New and Updated Mission Arcs

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
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Review done as part of the CoHMR Aggregator project.

@GlaziusF

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

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My contact is a government agent working for... the CIA? The FBSA? Hmm. Looks like some hero he used to work with has flipped.

Hmm. Were you using pacing? One day it suddenly started working and caught a lot of people off-guard. There’s a -2 door guard out here.

Oh hey, a guy from the Mirror Universe! That’s actually a thing that there makes sense to be now!

And he calls in ambushes of “Wrongbow”, the evil mirror-universe Longbow that beat up all the villains and took their stuff. Well, mostly the 5th judging by the costuming. Still, delightfully schlock.

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Okay, now they’re raiding Atlas Park. Dark Valk is basically Hrist, who summons spirits of dead “Einherjar” to back her up. Stock Battle Maiden and Spirit troops, could stand with some custom name and bio work like you’ve done for the patrolling Destroyers.

“Diabolic Girl”, who I take for Diabolique but who looks like another mirror-universe author creation like Showtime, is next up. Looks like stock super strength/invuln. No Rage, which is appreciated.

Ha! And of course Recluse is the brave freedom fighter holing up in the Rogue Isles. Just a word of warning, he still summons Bane Spiders with their usual descriptions. Maybe you could just replace him with a boss Crab Spider?

Lastly... oh, figured the leader of the masked troops was Mirror Manticore or something, but nope, another mirror author creation.

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And now Mirror Manticore has taken Liberty and Psyche captive, it would seem? Ms. Mirror Lib is out front with some renamed Carnies.

Little deeper in is Sis Psyche - apparently Mirror Manti liked his wife better before her ‘accident’ so he’s looking for either a body duplicate or brainjack fodder. Also: our Ms. Lib, and a flaming jock. Pretty nice fight with him - is that Build Up or Fiery Embrace going off? - but there’s pretty much no reason for him to have Rise of the Phoenix since the objective completes when he goes down once.

...Mirror Sis Psyche is a brain in a jar, according to Mirror Manti. ...that’s gonna be all kinds of wonderful. I can hardly wait. Mirror Manti’s got Chimera’s stock escorts around him, though.

Apparently he was just a pampered rich boy who got himself a bunch of bodyguards and GENUINE HANZO STEEL FOLDED TWENTY THOUSAND TIMES.

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Anyway, time to lock down the portal in. No apparent intel on what sorts are guarding it.

More villains in here! First up, a ‘hyperactive version of Fusionette’. ...which is kind of like having a wet version of water.

Next... yep, Clockwork Psyche and her army of mindjacked ladies.

Then, Mirror Faultline... who has a different display name than his detail says he has.

Lastly, Mirror Positron and his squad of stock Storm Elementals.

If it sounds like I’m just listing off bossfights, it’s because this mission is just four boss fights, and the occasional patrol for color.

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Looks like States ran in to finish this personally, but he doesn’t seem to have succeeded.

Ah. He’s right in the entrance, and being drained of his power by some dark ritual.

...at least, I assume that’s why he’s running out the door. He really doesn’t say anything either way. Maybe they’re only serving breakfast at Up-N-Away for another five minutes.

Anyway, I’m expecting a Tyrant recolor for the master here, but it seems more like this is the politician sort of Statesman. With a sweet cape. SS/Inv, which is alright but he could at least be energy melee. We already fought one SS/Inv in Diabolic Girl, and he doesn’t have any real differences from that fight. Except maybe Footstomp?

Anyhow, arc’s over. No souvenir, but it’s not like there were ever any clues either.

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Storyline - ***. For a long time, Praetoria was to me the mirror universe, where up was down, black was white, and we hated losing so they must have loved it. With Going Rogue, that all changed -- it became a more detailed alternate history with characters and interest groups with their own motivations, not limited to reflections of Paragon City. So it’s a little bit of nostalgia to go back to the schlocky old mirror universe and fight the nefarious forces of Wrongbow.

That said, the plot is paper-thin all the same. The only really glaring spot in it is the setup for mission 3, where my contact intuits based on reports of some dude who looks like Manticore that we should head for some old Longbow base to find some kidnapped people. I mean, just say Sister Psyche gets a mind-shout out before she gets psycho-dampened and go from there. It’s also never really explained how Wrongbow can disable Sis Psyche, Ms. Lib, and Statesman, but all it needs is a little spackle - Sis Psyche is locked in a contest of wills with her mirror, and Mirror Statesman has worked out a ritual warding that jams Ms. Lib and Statesman from the powers of the Well.

Significant (to me) plot threads are raised and then forgotten - based on the first mission, it seems like the heroes my contact has worked with previously are being “replaced” by their mirror versions. Have they been kidnapped? Killed? We never find out. And Mirror Recluse shows up to help in the second mission but just seems to vanish with nary a trace nor mention after that.

Lastly, Mirror Psyche regards herself as a hideous abomination longing only for the sweet release of death, which is kind of off-tone from the general campy atmosphere. Okay, she’s a brain in a jar, but she’s got a collection of hundreds of bodies to mind-ride into. You want to camp that up, you could go with, say, she regards them in perhaps the same way as a fashionista regards outfits, and regrets not bringing anyone along who looks good in chiffon.

Design - ****. There isn’t a lot of incidental detail in the missions, but the easily dozen enemy groups used are all used very well to realize the mirror world and the ways it operates and its movers and shakers surround themselves with minions. About the only power choice I really disagree with is the SS on the end boss, for reasons I’ve detailed above.

Gameplay - *****. Pretty much an inventive mix of stock enemies, aside from a few custom bosses who generally don’t have any really problematic power selections. Despite the warning in the description on CoH Mission Review there’s really no reason to shy away from this arc if you have a character who can solo downgraded AVs.

Detail - **. Only about half of the stock groups are actually appropriately renamed and redescripted to suit their purpose. That’s not terribly jarring unless you pay close attention, but these days it’s not hard to have enough space to give every repurposed stock critter its own little name, title, and blurb.

More jarring: there are absolutely no clues, and not even a souvenir. Granted, the missions are pretty straightforward facebreaking exercises and the plot doesn’t really need to be explained in a fundamental way, but clues are a great way to find the room to wrap up the more incidental details.

Overall - ***. On the high end of three, but it doesn’t round up, mostly thanks to the inconsistent detailing on the repurposed stock characters and the lack of souvenir. Even if there aren’t clues, it’s always nice to get a souvy to remember the arc by. That said, this is more an arc about fighting a disparate group of enemies shot through with EBs and reveling in the schlock than it is about following a story, so while the story’s got some room for improvement it doesn’t really drag the whole thing down.