I played this and enjoyed it a lot! Personally, I prefer this reworked version over the current mainline one. Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to write detailed feedback because life got in the way; but I still remember many of the key impressions ![:)]( "Smile")
I liked the more well-defined/recognizable personality for Arvith. His younger brother was comparatively less memorable -- probably because we don't spend as much time with him -- but the contrast between the brothers made them memorable as a pair.
I also really enjoyed exploring the map. It was obviously done with care, and many of the details around the brothers' village were excellent for both thematic and gameplay purposes. For example:
There were a few jarring or silly moments that stuck with me, for which I have these suggestions:
1. In the first scenario, I remember being all hyped up for Arvith to show his men how to take down a ghoul. He had very robust dialogue with much bravado, so I was under the impression that he would have a special advantage against ghouls -- or at least a guaranteed hit for the first charge. As it turned out, he had neither and missed all of his charges while getting hit hard in return. It wasn't a big issue for gameplay, but did elicit big eye rolls from me lol.
Suggestion: give Arvith guaranteed hit for his charge against the first ghoul, so that he would actually succeed in showing his men "how it's done".
2. Dialogues were sometimes triggered without visibility of the person speaking. For example, a key enemy unit in the northwest corner of an early scenario was guarded by two undeads at a river crossing; dialogue with this enemy unit was triggered upon sighting the undead guards, but I had no idea where the speaker was. In the final scenario, the southeast leader also began to speak without the player being given visibility.
Suggestion: grant area visibility around the speaker whenever dialogues are triggered.
3. The entrance to the Dark Sanctuary could become blocked. On my first attempt at that scenario, I spent too much time exploring the (excellently made) map. As a result, enemy units started coming out of the sanctuary. Since there was a single teleport tile, it was not possible to strike enemy units without entering the sanctuary, but it was also not possible to enter the sanctuary while an enemy unit stood on the destination tile. This meant that I had to wait for each enemy unit to come out on their own, resulting in many wasted turns and ultimately caused me to have to restart the scenario.
Suggestion: unsure -- perhaps prevent enemy units from stepping directly on the teleport tile within the sanctuary? Or perhaps a larger teleport area?
4. The many flavour dialogues (triggered by stepping on different map features) were great! The triggers themselves, however, were sometimes easy to miss, as they were all one tile in size.
Suggestion: bigger trigger areas for flavour dialogues, so that players wouldn't miss them.
I liked the more well-defined/recognizable personality for Arvith. His younger brother was comparatively less memorable -- probably because we don't spend as much time with him -- but the contrast between the brothers made them memorable as a pair.
I also really enjoyed exploring the map. It was obviously done with care, and many of the details around the brothers' village were excellent for both thematic and gameplay purposes. For example:
Spoiler:
1. In the first scenario, I remember being all hyped up for Arvith to show his men how to take down a ghoul. He had very robust dialogue with much bravado, so I was under the impression that he would have a special advantage against ghouls -- or at least a guaranteed hit for the first charge. As it turned out, he had neither and missed all of his charges while getting hit hard in return. It wasn't a big issue for gameplay, but did elicit big eye rolls from me lol.
Suggestion: give Arvith guaranteed hit for his charge against the first ghoul, so that he would actually succeed in showing his men "how it's done".
2. Dialogues were sometimes triggered without visibility of the person speaking. For example, a key enemy unit in the northwest corner of an early scenario was guarded by two undeads at a river crossing; dialogue with this enemy unit was triggered upon sighting the undead guards, but I had no idea where the speaker was. In the final scenario, the southeast leader also began to speak without the player being given visibility.
Suggestion: grant area visibility around the speaker whenever dialogues are triggered.
3. The entrance to the Dark Sanctuary could become blocked. On my first attempt at that scenario, I spent too much time exploring the (excellently made) map. As a result, enemy units started coming out of the sanctuary. Since there was a single teleport tile, it was not possible to strike enemy units without entering the sanctuary, but it was also not possible to enter the sanctuary while an enemy unit stood on the destination tile. This meant that I had to wait for each enemy unit to come out on their own, resulting in many wasted turns and ultimately caused me to have to restart the scenario.
Suggestion: unsure -- perhaps prevent enemy units from stepping directly on the teleport tile within the sanctuary? Or perhaps a larger teleport area?
4. The many flavour dialogues (triggered by stepping on different map features) were great! The triggers themselves, however, were sometimes easy to miss, as they were all one tile in size.
Suggestion: bigger trigger areas for flavour dialogues, so that players wouldn't miss them.
Statistics: Posted by fishrose — Yesterday, 8:36 pm