The veil is lifted.

Greetings) I've gotten to another work by this author and want to share my impressions) The map was a hit, the design is good, there are a few annoying moments, but in my understanding that's not the map's fault but rather a gameplay feature, well, let's go through everything in more detail...

Start — Duncan and Freyda. Logically and for tempo (which I'm not good at), you'd want to take the logistician, but naturally the choice fell on Freyda, because she's imba, and her starting build of Attack/Light is more to my liking than Duncan's Attack/Defense. As for gameplay specifics, only the first month is hard, maybe a month and a half, and then everything goes smoothly.

- On the first week, day 7, we take the castle in the bottom-left corner, and right there we can defend against all sorts of our offenders)

pretty solid specialist))
Starting battles:

Freyda vs Valery

Freyda vs Varens

Freyda vs Andrias

- then later on, we try our best not to give up that castle, although I didn't manage it too well, but oh well. The main goal in my head was to keep Duncan alive, so I tried to build up the main castle's strength as much as possible so that various attackers wouldn't even think about attacking. Though, for example, Lorenzo in an open field would have beaten Duncan on "Normal" difficulty, but he didn't rush the castle, which I took advantage of for a while while running around with Freyda.

- after some time they take the castle, but the starting castle and Duncan are safe.
And right away, something I didn't like! What's the point of this fort if you can't upgrade horses in it?


- the mines are an interesting concept, even though it's unusual and you have to leave an army there, but overall it's quite interesting and cool, I liked it.

Since I don't like rushing, I kind of forgot that we have a timing to find the Priest. Fortunately, there's a hint in the quest description itself, though I did cheat a bit and went a different way than everyone else (I assume). But thankfully the console politely reminded me, like "hey buddy, hurry up," so I blindly sailed from that location in the screenshot to the approximate spot where the Priest should be.


Well, good thing I guessed right. Though I look at the outpost, and there's a hero behind it. The army I had (the one in the screenshot at the fort) seemed like enough, but once the battle started, I realized I didn't have enough strength. Oh well, there happened to be a castle nearby that was waiting for us to capture it, and above the castle past the garrison there's a good spot to level up, which is exactly what I did. With about 5-6 days left, I went in stronger to break through to the Priest. Cutscene, voiced dialogues — seems like a small thing but it's nice. Though I don't have a mod to boost their volume, so they were quite quiet for me. And the best part, in my opinion, is the archer's set, which I happily used for the whole game)

Freyda vs Lorenzo (for the Priest)

- after freeing the Priest, we get a quest to capture Waterway, and there's no time limit this time, so off we go. We make lots of trainers (one for each castle), one runner, and Duncan can get some levels too) Before that, we need to take back what was taken from us, namely the castle in the bottom-left corner, clear out all the cockroaches, and repaint everything. At this stage, there were no problems overall.



Let's go through the sides a bit, and what generally pleased me and stuck in my memory


additional creatures like yetis and black knights — not new, but they're there and that's good, beautiful arenas

- the quest with the seer (witch's hut) who unlocks portals for us, first a two-way one, then the one near the castle in the north (though caravans were already passing through that portal before its deactivation)
Nothing hard — kill the mage and bring the Tome of Summoning. The Tome of Summoning is guarded by phoenixes, but to get back, I went to the gold mine, Town Portal'd to town, cleared out all the unwanted guests, then killed the mage. I could have done it smarter — just leave the Tome of Summoning to the cockroach instead of going back myself, but no big deal... She also offers to unlock the portal near the city (one-way) for 15 crystals — won't hurt, we take it (though crystals are a pretty valuable resource since you can't build warehouses, oh you author, well done, you even thought of that)

Freyda vs Fazim

- this isn't even a quest, let's call it a SCOUNDREL ZEALOT who's chopping down a tree (near the southwestern castle). I'm thinking, what a setup, well, nothing terrible, but still

- clear the zones, grab the bag — simple quests, but why don't they give anything for them? I thought after clearing 8 stacks, the red guys would stop randomly spawning on the map, but no, they kept spawning the whole game. But for that, we have Duncan who put out everything he saw, because those jerks were interfering with troop logistics))

Freyda vs Lorenzo (when he sails toward us)

Freyda vs Groll

And the finale — I'll compare it to Echo of the Void, since that was the first map I played by this author. To put it mildly, it was easy. Why? Well, if autobattle wins almost without losses, then something is clearly wrong. Remembering that annoying Naadir with Ishkibal, this is a light stroll. And leveling the main heroes into the studio, plus a replay

For Waterway





Another downside I ran into — the first time I fought, the heroes teleported and the hourglass got stuck. I thought I was done playing, but it turned out that griffins that spawned in a bad spot were blocking the final cutscene. I killed them, then attacked the castle, and everything was fine.


This is in the nitpicking category but it's worth mentioning — did I just get lucky, or did RESURRECTION really only appear in one castle, the one in the northwest? Because those resurrections with regeneration really drag out the time, but oh well. Though the vampire lady was almost in the second castle.

To sum it up: Great map, design, concept, quests, voiced cutscenes, but the final boss needs to be stronger) Now "Ambassador" is next in line.

p.s. It was also funny watching heroes with different names but identical icons, like Glen-Klaus, Dougal-Gear