint to the solution, I had to solve the easier puzzle to finally figure out the solution.
7. I liked the Ruins. I did not find the items terribly difficult. The sun and snowflake gave me some trouble. The hints placed in the game about the sun's location (branches, shadows, etc.) resembles the position of the receptacle for the sun as well as the location of the sun itself. This threw me off.
8. I found all the gems in both locations except for one white one at Ruins. I will find it :)
9. The conversations were good, and they enhanced the game. They tended to bring several strings together. As you warned, they were very important. Eleuia warns about betrayal so conversation with Keeper Kanen's son is defined. There is no game change possible with the witch doctor. I purposely failed one quest conversation with Lester to see what happens. :) That hero has recently been deleted so it is no longer in my future to see the effects of this. The conversation with the Chosen One is so incredibly brief that I forgot about it altogether by the time I spoke to Keeper Kanen.
10 Both games and all quests have similar games, humor in conversation with townsfolk, surprise attacks by various monster-types, and puzzles to beat. The KV puzzle is not needed to beat the quest, but one does not know that until it is completed. Lets face it, the OH, the two new quests, and the original TT are all similar.. they all contain the TT personality that develops them. :) Luckily this will never change. Original TT islands could not be failed. I kept flipping back and forth between Ruins and KV, and in the end I liked that in original TT that I could just click on any island and get there. I didn't have to walk (or swim) from one location to another.
11. I liked Ruins better that Keepers Village. I liked the puzzle progress and how one needed to change the environment in order to find items. It leaves several things undone, like the blue stone. I know I will be returning. One hero did not run into a set of skeletons until after the quest was completed and I was looking for gems. I would have missed the big fight altogether. The skeletons were well hidden behind a wall. I had to click on them to get them to fight. The others all jumped out at me.
I do not believe I have beat the Keepers Village. At this point - after three separate tries - I believe it is next to impossible. I cannot get Kanen to release his daughter, in one case the son won't speak to me, Juliana skipped out with her brooch so further talk with her is impossible, I forgot about talking to the Chosen One and cannot alter my conversation with Kanen, and to top it all off, I have no charisma :).