Galaer on 10/5/2019 at 18:12
I finally beat this campaign. I had great experience overall. I love the movies, attention to detail, background. Music is great. Too bad I very lately noticed that my ambient sound is at almost minimum (that's because of previous FM I played). But there were few nuisances.
First very short range of picking stuff, which forced me to get super close to everything. It made me overlook some very important items for progression. And I believe that range of pickups returns to normal in a few last missions? That's mysterious.
Second is solid walls. I understand that you want to hide the secrets, but these walls were really annoying in normal playthrough. Sometimes when you lean forward from behind the corner in order to KO alerted guard, you swing your blackjack into air and it get stopped by invisible wall and you just make noise instead of KO-ing guard. Other thing is about banners. Many times if you normal slash them (like I always do), you will hit a wall near them instead and make noise. So I was forced to use powerful slash to cut them.
Finding keys and passages is sometimes very hard. You hid them so well that few times I had a breakdown. And because of that I broke few missions.
So now I will talk about missions in more detail. DON'T READ IF YOU DIDN'T BEAT THE CAMPAIGN!
MISSION 1
This is my least favorite mission in the whole campaign. Lack of automap isn't big deal here and I like the atmosphere. But you hid keys, hints and passages stupidly well. After getting only 75/3000 loot and had no idea how to get into "X" houses and how to find any keys, I was forced to check the thread. Slowly I started getting stuff and finding passages. Some of them I found on my own, but it didn't felt good, because it was stupidly well hidden. Other than that are fights in the city, which takes eternity to end. Seriously after 50 min the fight under gate finally has ended. Another thing - hidding loot behind something. For example - north "X" location: the purse is behind leg of the wardrobe. Seriously, after blind frobbing everywhere and taking it, it took me few quickloads to realize where it was hidden. There is a problem with narrow passages - I got stuck many times on doorway of the room with safe in Captain house. It really annoyed me. Also it's hard to tell what is wood and what's not. Because wood looking texture most of the time is stone actually. And wood doesn't look like wood. For example: in order to get to Floodgate house, you need to enter via window, which you can't mantle on. At first I couldn't get inside, but later I noticed a beam. My reaction was: "Is it a wood? It doesn't look like wood." I shot rope arrow and it was a wood. That's really stupid. And of course I managed to get to archer on the wall and see purple walls. It was just a first mission and I had so bad time with it. At this time I doubted if I should continue. Because it felt like mission for hardcore players. Overall I would prefer if this mission doesn't exist. Just add all movies from this mission into Mission 2.
MISSION 2
This mission on the other hand is fantastic. This is my favorite mission in the whole campaign. Figured it out on my own. I really liked the beginning and the end. I only couldn't solve optional objective. I put dozen of bodies into my cell, but maybe I should have done that during blackout. There is no such thing like super well hidden keys and passages here. Awesome. This mission gave me hope.
MISSION 3
This mission is also very good. Even though I don't like forced ghosting. Really nice puzzles. I would probably beat this mission on my own if I didn't panic. The biggest problem I had with getting onto balcony, but after figuring out that glass cutter trash is actually tool I need, I beat the whole mission. Also in the sewers puzzle - when water is rising I went close to locked gate and got sucked outside of the boundaries of the mission. But this happened to me only once during the whole campaign. And short pickups can be really annoying combined with forced ghosting.
MISSION 4
This is the mission that just reading objectives scared me a lot. The mission itself is much easier than that. It was really interesting to play as Victoria. She's more quiet during walking, also her perspective of watching world is lower than for Garrett, she has harder time to deal with steps, she can't mantle and her "I can't read". That's awesome. Her path is really short, so I was expecting her to see in later, more complicated missions. As for Garrett - I found it's weird to drop down on steep rock slope to train station. It really feels unintended, but I don't see any other way. I really liked the explosion. I went down to watch it and was worried that parts of the train will kill me. Overall OK mission, but it's nothing compared to two previous missions.
MISSION 5
Third favorite mission. It unfortunately lagged a little for me. But still finding passages to locked rooms by using moving parts of machines was fun. Dealing with boss was really creative. I figured him on my own, but still he's amazing: shooting torpedoes and flamethrower. Cloaking device was the most impressive thing. He has flashlights and some kind of tracking ability, because he was always in my way. By the way, there is a bug with impulse core - if you use it on door, it will vanish. It makes this mission impossible to complete. This is also a part where solid walls and short pickups are especially annoying. Even knowing from the Spoilers folder where is the item, I was overlooking it, because you need to be super close to it. Fire arrow secret in Armory is also annoying. Normally it would be simply leaning forward from elevator, but here I need to do crazy shenanigans to get it and crazy shenanigans to return, because elevator gone. Also water arrow in the fountain - I can't lean forward to take it, I can't take it from little wall while crouching. No, I'm forced to drop into water to grab it. Ridiculous. This is also the mission where I used 3 unintended routes. In first Armory I climbed on the ladder, then jumped onto conveyor belt and mantled to higher floor. It doesn't feel right, but I don't see any other route. And from there I dropped into conveyor belt to get to Assembly. Also I used roof to get to the "X" outside factory, then drop onto locked gate and onto lever that open it. Here though I know what's the correct route is. Final explosion was really amazing.
MISSION 6
Second least favorite mission. Finding cryptic passages from Mission 1 returns. And it's the same annoying. I had really hard time with it every time until beating first objective. When you give me rope arrow, then I suspect it's needed to progress. So I climbed onto roof of the house and I was checking it very carefully. Then I broke the mission by roping to the bridge area above Valley. But there were only 2 broadhead arrows and locked gate. I even found the secret under Valley. Then I checked beach plant walls and discovered new area. Completely optional and useless for me. That was just a waste of time. Speaking of which - because of existence of this area I believe passage between beaches is unintended. Also there is another hole in plant wall on the beach. It leads to the... end of the world. Yeah, there is nothing special there, it's just possible to see what's behind plant wall. Also main objective of this mission is finding a guide through quicksand. And you do that by... crossing the quicksand. I had this idea on the back of my mind, but it felt so suicidal that I never thought about it for real. That was mega stupid. But also finding about Major is just so random. It's too convenient to be true. Originally I thought I will need to sneak to Mechanist outpost and read it from the book. Or some Pagans will tell me that they saw Major. Yours solution felt bad. The rest of the mission is good.
MISSION 7
Second favorite mission. I spent here a lot of time - 7 hours. Most of the time I spent on checking every nook and cranny very carefully. Some keys and passages are very well hidden. But I managed to do it entirely on my own. I loved the view. I thought bell tower will be the highest point, but then I discovered stairs to the upstairs. I like that on the background I can discover the places I were in previous mission. Also it's really interesting that you give option to beat this mission in a little different order. It's possible to drop into NW area with slow fall potion. To get into West Wing you don't need rope arrow - just mantle onto lamp and then into window. There is another powder barrel, so if you have fire arrow, you can explode barrel wall from the other side than normally (though I didn't tested it). It's funny that on the other side of barrels there is no monk with victrola. Maybe he's in one of the barrels. And the whole exploration was fun. Really amazing mission.
MISSION 8
This is the city mission done correctly. Finally automap works, no narrow passages, it's easy to notice what is wood and what's not. And there is really no super well hidden keys and passages. The music and atmosphere is great. It was a little annoying that I need to check every guard if he's friendly or not. But this mission has one really huge flaw - cathedral back door are linked to the number of evidence. On Expert it's 13. And I could only find to this part - 12. There is really no information about it anywhere. It's just when you have this 13 evidence locked door magically stops being locked. Really dumb. I have no idea where is one more evidence, which led me to break the mission. There are few breaks. From Western Part you can go to Eastern Part by mantling onto big gear under wall with friendly archer, then mantle onto wall and jump onto wall on the right. Easy. In order to get to "?" area go to Canyon, mantle onto plant wall, then mantle onto wall and onto space above wall. Go forward and drop onto wall with archer, then drop onto well and on the ground. And that's how I got my 13th evidence. The last one was from priest. Also a really weird thing happened for me on my second playthrough in Crazy Philip's house. I went from the front and it didn't slow me down. Which was more enjoyable, because originally I spent 15 min there. When I was exiting the house I got suddenly slow down. So something didn't register for me the first time. Also I didn't like that you killed Victoria. I was looking forward for her missions.
MISSION 9
Another really good mission. I had some problem with it. Especially with getting the ashes. I think I annoyed people with my questions a little too much. I'm sorry. What I didn't like was impossible to KO guards that looked absolutely the same like normal guards. For example there is trio of guards patrolling outside. The guy in front is impossible to KO. I liked the events and attention to detail. I couldn't find path to some places though, so I wonder if there is a way to save Count, maybe by entering Royal Apartments. I hope, I really like the Count. Dead man in Hospital scared the hell out of me. By the way, there is a way to get to the Hospital without using rope arrow. Overall this was clever mission.
MISSION 10
Bonus mission time. What a beginning. I like the atmosphere and surroundings. This was interesting mission. But I had huge problem with finding path to another tower. It's really weird. These purple roofs are normally very slippery, so I didn't expected to find my way forward from there. Instead I broke the mission. At first I thought I need to catapult myself on the other side, but I was wrong. And the entrance to the shaft is stupidly well hidden. First I KO-ed fighting people. Then I mantled onto railing and mantled over the wall of next tower. It took me few tries, but it's possible to do that in both ways. Then I discovered the shaft from the other side, watched cutscene and finally discovered the proper entrance to the shaft. During my loot searching I discovered some unintended paths to the city. I explored it. I discovered talking house and 2 highlighted trees. One of them teleports Garrett to the final room. So in reality Garrett gets teleported by magic tree instead of ashes. And he talks with house instead with the ghost. Wait, he doesn't talk. It is house that talks. That's funny.
MISSION 11
My first time with it was really bad. I restarted 10 times and after every restart I needed to wait in super long tunnel. Finally changed difficulty to Normal and few restarts and many quickloads finally beat this place. Then I just brute forced my way through 3d Maze. Entering the Dome was stressful. I wasted my last gas arrows there and entered the Dome with no equipment. I was forced to blackjack the bots, which is possible if you are crazy fast. And then there are big bots. I was waiting for them. Alerting them at one side and sneaking to another was super stressful, but I did it. Then elevator time starts - I liked it. The final area is much easier. Well, there is one more bot to blackjack and that's all. After my first playthrough I hated this mission. It had some clever traps, but it should be anti military campaign and this mission wasn't. Then after beating Reanimation I made hard decision to beat this mission on Expert with less money (half of this what I got from Enemy). And I had much easier time with it. Because I finally discovered the intended solutions. Though figuring out 3d Maze took me 1 hour even with Spoiler picture. It's not explained very well gimmick. What I don't like is using hard to find secret in order to bypass 3 bots on Expert. Because door is unfrobbable. It was interesting to see differences in difficulty between Normal and Expert. And if you figure out the intended way of doing stuff, this mission becomes really nice.
Overall, this was really good campaign. Good job, Zontik.
Zontik on 13/5/2019 at 08:51
Galaer, thank you for the detailed review. Just one more question. You said nothing about a plot itself. What do you think about it?
And one notice.
Quote:
I believe that range of pickups returns to normal in a few last missions? That's mysterious.
No mystery here.
Bracelet your wear limits your mobility. That's all.
Beltzer on 13/5/2019 at 12:44
<a href="https://ibb.co/xDXfkgT"><img src="https://i.ibb.co/0cmF79b/2019-05-13.png" alt="2019-05-13" border="0"></a>
Almost 24 hours total gameplay :wot::thumb: Thank you for this campaign. I have named it "Mission Impossible". It was rather hard.
Bulgarian_Taffer on 13/5/2019 at 18:35
Installed it, played for 15 minutes, I'm completely blown away! It was definitely worth the wait. Thanks, Zontik!
Orfeus21 on 14/5/2019 at 22:28
will garretloader play
Galaer on 15/5/2019 at 18:40
First a few things I forgot to mention last time:
MISSION 7
If you get too close to black curtain in Abbot's Quarters and lean forward to get Cathedral key, you will get stuck in window.
MISSION 8
If you go North from beginning house, then under stairs on the street you can spot small purple part that you missed. Also you can get stuck on window between shutters in the secret in first part of city. Afterwards, locking shutters kills you.
MISSION 9
Control room event. The first time I played empty bottle spawned near door. But in my second run, it didn't appear there. It took me some time to notice that bottle spawned behind me. That really confused me. The thing I did differently from first run was blowing bot guarding fuel before Control room action. Maybe it somehow messed up with spawning position of a bottle.
Now for story. It is actually really good, especially twist at the end. And you also put some hints pointing out what's going on like in some good detective novel. That was really good idea. I really liked movies and their plot. But if I would mention some nitpicks:
MISSION 2
It's a little weird that Garrett needs to escape from prison in order to get caught again. I understand that Major Scrench was testing his abilities, but wasn't Mission 1 was enough for a test. After all, Garrett was being spied by these city special forces.
MISSION 6
It really felt weird that Garrett's first idea to cross the quicksand is to start to search for some guide at the middle of huge and empty forest. First of all, he can't know if this guide really exist. So for me this idea is highly unrealistic. Instead he should start in the village near the forest (I noticed some village in the background of next mission). In this village he gathers some information about guide and some hints what to look for in the forest (branches, caves hidden in plant walls and footsteps on quicksand). Afterwards, Garrett should venture into forest. This way the whole mission would feel better in both gameplay and story sides.
MISSION 8
To tell you the truth, I never fully understand how the whole murder has been happening. I know that Simon killed Victoria, but does he also gave her letter in Garrett's house? Wasn't that Crazy Philip that took her to his house and gave her candy? But then when Simon appeared in the story. And I don't think Philip, who lost his son, would help kill small girl. But Victoria was there and it's weird for Simon to enter Philip's home with Victoria without Philip knowing about anything. So this aspect of the story is still confusing for me.
MISSION 11
First I will talk about secret diary. It mentions Major Scrench making strengthening device which will be useful. And then he mentions that the factory creating this stuff needs to be sabotaged. Well, it doesn't make big sense. If in reality he serves the city, then what's the point of strengthening Mechanists in order to sabotage the same thing. First, it is the risk that some of these devices survive somewhere else by being transported by some Mechanists and reproduced in different factory. Second, it is much better to sabotage some already created by Mechanists factory, instead of making new factory just in order for it being sabotaged. That's just a waste of effort.
Next, I think that even if twist at the end is very surprising, I felt like ending with Keepers was a bit overcomplicated. Also ending was a bit anticlimactic. I wasn't expecting to finish game with conversation. I really felt like I missed something great at the end. Actually, I was that surprised with ending that I searched the whole final mission for a secret that would give me some information how to modify mission file in order to create new mission file that would gave me access to the really final mission. Which would go like this...
WARNING! RIGHT NOW YOU ARE ENTERING MY WILD IMAGINATION ZONE!
It would be modified MISSION 7 Area. The story would go like this: Mechanists figured out that Major Scrench and Capellan is one person. So they took part of their forces from Citadel and transported them all here. They also modified the whole Monastery into huge Factory. And made huge cannon that is enough to destroy the whole city. There are big robots walking outside. Inside there are cameras, bots, small alarm bots, cannons and spider bots. Also factory bots with their plasma guns make appearance. For weather, I would say storm would be really fitting.
So Mechanists target isn't their fake leader, but the City he serves. They want to force Major Scrench to stay as their leader forever by destroying the whole City and it's forces. This way Mayor Scrench would have no choice, but stay as Capellan. In this mission Garrett would find out that Mayor Scrench and Capellan is the same person and would be forced to enter Big Gun control and disable it. He would also be forced to deal with creator of this plan. He would meet with him at the end and fight with him. Mechanist leader would be piloting some big bot and open fight would be out of question. Garrett would be forced to sneak around and deal with him quietly. Maybe by getting him struck by lightning. And that would be the end.
NOW YOU LEAVE MY WILD IMAGINATION ZONE! HAVE A NICE DAY!
That being said, all of these are just small nitpicks and the story itself is still amazing. My favorite moment was the end of bonus mission. It was so real. I really liked this sad moment.
It would be the end, but I have one more question. In MISSION 7 in Morra's room there are white shoes. Garrett says that he doesn't see any reason of using it. But he does the same thing with piano in Bell Tower until certain objective happens. I know these white shoes aren't bond to any secret, because Cheela found them all. So I was searching for some bonus objective and I did a lot of stuff with Morra. First, I went directly to Morra's room as fast as possible and avoided interaction with monks. Secondly, I brought robes from Mayor cell secret to Morra's room and then help her, but it didn't work either. Then I decided to blow cell door with explosive barrel. I thought that Morra will ask for white shoes and in the end she will give me some reward. But Morra dies in explosion and door are locked. So I gassed her and took her to her room. But again it was pointless. But maybe it's just a case of something that was in previous concept of the game, but author resigned from this and forgot to erase it. What's the secret of these white shoes? It really bothers me.
pwl on 28/5/2019 at 13:01
To Zontik: I very much enjoyed this campaign!! It was very challenging and there was so many new things that I have never seen before!!
Three :thumb::thumb::thumb:'s up
I hope you are getting some well deserved rest after this masterpiece.
Thank you
pwl
Orfeus21 on 28/5/2019 at 16:51
no matter how old it is it still runs perfectly all missions and campaigns exept this one and rebellion of the builder...:joke: