Archive: 3 posts

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Here I stand, reviewing "The Fall of Winter" by xkappax, an associate of Catiers of whom i reviewed his stage "Centrallia: A Ghost Story" just about an hour ago. Oomph. I probably shouldn't review 2 levels this close together ever again, especially 2 levels made by the same 2 people, just due to the first review potentially influencing the other, but we'll see. ~Goes off to play level~ ..............Well good golly, what the farg? These levels are totally friggin different. And I don't mean like "different layout and theme but still feels like the same style", I mean like "NO SIMILARITIES AT ALL". As I mentioned in Centrallia, the stage was designed to be dark and spooky and also creates an allure of silliness, but this stage isn't spooky in the slightest and is instead utterly hilarious. The environment and setting is fairly bland in comparison to Centrallia's artful decor, but FOW makes up for that by being very well engineered. With that said, let's tear apart FOW. The premise is such: The spirits of Autumn and Winter had a debacle and it resulted in Autumn getting all emotionally conflicted and taking revenge on the fairly innocent Winter. Now the land of Winter is being invaded by creatures of both Halloween and Thanksgiving, and it's up to you to stop it. Needless to say, the premise is fun and nothing else. It's not deep, or entirely original (but more original than a large margin of levels), but at the very least it's very fun. Design is definitely present in this level, though not nearly to the degree of Centrallia. It certainly looks like a good amount of work went into making this level, but most of that work went into making the level more of a "playing" experience and less of a "visual" performance, and I personally favor this quality about it. The rockets are well placed and perfectly controlled, the jumping and swinging sections are fairly diverse while still being easily decipherable, and the one enemy at the end is just an overall fun experience that make this level's playability second to none. The biggest thing to note about this level is the humor, of which there is much present. Every single NPC (or rather mouth attached to a piece of cardboard) speaks lines that travel into a land of plain absurdity and ridicule, and all together create the laughable humor one gets from making fun of something that usually cannot be made fun of, which is to say seasons. I have to say that keeping silly and sophisticated humor together is generally a tough task but I feel like FoW did a good job keeping it together, without letting it fall too much in one category. The symmetry is golden. Looking back at the two levels, I actually find the differences between them staggering to the degree that I might end up drowning in a sea of irony. On one hand you have Centrallia, a level with amazing appearance and fairly good playability, and the other you have FoW, a level with fair appearance and amazing playability. It really makes me wonder what kind of level you'd get if both these creators put their absolute best into a level. We could potentially be looking at the next Azure Palace or H.A.T.E. Final Score: 9.0 / 10 This level is fun, the environment is fitting, the music is good, the humor is great, and overall the lack of amazing design is this level's only real flaw. On a side note, HILARIOUS!!!

2008-12-19 09:05:00 Author: Shining Aquas Posts: 353

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Yeah this level really made me laugh. Absolutely love the sense of humor. Great review bud!

2008-12-19 22:23:00 Author: Neverynnal Posts: 374

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wow, thank you so much for that kind review. I will show it to my husband (Catiers). It's funny, cause I'm the designer/artist, yet my levels tend to look sloppier than his do. He usually fixes my mistakes. I think the reason that the design is off so much is that we were able to hide a lot of our mistakes in the darkness that is Centralia thanks for the kind words, though, it is greatly appreciated!

2008-12-20 13:08:00 Author: xkappax Posts: 2569

Posts: 1077139    Threads: 69970    Members: 9661    Archive-Date: 2019-01-19

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