Flame_Haze
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Greetings, I want to share my impressions of this map.
To keep it brief, at first I thought it wouldn't be anything too complicated overall — a linear scenario, even though the task was to find the cloak. In my head, the goal was to defeat everyone, so I stretched the scenario as much as possible to explore everything and everyone. But how wrong I was to think it would all be easy after seeing the last two battles, at which point I thought this was unbeatable, at least in my setup. But let's take it one step at a time. Let's divide it into a conditional Start (everything before the last two battles) and Finish (everything after)
Alaric is GOOD — what a twist! I'm used to him being a rabid fanatic and mentally unhinged, but here he's a good guy, doing diverse quests, almost a poster boy (conditionally)
1. The opening cutscene, taken from the original and reworked in its own style. Though it was a bit funny to watch "I feel silly in this dress" — you're in armor, come help your hubby) (this isn't a nitpick, just thinking out loud). Also nice to see non-standard heroes, though of course there are no new specialties, but still.
2. The start itself — we have Alaric, supposedly a specialist. Not that it's super cool, but the extra onslaught sometimes helped, even if it didn't trigger as often as I'd like, but still fun. Everything seems fine and there's room to level up, but if not for one thing — in the second week Ishibal starts knocking on our door, and the catch is that until we capture all the Necromancer castles, he'll keep running around. The obstacle challenge is cool, but he caused problems exactly 3 or 4 times, and after that he's a punching bag, even though he has meat, but thankfully he barely casts anything. Although sometimes Ishibal's ability that triggered 2-3 times in a row was annoying
Encounter with Ishibal 1
Encounter with Ishibal 2
Encounter with Ishibal 3
All would be fine, but there are the Horned Demons and the Dungeon, and sometimes there were scenarios where Ishibal shows up and a day later some demon, and that's it — finita la commedia. The Dungeon also came, but didn't cause much trouble, except for a couple of fights with them. But you can also get lucky (if the stars align and all that) — either a demon attacks a Necromancer or vice versa, and we, like true champions, finish off the wounded beast)
3. Overall, the game seemed to have not much interesting, but there are a couple of nuances:
- Cursed dwellings — after each cleansing they give an army, plus completing the quest gives stats, which is nice
- Witch huts with a skill choice, three of them in total (but I used two) — seems like a small thing but pleasant
- Arenas (+2 Attack/Defense) — they don't just give them to us, they offer to play a battle instead, which is also a cool touch, although they could have cranked it to +3 somehow (if that's possible, I don't know)
- "Free 10,000 gold" — inconspicuously hidden in the forest, and of course good that the main character didn't pick it up, otherwise it would've been bad. And I feel sorry for the taraknas, even though there were only 5 singles, but the bastards split into 5 stacks (and Rutger was there too)
- Quest from Colduel (might be spelled wrong) — prove you can do it and I'll teach you. During the dialogue it's clear what he'll give, but I'm curious: does he give only Prime or with Overseer? Because by that point I already had Overseer — the quest isn't hard, go beat up some demons and I'll teach you)
4. Once we're more or less beefed up, we clear the map — I started with the Horned Demons, then the Dungeon, then the undead. Elana into the castle and we start the factory of archers---monks---horses (as resources allow)
5. After the cleanup, we're told to go to the mages' castle, but there's an evil Necromancer there and we need to defeat him. Evil Necromancer, take the stage
Alaric vs Deirdre
He didn't cause any trouble either, then an interesting cutscene...
with imba spirits that no one can hit) but still cool...
Then we're given the key to the red border guard, and the sphinx is also opened. He's not simple here either and offers diverse rewards. Since (at that moment) I didn't have Darkness, I thought Mass Slow would be a good choice, but I didn't know what was coming in the finale...
For most of the game, Alaric looked like this
Yes yes, Chaos)) I thought I'd take it for fun, let it be, who knows what awaits us next...
Moving on to the Finale... so the path is opened, and we're going to grab the cloak and finish the game... wait, what's this castle hiding over here
And this will be the finale? Well, something like that (but then it dawned on me it's not for that)
A pretty path, oh cool, and here's the cloak...
And then bam — surprise motherfucker... this guy meets us, and the arena is awesome (though annoying, but awesome)
Yes yes, those traps are not props, which was certainly annoying. The tactic against this guy isn't complicated overall — in my case, I combined the army with demons and took horned demons to drain the guy's mana, and no matter what, he periodically resurrects Ishibal (lich), the main thing is to kill him as fast as possible so he doesn't have time to do nasty stuff, and Naadir will cast a bit later, after the pendant steals our mana, though it's all nonsense. It's a shame that from the start of the battle the liches move first and wreck the catapult, obviously it's by design...
Overall, after beating him without issues, we get another cutscene, where Beatrice is no longer Beatrice, but the screenshot will come later — I'll explain why...
Alaric vs Naadir
After the cutscene, we meet our own shadow, and I wonder if it's intended or a bug that the human army is mirrored in numbers, while the demon army is about three times higher? And I'm like, here we go, looks like I need Darkness, which is exactly what I did...
Cutscene where Biara gets exposed
And in the end, here's Alaric for the finale
But then I ran into a problem that I created myself — those demonic HORSES that burn everything to hell. After replaying a couple of times, gritting my teeth, I finally beat him. Though this arena — as a concept it's cool, but gameplay-wise it's an eyesore. And the mirrored hero is supposedly a mirror, but why does he have all spells in his book?))
Usually people write something like "easy" here
don't remember if this fight was before or after the respec
The Final Final) (the one from the screenshot above)
Conclusion. I liked the map, even though I wasn't in a hurry — everything was good, and I like the author's style overall. I'll gladly play more maps by this author)
Screenshots and replays attached)
To keep it brief, at first I thought it wouldn't be anything too complicated overall — a linear scenario, even though the task was to find the cloak. In my head, the goal was to defeat everyone, so I stretched the scenario as much as possible to explore everything and everyone. But how wrong I was to think it would all be easy after seeing the last two battles, at which point I thought this was unbeatable, at least in my setup. But let's take it one step at a time. Let's divide it into a conditional Start (everything before the last two battles) and Finish (everything after)
Alaric is GOOD — what a twist! I'm used to him being a rabid fanatic and mentally unhinged, but here he's a good guy, doing diverse quests, almost a poster boy (conditionally)
1. The opening cutscene, taken from the original and reworked in its own style. Though it was a bit funny to watch "I feel silly in this dress" — you're in armor, come help your hubby) (this isn't a nitpick, just thinking out loud). Also nice to see non-standard heroes, though of course there are no new specialties, but still.
2. The start itself — we have Alaric, supposedly a specialist. Not that it's super cool, but the extra onslaught sometimes helped, even if it didn't trigger as often as I'd like, but still fun. Everything seems fine and there's room to level up, but if not for one thing — in the second week Ishibal starts knocking on our door, and the catch is that until we capture all the Necromancer castles, he'll keep running around. The obstacle challenge is cool, but he caused problems exactly 3 or 4 times, and after that he's a punching bag, even though he has meat, but thankfully he barely casts anything. Although sometimes Ishibal's ability that triggered 2-3 times in a row was annoying
Encounter with Ishibal 1
Encounter with Ishibal 2
Encounter with Ishibal 3
All would be fine, but there are the Horned Demons and the Dungeon, and sometimes there were scenarios where Ishibal shows up and a day later some demon, and that's it — finita la commedia. The Dungeon also came, but didn't cause much trouble, except for a couple of fights with them. But you can also get lucky (if the stars align and all that) — either a demon attacks a Necromancer or vice versa, and we, like true champions, finish off the wounded beast)
3. Overall, the game seemed to have not much interesting, but there are a couple of nuances:
- Cursed dwellings — after each cleansing they give an army, plus completing the quest gives stats, which is nice
- Witch huts with a skill choice, three of them in total (but I used two) — seems like a small thing but pleasant
- Arenas (+2 Attack/Defense) — they don't just give them to us, they offer to play a battle instead, which is also a cool touch, although they could have cranked it to +3 somehow (if that's possible, I don't know)
- "Free 10,000 gold" — inconspicuously hidden in the forest, and of course good that the main character didn't pick it up, otherwise it would've been bad. And I feel sorry for the taraknas, even though there were only 5 singles, but the bastards split into 5 stacks (and Rutger was there too)
- Quest from Colduel (might be spelled wrong) — prove you can do it and I'll teach you. During the dialogue it's clear what he'll give, but I'm curious: does he give only Prime or with Overseer? Because by that point I already had Overseer — the quest isn't hard, go beat up some demons and I'll teach you)
4. Once we're more or less beefed up, we clear the map — I started with the Horned Demons, then the Dungeon, then the undead. Elana into the castle and we start the factory of archers---monks---horses (as resources allow)
5. After the cleanup, we're told to go to the mages' castle, but there's an evil Necromancer there and we need to defeat him. Evil Necromancer, take the stage
Alaric vs Deirdre
He didn't cause any trouble either, then an interesting cutscene...
with imba spirits that no one can hit) but still cool...
Then we're given the key to the red border guard, and the sphinx is also opened. He's not simple here either and offers diverse rewards. Since (at that moment) I didn't have Darkness, I thought Mass Slow would be a good choice, but I didn't know what was coming in the finale...
For most of the game, Alaric looked like this
Yes yes, Chaos)) I thought I'd take it for fun, let it be, who knows what awaits us next...
Moving on to the Finale... so the path is opened, and we're going to grab the cloak and finish the game... wait, what's this castle hiding over here
And this will be the finale? Well, something like that (but then it dawned on me it's not for that)
A pretty path, oh cool, and here's the cloak...
And then bam — surprise motherfucker... this guy meets us, and the arena is awesome (though annoying, but awesome)
Yes yes, those traps are not props, which was certainly annoying. The tactic against this guy isn't complicated overall — in my case, I combined the army with demons and took horned demons to drain the guy's mana, and no matter what, he periodically resurrects Ishibal (lich), the main thing is to kill him as fast as possible so he doesn't have time to do nasty stuff, and Naadir will cast a bit later, after the pendant steals our mana, though it's all nonsense. It's a shame that from the start of the battle the liches move first and wreck the catapult, obviously it's by design...
Overall, after beating him without issues, we get another cutscene, where Beatrice is no longer Beatrice, but the screenshot will come later — I'll explain why...
Alaric vs Naadir
After the cutscene, we meet our own shadow, and I wonder if it's intended or a bug that the human army is mirrored in numbers, while the demon army is about three times higher? And I'm like, here we go, looks like I need Darkness, which is exactly what I did...
Cutscene where Biara gets exposed
And in the end, here's Alaric for the finale
But then I ran into a problem that I created myself — those demonic HORSES that burn everything to hell. After replaying a couple of times, gritting my teeth, I finally beat him. Though this arena — as a concept it's cool, but gameplay-wise it's an eyesore. And the mirrored hero is supposedly a mirror, but why does he have all spells in his book?))
Usually people write something like "easy" here
don't remember if this fight was before or after the respec
The Final Final) (the one from the screenshot above)
Conclusion. I liked the map, even though I wasn't in a hurry — everything was good, and I like the author's style overall. I'll gladly play more maps by this author)
Screenshots and replays attached)