3 Responses

1. Big Game Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   Deja Vu is the flavour of the day here, but it is meant to be a part of the story.

   I actually solo’ed this arc with a measly lvl4 DP/DM Defender. Although it was a bit of a challenge (especially since all the mishes are timed) I scraped through victorious. Best of all the rewards were pretty good for such small maps and I picked up a couple of levels as well as a nice ticket count.

   The story wasn’t overcomplicted, and had some nice detail to it. There was also a number of optional objectives which actually added extra flavour to the arc.

   Gameplay, this arc is solid. Nice paced action, if a bit linear. The clever bit being the timers which do actually help train you into finding a attack chain as well as steering your approach to subsequent missions.

   Overall not groundbreaking storywise but a hell of a lot better than a lot of the stuff out there. The strengths of this arc being reasonable playtime, pace, rewards, and a real sense of satisfaction as you just manage to get that last boss within the time limit.

   Posted on April 3rd, 2010 at 4:03 pm

2. PW Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   I started off with the feeling that this was Yet Another Time Loop story, but I really liked the back story of Chronas and the Angel, though ultimately nearly all of that is found out only in the very last mission. Of the time looped missions, mission 2 seemed different enough from mission 1 to feel worthwhile, but mission 3 really seemed repetitive (though maybe that was the point of a time loop). It took me awhile to figure out why we’re trying to do the time loop faster and faster each time; time travel is kind of confusing, and I think this could benefit from some more explanation so the player can follow what is happening. I liked the end of Chronas’s story, but would’ve liked to know what happened to the various other characters we encountered, too.

   Posted on July 29th, 2010 at 10:41 am

3. Glazius Says:

   Storyline
   Design
   Gameplay
   Detail

   @GlaziusF

   Running this on a low-level Will/DMelee tanker, +0/x1 with bosses on.

   —

   “Endanger” is a verb. The sendoff talking about “people endanger” should be talking about “people in danger” or “people endangered”.

   Anyway, my contact for this arc interrupts me in the middle of something else to collapse at my feet and get me an address.

   …the Goldbrickers? In Paragon City? That’s pretty big. And why are they at an arcane site? That generally isn’t their bag.

   Well, apparently somebody’s paying a lot of scratch for whatever thing they dug up. I guess that’s good enough?

   —

   Time to go back, Jack, and do it again. …but exactly why I have to do this in 15 minutes isn’t clear. Maybe the “compass” in the clue should be getting close to telling a certain time, and I assume that’s when I’ll get kicked back?

   The surviving tablets talk about a powerful mage who had his power sealed away in an artifact by an angel, and the raid leader talks about some guy who paid him to get this artifact.

   Perhaps the two are related.

   —

   Hmm. So now I’m going back to the raid site again? It seems like I already know what I need to.

   Nope, back to the raid site. In 10 minutes, which is a challenge on a pre-DO character against Goldbrickers.

   …but it doesn’t seem like I get any new clues or insights.

   Oh. Okay. Says the debrief, I sped through there so I could go to the meeting site afterward. Apparently I know that this isn’t the sort of time loop you get reset to the start of when it goes away.

   —

   Well, at least it’s a tiny cave. With only a… claws/fire control EB. With a hold! And a blind! Most classes don’t even get status protection until later on, or perception increases for that matter.

   There are a lot of distracto glowies around his lair, but none of them seem to really tell me anything new.

   —

   Storyline - ***. The only problem I have with the story is that I somehow know how this artifact is causing a time loop - that after a particular interval it kicks me back in the timestream to a particular place, and that when this whole thing is over everything I’ve done will remain done, hence the need to save people and wreck the archmage in, what is it, 30 minutes?

   Maybe the researcher could give me some kind of rundown on this thing when I meet her for the first time for the second time, or I could take some information from her car.

   Design - ***. The caves are all well and good, but I question your choice of enemy group to populate them. Goldbrickers are one of the few enemy groups which are in-story native to the Rogue Isles — Coralax, the Gremlins, Slag Golems, and Arachnoids all qualify here — so it’s unusual for them to hop the ocean just for a modest payday.

   Especially since there’s a decent concentration of mercenaries and artifact-hunting enemy groups in Paragon City as it is. Hellions, Outcasts, Tsoo, Sky Raiders, Warriors…

   Goldbrickers are modestly resilient and deal out cascading damage from range, making them slow to fight solo and even slower in teams. It doesn’t matter how small the map is — if it’s any size at all 10 minutes isn’t much time to deal with Goldbrickers, and the time penalty from a loading screen makes it even worse. So they interact badly with time limits, and there’s not much of a narrative reason for them to be in Paragon.

   Gameplay - ***. Pre-Stamina pre-SO characters, who this arc seems to be aiming at, don’t generally have the recovery ability or power to put out the stream of damage needed to drop the relevant Goldbrickers. And the end boss pulls out status effects that non-armor-primary characters (so everyone but Tanks) may not have the tools to deal with.

   CoV does throw out elite bosses in their low-level arcs, but the most they can do in the way of status effects is some knockaround now and again.

   I can understand that this arc might be considered as a challenge for higher-level people exemping down to 20, after the pattern of some Ouro challenges which are no doubt attempted in this way. But in that case, why just not lock it at 20? There’s a little too much here for level 10s to manage.

   Detail - ***. After about the second mission there aren’t really new elements in the detail. Admittedly some of this is because the first three missions are exactly the same, but I figured there’d be more surviving tablets on my third pass through the cave. And the clues for the final boss’s chambers all seem to be variations on the original theme - angel fights magician, magician has a hate on.

   Admittedly, probably nobody is going to bother with glowies or reading clues with the excessive time pressure on. But after the mission objectives are completed the timer goes away, and reading the clues is a bit like opening presents at that point.

   Overall - ***. Ultimately the story plays out a little too much like my hero has already read the script, and the Goldbrickers, while challenging, don’t really have much reason to be there.

   Posted on October 31st, 2010 at 7:28 pm