April 2019: Frosty Forest
Area of the Month for April 2019 is Frosty Forest!
A template format for your review is below; click 'edit' at the top of the page, copy-pasta from the ---- to the next ----, and fill in the gaps!
(Yes, a wiki account is required to edit the page and therefore post your review, but take heart: The wiki is hosted by the Cleft itself, not a third party!
Player: You!(Class/Level)
Review Date(s):
Descriptions: X/10
How does the area's room descriptions(descs) work for you? Do they give you a good idea of the area? Do things that stand out in the desc and NEED explanation GET that, either from flavor text(extra-descs) or NPCs in the room or anything?
What about mobiles(mobs) and their descriptions? Can you get a decent mental image of who or what this NPC/monster is? Do they respond when you talk or interact with them?
Some areas have interact-able objects like fountains. Do they stack up well also?
Balance: X/10 (OR N/A)
(NOTE: combat will be most accurately gauged when your character is in the area's suggested level range.)
If this area has combat, how does it feel? Does anything jump as horribly overpowered and impossible to deal with? What about the flipside, anything far too easy to beat?
Are purchased or rewarded items at the appropriate strength levels? Is the effort required to obtain rewarded items reflected in their usefulness (or uniqueness and fancifulness)
Attractions: X/10
Why would you suggest someone come to this area? Is it just a good place to grind experience(lots of mobs)? Does the area provide a chunk of good gold and loot?
What about the quests? Does this area's quests feel properly done, or is there some part of it that you feel needs work?
For towns, are the shops good? Any other non-combative attraction for the area?
Connections: X/10
How easily and well does this area connect to its nearby areas? Does it make sense thematically to be connected to the areas it is?
Personal
Any comments you'd like to make that you don't feel apply to the other sections can go here!
Player: Slidge (Ninja, L55, 1 remorts)
Review Dates (4/1/2019-4/1/2019)
Descriptions : 8/10
Came here for the first time on my Gladiator and again with my Ninja and loved the zone a lot. It has great descriptions of the rooms and the NPCs. You can almost feel the cold around you as you travel around the zone. The color schemes for the Mobs and the room descriptions almost perfectly match the feeling from Secret of Mana. Todo village is well described but potentially a little bland. A map of the village may help some, but it is so small probably not needed. The turtles I am exceptionally found of in the zone because of how they change name and text color when they enter their shells during combat. Overall the zone is well described, it can feel a little but of a maze at times but I do think that does a good representation of the source material as I remember getting lost in Ice Country as a kid.
Balance: 8/10
All in all I think the Mobs in this zone are well balanced outside of La Funks. Never playing a caster coming through this zone they are quite infuriating at times, but playing as a caster in this zone they may be the Mob to farm. The Boreal face fight is exceptionally fun I feel as well, if maybe a little under tuned for a mini-boss. I love the fight though having all of the vines join in on the fight when you engage. Howlers are numerous and probably the easiest Mob in the zone to farm and pebblers feel like they have a tough hide and are harder to kill quickly. Overall the mobs in this zone though are great to level on starting in your mid 40s.
Attractions: 10/10
This zone has at least one really good attraction in the zone. Cap you can get is a really good reward from a hard fought and fun quest. Took my a couple tries on my first incarnation so much so that I kept it when I remorted. The main attraction to this zone though is Mob density. You can get a couple really good items off the Mobs in the zone that are really good, the howler pelt was a really good upgrade and the Canteen you get was really helpful to a reploid. This hands down though is a really good leveling zone which I feel is the main draw, also you pretty much have to go through here to get to important areas in Madra and Phendrana, but this is no filler zone in itself.
Connections: 9/10 This zone is far north of the continent which is about perfect. You come down from the mountains and you are fully immersed in the icy forest. The boat ride over to Madra I wish you could skip at times and maybe you can in some way I wish you could fly over the river instead of having to use the ferry every time. The sign marking Phendrana is super important, I wandered in there which was a huge mistake. Fairly easy to get to and connects to important areas.
Personal
This was and is one of the best leveling zones. It has a huge mob density with 3 really good mobs to farm and one that is annoying but doable. The Miniboss you can kill on respawn and get a huge boost of XP which is really nice. You have a couple of really nice drops in the zone that are used almost to 100. One of the quest rewards in this is zone is really good and is not to hard to obtain. Bottom line, this is an amazing leveling zone with a few items that are really helpful.