LaserJesus

To add to the threads that twelfth already linked to, you should really check out this thread. It's a list of MA arcs sorted by level and "origin", like the regular arcs are, so it's very well suited to your purposes. PoliceWoman is a very prolific poster around these boards and has a good eye for quality, so even though I haven't played every arc on that list (there are a lot) I can say with confidence that you should find some arcs you really like there.

Even though I'm apparently an hour late, I ran through Breaking the Barrier today. I gave it 4 stars.

Pros: Well designed custom group, last couple of missions are really sold.
Cons: First mission is a rocky start for the arc, some of the characterization could use some punching up.

I feel like this isn't as strong as some of Lazarus' other arcs that I've played. The Nagans are a well designed custom group that manages to utilize some of the more off-the-wall powersets like ninjitsu and radiation emission without being overpowering as always (even though I was forced to turn down my difficulty because of Rularuu... damn cheating eyeballs) but I felt like the surrounding missions didn't have the same level of detail that, say, The Portal Bandits has, at least not until the last couple of missions. The last mission in particular has a neat part where it spawns battles between Rularuu and your allies to simulate them holding off the advancing horde, even if on x1 it was pretty much just 4 guys fighting 4 Rularuu monsters. But, that's because of DAMN EYEBALLS MAKING ME PLAY LIKE A SQUISHY.

Speaking of eyeballs, the first mission left me underwhelmed, which is not a good start for an arc. The mission has you fighting Rularuu almost exclusively, and lacks the level of detail that the later missions have, aside from some captive rescues, an ally, and dialogue from the Nagans at the end. This leads to most of the mission being a corridor crawl against one of the most hated enemy groups in the game, for the most part. Now, while I have no issue against using Rularuu, the fact that this mission is a slog through them for the most part can easily lead to people getting a bad taste in their mouth from the get go. Having more interesting things on the way to the final room, or varying up the Rularuu with some Nagan spawns could go a long way to making this mission a much stronger start.

Secondly, since this is one of I believe 5 arcs with the Nagans in them, the novelty of them has lost its luster, despite them being just as well designed (with some new varieties added since last I fought them) and funny at times. As this is a sequel, the player has likely fought them before, so the focus goes more towards the rest of the arc, the writing, the construction of the missions, etc. The mission construction, as I said, is nice towards the end. However, I feel like some of the characters could use some punching up with their characterization, with Iron Samurai being the most notable example. Personally, I feel that contact dialogue is really hard to pull off well. It's all too easy to have them just vomit out volumes of exposition. Lazarus does avoid that for the most part by having things in the contact dialogue other than just Iron Samurai saying "Go to X, do Y", but he still feels more like a device to make the plot happen rather than a character with motivations and a personality.

However, despite all that, it's still an arc worth playing. With some more polish and some work on the characters it could be really great.

Back from 4 month hiatus! Oh god please tell me if you found anything broken in my missions while I was away. Broken arcs are the worst thing ever.

I am so in on this. This solves the problems I had with trying to run a review thread handily while still allowing me to critique!

Wow. Good thing I reactivated my account! I may have missed this entirely otherwise...

Thanks for all the nominations! I'm... uh... glad they all still apparently work.

Having been gone for the last few months, I unfortunately am not as much up on arcs. I'll probably end up playing through the nominations and seconding some stuff. I kind of want to second Dhahabu Kingdom right now... but Captain Skylark has too good of a title for me not to give it a shot.

I will however second Talos Vice for Best Lowbie arc, because of pastel-clad Hellions. That really should be reason enough right there for it to be guaranteed a spot for voting.

For too long I've seen an unfortunate trend sweep through our community and have done nothing. I keep seeing people posting screenshots with their game modded to have Comic Sans as the font, then I see red, and get a slight taste of copper in my mouth. Then I wake up a few hours later and touch my earlobe and find out they are bleeding from the rage aneurysm I just had.

So finally I thought "Sure, some people want a more comic-booky look to their text, but Comic Sans looks like utter garbage! SURELY there MUST be a solution!" I set out on an epic quest that took many keystrokes as I typed "comic book font" into Google. First result was this: http://www.dafont.com/comic-book.font. Free font that actually looks like comic book lettering instead of something you see on a church newsletter to make it look more fun. If I saw screenshots of the game with that font (or a better one, I looked for all of 5 seconds to find it, surely there's better ones out there) I'd be like "Hey, neat" instead of muttering obscenities.

But I'm not saying you should change it up for me. Do this for yourselves. You deserve to be looking at a font that wasn't created back in the mid-90s to end up being used as the main font in a word processor designed for kids. You wanted your game to look like a comic book, instead it looks like a scribbly mess. Get your game out of Kinko's and hire a professional inker to pen those menus!

Changed the Death Shamans in Holding Down the Fort to Avalanche Shamans. While I feel like their powers could get pretty rough for low level characters, it's less rough than level 20 zombies. Oh by the way, Death Shamans aren't downleveling properly in regards to their summons.

Death Shamans at least are summoning zombies at level 20 regardless of what level they spawned at now. Every summoning enemy is likely doing the same.

Well, I guess I have to figure out whether Avalanche or Storm shamans are less annoying for a level 1-10 to fight... *rubs temples*

I completely forgot I was still on your queue.

This is the review where I say that pretty much every problem you have is valid. It should be noted that despite the higher arc number, this is the first arc I wrote, back in beta. It's had a few revisions, but nothing incredibly major. My proficiency with AE has grown considerably since then, and there are many more tools available to me now. I wrote the arc because I figured when AE was first announced that it would be the hardest concept to pull off (at least that I could think of, in making Made to Wave the Flag I discovered I was horribly wrong) and I was pretty much proven right, considering the usual distaste for mind control and contact betrayal stories. Honestly the fact that I still got 3 stars considering the incendiary premise and how anciend by AE standards the arc is surprises me. In a pleasant way.

This arc and Fighting Freedom are the arcs I would end up deleting if I ever write another one. The old Drakule arcs accomplish what I want from them, and I'm quite pleased with my newer arcs (even if they still need to be edited, Made to Wave the Flag needs tons of changes and free time is not my ally as of late). I could probably turn my old arcs into something good, but it'd pretty much mean making them from scratch, and I'd rather spend that time exploring new ideas.

Now I'm wondering how the Drakule arcs ended up in mutation instead of magic.

Oh and don't worry, I will continue to nitpick until the end of time.

Thanks for the inclusions on the list PW, but I should say that I've updated Rise of the Drakule's level range to be 40-50, because the custom power selections I use are too tough for a level 25 character, now that custom difficulty critters no longer have powers unlock based on their level. (Standard, Hard, and Extreme difficulty still do.)

They've needed revisiting for quite some time. 1000 plays and 5 star average is practically impossible. 100 plays and 5 stars is pretty hard to get as well. The *shiny* nature of MA wore off quite a long time ago.

And don't forget to try new LGTF X-TREEEEEEEM MODE with all new MAG 50 HOLD PROTECTION GREENS

Yeah, playing Dean's arc is definitely better when you're a female character.

And Dr. Aeon wrote the new villain arcs, by the way.

*is trampled by a million Dr. Aeon fanboys and girls*

Rise of the Drakule and Return of the Revenge of the Son of Drakule Part 2: First Blood have been updated with a more fully fleshed out custom group. There should be less dark powers flying around to debuff people's accuracy now. I also changed the level range for Rise of the Drakule to 40-50 due to the way that custom power selections work now.