2 Responses

1. @Unregistered Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   The first part of this two-parter really is TF-style. Since it declares the arc as a TF-style arc, I’ll judge it as a TF style arc.

   If I compare it to all the canon TFs, it’s not bad, and possibly better. Generic storyline which isn’t bad, pretty good writing, and pretty looking custom mobs, which I rather like. Always a good touch to have mobs in your custom group that specialises in doing different things.

   The quality drops in the last mission. I think the author ran out of energy. This detracts from the rating.

   I got a bit bored fighting the chains of bosses and also the self-rezzing boss in the end too. But more on this in the second part of the arc.

   Posted on October 18th, 2009 at 9:38 pm

2. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Reviewed on a low 40s ice/axe brute, all bosses no AVs two heroes at +0.

   —

   So I remember a little throwaway line during one of the Banished Pantheon arcs, about how a collection of books you found would help a contact understand the mystic arts of the Tsoo.

   Not that I’m expecting anything, mind.

   Hmm. Something you should know: you can put a comma after a $variable, as in “$name,” and it will actually just put the name with a comma, straight after.

   Something else you should know: it’s really hard to read paragraphs with only one hard return between them. Use two.

   Are you trying to go for an ‘English is my second language” feel with the contact here? It feels rather stilted and circuitous.

   As I haven’t played this whole thing, I have no idea whether my contact is going to betray me or not, but if he isn’t, could I suggest making him a Midnighter? That would give his presence a little more weight than just “I’m here and I haven’t killed you… yet.”

   Also, it’d be nice to know what I was supposed to be doing to stop this Shadow Dragon before I clicked “accept”. Am I breaking up a sacrifice or disrupting a ritual arrangement or putting the metaphysical equivalent of a bag of flaming dog poo on his doorstep?

   I’m… going to get some kind of mystic fang to poison a “seal of madness”.

   That’s a distressingly large number of proper nouns in the sendoff all told. Maybe just limit them to what I need to know for the first mission.

   When I bug my contact he tells me that the Lords of Madness are also looking for the fang so they can weaken the seals, which would have been nice to know setting out.

   Also, you don’t need multiple patrols saying the same thing to make sure they’re heard. NPC text is like full-radius broadcast now.

   I confront a “death fang” DB/ninja who takes a few of my attacks and then heads for the hills. I figure it’s the AI not liking the knockdown and slows and let him head off, but nope, dude did a runner. Completely silent to boot.

   Stheno goes down pretty steadily. She calls for help at half health but nothing seems to show up, which is a shame as I really needed the defense to dodge her death scream.

   And with her down, I… have to break open a cocoon in a completely different part of the map to get this fang.

   I get a clue for grabbing it and a mission-ending clue, both of which say pretty much the same thing. You should only bother with one of them.

   —

   “Legion tells” in the next brieifing should probably be “legend tells”. Though exactly why the actual fang isn’t enough to stop these guys I don’t know. It was still in its tamper-evident packaging and everything.

   Also, the Circle and the Mu fought way more than just a thousand years ago. The seal would have been broken for a while.

   A bit tough to carry an entire tomb around. Maybe it’s one of those metaphorical ones. …or a tome.

   The mission description is asking me to drop some guys I’ve never heard of, and that’s without even getting into the mission. If they weren’t mentioned in the briefing they should show up in the navbar.

   …an arch-mage of death. Ay yi yi. Those guys aren’t any fun to throw down with. They’re like elite bosses except with a lot more hit points.

   At about 1/4 health (the Shivan helps) the map fills up with battles of the new group vs. CoT. (The minions have no description.)

   The CoT seem to be knockin’ em down pretty handily, as I only find one group of survivors.

   I break the last obelisk and retrieve the… yes, it should probably be a tomE. (The navbar thinks it’s a “portal of shadows”.)

   And I still have a boss to beat. He goes through the usual boss spiel — he’s invincible, I can’t beat him, his boss will get me anyway, blah blah blah.

   —

   My contact is so excited about the goings-on that he can’t bring himself to use paragraph breaks at all.

   Good lord this is a wall of text.

   I don’t think he should suddenly come to the realization in the briefing as such? But having him detail the Tsoo mythology of the Banished Pantheon (using different names) and then reveal that we know what he’s been talking about all along.

   The Banished Pantheon are explicitly trying to “wake the Sleeper” in Dark Astoria. The Tsoo would know this as they’ve been fighting around there. So having that alternate explanation pop up doesn’t make a lick of sense.

   And a throwdown with Adamastor! He drops pretty easy without his giant monster resists. And then it’s time to hunt around on an outdoor map for a glowie!

   Joy.

   I manage to find it after a couple loops, and… oh. A surprise boss that I have to take out for no apparent reason.

   Sigh. Yeah, you know, it doesn’t make much sense to give me a souvenir I picked up from this boss when thanks to the level of dark armor she has she rises from the dead, stunning me and becoming invincible.

   Before then it was pretty smooth sailing, though.

   Also I don’t seem to have a clue for these ashes I picked up. The system text indicates I found them, but that’s it.

   I have to admit, I don’t get what my contact is making all this fuss about. As far as I know, I actually have all the components these guys need to perform their ritual, and now I can just drop ‘em into the lava in the Troll Tunnels or something.

   —

   Storyline - ***. I realize it’s traditional at this point to have the heroes go gather up a bunch of MacGuffins only to have defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, but I really have no idea what I’m doing wrong that needs a part two. As far as I understand everything, I have three artifacts, any one of which is essential to performing the terrible ritual, so having all three should make the world double extra safe, right? I can tell my contact’s nervous about something, but judging by the clues and system text in the missions there’s nothing going wrong. I mean, maybe the Dragons here are, say, stealing the shadows of the ritual components and they can use them like the real things, but I’d like some foreshadowing there.

   Design - ***. The ninjas are appropriately ninja. The maps are fairly thematic, but I wonder if it might be possible to put the last one in the “smooth cave” set, if only because hunting for a glowie on an outdoor map is a bit of a pain. Also, there are multiple patrols saying the same thing in the first mission and like ten battles in the second mission that all say the same thing as well. I’d really recommend using one talky element and N silent ones.

   Gameplay - **. Whittling down an ArchDeathMage’s hit point/resistance combo is a colossal pain, too. And as always with customs, Build Up is a bit much to handle, and Soul Transfer is just a kick in the dangly bits after I’ve supposedly dropped a boss and taken a trophy.

   Detail - **. The Dragon EB in the first mission is completely silent, even when he cuts and runs, and it looks like the minions don’t have any bio on ‘em. I also don’t actually get a clue for the ashes in the last mission. But even aside from that, there are some problems with revealing the setting. I can tell you have a pretty intricate picture of what’s actually going on here, but having the contact just kind of spit out details even if they’re not relevant yet is just a bit of an overload, and makes it hard to tell what’s really important. Generally people can understand things better if they’ve got something to hang ‘em on, so spelling out the whole ritual right at the start just results in it getting tossed down the memory hole.

   Overall - ***. A few power tweaks and a little more attention paid to the “part-1-relevant” aspects of the story would go a long way towards making this better.

   Posted on October 19th, 2009 at 9:24 pm