Legend of the Ancients: The Capture
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- Author(s): Zeddexx
- Categories: D-Mod, Quest
- Downloads: 396
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The Legend of the Ancients is a bit of a crossover between a weird DMOD and a brute force DMODing attempt. It has the kind of ingenious use of stock elements in bizarre situations that makes you scratch your head.
Let's start with the story: An evil ancient has kidnapped a set of other ancients. Good riddance you'd say, but apparently you should try to save these ancients. I guess not every ancient is a villain then. Some ancients, apparently, are actually persons known from the Dinknetwork forums. These are the ancients featured in this DMOD. So, I suppose this story is rather nice if you're among those represented in the DMOD. But I'm not one of them, so I hope I can see this story from a more neutral perspective.
And from my perspective the story was quite weak and shallow. I mean these ancients are really just ordinary people locked up in a small prison cell, I really can't see what's so ancient about them. And the guardian of light (zeddexx himself) spends too much time on the Dinknetwork to help his fellow ancients (=fellow board members). You'd think this DMOD's is a bit of a joke. And I suppose it is, it's just not particularly funny. And in my book a bad joke is worse than no joke at all.
Gameplay isn't this DMOD's strong point either. You're basically dumped in a world with no clear indication about what you should be doing. So, you start the game collecting power-ups and being warped into rather strange pieces of land. And that's pretty much what you're going to be doing for most of the game. Later on you'll get a story, a magic spell a sword and some bombs, but most of the game is still about warping you from one strange place to another. These places are strange because of their strange uses of standard sprites. There are magic stars everywhere... This rather ingenious use of sprites made me smile as it reminded me of some brute force DMODing attempts I've seen in the past. But I'm still not sure if that's a good thing.
The fighting in this DMOD is pretty much worthless, as long as you get all the power-ups in the DMOD the enemies should be a complete walkover. Not that you'd have to bother about beating them if they weren't. The huge amount of power-ups make level raises seem redundant, and you wouldn't need their gold or health either as there is plenty of health to be found in the map anyway and you can't spend the gold you find on anything.
So, I can't say that I really enjoyed this DMOD. I just felt as if I'm working my way through to the end. But from a different perspective: The DMOD didn't feel genuinely bad, it wasn't unplayable or totally riddled with bugs (though it had a few), it just failed to entertain me.
4.7
Let's start with the story: An evil ancient has kidnapped a set of other ancients. Good riddance you'd say, but apparently you should try to save these ancients. I guess not every ancient is a villain then. Some ancients, apparently, are actually persons known from the Dinknetwork forums. These are the ancients featured in this DMOD. So, I suppose this story is rather nice if you're among those represented in the DMOD. But I'm not one of them, so I hope I can see this story from a more neutral perspective.
And from my perspective the story was quite weak and shallow. I mean these ancients are really just ordinary people locked up in a small prison cell, I really can't see what's so ancient about them. And the guardian of light (zeddexx himself) spends too much time on the Dinknetwork to help his fellow ancients (=fellow board members). You'd think this DMOD's is a bit of a joke. And I suppose it is, it's just not particularly funny. And in my book a bad joke is worse than no joke at all.
Gameplay isn't this DMOD's strong point either. You're basically dumped in a world with no clear indication about what you should be doing. So, you start the game collecting power-ups and being warped into rather strange pieces of land. And that's pretty much what you're going to be doing for most of the game. Later on you'll get a story, a magic spell a sword and some bombs, but most of the game is still about warping you from one strange place to another. These places are strange because of their strange uses of standard sprites. There are magic stars everywhere... This rather ingenious use of sprites made me smile as it reminded me of some brute force DMODing attempts I've seen in the past. But I'm still not sure if that's a good thing.
The fighting in this DMOD is pretty much worthless, as long as you get all the power-ups in the DMOD the enemies should be a complete walkover. Not that you'd have to bother about beating them if they weren't. The huge amount of power-ups make level raises seem redundant, and you wouldn't need their gold or health either as there is plenty of health to be found in the map anyway and you can't spend the gold you find on anything.
So, I can't say that I really enjoyed this DMOD. I just felt as if I'm working my way through to the end. But from a different perspective: The DMOD didn't feel genuinely bad, it wasn't unplayable or totally riddled with bugs (though it had a few), it just failed to entertain me.
4.7
~~Story~~
In Legend of the Ancients, Dink must take on the challenge of rescuing several of these powerful beings from one who's plan remains a mystery. Whatever his plans, Exdeathevn (That's me!
) has captured many of the Ancients.
During gameplay you can find many Dinkers from here at the DN as Ancients, which adds a nice touch in comparison to other Dmods. Although Godley does get picked on, which he may not enjoy when he gets to play
Also during gameplay you can find a Monument right at the start which, if interacted with, grants a boost to all stats. This is a subtle method of giving players a chance for an "Easy Mode" of sorts, although most skilled players won't need it.
Personal Rating: 8.4
~~Gameplay~~
Combat is a simple thing in this Dmod, with more Big Hearts scattered about than really seems necessary for a romp of this size.
However, LotA is still a fairly good Dmod. The storyline was well made, although many improvements could be made. The Firebomb spell for example, is the only magic available in the game; As nice as a spell that isn't the common Fireball magic is, some other spells would have added a nice touch.
Zeddexx clearly stated in the Dmod description that LotA is Open Source and can be freely modified as anyone see's fit, but the addition of areas after the final boss give a nice add-on area where Dmodders can extend the storyline at their leisure.
Personal Rating: 7.8
~~Graphics and Music~~
Many of the screens are well made, with lots of detail added to them. In some cases, the flammable trees and such may have been over-used, but this isn't much of a problem.
There are quite a few hardness errors on things such as stairs and some of the simple ground details, but otherwise playing through the Dmod has a nice feel to the visual aspect.
The glitch with the Bomb appearing as a Spear in the inventory, and not appearing at all in the equipped slot, could be fixed some time, but othewise there are no new Inventory items or icons.
As for Music, there aren't any new Midi's that players wouldn't have heard from other Dmods (so far as I can tell). However some of the music matches well, but other scenery music could have been replaced by something more mood-fitting.
Personal Rating: 7.2
In summary, Legend of the Ancients is a fairly straight-forward Dmod to play but is still an excellent romp/quest game to enjoy, and can easily be made into so much more by anyone willing to take the challenge.
In Legend of the Ancients, Dink must take on the challenge of rescuing several of these powerful beings from one who's plan remains a mystery. Whatever his plans, Exdeathevn (That's me!
) has captured many of the Ancients.During gameplay you can find many Dinkers from here at the DN as Ancients, which adds a nice touch in comparison to other Dmods. Although Godley does get picked on, which he may not enjoy when he gets to play
Also during gameplay you can find a Monument right at the start which, if interacted with, grants a boost to all stats. This is a subtle method of giving players a chance for an "Easy Mode" of sorts, although most skilled players won't need it.
Personal Rating: 8.4
~~Gameplay~~
Combat is a simple thing in this Dmod, with more Big Hearts scattered about than really seems necessary for a romp of this size.
However, LotA is still a fairly good Dmod. The storyline was well made, although many improvements could be made. The Firebomb spell for example, is the only magic available in the game; As nice as a spell that isn't the common Fireball magic is, some other spells would have added a nice touch.
Zeddexx clearly stated in the Dmod description that LotA is Open Source and can be freely modified as anyone see's fit, but the addition of areas after the final boss give a nice add-on area where Dmodders can extend the storyline at their leisure.
Personal Rating: 7.8
~~Graphics and Music~~
Many of the screens are well made, with lots of detail added to them. In some cases, the flammable trees and such may have been over-used, but this isn't much of a problem.
There are quite a few hardness errors on things such as stairs and some of the simple ground details, but otherwise playing through the Dmod has a nice feel to the visual aspect.
The glitch with the Bomb appearing as a Spear in the inventory, and not appearing at all in the equipped slot, could be fixed some time, but othewise there are no new Inventory items or icons.
As for Music, there aren't any new Midi's that players wouldn't have heard from other Dmods (so far as I can tell). However some of the music matches well, but other scenery music could have been replaced by something more mood-fitting.
Personal Rating: 7.2
In summary, Legend of the Ancients is a fairly straight-forward Dmod to play but is still an excellent romp/quest game to enjoy, and can easily be made into so much more by anyone willing to take the challenge.
Though severely lacking in polish, the DMOD still manages to be quite entertaining, and it does a good job of not taking itself too seriously. It's also short enough to be more forgiving of it's flaws. The story is about how many of the Ancients (dink network people) were captured by one other Ancient and has some interesting related conversations and jokes in it.
The mapping is surprisingly good looking despite the polish problems, due to clever use of sprites. Be warned though, there are plenty of hardness errors around.
I also find it interesting that there is a rather sizable area to explore after the DMOD is beaten.
Overall, it's fun and short, but is ripe with bad grammar/spelling, and hardness errors, among other problems with polish. But if you can forgive that, and enjoy the premise of the story, than you will probably still enjoy this DMOD quite a bit. I certainly did.
The mapping is surprisingly good looking despite the polish problems, due to clever use of sprites. Be warned though, there are plenty of hardness errors around.
I also find it interesting that there is a rather sizable area to explore after the DMOD is beaten.
Overall, it's fun and short, but is ripe with bad grammar/spelling, and hardness errors, among other problems with polish. But if you can forgive that, and enjoy the premise of the story, than you will probably still enjoy this DMOD quite a bit. I certainly did.
