Tanneur99
Official Reviewer |
Posted on 03/07/02 @ 12:00 AM
The campaign consists of three scenarios; it is a RPG/RPS. The story is fiction; you play Ralf who fled to Scorage, leaving his parents behind during the invasion of the Drandle Empire, now he has to make it back to his homeland to search his parents.
PLAYABILITY: The first scenario plays only with the conquerors expansion. With original AoK, the first and third scenario crashes to the desktop, you can type ‘I r winner’ to play the second or play with the conquerors expansion. In ‘The Rising of the Warrior’, the bandits give up at the games start; the author did not place units for the yellow player. You travel to Island-City to become a warrior, wrong answers you should loose, three right answers, you should become a samurai, but the quiz displays one question only and whatever flag you chose, nothing happens. In ‘The Journey Through Lands’, you play a Samurai. El Cid joins you to kill two wolves, which are in the west corner, not east of the shepherd, and to transport medicine across a big map with no enemies, you get a dog, Ornlu as reinforcement. You can also skip all side quests including the back entrance and destroy the siege weapons of the Black Spear, which are probably all what is left of their army. Do not miss the battle, type ‘Marco’ and ‘Polo’ when a villager tells you about the attack. After the defeat of the Black Spear type “I r winner”, you will not get a victory signal. You win ‘Homecoming’ after some seconds. The evil King, victory condition object destroyed, dies in front of an enemy castle together with your parents; all players are enemy to each other. 1
BALANCE: The campaign is too easy. I played on hard, never lost and the only scratch was from a wolf. 1
CREATIVITY: Frankly, there was none apart from connecting unplayable scenarios with a story. 1+
MAP DESIGN: Mostly flat grass with roads, unappealing towns and one colour sea, the area of the monks in the second scenario showed some effort. 2-
STORY/INSTRUCTIONS: The best part of the campaign, there is a story and you get instructions, all of which would qualify for a rating of four by the tutorial. Unfortunately, with a third scenario that brings instant victory with AoK:TC due to trigger faults, the story does not develop in game, does practically not exist, as it plays, all you do is to train and defend a fort instead of searching your parents. In addition, the scenarios do not play in the intended sequence. First scenario, after I helped the shepherd, I got the instruction at the village to help him, later the player should leave from the archery range and barracks for the questions, but he can also start with them and in the second scenario, none of the side quests is necessary to beat the enemy and achieve victory. 3-
OVERALL: Ralf’s adventure has the quality of an alpha version.
SUGGESTIONS: Play test, you have to play your campaign at least once before posting it. First scenario, give an object to your patrol triggers to avoid the crash. Change the starting state of the last question to ‘off’, the set areas for the answers should work for civilians, your villager, not for military. Second scenario, the Black Spear has to bring first the towers down, instead of attacking last with the trebuchets, put them in the front row of your army or reduce the towers of the fort. Third scenario, give an object to the last patrol trigger, change diplomacy, exception to the yellow player, the others should be ally to player 1 at the start. Change starting state of trigger ‘win’ to off, close gate for parents and King, activate trigger ‘win’ and open gate when player 1 reaches the King and parents.
OBSERVATIONS: A patrol effect with a set location but missing object crashes AoK but plays with AoK:TC. As a bonus the download comes with a scenario, ‘A Monks Tale ~ Little Waterfall’, which was not subject of the review above.
IN CLOSING: Honestly, I cannot recommend downloading the campaign.[Edited on 07/14/05 @ 01:09 PM]
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