9 Gems of Life 2
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- Author(s): Jveenhof, Wolfblitz
- Categories: D-Mod, Romp
- Downloads: 522
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50 Years after the defeat of Jaitz, Dink and his friend Link set out to find the other gems.
Storyline: Real good, since there are several levels in this story. Laura’s grandfather tells Laura a story, about Dink and Link. You play Dink, but you also play Link. And at the end of the adventure it is back to Laura and her grandfather.
Map and graphics: The map is decorated nicely. The title screen is nicely done, with the buttons not on the bottom of the screen, but on the left. There are several new or modified graphics. There are new enemies, lions, from the same game the graphics of Dink are. The end boss Blaze is new too. There are new warps, and some magic circles. The slayers are modified and when they are dead, they have some green slime for blood.
Music: Mediocre.
Good: When someone talks to Dink, a popup appears, showing this persons face. There is humour in this game. The way Dink is transported into the cave is done nicely. You play partly Dink and partly Link, which is very good. The way Link escapes the pirate ship of Zilver (sometimes named Silver) is very enjoyable – not only how he gets passed the guard, but also how he escapes the ship. The story how Zilver got his eye patch is a funny, albeit old, joke.
Not so good: As said in one of the enclosed .txt files, the monsters are real hard. Right after the intro you already have to fight a very tough monster. And the monsters only get tougher, so cheat is the only option. The caves tend to get boring real quickly. When talking to the guy in the cave, I only saw Dink’s text, and not the lines the guy was supposed to say. There is a path in the cave that is blocked by a rock, but you can not go there.
Overall: A good D-mod, with some flaws. And you have to cheat to defeat the monsters.
Fit for: If you have played the first part of 9 Gems of Life, you should play this one too.
Storyline: Real good, since there are several levels in this story. Laura’s grandfather tells Laura a story, about Dink and Link. You play Dink, but you also play Link. And at the end of the adventure it is back to Laura and her grandfather.
Map and graphics: The map is decorated nicely. The title screen is nicely done, with the buttons not on the bottom of the screen, but on the left. There are several new or modified graphics. There are new enemies, lions, from the same game the graphics of Dink are. The end boss Blaze is new too. There are new warps, and some magic circles. The slayers are modified and when they are dead, they have some green slime for blood.
Music: Mediocre.
Good: When someone talks to Dink, a popup appears, showing this persons face. There is humour in this game. The way Dink is transported into the cave is done nicely. You play partly Dink and partly Link, which is very good. The way Link escapes the pirate ship of Zilver (sometimes named Silver) is very enjoyable – not only how he gets passed the guard, but also how he escapes the ship. The story how Zilver got his eye patch is a funny, albeit old, joke.
Not so good: As said in one of the enclosed .txt files, the monsters are real hard. Right after the intro you already have to fight a very tough monster. And the monsters only get tougher, so cheat is the only option. The caves tend to get boring real quickly. When talking to the guy in the cave, I only saw Dink’s text, and not the lines the guy was supposed to say. There is a path in the cave that is blocked by a rock, but you can not go there.
Overall: A good D-mod, with some flaws. And you have to cheat to defeat the monsters.
Fit for: If you have played the first part of 9 Gems of Life, you should play this one too.
Another nice but Jveenhof's typical dmod. Basically you continue the journey in seeking the 9 gems of life.
This was the first dmod that I learned how to change Dink's stat by my own. I was not a huge fan of cheating in a game, so usually I would trust the game balance set up by the game designer. However, I can't even pass the first theme of this game. I know I was not a good fighter, but I was not that bad, either. (I can basically kill a slow bonca without getting hit at all.) I did need to add strength or hitpoint or defense to beat the mog! To throw a boss-like enemy in the very beginning is not the way to welcome a new player.
A new in-game big-head picture was shown on the screen when a conversation was brought up. It's kind of cool although some of the faces are... well I don't know how to put it in words.
There is also a new thing here. You played 2 parallel stories about Dink and Link. There are a lot of potentials of storytelling in this dmod, but again it ends quite quickly before anything could take place.
Overall it's less buggy than the first part, but somehow I still liked the first one better. (A fatel bug about the cannon was fixed or avoided in the patch.) The game is much more difficult than the first one. Without cheating, you need to be a pretty good fighter to play this one.
If you want to have more fun and do not care you still cannot finish the 9-gem quest, it is worth to download it and play it.
This was the first dmod that I learned how to change Dink's stat by my own. I was not a huge fan of cheating in a game, so usually I would trust the game balance set up by the game designer. However, I can't even pass the first theme of this game. I know I was not a good fighter, but I was not that bad, either. (I can basically kill a slow bonca without getting hit at all.) I did need to add strength or hitpoint or defense to beat the mog! To throw a boss-like enemy in the very beginning is not the way to welcome a new player.
A new in-game big-head picture was shown on the screen when a conversation was brought up. It's kind of cool although some of the faces are... well I don't know how to put it in words.
There is also a new thing here. You played 2 parallel stories about Dink and Link. There are a lot of potentials of storytelling in this dmod, but again it ends quite quickly before anything could take place.
Overall it's less buggy than the first part, but somehow I still liked the first one better. (A fatel bug about the cannon was fixed or avoided in the patch.) The game is much more difficult than the first one. Without cheating, you need to be a pretty good fighter to play this one.
If you want to have more fun and do not care you still cannot finish the 9-gem quest, it is worth to download it and play it.
So I played this expecting similar quality to the first one. Unfortunetly it's worse than the first one. The grammar is still bad, and the mapping decreased in quality. And it's buggy. I would recommend installing Ted Shutes' modification for this to be playable. The biggest problems of this D-Mod are the balance and the lenght. It's likely impossible to beat this D-Mod without cheating or massive grinding. The boncas are beatable, but the slayers and the final boss... not really. It's also way shorter than the original. It still has some good aspects like a magic system that has some interesting spells. There's also the portrait system where portraits appear for the characters talking - but it's inconsistent and the portraits don't really fit. It also has a new enemy and recoloured slayers from the first D-Mod. Overall, I would not recommend this D-Mod to be played. The portrait and magic system might be good for developers to examine and do a better job implamenting them, but that's about it.
The storyline has got great potential, it would be great it the complete "9 gems" tale would be released as an epic (one file) at some point in the future.
To be fair though: it would still need a bit of work before it would be worthy of epic status.
Below are just some random thoughts and notes from when I was (re-)playing the game:
Storyline:
* Inconsistent with the first part : this part is being *told* by "grandpa" Dink while the first part is "real time".
Graphics:
* Nice side-graphics of the person you're talking too.
* Funny new monster (the furry bone-carrying monster), though animation of it is lacking a bit.
* Good end-boss graphic, however it's a bit one-dimensional (as are the furry creatures).
Inventory:
* What happened to the knife in the inventory ? Now it just shows a sword even though it functions like the knife.
* When you arm the fist, you change back to the undisguised dink.
* Why have the "M" key for magic instead of the inventory ? I don't understand the need. It's not as if you can get more than 8 spells.
Fighting:
* The first fight was way too hard.
* The bonca's at the end of the cave system are really pretty strong. The thing I found strange was that you only get 40 experience for beating them, the same as for the far weaker bonca's in the caves themselves. Another thing: is it just my amazing fighting skills or don't these bonca's hurt you when they swich their tail ?
* Similarly the black slayers in the quest for the fifth gem are very very hard.
* For me there was no chance to beat this game but by using the all time favourite ultimate cheat.
* The game freezes the moment you beat the end boss, which you can basically only beat if you got microwave blast magic (happened twice in a row to me).
* I liked the translocation circles in the cave system, thought I never was sure whether I'd managed to explore all there was to explore.
* The puzzles were fairly easy, but I liked them anyway.
* I liked the little side adventure of how Link escapes
Funny.
Shame Link doesn't appear again later on.
Overall: Fair. Looking forward to the full adventure.
To be fair though: it would still need a bit of work before it would be worthy of epic status.
Below are just some random thoughts and notes from when I was (re-)playing the game:
Storyline:
* Inconsistent with the first part : this part is being *told* by "grandpa" Dink while the first part is "real time".
Graphics:
* Nice side-graphics of the person you're talking too.
* Funny new monster (the furry bone-carrying monster), though animation of it is lacking a bit.
* Good end-boss graphic, however it's a bit one-dimensional (as are the furry creatures).
Inventory:
* What happened to the knife in the inventory ? Now it just shows a sword even though it functions like the knife.
* When you arm the fist, you change back to the undisguised dink.
* Why have the "M" key for magic instead of the inventory ? I don't understand the need. It's not as if you can get more than 8 spells.
Fighting:
* The first fight was way too hard.
* The bonca's at the end of the cave system are really pretty strong. The thing I found strange was that you only get 40 experience for beating them, the same as for the far weaker bonca's in the caves themselves. Another thing: is it just my amazing fighting skills or don't these bonca's hurt you when they swich their tail ?
* Similarly the black slayers in the quest for the fifth gem are very very hard.
* For me there was no chance to beat this game but by using the all time favourite ultimate cheat.
* The game freezes the moment you beat the end boss, which you can basically only beat if you got microwave blast magic (happened twice in a row to me).
* I liked the translocation circles in the cave system, thought I never was sure whether I'd managed to explore all there was to explore.
* The puzzles were fairly easy, but I liked them anyway.
* I liked the little side adventure of how Link escapes
Funny.Shame Link doesn't appear again later on.
Overall: Fair. Looking forward to the full adventure.
The Second part of Jveenhof and Wolfblitz’s trilogy. Dink and Link are off to find more jewels – the next 3 gems of life.
Graphics: new stuff here. There’s the disguised Dink, some new enemies, and some modified people sprites. Some new items, such as the canon – but that’s as far as I got. Canon just froze – even with Ted’s fix installed. Considering the other factors of the game I couldn’t be bothered continuing.
Map: Average, with depth problems yet again.
Sounds: if there were new ones, I didn’t notice them.
Bugs: Yep these were there. Froze while solving the first puzzle. Then the canon bug which still was there. Two times got this, so gave up.
Specials: The face appearing stuff was good. New magic wasn’t that good. Had a nice bug you could exploit in battling the tough boncas. I got my strength up to 200 odd by pressing SHIFT very quickly.
The puzzles weren’t really puzzles. Too obvious.
Overall 6 out 10.
Graphics: new stuff here. There’s the disguised Dink, some new enemies, and some modified people sprites. Some new items, such as the canon – but that’s as far as I got. Canon just froze – even with Ted’s fix installed. Considering the other factors of the game I couldn’t be bothered continuing.
Map: Average, with depth problems yet again.
Sounds: if there were new ones, I didn’t notice them.
Bugs: Yep these were there. Froze while solving the first puzzle. Then the canon bug which still was there. Two times got this, so gave up.
Specials: The face appearing stuff was good. New magic wasn’t that good. Had a nice bug you could exploit in battling the tough boncas. I got my strength up to 200 odd by pressing SHIFT very quickly.
The puzzles weren’t really puzzles. Too obvious.
Overall 6 out 10.
