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January 15th 2015, 09:35 PM
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CocoMonkey
Bard He/Him United States
Please Cindy, say the whole name each time. 
333: Valhalla (Unfinished) Author: SabreTrout Release Date: October 30, 2011
"Rubbing wizards isn't my thing but here goes..."

Hey, 333 D-Mods. That's half of, um... something...

This is SabreTrout's first release in over five years, and his last to date. It's actually an unfinished project from 2006, released as an apology. Sabre had announced a project on the forum called "A Town Called Daemon: TOE," a romp he intended to complete between when he announced it on October 10th and the end of the month (TOE stood for "The October Experiment"). Unfortunately, things, including a kitten and Dark Souls, got in the way, and it didn't work out, so he released this old thing instead.

In "Valhalla," Ol' King Dan is turned to stone by an ambitious sorcerer named Hashut (he uses SimonK's Spike graphics). Martridge goes to get Dink's help and teleports him into some big open area. I mean, that's Martridge for you. This is really a pretty standard D-Mod. I mean, you have to gather logs to fix a bridge.


That's not true. Occasionally there are also those bridges that are intact, but have some jerk standing on them asking for a toll.


King Daniel is lucky a hero like Dink is willing to quest tirelessly to save him at any cost.

The map is comparable to the original game's. It's not super pretty or anything, but it looks fine and provides a nice world for you to explore with secrets to find (be sure to check any thick patches of grass you see if you play this one). The initial section where you do nothing but punch pillbugs and wander around drags a bit until you reach the first little town.

The game is divided into chapters. There are two of them here; at the start of the third, you're told that the "demo" is over, suggesting that this was prepared for demo release at some point. The full game would have had five chapters. You have to gather ingredients for a petrification cure by completing certain quests, including bringing fish to a moogle. Dink has some encounters with a group of cultists called "The Fell" along the way.


Kupo! He said it, I'm happy.

Early on, I felt like the boncas' attack and defense were a bit on the high side. Later things get very easy as you find an armored guy who will train your attack and defense stats as much as you want for not very much gold per point. He also gives you some pretty good advice on Dink Smallwood combat along with your stat increases ("Stand just off an enemies axis, where they can't get you, and pummel them!")

When you get to the second chapter, it's possible to skip right to the end by telling a knight who guards a building that he should move aside because you're beta testing. At first, I thought this meant it wasn't possible to get to chapter 3 by normal means, but it is. You have to find a scroll in a very hidden location to do so, however. It doesn't seem possible to get to the end AND complete the sidequest that earns you the fireball spell; both require you to use up the same scroll.


There's a cave back here. Free advice for anybody who wants to play this.

"Valhalla" is way more of a playable D-Mod than the last few unfinished projects I've played, but it still needed work. A little girl early on freezes you if you talk to her and select a certain option; I lost fifteen minutes of progress as a result because savebots are scarce at the start of the game. Later, a certain house warps you to a nonexistent screen if you try to enter, leaving you stuck on a copy of the intro screen. The bug where purple boncas can't hit you hasn't been fixed, which is especially problematic because both bosses are purple boncas. All the tables that are used to warp you out of houses and caves have been left visible. Dink turns invisible when he dies instead of playing the death animation (this is one of the problems with Skeleton S). There are other little problems here and there.


Uh... bottles, Dink? Is... is that what you call books?

I got a good, dark laugh out of one of the quests. You have to catch a fairy in a bottle and feed it to a statue. The fairy begs for its life in a shrill fairy way, but Dink is pitiless. You then carry the fairy's little skeleton around in the bottle. It's hard to explain, but I found this hilarious. Maybe it was the line, "I'm sorry little guy, but I think this statue want's to eat you." I am a horrible man.

"Valhalla" is fun while it lasts. Unlike most "unfinished" D-Mods I've played recently, I think it was worth releasing so that people can check it out. It would have been a pretty good D-Mod if it were finished. It did feel similar to the most part to a number of other D-Mods I've played - not recent ones, but ones from several years ago, even earlier than when it was actually made. There's nothing wrong with a little throwback, though.