| Falling Stars | |
| by Ian Klinkhamer (alcritas@att.net) | |
| Review of Falling Stars | |
| by Drizzt | |
Warning! Spoilers abound!
Still here? Haven’t turned and run because of the spoiler warning? Then you must be one of the many who have played and enjoyed the latest scenario by Alcritas, the ninth (gasp!) in a line of fine works and winner of the 4th Scenario Design Contest. Either that, or you’re just stubborn enough to stick around despite the presence of a few minor spoilers. Don’t worry, nothing important will be revealed, but all the same . . .
It should be said, for those who don’t know it already, that this scenario is a continuation of the storyline that brilliantly ties through all, although some certainly more than others,of Al’s other scenarios. There is a short summary of what has gone before, but you will only be cheating yourself if you let this serve as a replacement for playing through On A Ship To Algiers, Of Good And Evil, Redemption, An Apology, and Lamentations.
Falling Stars is a monstrously huge scenario of epic ambitions and proportions. You are thrust back into the Nordakar — UNL conflict of previous scenarios, a part of the Nordakar army and are tasked with a few typical BoE missions. Of course, it’s not quite that simple. but Alcritas has created an amazingly rich world to be explored, and the flow of the plot takes you quite nicely along.
What first sticks out is the sheer massiveness of the world that has been created to be discovered, and how well Al has realized a war between nations, complete with cities that are destroyed, friendly patrols, roaming bands of bad guys, among other things. I was a bit overwhelmed by everything at first, but once you get used to the size and learn where everything is, then it is not so bad at all. I really got the feeling I was involved in an actual war, and the missions my party was sent on fit nicely into the story. The last is exceptionally done, a very long journey into enemy territory where the atmosphere is_extremely_ well done. One nice touch was the enemy uniforms that can be bought (or found by the observant), and then my party could change between these and our standard ones (via Special Items) as the situation warranted. Very nice.
The last mission really could almost be a scenario in of itself, and standing alone would still be highly rated. The final battle(s) have been critized by some as too difficult, but I found them winnable with my non-cheater party, the first time I played through, without help (this will be explained later). True, I did resort to the Character Editor a few times, but only to heal and restore spell points, things I could have done with potions had I been better prepared. The strategy I used wasn’t anything revolutionary, just lots of anti-magic, blessing, but you need to intelligently choose your targets. My party was successful when they left alone those that could be left alone, flailing aimlessly because of said AM clouds or my highly blessed party.
Fortunately enough for us, Alcritas was not content to merely extend his storyline a bit with a highly competent scenario. One thing that I really enjoyed was the volume of new items to be found. New stuff was everywhere! From healthy armor to books chock full o’ bats, this was a fun addition. I like keeping souvenior items from good scenarios I’ve played, so needless to say Feodoric will be wearing those Hot Pants again in scenarios to come.
Custom graphics also abound, most of the monster variety. Just like the items, Al gives the Blades party many new monsters to fight, all of these balanced and not too difficult. Perhaps that new addition to the UNL forces was difficult, but an AM cloud and Protection spell usually were all that was required.
Enough already, you say? But there’s more. I would estimate that a good half of the towns in the scenario are fully optional, part of side quests not related to the main story. You see, Alcritas has created NPCs that, as Special Items, can join your party, and will on many occasions join the battle to fight in your defense. Al is not the first to do this, but he certainly extends their use. What’s more, not all who you find will join you right away. There is also something Al calls the Reputation Flag, which keeps track of your good and bad deeds, and people respond to you based on how good your reputation is. This is subtle but VERY important for the NPCs and side quests, and also the only gripe with the scenario that I have. Perhaps this applies only to this reviewer, but I would have liked to see the following text in the hint file or somewhere in the scenario: DON’T BREAK INTO PEOPLES’ HOUSES! AL IS WATCHING! Those of you who do such things for the purpose of map completion, beware, this may not be the perfect scenario for you. I worked myself into a corner the first time I played this, not entirely realizing what I had done, and before long, no one would join my party, or even send me on side quests, and I finished the scenario with a whopping zero NPCs.
With a solid plot, and the myriad of extras to be found (I didn’t even mention the five Legendary Artifacts quests) this is, in my opinion, the most expansive and complete world Alcritas has created to date. Just when many of us expected to find some resolution or identities of some of the major characters running through Al’s storyline (and didn’t Al lead us to believe just that, at least when FS was first announced?), Falling Stars has upped the ante to another level. An oft-used analogy in literature is that of the onion, whose many layers are peeled off to reveal other layers, just like a well-layered and filled out story. Well, Falling Stars is the biggest, fattest onion yet, just when many of us thought we were getting to the middle.
When thinking about a rating, 10 being perfect and 1 being the worst, I think many critics often confuse aspects of a scenario that could have been done differently, and aspects that could have been done better. In Falling Stars, there are certainly things I would have done differently, but these don’t necessarily deserve to detract from the score, as things that could be done better definitely do. Al’s town design is distinctively spartan at times, many dungeons and some of the towns have _just_ enough in them to keep them from becoming a rather boring wander-fest. This is, I think, more of a scenario design philosophy issue, where many of us fill every town to the brim with special nodes and fun stuff, Al generally keeps his towns light enough to keep the story (and his design effort) moving along at a brisk pace. Pylos and Xancrest (in places) come to mind as good examples of this, but they certainly serve their main purpose, to advance the storyline or function as the capital city, without detracting from the story’s telling. Perhaps the final quest is a rather long and difficult gauntlet, but would making it shorter or easier improve the scenario in any way? I don’t believe so.
Some will certainly disagree, but while I can find things I would do differently in Falling Stars, none can be found upon which I could improve. I recommend it to everyone, well, perhaps everyone except the burglars among you. You will find that something worse than Kendrick’s exploding plants awaits, a scenario that cannot be completed to its fullest.
Therefore, I do believe this scenario deserves a rating of a perfect 10. It is technically more advanced than Redemption, has a story more original and better told than Of Good And Evil, more fun to play than Tatterdemalion, and has more to discover than all of my scenarios put together. This is the best scenario I have played, and perhaps the best I will ever play.