| Deadly Goblins | |
| By Stephen “The Creator” Ashby | |
| Terror’s Martyr’s Review | |
I was rather excited when I saw 3 scenarios that were totally new and unreleased before. One by Ryan Phelps, one by Khoth (who hasn’t proven to be horrible yet), and one by Creator. I picked up Creator’s, seeing as it was alphabetical. (Deadly Goblins isn’t an attention-grabbing, but neither are Demon or Dirty Gold) My first impression was the above-par graphics file (but still rather small, of course this is coming from someone who almost neared 1/2 of Falling Stars’ graphics with only 10 towns). It featured (big surprise) a bunch of custom goblin graphics, and some other assorted graphics. Nothing too shabby. So I make a .meg of it, and slap it into my scenarios folder, then I open it up.
First off, I would like to point off two things I have not seen before. Both are special items you get at the start. The first is Read Book, which allows you to read a book you have equipped. Books are now tool-type items, to facilitate this. This could have been really great, but there are only 3 book types I found, which made it a mundane addition. Still, its novelty enhanced the experience. The second was much less impressive, but still existed and acted its role. It was Take Trophy, which basically turned Goblin Corpses (which are items goblins dropped) into Goblin Ears, which earn you some gold. A bit more notable is that goblins drop corpses that look like goblins. It was a bit confusing separating living goblins from dead ones, but it was still a neat little addition. On another note, I was a tad more than extremely annoyed while wandering around outdoors. Creator made the crops terrain attached to a can’t enter node, which makes some sense, at most (you’d think there’s some safe way to navigate in the crops without marching all over them, no?). He also took the time to make rows of crops cover a large portion of the outdoors, including passages from many of the encounters, and the city.
The plot is a mixed bag, at best. It seems to waver inbetween a humor and drama genre, but never really achieves either. It includes subtle references to jokes and has its insane wizard (bonus points!), but it also has contradicting experiences like the house burning. I shouldn’t use drama, but more thriller. It never meets both, despite trying. It keeps some interest to play, but the action is more of a carrier than the plot. This would be okay, but there also was not as much action as an action-based scenario would require. I was also dealt one large blow to the gut, when the ending was layed out to me. While searching the goblin lair for some crystals to operate the portal (which seems to be a rather popular puzzle, or lack thereof, nowadays), I found a long backstory carefully explained to me... ...in one special node sequence. A book on a pedestal, no less. I was seriously expecting some sort of revenge motive, but got nothing beyond that. Disappointing. Even moreso disappointing is the ending. I was expecting some sort of moral speech to talk the story off of the stage and give some sort of conclusion, but in lieu of something that actually made sense, I got a large thwap to the head with some large, blunt object of stupidity.
The action is most definitely the highest point of the scenario. A few high points would be the attack on the city and the burning house. The goblin lair itself; however, was a bit of a disappointment. It basically consisted of slaying the goblin wizard, fighting some summons of the goblin wizard (bug!), and then a big fight. The big fight was moderately hard the first time, but then a good bless and haste did the trick, and I buried them all. The action was overall decent, but never really kept up the suspense for quite as long as I would have liked. Rather, it went in bits and pieces. The end almost showed promise, but the blandness of the final dungeon sorta withered that away.
Summing things up, I recommend you play this scenario. It’s a fairly good diversion, and while it still doesn’t deliver up very well, it’s one of the better scenarios out there. Deadly Goblins is rated G, and is for low level parties.
8/10
— Terror’s Martyr