3 Responses

1. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Running this on a level 50 spine/regen scrapper, all bosses no AVs two heroes at +0.

   —

   It is a little more plausible to get this line from Ouroboros. One thing that might need a little more elucidation is how she knows someone from the Liberty League went in after. Did she send them in? Are we plan B?

   Regardless, off I go.

   Objectives in the navbar don’t need title case - you can get away with capitalizing the first word of the objective and any proper nouns, like the name of enemy groups.

   (If the framing device was more mythic you could probably get away with this, and this would be a workable gimmick for a Mender, but yours has been pretty straight so far.)

   Up on the top floor is a room with a normal spawn hiding in the corners, a boss fight, and another group of ALL guarding the hostage. And a safe.

   Maybe you can move the boss fight to middle? Room was a bit crowded and I got shot to hell.

   Also, the clue from the envelope in the safe should come after the clue for dropping the boss.

   —

   Ah, blue caves. I pretty much never see them in MA. Still.

   A hostage and a glowie, and I take the measure of the enemy group more fully. Looks like fire, ice, and martial arts minions, claws lieutenants, and dark/dark bosses.

   So Statesman left this costume for little Liberty to have an adventure and find, but the ALL have gotten in the way. Is that what I’m seeing here? It might be nice to get that more explicitly.

   Also the ALL probably shouldn’t have the anarchy symbol as their main motif. Anarchy is basically an edgy 90s version of liberty — if you want to express tyranny you can probably do a good job with one of the fist chest symbols.

   —

   The sendoff in the briefing is still a little offputting. You could do more to establish Wells as something of a treasure-hunter in the previous briefings - Menders are at least a little eccentric in their own ways.

   I think I’ve figured out what’s going wrong with the Deathblossoms, Boulders, and Granites, where it’s even odds if they’ll actually cough up tickets or not. There are two versions of each, one of which has a power called “SummonFX”. I think that latter version may have mistakenly been mixed into the randoms - it’s a summoned version that’s not designed to give experience or other rewards.

   If you explicitly put the versions without SummonFX in your custom enemy group that should get rid of the problem.

   Also maybe give all the monsters some kind of alternate description. I can get that Fern would want plants and rocks, but what are the Wisps? Evil sunlight?

   —

   The descriptions on the ALL would benefit a bit from mentioning that they’re all from some kind of dark future.

   I mean, they are, right? MAL is some kind of nigh-immortal old man who’s sending his minions to mess with history?

   Statesman-from-today doesn’t make much sense as having been captured, but Statesman-from-the-future, whose powers were depleted by the same catastrophe that destroyed Paragon City, would be perfect.

   No clue how the swords wound up here in a coffin, though.

   —

   And now for the denouement. That’s French for “when the villain gets it”.

   Whether it was in the original spec or not, Liberty Rose looks dashing with her red and blue laser swords.

   We make our way over to MAL, collecting a couple helpers on the way. He’s some kind of Psy Assault guy, and the shockwave hurts a bit, but thanks to the taunt on Animated Stone’s attacks he spends most of his time trying to break the will of a giant hunk of rock, which is about as effective as you’d expect.

   No complaints here though, aside from Liberty Rose doing the hundred-yard dash several times because her advanced perception spotted some ALL on the other side of a rock.

   Also the souvenir from the arc should probably not be Ms. Liberty’s Journal since she’s not involved anymore. Unless it’s the one from mission 3, in which case say so.

   —

   Storyline - ***. This arc feels like I’m watching the three-part season finale of Liberty League but only tuned in at episode 2. It seems like it could do more to set up the extent and nature of the ALL, including the elites I fight, and MAL’s theft of the essential elements of Liberty Rose’s powers and subsequent scattering of them through time.

   As it is I feel like these developments are being introduced tangentially but they’re never really connected together. Now that you have a contact who’s outside of time, you can probably paint a big picture for the player.

   Design - ***. Missions 2 and 4 kind of need a boss. I like the idea of MAL entrusting his council of evil with the pieces of the one thing that can destroy him, and we’re big heroes now and can take bosses down. They’d also help establishing the story as a whole.

   The factions in missions 3 and 4 retain their original descriptions. Custom descriptions are a big use of space, but you can probably get by with just changing the name and giving a single-line blurb.

   Gameplay - ****. One frustration here is Liberty Rose running off on the last map because of her Willpower perception boost, which isn’t something you can really do much about without gutting the set.

   The other is getting no rewards about a third of the time from the enemies in mission 3. It’s probably a result of a bug in the MA, but it’s one you can work around.

   Detail - ***. Now that you have an original contact you can probably give her a personality that justifies the occasional cracks about treasure. I mean, maybe her little eccentricity is that she’s a temporal treasure hound, and she was tasked to, or asked to, help with recovering this stuff because she’s got a nose for it. That’s someone who can wonder why people chase after books and lament at only finding a costume in a treasure chest.

   Maybe this is just because I never had much of a nose for the “random interjection” school of comedy, but I tend to find comedy to be a lot funnier when it’s actually something plausible to say.

   Overall - ***. You’ve found a better contact to tell the story, and one who’s more capable of giving people the big picture. I’d enjoy this more if you established her personality a little bit more, and fleshed out the big picture a little earlier on in the arc.

   Posted on March 1st, 2010 at 11:20 pm

2. Mychyl Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @Mychyl

   Playing as L36 Dark/Regen scrapper, old Heroic setting

   – or rather, as L45 Dark/Regen, due to level cap

   ~*~

   A rambling Mender asks for my assistance in saving a little girl who was kidnapped 7 years ago. Sure, why not… by this time, I’ve done enough different stuff during time travel, saving a little girl should be cake. Right?

   Oh, and it’s possible there’s someone else with her too. Save her too. Got it. Liberty and Liberty… hmm…

   Minor typo: In the contact info, it says “Ourobos”. (No, I’m not usually quite that nitpicky, but it stands out to me for some reason.)

   ~*~

   The mission popup says that it’s quiet. This is clearly because these Family don’t believe in small talk. Or talk of any kind.

   Aha, conversation. Apparently Agent Liberty, of the Liberty League, was foiled by a couple members of the Anti Liberty League. (Oh, those silly SG/VG showdowns. Not that I can say much… I’ve got one of those on constant brew as well.) Not too bad on the eyes, and the flavor text for the ALL members is pretty interesting.

   But now Agent Liberty is following me around. She looks like she enjoys stealing kills. I don’t like kill stealers. Super Speed to the rescue, I abandon her out of the way and continue with the mission… after reading her secret mission briefing, which she hands me without much comment. So much for it being secret.

   A random safe gives up a family tree showing the kidnapped girl’s parents and grandparents. I’m sure this will make sense in my debriefing.

   Vito’s fairly reticent himself, but mentions MAL… a quick check of my newest clue says that kidnapping this little girl will help fight Marcus Cole, and is signed “Your cousin MAL”. How this little girl is supposed to overthrow Statesman is anyone’s guess, although my next thought is the congruence between Liberty Rose Jones and Ms. Liberty. (Probably a reach.)

   When I go to save Liberty Jones, she says she knew I’d come. Is she a psychic type? Because if so, that would make the connection between her and Ms. Liberty a little closer. (I don’t remember Ms. Liberty’s build, but her Praetorian double, Dominatrix, is psychic, as I recall.) Otherwise this makes no sense, since my character would’ve been about 13… and by no means a hero… back when this happened.

   ~*~

   Treasure hunting? Must be important. I think.

   ~*~

   Thought I’d mention something. Anarchy isn’t precisely the opposite of liberty… after all, both are types of freedom. Given that, using the Anarchy symbol for the Anti Liberty League might be a little… off? Just my 2 cents on that.

   So, Little Liberty has dreams that tell her to do things. In the real world, there’s a few choice terms in the DSM-II for that. (In Paragon City, it’s accepted as either being psychic, or being controlled by someone who is. Let’s settle for the former.)

   I save Little Liberty… who promptly drops all pretense of treasure hunting to run home for dinner. Leaving me alone in a cave full of her personal enemies, for some not-fully-established reason. Aside from she can destroy Statesman.

   The treasure was a costume left behind by her grandma. Which happens to sound a lot like Ms. Liberty’s costume. I hate it when I spoil storylines for myself.

   ~*~

   As I exit, the popup demands that I do not put it on. Which didn’t even cross my mind until then. Should it have? Probably not… most superheroes (and supervillains) define themselves by their look… it’s like telling me that I want to be someone else, but that I can’t. That’s a bit of a bleh moment in the arc.

   Little Liberty is all grown up now, and Liberty (I’ll just drop the Little, thank you) is now in search of a book. Something the contact makes sound faintly shameful… why bother with a book when there’s treasure in the world? That bothers me more than a little bit.

   Anyways, off to an enchanted garden to find Liberty and curb her evil desire for reading… or something.

   Maybe she just heard about Twilight and wants to read that series? There’s something scary.

   ~*~

   Enchanted garden suddenly becomes Shadowhunter’s forest, and is overrun by Devouring Earth. Everything about this says “bestselling author” to me. Really. This has to be the best place for a book signing ever.

   OK, enough snark, let’s find the girl and the book and get back to Paragon.

   Oh ho, we have a (slightly) different villain group… I’m assuming due to difficulties with keeping the named ones from popping up all over the place. It works.

   Again with the reference to MAL. Whoever MAL is, he definitely doesn’t want Liberty to actually take up her costume.

   Why Wisps? Must we inject Rularuu into missions? — But then I remember I’m not on my /SR, and so I don’t care.

   OK, I’ve now had two Deathblossoms refuse to give me my shinies for killing them. I’m officially switching to skate mode.

   “You again? This is starting to be a habit!” is *not* what I expect to hear when I save a grateful (soon to be) hero from her possible doom. I mean, if I was a villain, and this was my third attempt at kidnapping her, I can see that. But… yea. >.>

   Aha, and there is my prize, a reliquary in the middle of the woods. It’s an enchanted garden, so why not? I saw more of the ALL around, patrolling… but I got what I came for, I so left the scene and went back for more info.

   ~*~

   So, I stop and read the journal before talking to Mender Wells, and… well, it appears I was a bit off in my assumptions. But I know why: because Mender Wells suffers from Lazarus Syndrome; to wit, she doesn’t realize where in the real timestream she’s interacting with. In our timestream, Ms. Liberty is by no means a grandmother. She’s just off by… oh, 50 years or so.

   That or there’s some canon I missed somewhere, where Ms. Liberty is a hand-me-down name. Whatever.

   This incarnation apparently will go on to use some magic swords. Which must be retrieved from a Dark, Dismal Future (TM). One so bad that Statesman himself went in first, and I’m expected to save him. (If I have to save him from a couple of ALL minions, I’m gonna be depressed.)

   ~*~

   And of course, what would a Dark, Dismal Future (TM) be without the ruined Atlas Park map?

   Council Empire… Praetorian bots… yea, looks like we’re gonna have a fun party. This mission might take a while, just because it’ll be fun to vent my spleen on all the different enemy groups in one mission. (If I see any Master Illusionists though, all bets are off.)

   Seriously… Statesman walked into a magical glyph trap? Mary Sue alert.

   But apparently, according to Statesman’s note, I’m still off on where we really are in the canon. His great-granddaughter is the same Ms. Liberty that is the hero trainer in Atlas Park (in our present). So it clearly is a hand-me-down name. But more interestingly, the timeline is still off from our present, since the “7 years later” is still before she actually took up her costume….

   My head hurts.

   And now I’m stuck with Statesman, who I know from experience is a horrid kill stealer. Whatever, time to head for the swords and press on.

   A coffin, with swords made by Myrrdin. Not as impressive as a lake, but I’ll take what I can get. These are clearly the hand-me-downs that I’m supposed to take to the future (as opposed to the past) Ms. Liberty. Back to the present I go.

   Now I get why Lazarus has so many temporal weirdnesses.

   Sidenote: When I manage to outrun Statesman, he says “Come back. I am cold.” I think this concerns me a bit, especially as I left him at a large fire right outside the ruins of City Hall.

   ~*~

   So now we come to the finale. It’s apparently time to put MAL, or Master Al, to bed.

   I know this map, so I rescue Ms. Liberty (again) and head to the center to find…

   …that it’s empty. Apparently, this is the only time that an AV/EB has decided against the island piece in the center as the best place to gloat over his imminent victory. I’m a bit confused, but we’ll go with this.

   The Talsorian DB (in red and blue) makes me feel a little less hatred towards Ms. Liberty. It’s just pretty to watch.

   True story about MM bosses/EBs/AVs: they die really really fast. I didn’t even bother with any optionals, just took Ms. Liberty and spanked him quickly.

   ~*~

   In the end, I feel like it was less Liberty Rose’s story, and more the story of how I force-fed her destiny to her. The souvenir, in keeping with the arc, was minimalist in its use of text… which, to me, felt like there was a lot of blank space that could’ve been used to flesh out the story a bit more. I can certainly understand, until we get more space (which I think we were promised in i17), we’re a bit cramped — doubly so when you use a lot of custom groups/enemies, as you do — but there has to be a median.

   ~*~

   Storyline:: * * *

   I feel that there’s a great story here waiting to be told, but I don’t know that it’s fully making it across. There were some serious issues I felt with continuity, and while some of that is the modus operandi of Ouroboros, a lot of that could’ve been helped with a bit more text-heavy clues or briefings/debriefings.

   If you wanted a lot of my supposition to occur throughout, only for it to really hit the player upside the head later, you can try tying it all together through Wells, once you have “enough of the story to have figured it out” (like, say, mission 3 debriefing/mission 4 briefing).

   Design:: * * * *

   I loved the choice of Talsorian weapons for her — they don’t quite fit (for me) the concept of “magic swords”, but they looked awesome (what little she got to use them). I also liked the followers quite a bit. MAL and the Evil Garden Menagerie could’ve used a bit of spit and polish — especially the issue with some of the DE not giving any rewards on death. (I seem to remember something about a bug with certain DE models… might want to look into that, if you can.)

   Gameplay:: * * *

   There were a couple times where I got ticked off and just skated the mission, just to get it over with. One of my biggest pet peeves is having too many cooks in the kitchen — that is to say, having more sidekicks than I possibly could need. Agent Liberty was… tolerable, though I ditched her quickly. But Statesman, in a map full of common mobs, was overkill.

   Detail:: * * *

   The descriptions for the Followers were well thought out. The missions, however, were fairly dry to play (not much dialogue in them), and “Little” Liberty came off a bit… I’m not sure, off… in a couple places. (I’m still peeved about her getting snooty at me when I keep rescuing her. I think I’ll call that Fusionette syndrome.) Pretty much every mission was skateable, which can be OK if you want it done in a hurry, but if you want to develop a real story behind this, it might be better to throw some reason for the hero(es) to do more than just run, click, exit every mission.

   Overall:: * * *

   As I said above, I feel like there’s a wonderful, involved story in there… but I feel that the general lack of text and the jumpiness of the story tend to hide the story. Please remember, also, if you used anything not in the absolute basic canon, not everyone has played every arc in the game. (I’ve been here since i6, and I still find things I wasn’t aware of from time to time.) Make sure you reference anything oblique, in one way or another.

   Posted on March 23rd, 2010 at 4:28 am

3. PW Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   As of my last play-through, I thought it was a pretty decent origin story for Liberty Rose.

   I felt some of the problems with Liberty Rose’s status as a “destined one” got cleared up; the Ouroboros Mender as a contact does make more sense, IMHO. However, I still don’t buy that Ms Liberty or someone else related to Liberty Rose wouldn’t have saved her by the time the story arc starts.

   I do like the design of the Anti-Liberty League, who seem fun. Some of the mash-up monster groups encountered along the way were cool, too.

   Posted on July 29th, 2010 at 11:10 am