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New Life


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TERROR'S MARTYR

 

This scenario has been sitting somewhere in the middle of the Solid Scenarios table for as long as I’ve been around. It has also scored no more than 0 reviews, which planned on changing. I was bored after working out a 2–3 story town one day, so I thought I’d play a scenario. New Life seemed to catch my eye. I downloaded the thing, and took a look at the graphics file. The first thing that hit me was that each and every graphic was original. This was fairly impressive, and the graphics sheet was not particularly small, either. Some of the graphics were indecipherable or poor, but most were okay. It also included a party maker, and a walkthrough — which I needed, so kudos for that.

 

The scenario starts out in the castle-town of Terath, with a large monument called Dragon’s Tooth in the middle of it. There are insectoid-beasts called Swarmers under Terath, and you’ve been sent by Uninspectified Forces to check it out (and unvail the earth-shattering plague that will devastate the world — come on, now! It’s a BoE scenario). You see the lord of the castle, who then tells you to go see his secretary named Fletcher, who gives you papers about his research on the Swarmers. You visit the mansion of the commander, and give the papers a good lookover. It’s at this juncture when something happens. Apparently, Fletcher’s papers were a decoy — now he’s running on the rooftops of Terath! This part was creative, despite being a tad awkward and generally too easy.

 

You chase Fletcher, who has climbed to the top of Dragon’s Tooth. He and you duke it out for a bit, and you kill him, but his head is mysteriously missing (thus! he will come back). It was somewhere around here where the originality aspect ended, however little a player will realize it. At this point, I was told to go to a Swarmer Hive. Thusly, I chop through hordes of little Swarmers, who are entirely too easy for a medium level party. After which, I find (see? Told you so!) Fletcher, and a mysterious little egg thing, called Probatus. But not just any Probatus, Probatus-EGG. Then, it hit me — this scenario is best summed up in three words: Final Fantasy 7. If you have never played FF7, this game will come as a totally new and marvelous experience. For those of us who played FF7 enough to understand the gist of the plot, you’ll begin drawing conclusions near-immediately. Sephiroth Fletcher is a powerful warrior, who is trying to raise Jenovah Probatus, of whom has different phases (and body parts, even!). This is going on while you are working for AVALANCHE Lord Volf, who lives in Sector 7 Terath, which Shinra the Swarmers (the soldier graphics almost look identical!) annihilate by collapsing the support pillar burning the place and killing everyone. Of course, there were a few differences... Rather than revert to your side after spying on you killing his childhood and almost you by shattering the (Okay, so shoot me, I forgot. It’s that airship you get near the end.) Voyager, Cait Sith Commander Restet commits suicide. The part with the Slod-Kedblom was also unique. There are plenty of unique instances, but if you’ve played FF7, you will more or less double-over at some of the “cooincidances” by the time you’re through. (Note that this really isn’t plagiarism, just a large bit of over-inspiration — this scenario is in a different medium, and the FF7 is damn good anyway, so I really don’t mind that much.)

 

Puzzles were used sparingly, most involved figuring out what you have to do, then getting a few items, a passphrase, and making sure everything is set right. This can be plenty annoying, at times, though the walkthrough helped. Nodes used weren’t particularly spectacular, though special spells were used, and the final battle with Probatus (well, second-final) was very well done. I really wouldn’t mind if the scenario simply ended right there, the other two battles were pretty lame. Of course, the entire scenario was, as a whole, a bit too easy.

 

I guess I’ll cut this one a bit short, and say that this scenario is a fairly-well noded and graphically par version of FF7 in an RPG setting, with some good puzzles. Do I recommend the play? Well, it’s not boring, if you remember to use the walkthru. It’s not that long, and it directs you fairly well. Yes, I recommend you play this one. It’s not excellent or massive, but it’s pretty good, and reaches great in a few areas. New Life is rated R (?) and is for medium-level parties.

 

Good

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DRIZZT

 

An interesting scenario, certainly a solid first work with some good parts (I liked the Slod-whatever garbage monster sequence). At times it had a forced-linear-feel to the story, as in first go here, now here, next here, getting the plot coupons along the way, but for the most part a well put together tale.

 

Nothing outstanding node-wise perhaps, but altogether decent. Good

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ORGGG

 

The plot (which the author freely admits in the readme) is derivative of the Final Fantasy VII plot, but the author had the good sense to keep only the less incoherent FF7 plot bits. It worked fairly well, as long as you tuned your critical judgement meter down low, creating a good atmospheric effect. The main plot was also quite linear, but the scenario was short enough not to make that a glaring problem. And there was some decent side-treks.

 

The dungeons were quite creative, and nicely coded, with some of them having very interesting feels. (It did crash once, involving respawning tentacles.) There are a number of memorable sequences and areas that distinguished itself from the more run-of-the-mill scenarios. Unfortunately the last few areas are sketchy, as if the designer had burnt out.

 

Spelling mistakes are frequent, intrusive, and at times comical.

 

The treasure balance was good, with the notable exception of a special item that gave every party member roughly 15 skill points each, only protected by a destroyable wall. The combat balance, unfortunately, borrowed too heavily from the console games. The battles with the regular critters were perfunctory and easy, while the battles with the bosses were very challenging. The author had a bad habit of giving the bosses no weaknesses, triple digits of hit points, magic immunity and spell casting (haste) ability. (The last battle I had to edit in the Antimagic Cloud spell to even stand a chance of surviving.)

 

I never found lockpicks as treasure or for sale.

 

Still, quite fun to play.

 

Average

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