GlaziusF

Another time interval, another random arc.

Although today's a little I22 special. A tribute, if you will, to an old departed friend.

Tonight's arc: A full review of Astoria in D Minor (41565). Verdict - *****. Review in MA Forums thread.

My current queue:

• Random reviews! Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter will actually function as originally intended. Text, enemies, and entire enemy groups can be replaced depending on what the censor objects to. In that case I'll message the arc author and call it a night.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.

@GlaziusF

Giving this a run on a level 22 ice/fire dominator, +1/x1 with bosses on.

---

Crazy radio picking up cries for help and also somebody's music program. Well. Let's see where this goes.

Well, that was straightforward. Mom's being menaced by Pantheon in the front room, she runs out, I see another hero on camera and go to help.

Wandering through this building are small zombies with some kind of enhanced perception that brings them swarming down on me. Their opening volley saps accuracy, so that makes 'em a special kind of fun to deal with.

The hero seems to be trying to stay incognito, which is hard with warshade tendrils wriggling out of you, but he doesn't use any powers on patrols on the walk out.

I do get intercepted by a Council boss who wolfs out, so that's something. Weirdly no XP on the wolf. Has that been a thing for a while?

...two Council bosses. Man, they really wanted to contain this guy, huh?

---

Event Horizon sends me to meet a colleague of his named Schism. He warns me about the eccentric tastes.

Ah, abandoned hospital. Have to search through here for survivors. ...or dead bodies, which also take the count down.

Huh. How about that. She actually was in this hospital... and for the second time in as many missions I'm leading someone all the way back outside. Wonder what's going to stand in my way this time.

...nothing. Clear shot out.

---

Of course she runs off into the fog, which swallows her up. Well, time to chase her down. ...somehow. I guess we pick the transmission up when we're in Moth Cemetary? Might want to set that up.

I find... what's left undone... in one corner of the map, right ahead of me, and Schism pops up right behind me when I finish examining it. Did you plan that?

In his own little mind, he was helping her out. Better to die than live in fear.

Well, it's a noble sentiment, but that doesn't mean you get to make that decision on somebody else's behalf.

Huh. The debrief seems to think I can see Irene, but I thought I was just in radio contact the entire time.

---

And now I'm lost in the fog, searching blindly.

...well. Things have gone red all of a sudden.

On the plus side, the old crooners are coming through a lot clearer.

Greeted by gibberish in Ruladak's cave. The door's locked behind me. The only way out is through.

...and for some reason this mission is minimum 25. Huh.

Anyway, Schism's here, with even more mez resistance because of his laugh. He tells a joke that isn't very funny at all.

...I always forget about the faces in the walls, until I run into them.

And there's... Haley? Irene? I think Irene was wearing something blazery. She's mind-controlled a Council man, and tries to turn that on me, but Domination makes me immune to her little tricks.

And now I rage on an incongruous payphone until Event Horizon's voice gets through. He's pulling out and he wants me to come with, once I've secured Haley (um) and Irene (possibly double um).

---

Well. Event Horizon's gotten guilty about trusting Schism around the living, and now he wants to show me the truth.

I'm sure his monotone voice is a sign of how reasonable he's going to be.

The bug text introduces the DJ for this little program... but I thought Mot was a guy.

Wow. Ritzy digs in here. And some civilians who con hostile around Event Horizon. ...one of them asks why I'm attacking him, then rips up a chunk of the floor and throws it at me. I think they've all gone mad.

Strangely there seems to be another EH in here, talking to the Pantheon about how their dead gods are dead.

Then some Pantheon and civilians fighting, and stealing each other's lines (the pantheon says "hold the barricades", the civilian says "barhah!")

Oh. There is another Event Horizon, who's decided to believe in predestination. Apparently Schism had the right idea: life is a strange game, where the only winning move is not to play.

He's gone all dwarf down in the cave. I manage to ding just before him so it's not that much of a slug, but a Dark Dwarf is a good notional boss.

Haley's become a prophet of Mot. Well, that's a life choice. I pick out the occasional cry for help from deep within the words, but I opt instead to turn off the radio and walk away.

---

I haven't gone into the new Astoria yet. Reading through the souvenir, though -- perhaps the best thing to say is that Astoria truly has died, now, and gone to hell. I'll miss our own little Silent Hill, but we'll always have Architect.

...say, what's happened to that Tielekku storyarc now, anyway? I really liked that one.

Storyline - ****. A really great ride that runs out of track and crashes through the station roof at the end. After Event Horizon evaporates (as Dark Dwarves do) there's no closing clue, no exit comment, and the last thing we get from the radio is a proper version of a clue from the madness mission.

I dunno what I was expecting, exactly. You haven't been afraid to get into the psyche of the character, maybe something like:

"You have to get out of here. You've seen what the fog does, how the fog lies. You need to get away before it drives you mad, too.

"You shut off the radio, and turn your back on a little girl in the grips of a mad god.

"Maybe it already has."

The souvenir is a nice bit of overall closure, but it's not nearly as immediate. Kind of "The Shining" in its own way, with the last mission serving as the Rialto.

Design - *****. Lord a'mercy, yes. The only little hiccup was rescuing General Z and a Tsoo tattoo artist from the asylum at the beginning. (I swear, the game tosses that artist in every time you want a random civilian, just for jollies.)

Everything going on here plays crazy well into the theme.

Gameplay - ****. I have to say, I felt just a little bit demotivated when I got to the second mission and it ended with the second "escort out across entire office map" in as many missions. I realize why you're doing it from a story perspective, and you can't well just say "mission complete" with an ambush on the way, but unlike the case with Event Horizon there's not even anything in the way. Maybe you lead her to a pile of rubble that's an alternate exit, or something? Or not an alternate exit, because she came in that way but there's just a blank wall there and she runs off screaming for Mommy?

But the actual fights this arc throws at you are generally reasonable, mostly stock enemies and a few simple customs.

Detail - ****. It never really struck me until the third mission that this was a bit of a running arc -- you're roaming the streets of Dark Astoria with a radio, picking up missions in random places. Maybe you'd be able to do something with that, but it could stand to be played up a little more, either way.

Overall - *****. Maybe I'm a bit colored by my history, but back in the day this was one of the arcs that opened my eyes to the possibilities of Architect. It's still a standout for atmosphere, and is as much or more an experience than a story.

@GlaziusF

Rerunning this on the original DB/Fire brute, now at the level cap, +1/x2 with bosses on.

---

Hmm. That big whack of bold yellow text seems like it might make a nice mission start clue, as it doesn't come from the contact necessarily.

Okay. So there's a minion here with Fearsome Stare and a stealth power. That, uh... that's not good. Fear is a debilitating status effect and very few power sets get any kind of resistance to it.

I find a kid and get him to the door, though he doesn't get an objective arrow on it, which is weird. Spawns a nice ambush, though.

After I spring him, the counter in the navbar stays at 2? kids throughout the whole mission. That's... that's not a lot of help there, navbar. As it is I feel like I broke the mission when I freed the last kid on the top floor.

The optional boss is, well, optional, but he's got build up and perma-Deceive.

---

Office mission is a bit better set up this time. Mother Mayhem uncorked something terrible at the BAF and she just bolted across the dimensions. Her escort is a mix of diviners and her old children of anger, but she goes down pretty easy.

---

Despite some talk about going through to Praetoria in the last mission, this one seems to take place in an abandoned hospital on this side. ...which is a real shame because somewhere in the maze of cots Fearsome Stare will always be waiting for me.

It's quiet in here. Too quiet.

...no, seriously. First and second floors are both empty, except for a single patrol. Did something go wrong?

Wait, maybe I am in Praetoria? There seems to be some stuff of Dark Numina's sitting around here, presumably to summon whatever monstrosity is waiting at the end.

The monstrosity isn't so bad, considering -- just a miasma dark blaster, apparently without Blackstar -- and I find out why it was so quiet, as wars break out en masse between Mother Mayhem's security and fear demons, including two bosses I haven't seen before.

Mother Mayhem comes back... and gets chumped by one of the warring groups of fear monsters. Seriously. I come downstairs and she's getting shivved in a corner by Pain. I'm almost entirely certain that was a coincidence, as it runs back down the hallway to a reset position once she bites it.

After remembering there's a weird little nook in the first room around a blind corner and down some stairs, I take the focus binding the fear demon to this world, and... arc over.

---

Storyline - ***. The progression of what goes on is quite a bit clearer: Mother Mayhem is experimenting, summons a fear demon, has it take over, and then she carves a hole through to our reality through sheer force of will to get away from it all. A young sensitive psychic picks up on it, and enter the hero.

Though this rating hasn't changed, because, well, Praetoria has changed. It used to be pretty simple: Tyrant was worried about his various Praetors turning on him so he played them against each other, and as a result both he and they were weaker and more given to your average Saturday morning cartoon mishaps, like the old "ancient fear demon in the research notes" trick.

But things have gotten a little more complex. Mother Mayhem and Diabolique have a much better reason to be at each others' throats than just infighting, and Diabolique doesn't even need to get a fear demon from another dimension to raise an army of fear warriors. If you can, play through the First Ward content, you'll see what I mean.

Design - ***. The fear demons are still pretty nice, but I really would like to have seen some kind of Praetorian map instead of just the asylum for the last battle. The asylum's so cramped it's just a chore to navigate.

Also, you could stand to break the parts of mission setup that I do for myself -- the ones that show up in bold yellow text -- out from the briefing itself and into mission setup clues, as the contact isn't really providing them.

Sometimes MA seems like it's bugging out but really operating as intended, like with the counter for rescues in the first mission not going down, or the last mission being completely empty but for a couple of patrols. (It also kinda reduces the impact of the powered-up fear demons when we only meet a handful of them before it's time to throw down with the end boss.)

And Mother Mayhem getting mowed down in the last mission before I even had a chance to engage her is rather darkly amusing, but I can't believe it was intentional.

Gameplay - *. So there's a minion with heavy stealth on it that will try to fear you as one of its initial attacks. If your build doesn't resist fear, and there are very, very few who do, you can only make one attack or briefly run away about every ten seconds.

I realize it might sound silly to complain that the fear demons are fearing me, but seriously once you are feared your options are pretty much "pop anti-status insp" and "wait to die".

Also, seriously, one of the custom bosses mowed down Mother Mayhem before I could even process what was going on. They may be pitched just a little too high.

Detail - ****. Overall there are just too many viewpoints crammed into the briefing. Our kid contact, his little finger Tony, and the narration that describes the actions we take.

That, and, well, I've gone into this before. There are three types of horror in video games: shock, suspense, and Castlevania. It's really hard to do anything other than Castlevania in the Mission Architect, and talking up suspense in the mission briefings when the missions themselves are mostly straightforward brawls just kinda rings hollow.

Overall - ***. Canon has changed under a lot of arcs, not least the ones set in or partly in Praetoria. I don't expect everybody to necessarily keep up with it, but in this case taking the current Praetoria into account might be beneficial.

Also, peeling Fearsome Stare off the minions would make battles a lot less frustrating but not really up the difficulty much.

Another time interval, another random arc.

Tonight's arc: A rereview of Small Fears (12285). Verdict - ***. Review below in this thread.

My current queue:

• Random reviews! Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter will actually function as originally intended. Text, enemies, and entire enemy groups can be replaced depending on what the censor objects to. In that case I'll message the arc author and call it a night.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a high-40s ice/axe tanker, +0/x2 with bosses on.

---

Ah, dimensional nonsense. This is what a cosmic hero is all about.

Well, partly about. Time counts as a dimension, right?

...huh. My contact's bug text mentions a university, but the mission talks about an abandoned facility in the RWZ.

And at the end of long corridors full of reticent Rikti, some Arachnos agents are taunting a little boy. He thinks this is all a dream.

Yeah, go talk to Lucy about that one, kid.

---

Huh. "An old friend of mine", next mission briefing? There weren't exactly any notable characters in that first mission. Well, let's see.

...it's Dreck. Completely unheralded by so much as a bit of orange text in the mission briefing.

I pop a Shivan, unsure of what to expect from the kid, and AR/Grav might have helped a little, but still, springing Dreck on an unsuspecting audience like that is most heinous.

---

Anyway, now fighting up a high school locker room. The rage-using boss calls a brute squad which are currently replaced by Architect's I AM ERROR stand-ins, the Proteans, though really they fit the idea well enough.

The kid who was supposed to help me is in a remote corner of the top floor, and his ego's grown to the approximate size of Cleveland.

---

Expecting to fight him in the last mission.

...not expecting unheralded Lord Recluse.

Well, at least he shows up outside the giant elaborate jail cell at the very end of the map.

---

Storyline - ***. Breaking the fourth wall, and more generally the role of the author in the story, is an occasional element of the comics canon, played as funny, heartwarming, head-trippy, or downright disturbing. An Architect story about that is fine on the face of it, and the first person to come crashing through is a flawed character who goes through an understandable arc.

The next handful of people are about as subtle as your average Suda 51 game. Or Duke Nukem, if you prefer. They almost make more sense as elements of what is essentially the first kid's architect mission, "written in" to the world rather than actually coming here. I'm not sure if that's how you actually meant them or not, but there's only one mission to deal with them so it needs some bright lines drawn.

Design - ***. I'm not taking off for the bully's messed-up posse. You'll want to look at them, but they're characteristic of Architect deciding things are invalid after the fact.

What brings this down a little bit is that the kid is as least notionally supposed to help you out, but through chance or deliberation he showed up for me in the most remote corner of the two maps where he appears as an ally - he was basically the last objective I encountered in both of them. For a story that makes something out of his growth in power, he should have the chance to show that off.

Gameplay - **. Multiple unheralded AV/EB fights with some of the toughest customers in the game. Other than those ridiculous spikes, mostly stock enemies in reasonable configurations.

Detail - ****. The arc on the initial kid is a nice piece of work. He changes throughout the missions, powers, dialogue, even the enemy group. It's painted in broad strokes, but there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.

Overall - ***. A simple story that needs more attention paid to both the set dressing and the challenge involved in its big notable fights.

Another time interval, another random arc.

Previously-played arcs from the randomizer:
Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force (58363). Verdict - ****.
Get Ye Flask (36433). Verdict - **.

Tonight's arc: Effrego Quartus Parietis (45525). Verdict - ***. Review below in this thread.

My current queue:

• Random reviews! Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter will actually function as originally intended. Text, enemies, and entire enemy groups can be replaced depending on what the censor objects to. In that case I'll message the arc author and call it a night.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

Another time interval, another random arc.

Previously-played arcs from the randomizer:
The Blue Devils (468738). Verdict - *****.
An EPIC Tale: Clown Capers (501562). Verdict - ***
A Tangle In Time (2622). Verdict - *****.

Tonight's arc: A Hero In Need Is A Friend Indeed (375018).Verdict - *****. Review in MA Forums Thread.

My current queue:

• Random reviews! Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter will actually function as originally intended. Text, enemies, and entire enemy groups can be replaced depending on what the censor objects to. In that case I'll message the arc author and call it a night.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

Review as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.

(feel free to PM me and I'll edit if this gets too spoily)

@GlaziusF

Running this on an archery/energy blaster over the arc cap, on old heroic (+0/x1 with bosses on).

---

An artifact hunt in Kings Row. Sure, I'm game.

Looks like there's a duplicate patrol here. NPC dialogue is wide-ranged enough these days that you can just put one talky patrol in and N copies.

I spot the chain glowie early, but the map is small enough that it wouldn't be much of a bother to find it.

---

Unsurprisingly, the first mission in the arc doesn't resolve all the problems, so it's time to go punch some Council.

The base leader has thoughtfully set the object I'm looking for right in the base entrance. Unfortunately he's made the common newbie mistake of scattering poison gas throughout the base. I have no choice but to bring him to justice.

Man, these guys are really invested in their magical trinkets. This is the second dude who's threatened revenge.

---

A... possessed computer? Well, these are Black Blood of the Earth folks, so a little technology might not be so unreasonable.

The Hellion in charge seems to be CADing up some ice sculptures. To each their own.

---

Huh. The entry chatter in this mission gives me certain uncomfortable premonitions.

The piece of paper I find in the wastebasket could use a mention of a certain in-hindsight-obvious power of the person in question.

---

The mission accept clue is pretty inspired.

Interesting custom group here. A small handful of customs and interesting reuse of canon mobs.

The clues themselves could stand some proper ordering, so the one you get on mission clear actually pops up at the end of the list, but otherwise there's a nice puzzle here.

---

Storyline - *****. It goes good places from the pedestrian opening. That's all I can say.

Design - *****. The custom group's got a nice theme to it, and the last mission makes good use of the tools available to create a bit of a little puzzle in Architect, something I don't see a whole lot of.

Gameplay - ****. The descriptions on the destroy objectives mention this, but here's me: destructibles in Mission Architect don't become valid targets until their guards are engaged. I don't know why that is exactly - maybe a genuine engine limitation, maybe a holdover from the time when destructibles actually gave out XP.

Maybe it was just my bad luck with spawn locations, but it seems like pretty much every (single) guard on the destructibles in the last mission was on the other side of a solid barrier from the object they were supposed to be guarding, mixed in with some other spawn entirely, or both. I don't know if increasing the guard level on them would necessarily help with that, but it couldn't hurt to try.

Detail - ****. The ordering of clues in the last mission is a little messed up. You can drag and drop objectives to change the order their clues show up in, and I think it'd make more sense if the clues came in the order of the boss fight, then the hostage rescue, then the glowies, then the final destructible (perhaps as a mission complete clue?)

Overall - *****. Easy to play with a fun progression from start to finish. A couple minor issues with the last mission - clue ordering which could stand to be corrected, destructible targeting which might not be able to - but otherwise a solid arc.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a high-40s ice/axe tank, +0/x2 with bosses on.

---

Mender Tess (she could use a description now that you can do that) sends me off against a group with designs against Ouroboros. Apparently I don't exist in their past, which will let me blindside them.

I begin engaging the soldiers. Let's see here... AR/elec armor and elec melee/elec armor minions, mercs/mind control and AR/empathy lieutenants... and Vanguard Sergeants for some reason?

Yeah, stock description and everything. Are these guys supposed to be here? If so you might want to at least tweak their stock description to note how odd that is.

I meet a metahuman called "The Alpha", a fire blast (with Aim)/fire manip (with Build Up). He shows up later in the mission as a normal boss, which seems a little odd. I also meet a timelost caveman, Mace (with build up)/Invuln, and a mad archer, bow (with aim)/pain dom.

The map boss is an energy melee (with build up) robot who seems to have used my existence to crack Ouroboros.

Problematic.

---

Tess decides to send me after them, surmising I won't die just yet and offering to off me and dump the body down a blind time-hole if I don't get on it.

Woman after my own heart, that one.

I enter the map to a bunch of greens. If you don't want that to happen you should look at the mission pacing setting - this may have been made before it actually worked properly.

Yeah, I'm betting you didn't want The Alpha to be a regular feature, but I fight him all through this place, including three times in one room.

Apparently someone's been feeding this information to the robot...

---

...someone in the 5th Column. Trying to span across history before time travel is uninvented. Tess says she'll come with? Now this will be interesting.

I pick her up in the first room. Pretty standard MA/SR, really. The base is a small 5th Column affair with the troops discussing the upcoming schism. I pick up the drive as a clue, but no idea what's on it yet - I'm guessing Tess will read that after we get out.

---

Not even. But with the drive gone Time-Shift never cuts Ouro off from the time stream, so that's a win of sorts. I go to get news of Ouro while Tess works on figuring out who tipped the robot off.

...well. Somehow things have gone even worse now.

...or... wait. The ambush that shows up when I drop the bot is casting things in a new light. I'm a traitor in this timeline? Are all the other Menders that way too?

---

Huh. Apparently this whole affair was Tess's plan in the future to turn TimeShift into a traitor and seal off Ouroboros against those who would destroy it all. So now I'm going to make sure the robot finds out how to get that done.

Well, this should be an easy little coda.

This... uh... this isn't the same base I was in last time The overall topology is similar, but the last room is markedly different. For a second I think things are going to go weird once I set the drive in place, but the mission ends normally.

---

Storyline - ***. But the future refused to change.

It's not really easy to keep up tension in an arc where you're fighting as hard as you can just to stay in the same place. I respect that, but even then mission 2 is pretty much the last time I got in a meaningful fight to learn something novel. Missions 3 and 5 are milk runs through a small 5th base. Mission 4 is ultimately completely misguided, and I'm still not sure how much of it really changed. Absent the other people who've been ill done by time travel... was the whole mission really against Ouroboros loyalists? The actual future threat never appeared on the map?

I was expecting something to try and stop me in the last mission at least, some little glimpse of how bad this alternate future is that Tess would rather turn down an entire army of dudes than face it. But it's just a little stealth to click and then it's over.

Design - ***. The maps are alright. The 5th bunkers are 5th bunkers, the lab's a lab, and Eleusis does a decent job standing in for somewhere near Ouro. I don't even think the kickoff for the Alpha unlock arc is available in Mission Architect, and I rather doubt you could put much on it even then.

The custom enemy group's pretty thematically decent. Purple, occasionally sparkity, soldiers.

Mender Tess is some pretty nice design work. I can tell she looks a little bit different, but she doesn't look wrong.

But there are places where the design feels a little unpolished. The Timeshift lab that kicks off with greens, though that might well be a symptom of pacing that's only comparatively recently started working. The incongruous Vanguard soldier, who does kind of look the part in the customs but retains his original title and description, just seeming to have wandered in. The Alpha showing up as a regular boss among the customs, which I'm pretty sure is not intended. And the two 5th bunkers that are almost, but not quite, completely identical-looking.

Gameplay - ***. I occasionally have harsh words for Aim and Build Up in lower-level arcs or on elite bosses, but on bosses they actually make for some pretty notable fights at the higher levels.

Though if the Alpha's really supposed to be a regular presence in the custom group, he's got both Aim and Build up and is a regular fight, so that doesn't work out quite as well.

But there's only one proper melee unit in the custom group, maybe one and a half if the Vanguard lieut is supposed to be there as he sometimes will close to melee. The problem with ranged enemies that I often talk about is that, especially on open ground, there's no real way to get them to group together. So every battle ends with a little bit of mop-up. This is a little bit irritating, but it doesn't really get very bad unless the mission's a defeat all.

Or a chained mission on an outdoor map, which often practically works out to "defeat all" so you have a prayer of finding the new objective when it warps in. And both the outdoor missions with the custom group involve some degree of chaining.

Detail - *****. Mission 4 is actually pretty well-written. The attack calls and such are flavorful enough that it seems to a casual observer like nothing's changed, but the reveal at the end throws the whole thing into pretty sharp contrast. The effect only lasts for a little bit - ultimately it was a lot of running to stand still - but it's a nice effect.

Tess is a sardonic, just barely not murderous joy to listen to, and when the enemy group showed up in the first mission their descriptions and dialogues made me want to see more of them, and explore their deeply-rooted personal animosity against time travel.

Overall - ***. But ultimately the people who hate time travel enough to drown it in the wrathtub play second fiddle to an ouroboros in the snake-eating-own-tail sense and an unspecified future enemy of Ouroboros who never really gets any screen time. That's disappointing, and the little annoyances don't do much to cushion the blow.

But unless I miss my guess, this is an arc that has a lot to gain from the capabilities now present in Architect and perhaps even the expanded file size.

Another time interval, another random arc.

Previously-played arcs from the randomizer:
The Doom that Came to Paragon City (28540). Verdict - ***.
Catching Lightning in a Bottle (60639). Verdict - ***.
Of Mentors And Legacy (1589). Verdict - ****.

Tonight's arc: Entrusted with the Other Secret (120462). Verdict - ***. Review below in this thread.

My current queue:

• Random reviews! Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter will actually function as originally intended. Text, enemies, and entire enemy groups can be replaced depending on what the censor objects to. In that case I'll message the arc author and call it a night.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a low-teens will/dark tank, on old Heroic - +0/x1 with bosses on.

---

Fusionette needs a description, now that you can do that.

One of the Nuclear 90 has mysteriously vanished! Task Force Superawesome is on the case!

The warehouse is oddly silent. Hellions are doing their usual stunts but nobody's saying anything... until right at the end, when one of the 90 has apparently decided to take up a life of crime.

Fusionette, your thoughts? "Weeeeird". Yes, thank you. I suppose blasting Rikti several blocks away does take up most of your time.

---

Another one of the vanished 90 is robbing a bank. Lady Grey has given Fusionette a rerouter so they can be captured by Vanguard when they beam out. That'd be nice as an opening clue, now that you can do that.

Nick has opted for the "like a sun" interpretation of fusion. A clue he drops on defeat reveals some kind of mind-control arifact. Nasty pieces of work, those.

Finding the stolen artifacts isn't hard as they're all in the vault. I think there are only a few bank maps that actually can put glowies outside the vault. If you want them to show up scattered throughout the bank, you might want to confirm glowie location on the map preview, now that we get one.

...apropos of nothing, I wonder if Up-n-Away burger actually has some kind of flying delivery service. It seems pretty natural given the branding. And the wide availability of jet packs.

---

Fusionette reading off a report. This is pretty great. And apparently Faultline's got himself mixed up in this too?

There are Hellions here... IMPUGNING HIGHER LEARNING? This will not stand!

Anyway, two more heroes down and poor Jim Temblor is glad I don't work for the tabloids.

This all seems to be the work of some kid who got booted out of MAGI for conduct unbecoming a decent human being.

---

And now we're going to try some aversion therapy on the guy. I'm in.

A refight with Mandy, and... oh, hey. The end boss is actually an EB. So that's why my health is going down so fast. Good punchup, though.

I've prevented a plan to mind-control the city's heroes at the cost of... being on Fusionette's speed dial. History will remember this sacrifice.

---

Storyline - ****. It's a simple story told succinctly - my only problem is with Vanguard's role in the whole thing. I've always thought of Vanguard as kind of a high-test organization more concerned with fighting back the Rikti. They wouldn't really be interested in the Nuclear 90 going on a low-level crime spree. That's really more GIFT's department. I mean, unless there are alien mind-control devices we're lookin' at here, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I mean, Lady Grey's got a very wheels-within-wheels sort of persona, maybe there's something for her in all this, but it'd be nice to get a hint of that. I mean, heck, maybe she's passing us notes because Fusionette is not noted for being a good conductor of information.

Design - ****. Sensible maps overall, and customs tricked out in bright primary colors, with a very Duke Mordrogar final boss. I suppose for a low-level arc there's not much variety to be had, but I would have liked to fight something besides Hellions, even if they are behind it all.

Gameplay - *****. Stock Hellions never hurt nobody. Really my only problem is with the recurring radiation-blast boss. At low levels you come to rely quite a bit on the native enemy 50% miss chance for mitigation. You might want to see what kind of XP she gets without Neutrino Bolt.

Detail - *****. The walkers are sparse, but they always have something interesting to say, and the Nuclear 90 have nice little bios.

I'm just disappointed nobody actually mentions Task Force Superawesome outside of Fusionette. Villains have a weird sense for those sorts of things.

Overall - ****. A nice low-level arc that takes the Nuclear 90 and runs with 'em a bit. It could use some slightly varied opposition and Vanguard getting involved seems a bit out of scope, but the core is solid.

Another time interval, another random arc.

Tonight's arc: Nuclear in 90 - The Fusionette Task Force (58363). Verdict - ****. Review would be in its thread, but it seems to have gotten mulched during the forums upgrade, so it's just in the space below.

My current queue:

• Random reviews! Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter will actually function as originally intended. Text, enemies, and entire enemy groups can be replaced depending on what the censor objects to. In that case I'll message the arc author and call it a night.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

Another time interval, another random arc.

Tonight's arc: For the People (530574). Verdict - ****. Review in General Forums Thread.

My current queue:

• Random reviews! Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter will actually function as originally intended. Text, enemies, and entire enemy groups can be replaced depending on what the censor objects to. In that case I'll message the arc author and call it a night.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

Gosh, now I'm all confused. I like putting these in people's threads to give them a bump, but is this kind of commentary really appropriate for a general forum? Ah well, your call Todo, shoot me a line if you object and I'll take this down.

Review done as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a high-40s ice/axe tank, +0/x2 with bosses on.

---

It's really not necessary to put in the fiction about using AE to get heroes together for a punchup. That's space you could use to talk about other things that actually matter to the plot.

Still, standard Saturday morning spiel here - whole bunch of archvillains coming together to bring Paragon City to its knees. My part in this begins foiling a prison break in the Zig. ...in the bunker? That's kind of dinky.

But yeah. Rescue Citadel, throw down with Black Scorpion in this teeny-tiny space.

(I still can't believe you can't call that particular spade a spade.)

---

And now someone's unleashed Arachnoids on Peregrine Island.

Looks like someone fobbed mind-control duty for them off on the Carnies. Hoo boy. Fortuntately with Manticore and Miss Sis Psyche, there's not a lot of danger in a single Master Illusionist boss.

(And just so you know, the list of random civilians includes some distinctly un-civilian entities, like the Tsoo tattoo artists.)

Apparently there's some bad mojo brewing on Striga.

---

Synapse and Babs? Hoo boy. The Knockback Brothers. And Synapse's AI makes him rapidly switch targets to show off his speed. If I was worried about getting dogpiled I'd be extra-worried now.

In attendance at the Center's control room are Nosferatu and.... some random scrub elite protector. It seems that the Circle are going to summon Baphomet and then Crey and the Council are going to pump him up with mad science.

The alteration chamber is... up on the catwalks in the Center's danger room? I didn't even know there WERE catwalks in the Center's danger room. Learn something new every day.

And then Baphomet is out. With a little help from my allies I take him out before the ambush waves even show up, which is kind of sad.

---

Now, it's onto the location in Faultline that these transmissions have been coming from.

It quickly turns into an all-out brawl. Lord Recluse's remaining lieutenants and a token Nemesis presence are here, and along with Positron and Numina, Infernal and Valkyrie have come out to play.

But apparently some superweapon "End Game" is being built here. Let's see...

Ah. It's been whisked away. To the core of the Rogue Isles. And we need to follow it.

---

Hey. An MA map that starts in Lord Recluse's war room and actually uses the rest of the map. This should be fun.

Well, if Synapse weren't pulling the entire Fist of Fear down on our heads. He gets Psyche and almost himself creamed by Gyrfalcon the Unheralded.

Looks like there are actually a whole bunch of dudes kicking around. Dreck, Requiem...

"End Game" is apparently code for "the part where all the heroes get it". Recluse just wanted one last throw down - all of us versus all of them.

Shame we take on all of them one at a time.

Generally.

SYNAPSE.

Recluse thinks he has us trapped here, but the way we got in still works to come out.

And in the debriefing, we iris out as everyone laughs.

---

Storyline - ***. This arc is built to lead up to the final battle, with little teaser installments of the all of us vs. all of them. As such it doesn't really need a story so much as an excuse that isn't patently ridiculous, and manages that pretty well.

I will say a couple things. First, the "our way out still works, guys!" strikes me as a little cheap. I mean, maybe Dr. Aeon was miffed at being left out or something and we'd get a little note from him saying so as a clue in the final mission. Second, don't play up the Architect. It really doesn't have anything to do with how the plot progresses -- it's generally assumed that the contact hologram and the architect pillar are just stand-ins for the contact and the mission door in the "real world". Mentioning the Architect leads to the expectation that it'll be important somewhere down the line, and that just doesn't happen.

Design - ****. No customs to speak of here, it's all stock. The special maps are all used pretty well to set the stage, with one exception: the villain tutorial mission in the Zig bunker. That map has just enough space for a hostage and a boss fight and absolutely nothing else. As a start to an arc about saving the world with the Freedom Phalanx, it seems just a little bit insignificant.

Gameplay - ****. I'll spell it out again: Synapse's AI is different from pretty much every other ally or enemy. Because a speedster who just stands there is kind of silly, Synapse's AI is programmed to race around finding new things to beat on and showing off his ridiculous speed.

In a fight that's already a giant scrum, Synapse goes out and gets even more fighters. On one hand it wasn't really all that bad; on the other it might work better if Synapse was either captured in the back room because he always gets at least that far, or was just a rescue who dashed off to give a report or secure an escape or whatever.

Detail - *****. This whole affair was a very Marvel Adventures sort of take on the game, and it's not easy to pull that off without getting too facile or too cynical, so points for that.

Legally Distinct From Black Scorpion does rankle a little bit, but there's not much you can do about that.

Overall - ****. A good punchup with a workable story.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a max-level fire/energy tanker, +1/x2 with bosses on.

---

So, flashing back to WW1, under the sardonic guidance of Mender Tesseract. Okay, let's see what's messing things up.

Hmm. Blue tunnels. I would have gone with tan tunnels.

Anyway, grunt soldiers with melee picks and shovels, higher ranks with guns. Very fitting the story. I find some temporal anomalies (all of them in the same room) that seem to denote something notable has been pulled out of time.

Huh. For some reason the Germans are all speaking, well, German, but the officer in charge is spouting English? Anyway, his notes (which I can also read) indicate that he dug too greedily and too deep, and stumbled on weird things which he sealed up behind him.

Any bets where we're going next?

---

Oh lord, Oranbega? That's not supposed to go there!

I hear Germans as I enter. So some of them were stranded back here? ...well, I don't blame them, really. The Circle are pretty freaky.

There are explosive charges leftover from previous tunnel activities, distracting from the real objective, which is to find clues as to what's going on here.

A genuine Circle entry about being displaced in time. A rack of seemingly medieval weapons made by modern recreators. ...which I guess the modern Circle might grab onto?

Everything else seems to point to some mage messing with an obelisk that catapulted them all back into the past.

---

Ah, I see. The Circle didn't do this, but they're investigating, and unlocking the secrets of time travel is a bad thing.

So we have to destroy... however they got pulled here. I wonder what did it?

There are stasis tubes marked as "temporal warp generators" but with their default description, a boss with the default boss description, and a couple of captured soldiers who die horribly to Behemoth fireballs and firebreath. Not much for answering the wonderment there, other than a comment they're made of the same strange metal that wound up in Oranbega.

Apparently Tesseract doesn't know what they are either, and she's passing them up the chain.

---

And now we have a couple other things to do to preserve the timeline. Peachy. Well, nobody ever said this would be easy.

The German officer here has an escort of Circle. That seems like an oversight.

There are also a couple of warding obelisks to break down for... some reason.

I have to spring someone and... actually lead him out of Oranbega. Over the rickety bridges, through the portals, and past the crystals which automatically occupy an escort's attention when they get close to one.

You can't exactly help that last one, but given that this guy's just hangin' out in the end room, and the walk back is completely uneventful, could it not be an escort?

Also the clue I get on mission complete seems to be a dummy -- "Lieutenant: ddd".

The strange temporal devices that caused this all... are still a mystery. Silos maintains they're from the future, and from space, but that's not important right now. What's important is -- I have to believe in myself.

---

Storyline - *****. Now that I think about it, for an organization that's supposed to be dedicated to preserving the sanctity of the timeline, there really aren't a lot of missions like this arc in Ouroboros. I guess the weird temporal artifacts are supposed to be foreshadowing of the Coming Storm?

Regardless, this is a well-contained little story about correcting a timeline through more than just play-acting through history. The only problem I have is that the temporal distortions are set up as a puzzle to solve - I suppose part of that is the limited model selection in the game so you can't actually have genuinely mysterious objects. Everything looks like something I've seen before. But for at least half the arc I'm figuring that I'll find the people responsible and maybe biff them in the face.

I don't know if this is something fixable. I mean, I'm operating at the Ouroboros level but I could stand some reminder at some point that this is yeoman's work, basic investigation.

Design - ****. Oranbega is Oranbega, the tunnels are tunnels. It's nice to see the blue caves when appropriate - though again, this seems kinda like a job for brown caves, mostly to improve visibility of the enemy forces.

Speaking of the enemy forces, there's generally a good job done with them here, too. The minions are melee sappers using mining tools, the higher ranks have guns. Now that you can select the powers an enemy has you might want to take period-inappropriate devices away from the boss rank.

The end mission feels kinda like an early version of itself - there are some obelisks to break that don't do anything and there's dummy text in the mission complete clue.

Gameplay - ***. Mostly for the last mission. I had the entire thing cleared out with an hour to go, but I ran into so many crystals trying to get the escort out that I nearly ran out of time. If I hadn't wanted to see how the story ended for the review, I seriously would have written the arc off there. I know it's not your fault that escorts bug out on crystals, and they actually show up pretty randomly in Oranbega maps, but this needs to be addressed. Maybe if you're going to have an escort, put him up front?

Detail - ***. Circle bosses and destructible objects have their stock descriptions. I forget if that was variable at the time this arc was released, but it certainly is now. Those are nice little ways to drop some hints to people who are paying attention.

On one hand I understand why you have the soldiers, mostly patrols, shouting in German or French. On the other it's kind of weird that occasionally when I should understand someone, like a boss, they speak pretty good English.

Also, look at that German boss in the last map. Pretty sure he's not supposed to have a Circle escort.

Overall - ****. The last mission needs a little patching-up, but most of the problems with the arc aren't necessarily of its own making. And the story - actually doing something to fix time for Ouroboros! - is something worth telling that I haven't seen before.

Another time interval, another random arc.

Tonight's arc: To End All Wars (65963). Verdict - ****. Review below in this thread.

My current queue:

• Random reviews! Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter will actually function as originally intended. Text, enemies, and entire enemy groups can be replaced depending on what the censor objects to. In that case I'll message the arc author and call it a night.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a max-level stone/ice tanker, +1/x2 with bosses on.

---

So a flashback in MA to the Rikti War. The first mission is pitched as some kind of escort, but my target pops free immediately on entering the map and there's no escort target - you can actually do escort targets now, and they're really helpful, especially on outdoor maps.

Regardless, this escort seems to be kind of a moot point, since the heroes have all been shepherded away by the Rikti. Though there are still wounded to heal.

---

Wounded Rikti, which doesn't go over well with the Vanguard, but they grudgingly accept the idea.

And then the Rikti storm the base to rescue their prisoner.

He's feeling helpful, though. This seems like another sensible place for an escort, but I'm loath to recommend those as they're still a bit bugged.

---

Vanguard base round two! There's a boss just inside the door who's been picked from an enemy with a maximum level of 39, so he's very very gray.

Freeing Dr. Langstrom on the first floor... completes the mission? How strange. I'll head upstairs to see what goes on.

No, there doesn't seem to be a Rikti upstairs. I have no idea if this is intended or not.

Apparently it is! But he was in the navbar and there wasn't so much as a clue that indicated the mission should have completed early.

---

And now the doc decides to sneak onto Omega Team. ...because the Rikti she rescued was taken back to the Rikti home world?

Or is coincidentally in the staging area?

Anyway, I rescue the doc and the Rikti, but even with it following after me the objective's still in the nav bar. Curious.

Oh. It's Ajax. Completely unheralded. Freeing him does complete the mission though.

Also he's called Ajax in the mission but Apex in the debrief. (Apex is a completely different dude, helped out War Witch and such.)

---

And now for the payoff that kicked off this arc in the first place.

Apparently my contact's sister is actually a mind-controller working for the Council. But there's something wrong with her MA definition, as she shows up as a level 39 Wolfpack robot, though the clue that drops on her defeat seems to indicate more of a pistolero.

...for some reason this last mission was supposed to be real? That's kind of a weird direction to take, as it doesn't really add much of anything. Ah well.

---

Storyline - ***. It all made a decent amount of sense up until the reveal that the final mission was something I did five years ago but somehow didn't remember. Up until then there's been a decent flow to the story with the final mission set up as a coda, and actually writing me into the story doesn't seem to have much purpose.

There isn't really a lot that can top the last days of Omega Team as a draw, so writing me into the story doesn't help a lot on that front.

Design - *. For all that I talk up how appropriate escorts would be, they're still plagued by bugs. An escort will always stay at the location you dropped them off - you can't create, like, waypoints or anything with them. So for point-to-point escorts with noncombatants, they work fine, but anything else needs consideration. Wanted to get that up front because it's important.

The opposition is stock here, with apparently three customs - my contact with and without lab coat, and the end boss, who as I noted has something wrong somewhere and shows up as a giant robot. I don't take points off for that, since the system has shifted under existing arcs so radically.

But the mission objectives don't match up very well with what I'm actually asked to do in the mission. Mission one asks me to pick up an escort and find a hero. The "hero" is actually a boss fight with Rikti. They're mentioning a hero, but there's nothing to connect them and no reason not to look elsewhere for something that seems relevant to completing the mission. Mission three puts the rescued Rikti in the navbar but the mission completes after freeing the doctor - deliberately, as the Rikti isn't there, but in the absence of some clue or indication to the contrary it seems wrong, especially when the doctor shows up on the first floor. Perhaps some glowie later on might indicate where the rescued Rikti was subsequently taken? Mission four has a completely unheralded hostage rescue objective - the Rikti ally mentions hostages but his name is still in the navbar when he does this.

Overall, especially given how flaky the Architect can be at the best of times, it's better to err on the side of overly explicitly conveying what the player should be doing.

Gameplay - ***. The first mission is a blind hunt on an outdoor map, and the two missions that have inconsistent objectives seem a little more interminable than they might otherwise be.

The opposition is stock and entirely reasonable, but wondering what exactly will complete the mission makes the whole exercise a lot more tense than it needs to be.

Detail - ***. There isn't much custom description needed. What description exists is serviceable and concise. The problem is that clues don't show up very consistently as the missions progress. If the mission isn't proceeding as the original briefing might have indicated, a clue is a sensible place to deliver that sort of course correction.

Overall - **. What drags this arc down is the persistent mismatch between what the briefings and navbar indicate needs to be done and the actions that I have to actually take to complete the mission. Fortunately this is easy to fix, but it really torpedoes my enjoyment of the arc.

Another ridiculous time interval, another random arc.

Previously played:

The Sinister Song (454892) Verdict - **.
A Spanner In The Works, Part One (336662) Verdict - **
Captain Skylark Shadowfancy and the Tomorrownauts of Today (337333) Verdict - ****
Might Makes Right: The One With Tin Hats (5213) Verdict - ***.
Why We Fight (253990). Verdict - ***.

Tonight's arc: Love's Labors Lost (242292). Verdict - **. Review below in this thread.

My current queue:

• Random reviews! Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter will actually function as originally intended. Text, enemies, and entire enemy groups can be replaced depending on what the censor objects to. In that case I'll message the arc author and call it a night.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a max-level spine/regen scrapper, +1/x2 with bosses on.

---

Alright. So Mynx is sending me to scout out Praetoria by... beating the snot out of everybody in sight. She's not that good at stealth, is she?

(Quick note about the funny accept text you've got there - only the mission accepter can possibly see this. If this is an arc that likes teams, you may want to break it out into a briefing, which at least teammates can see.)

The enemies are "Crossbow", a worthy construction from a time before the IDF, but I was actually kinda looking forward to wrangling with them in architect.

Oh, this is disquieting. Jonin dropping blinding powder. Does that have a to-hit or is it automatic? Either way it's a long-duration stacked confuse. And dominators with plant control, with cascading defense debuffs, and radiation defenders. Radiation toggle debuffs don't actually wear off in the hands of the Architect.

You've got some kind of messed-up power selection or something in the files, as I'm seeing some proteans stomping around.

But the "Crossbow" are pretty nice visually, all having junior versions of Tyrant's armor on.

...oh, this is interesting. Apparently with confuse on me, Mynx (unconfused) thinks I'm an enemy and preferentially targets me. Would explain why I'm melting so quickly.

After plowing through Going Rogue a couple times it seems odd to be getting "introduced" to the IDF-equivalent and the resistance. I mean, I could understand needing an introduction, but it's not exactly the level of vital intelligence to be parceled out in clues.

---

Nice repurposing of a neighborhood as leveled.

Not-so-nice: needing to find a random thing in it, and then needing to find a random thing in it again.

Just plain weird: even though her name is Dominatrix, I guess automatic updates to the enemy model mean that she shows up in the description and kill text as Praetor Duncan.

---

And now I punch Siege to serve as a distraction.

Huh. The opening text scroll suggests someone came through a portal, but the operative I rescue is from not-Arachnos. Are we letting them stage their operations out of Portal Corp or the Vindicator base or something?

Here is a terrible secret about the Skyway City overpasses: there are about four functional Z-levels to this map, and you will never, ever see more than one of them unless you use the map in Mission Architect.

...and unheralded by anything but an ambush, Siege's defeat chains into finding Neuron.

My ally is a bit flaky in this map. Sometimes she'll space out and need to be re-acquired.

Finally I work my way through the multiple levels and find Neuron.

---

Oh. So the not-Arachnos are staging in this dimension. That... sets an interesting precedent, though I suppose it's only fair given the Praetorians try and get themselves beachheads over here. Anyway. Planting bombs now.

You should know that if you have multiple copies of a single objective, the very first one gives the objective-complete text and any associated clues. Doesn't play well with setting up a surprise.

---

And a final showdown. There are quite a few optional bosses called out in the navbar, but any bosses in the way of Recluse and his half-dozen summoned dudes aren't really optional.

Judging by the lack of mementos though, the fights are really just for the thrill of the combat, which isn't a bad reason overall.

I like the justification for the time limit, but I come in under it with pretty much no trouble, thanks largely to Recluse and his six summoned dudes.

---

Storyline - ****. This may be a little personally biased, but I like what's going on here. There's the couple of Praetorian arcs, and then there's the giant Incarnate trials, and there's not much in between the two. A story about the Vindicators hooking up with the Resistance is a pretty good bridge between these events.

Well, the actual Resistance. Not Arightnos. Praetoria starts with Marcus Cole killin' his old war buddy and goes from there, though some Arachnos luminaries do show up in the underground. But it's hardly fair to take points off for something you didn't know about at the time of writing.

If you're revisiting this, of course, I'd like to see the Resistance in the rewrite, but Praetoria-as-mirror-Earth was a common enough guess back when that was all we saw.

Design - ***. Chained objectives can be very tempting if you want to present events in a certain order. The problem is that it's not always possible to ensure the player encounters those spawns (or spawn locations for unspawned encounters) in the proper order, especially on outdoor maps.

So when you've got a story in a mission that depends on certain things happening, especially when the mission map doesn't lend itself to a linear narrative, consider if they really have to happen in the provided order. Do we really need, for example in mission three, to pop the agent from Arightnos, then defeat Siege, then drop Neuron?

I have to drop a good word for the enemy costume design. It does some nice borrowing from Tyrant's major elements to create a much more credible personal guard than the Destroyers used to be. Now, of course, there's the IDF, but that's beside the point.

Gameplay - *. I will give the customs this: nobody's got crazy burst offense or impregnable defense. Those are just pains to go up against. Unfortunately there are some other pains laying around. Radiation defenders with persistent debuffs. The plant/thorn dominators whose every power debuffs your defense, making it more likely that a followup is going to hit and debuff your defense, making it more likely that a followup is going to hit... it's just a bad scene. Smoke flash from the ninja mastermind's minions is a new one, though. That's a decent-duration confuse that may well turn your intended-to-be-balancing-factor ally against you as well. The oni is enough of a challenge, with the rain of fire scattering your ally and fire control powers that charge fast enough to stack status effects even through Integration.

The chained objectives on outdoor maps aren't much fun either. They can show up literally anywhere and the only way to find out where is to scour every corner of the map or kill enough of the map's population that you may as well have scoured every corner. And the Skyway map undergoes a startling transformation under the architect's spawner, turning from a simple corridor of highway into a corner-snooping nightmare on four z-levels.

I should drop a good word for the concept of the last mission is good in spirit - one big brawl with some side fights if you feel like it - and fortunately Recluse spawned near enough to the back that I only had one side fight to worry about before I made it all the way.

Detail - ***. Detail was serviceable. Crossbow could have used some kind of individual detail, more than just the archetype and history, kind of along the lines of the power descriptions that Longbow Wardens get.

I don't want to talk too much about detail because given how much of the plot has changed since this arc was released, a giant amount of it may need to change.

Overall - ***. In short, a good concept for an arc that seems to be more about fights than about really exploring plot space, and that's fine. Even lip service to a non-Trial interaction with Praetoria and the Resistance is novel enough to hook me. But some of the powerset choices have possibly unintended difficulty consequences, and the outdoor missions frustrate as outdoor missions so often do.

Using the same plot in the current game storyline would mean a completely different NPC selection, both for enemies and for some allies. Most of the customs would have to go, unless you wanted to pass them off as some kind of new Imperial development, like their own Paragon Protector program.

Another ridiculous time interval, another random arc.

Previously played:

Blood for Roses (161399). Verdict - ***

Tonight's arc: Praetoria: The Coming Storm (169598). Verdict - ***. Review below in this thread.

My current queue:

• Random reviews! Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter will actually function as originally intended. Text, enemies, and entire enemy groups can be replaced depending on what the censor objects to. In that case I'll message the arc author and call it a night.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.

@GlaziusF

Running this on a level 50 stone/ice tank, +1/x2 with bosses on.

---

Well, that's one way to start out a game: with amnesia, in a giant artificial environment, apparently having assumed the party escort submission position.

And I've got a psychic radio buddy! Those are always fun.

Ick, ghosts. At least I don't have to defeat them, but they love to rain down screaming necrotic doom from halfway across the map. Apparently they're some kind of fake human, as I find another humaniform, illusion/energy, as an incidental silent boss.

I encounter several conflicting accounts of how I wound up here, and a friendly humaniform who points the way to the energy source. He talks about dying if they go near, and I take this to mean some kind of escort behavior. Better head for this glade and WHY HELLO THERE BABS.

Oh. Oh, phew. That was just his idle animation. I thought I was about to get pelted, but he's friendly.

Whatever power source is in this place, the ghosts don't want me getting near it. That can't be good for my long-term prospects.

---

Then again, right now I'm fighting my way through hordes of them anyway. A pack of robots right now, who are apparently under control of some robot master.

Hmm. Project Locke. I find some information on the process - worryingly I seem to be stepping through the first couple of stages.

Upstairs I find a chattyface who seems to be the earlier robot's opposite number, though I figured she'd be accompanied by mages or something instead of, apparently, alone.

Also Falcon gets in touch with me and confirms my suspicions from earlier. He thinks Crey's taking me to use as another Protector template.

---

Invisible Falcon and my creepy psychic radio buddy are now trying to get my back against what seem to be the increasingly transparent ploys of the Crey program. Interestingly, though, they don't seem to be telling me to do anything different, necessarily.

If it weren't for Dr. Pretendo trying to improvise, I could easily buy this being a con coming the other way, as this is a cosmic-level arc and it's plausible for any hero at this level to be part of or at least aware of the exposure of Crey's nefarious business practices.

Room one I find a security program, near an aspect of myself who appears to be a demon clone. Well, this just got easier.

Of the remaining four suppressed aspects of myself, three do nothing and one decides to throw its lot in with Crey and attacks me. Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys. But once Praetoriana is clear they all jack themselves in and overload the system.

---

And then I wake myself.

Oh hey, some nice little Protectors. Custom bitty flame models, and some weapon elements too. I break some vital testing apparatus on my way up to bring the project lead to justice, and fight through Protectors coming back down.

And with one final assist from IF, I escape.

---

Storyline: The first two missions and the briefing for the third are all pretty nicely done. Things are plausibly deniable for the first two missions but when the ball drops in the briefing for the third it doesn't come out of nowhere. The ending's alright too - a straight-up punch-up that's a nice cooldown after all the more abstract earlier missions.

(Though having the assist from IF at the end does feel a bit odd. It's true we don't get a lot of information about him, but he never struck me as much of a computer hacker, especially as compared to, say, Mark VI or Dr. Friedkin, to name a few other potential ghosts in the machine.)

I did lose the plot for the third mission itself, though. There's basically three threads I'm aware of at the time: what Dr. Pretendo is telling me to do, what that's actually doing for Crey, and what IF and the voices in my head want me to do to escape. It's clear that I'm doing what the third party wants to do in the third mission, but what I'm not sure of is how I came to be able to do it. Has Crey just left vital testing apparatus in the simulation this entire time and hoped I wouldn't be able to interact with it? If not, how did I actually get to the place where it was being held? I could see maybe this being some kind of last resort - they only really modeled the park and the office complex in addition to the control chamber - but it still feels rather arbitrary how I got there.

Design: The first three missions could be absolutely anything and the last mission is a Crey lab. Not much to get wrong from a map choice perspective. The first three missions could have absolutely anything for enemies, and you do alright with the ghosts and the custom in the first mission, but the giant swarm of robots starts to wear a little. They make good enemies for the third mission, but you could stand a little more variety in the second mission. Like giving Ms. Chattyface any troops at all.

The custom protector minions make a nice alternative to the 7th-gens and their desparation defenses, but was I just unlucky with spawns or are there no lieutenants in the group at all? I think they dock points for that.

Gameplay: The only mission with any backtracking puts in a decent selection of stuff to get in the way while you're doing it. I was never really frustrated or waiting too long. Aside from that the opposition's largely stock and when it isn't stock the customs are reasonable.

There is one thing I want to raise as regards the robots: they were designed more as variant enemies within their respective groups than complete groups in their own right, so cherry-picking the lot of them means that a character who does primarily lethal or psionic damage will find themselves doing half or less than half damage against the bulk of opposition I realize this was canonically done in the Rogue Robots mini-arc but that doesn't make it any better.

Detail: I think part of the problem with my losing the plot between missions 2 and 3 is that the enemies are exactly identical as far as descriptions go. In mission 2 they kind of make sense as minions of the taciturn robot, and I suppose you could argue they get a more sinister cast to them in mission 3. But if mission 2 is inside the simulation and mission 3 is running around backstage, it would help establish the separation if there were different enemies in the two missions - if not different in actual composition, then at least different in names and powers.

Overall: The general shape of what's going on is fairly clear here. The twist itself is well set up from the start, and there's some good design work here, especially with the custom protector squad in the last mission. But the actual process by which the twist pays off is a bit murky, though fortunately there are a lot of ways that could be corrected: clearer narration, varied opposition, even just altered descriptions.

Somewhere something changed. I know I used to be able to play CoH more than a few hours a month.

Anyway, here's an in-development review of "The Astral Prison", below in this thread.

My current queue:

• Random reviews! Due to the overeager text censor I can't be sure that any random arc I encounter will actually function as originally intended. Text, enemies, and entire enemy groups can be replaced depending on what the censor objects to. In that case I'll message the arc author and call it a night.
• I'm still open to reviews by request, for anything you know is working.

If anybody wants in, the instructions are in the first post. I've recently made a few clarifications to it. A part of these instructions, perhaps pertinent to this post: I always vote 5 in-game, as it seems a bit uncouth to ask people to jump through hoops and then bomb their rating.

Something that isn't in the instructions but could stand to be said: CoH Mission Review isn't my private site. It's not even my site. Anybody's welcome to leave a review on anything, and it hardly has to be as long as the critical monstrosities I find myself putting out now and again.