Reviews - Antumarin

Some sections made my fairly decent computer crawl and it even crashed shortly after starting the first map. Despite all this it was a very well made map with tons of details and a challenging and enjoyable campaign.

The novelty of the parkour is kinda lost in the original campaign but it's still fun as hell to mess around with it.

The maps are fairly well made but lack polish. Sometimes it's hard to figure out where to go or what to do. They also lack a lot of detail, even small touches like rust or signs of wear would've added a more lived in look. I'm guessing it's because it's so early in the "morning" but the town is empty too, and adding the impeccable look of everything the place just feels uninhabited. Also, revisiting the areas you walked through not half an hour ago feels lazy and gives the impression of the town being very small.

The story tries to go somewhere by implying greater schemes happening around us but the plot barely moves at all, and right when you feel something's going on the mod ends. It's also narrated which is just wrong: "Show, don't tell". Not only this would make the world feel more real, it would also prevent mistakes like the character talking about how he's still "unaware of the scale of the threat" when you've already read two out of three tomes and you can see from miles away where this is all going. We also know little to nothing about the main character or this co-worker Ingrid who keeps calling us. Or the main antagonist. Or the ghost woman. Or anyone.

The voice acting was okay but Redmond sounds way too calm for someone who goes around talking about the end of humanity. Ingrid never grew on me but you can tell the voice actor at least tried.

Gameplay wise, I'm fine with both the player and the enemies taking few bullets to die. It makes every encounter more exciting and challenging. The problem starts with the introduction of the bomb defusal mechanic. As soon as it's introduced you're dragged to a race against time and hordes of enemies that's just not fun. I ended up having to rush against every horde of enemies, praying that I take them out before they get to me, and with spare time to deactivate the damned bomb. Supposedly "health is frequently low" but that's not true at all. I always had plenty of healing items, which is fortunate because you can't have enemies with huge amounts of damage and little to no supplies unless it really well made. Also, the character all of the sudden knowing how to defuse bombs feels cheap and Ingrid is annoying as hell throughout this whole section.

The "boss fight" with the ghost-like woman was ridiculous. There's nothing telling you what you're supposed to do, or even if you're able to defeat her. Her shotgun wrecks my **** in every difficulty and most times you don't even have time to heal. There's no stunning or delaying her except when you make her vanish to a different part of the map, which is so small and linear that means she'll be waiting around the corner.

All in all, this mod is a dissapointment. It's very short, the maps are empty, the style is there but it lacks polish, the levels need more work, the plot is dull and almost non-existant and there's not one puzzle in sight. It's biggest (and only) strength is the combat and it's dragged down by dumb AI, lacking level design and time constraints.

It's weird. It's fun. I don't know.

Finally a mod that tries to recreate the feel of the original game, instead of just being a collection of old half-finished maps. And it's pretty damn interesting too. I can't wait to see how this continues.

This is the quality content I signed up to this page for.

Twilight of the Archaic takes everything that I didn't like about Necrologue and turns it up to eleven.
Christ, that's a terrible ending.

Penumbra: Necrologue does a great job recreating the atmosphere from the series, but it's mostly wasted by wandering around the original maps way too often (starts making the whole world feel more realistically connected, ends up making you think the devs were getting lazy). The plot felt uninspired and simplistic with too many retcons that lead nowhere. You basically try to reunite with Amabel (whose death was retconned) until you don't. Afterwards you completely forget about it and then **** just happens. Also, Clarence and (to some degree) Red are back. The endings are alright. One of them is somewhat fitting, while the other two are surprisingly happier (if you forget that you left Amabel behind).
Overall, it's a well made, atmospheric mod with (too many) callbacks to the previous episodes of the series that ends up falling flat with Twilight of the Archaic. At least it washed away the aftertaste of 'Requiem'.