Kali’s Scythe
Story Description: Most life on Earth was extinguished by a massive increase in solar output. The few survivors of the disaster were forced underground. The Vanguard shelter under Atlas Park was your home for two years; now that the Sun is back to normal, it is time to return topside.
Story Arc ID: 445456
Author’s Global Chat Handle: @Zaphir
Length: Long (4 missions)
Level Range: 20-25
Mission Status: Looking for Feedback
Alignment: Heroic
Designer Notes: Part of a post-apocalyptic COHverse setting — see COH forum thread for more info. There are some minor references to other Scorched Earth storyarcs, but overall the arc is meant to ‘work’ on its own.
In-Game Keywords: Canon Related, Save the World, Sci-Fi
CoH Forums Link: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=239269
Similar Missions:
- To Reign in Hell
- 7662 - The Labors of Rustam: The Cold and the Dark
- Tale of the Creatures From Another Forbidden Planet
- Dream Paper
- Captain Dynamic, the Great, Faces the Great Face - Tryouts
Glazius
Says:
@GlaziusF
Playing this one on my low-20s Peacebringer, +0/x1 with bosses on.
—
Alright, so I’m going to go scout after the apocalypse. This one’s presented much more seriously so I’ll play this review more seriously and keep the Fallout jokes to a minimum.
The Lost seem to be… lighting signal fires for something?
Ah, the surviving leaders spell it out. They’ve adapted this into their doomsday cult and think that by burning things they’ll become like the great force that seared the world.
Borea’s working theory is that this is a Rikti superweapon. Well, it’s as good a guess as any.
Oh, and I’m a brevet Vanguard agent. If it’s going to be important is anyone’s guess.
—
Well, time to check up on the Midnighters.
Okay, they left all their stuff behind and poofed off to Cimerora, including a secret cache of what they could scry about this disaster that came without warning.
Giant cosmic wasp’s nest. Hmm. Seems like somebody was trying to do something to Paragon City and it got a leetle out of control.
—
I may possibly have seen Shivans before. It’s not like nobody ever goes to Bloody Bahahahaha yeah nobody ever goes there.
Anyway, going in to extract a bro.
Some scientist retreated to a sample fallout shelter and he’s jury-rigging the museum machinery to investigate what’s going on. This should be interesting to follow.
Mixed in with the shivans are more human-limited blobs with melee powers. Apparently they’re evidence of whatever force originally did this. They came here to wreck the place and they don’t seem disinclined to disobey orders.
—
Alright. Now to bomb the meteor and destroy whatever’s commanding the Shivans and Shivan accessories.
Hm.
The structure of planting bombs and running back to the entrance to detonate them is thematically sound, but having to lead my ally there and back and there again seems a bit off. If I might suggest starting with a short sewer mission solo just to plant the bombs, and another sewer mission with ally of the wall-caved in variety to follow it?
Oh, the Kali types are warring with the Lost, not patrolling with them. Well, that makes succeeding things easier.
The description of the EB Destroyer says it emits a bright pulse of energy but instead of doing the explodo-cast it’s cheering alongside its minions.
Anyway, with a boss blaster backing me up and Dwarf Form insulating me he goes down pretty easy, amid dire pronouncements.
Things seem clear for now, though. Time to start rebuilding.
—
Storyline - ****. Only thing I’m really wondering here is… if this guy was just all the time bombarding the Earth from space with meteors, why did he stop, and come down to Earth where he was relatively more vulnerable? He ran out of explody sun juice and had to come down to pick up more?
Sorry if it was there and I never picked it up. Aside from that it’s a pretty good run through trying to re-establish a safe haven and communication with the world.
Design - *****. The new melee mobs who join the Shivans add a bit of variety and look very nice, even if they’re a bit dangerous given how much the Shivans debuff defenses.
Missions take place in pretty reasonable settings and are a lot of fun generally.
Gameplay - ****. Tracking an ally around to hit the bombs and then back to set the detonator was a bit of a chore. I still think you could get a good effect with a small sewer map that chained into one of those sewer maps with the wall torn down.
Detail - ****. Detail is pretty good for what’s happened to many major groups in the wake of the cataclysm, but the one place it falls down a bit is on what’s caused it. Not so much what it is as why it’s bothered coming down to where we can punch it.
Not that I mind the chance necessarily.
Overall - ****. A solid arc. Not much wrong with it, maybe a few things I’d change, but well worth playing. I think the only problem with it is that I’d played the villain arc first and was expecting some kind of, like, astral projection up to space as the villain arc was rather securely grounded on Earth.
Posted on December 5th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
PW
Says:
I liked the story and the premise, and I liked the supporting characters from Vanguard that I worked with. The post-apocalyptic setting was really working for me, until the final mission, which kinda lost me due to the way the objectives are set up to force the player to backtrack across the map 3 times, potentially with an ally in tow. This made the final mission feel tedious when it should’ve been climactic. I’d recommend making this mission a little more linear for improved gameplay.
I also agree with Glazius’ comment that it seemed strange for Bhairava to be drawn out by a few little bombs; I mean, according to the story, this creature (or the thing possessing it) has destroyed most of the Earth? It doesn’t seem like it should even notice.
The amount of back story developed for this arc was impressive, however; the writing seemed quite good, and I liked the souvenir.
Posted on December 25th, 2010 at 2:09 am