Nov 2009: Angel Tower
- The actual article for this area is Angel Tower
Builder: Jango
Source: Breath of Fire 3
POSSIBLE MAYBE SPOIILERS I'M NOT SURE. YOU. HAVE. BEEN. /WARNED/
P.S. Information is several months old from when I was just-below/at-level for this area.
Player: Sunflash
Review Date: 11-9-09
Descriptions 4/10
If I was the type to give an A for effort, I'd certainly consider it here. Then again... First off, the little errors. Jango has this habit of trying to be overly dramatic. I understand that the little maze inside is supposed to be really dark and scary and spooky, but if the only way you can get that idea across is by flat out TELLING ME I AM SCARED, you need to go back to writing school.
My BIGGEST gripe is that the place feels so /unfinished/. Like he was rushed at the end and just plain didn't check that he HAD put everything in. You see, somewhere along the line my eye was attracted by one of the inscriptions on the wall. Some little fable, I forget the wording. The problem is it piqued my interest, so I started tearing the place apart looking for the rest of the stories. I managed to find, I think, three or more plauques. That's not the issue. No, the problem was I found about...I think four or five (maybe less, not sure) EMPTY extra descs. One very notable example was in that little hidden corrider off the first set of stairs leading inside the Tower proper. The room desc mentions scrawled writing on the wall...but when you 'look writing', you get a blank line. Not a 'you don't see that', but just a blank echo, as if it's a vaild keyword but didn't get filled in!
Balance ??/10
Okay, let's talk balance. I don't feel comfortable trying to assign a number here because, quite frankly, I feel Sorcerers (spefically, moon-innate Sorcerers) completely break both Angel Tower and Nosgoth. I was able to completely one-shot about 75% of the mobs in there. This is from a few months back, but I clearly remember one shotting the undead in the dark-maze (On level, I was able to one-shot the Vampire MINIBOSS, and two-shotting the Dragon-Lich! :|) The Demon miniboss took around five/seven rounds depending on casting luck. The Dragoon and the Goddess I never attempted to solo (thanks Jacen!) but weren't too terribly hard that I recall? I know the only mobs that gave me trouble were the tiamats and the lizard folk. The Muggers were nice, plenty of gold even after Ben removed Steal from them.
Item balance, I can't really speak for. Nothing in there really piqued my interest outside of the sword and shield dropped by the lizard folk (which were soon replaced by the Serpiham blade and my angenla doll anyhow).
Attractions 5/10
Um, well, let's see. There's a hint of a quest that seems like it should be able to blossom out wonderfully only to hit several flat notes throughout before exploding into nothing at the end with more hints to another quest that just kinda stop at a brick wall? Not to mention, there's nothing anywhere else (except maybe Lol's Lair? Does that massive carving in there refer to this?) to lead you TO Angel Tower.
On the bright side, there's a couple of drops that seem halfway usefull if I wasn't a Sorcerer that killed things fast enough for items to be generally useless. :D They're also in an area that's mostly eaiser than Nosgoth, if only because it still feels haphazard (did I mention that yet?). A short-slash, a light shield, projectile weapon, a set of gloves. I think a spear, and probably a few others that I've managed to completely forget. >.>
Linkage 0/10
What. Again, there is no real hints ANYWHERE that Angel Tower actually exists, so why would you be looking in the first place? I wouldn't have gone there if I didn't already know HOW to get there! On top of that, it's only linked by a place that is only linked by a totally random airship platform. This means that to get here you have to KNOW how to get here before you even start because there's not any directions! Arrrrrrrggggghhhh.
Personal ??/10
I'm not going to even TRY to assign a score here, because I'm so torn. It's both horrible and yet interesting.
On the one hand, the place is incomplete, breaks the 'voice' amazingly so (MY LIGHT IS FRESH BUT STILL FLICKERING 0HN03Z!), and suffers from Jango's typical 'all-or-nothing' mentalitly.
On the other hand, the tidbits of quest info I've found are pretty decent, and hint at a cool (if slightly cliche) storyline behind the place. The mini/bosses give interesting little skits, and don't /hit/ you with the answer, but instead just tease you with little bits here and there.
If I was in charge, and if I was bored enough, I /might/ consider fixing the entire area. There's wonderful potional here, doubly if one could connect quests between Lol's Lair and AT.
Then again, I might vote to simply launch the place off the face of the damn'd planet. I can't decide. :| ~Sunny
This area has been updated since the above review.