Reviews - Mr_Nygren

A wonderful historical modification by Italian modders.

10/10 - the mod is highly polished, and has been worked on since 2011.

Dagovax, is the man behind the port of The Lord of the Rings: Total War to the Remaster of Rome: Total War.

Everything has been ported over, the historical battles. the original campaign, all the scripts and gameplay features in the campaign, all the models have been re-rigged for the new engine - a procedure which took Dagovax twice the time it would take to rig them for the old game, as rigging models for the Remastered version is more demanding on the modder - it requires more work, he also successfully moved over every custom settlement from the old mod and the custom battles are also available.

The mod has added most if not all the additions of GwoodElf's submod released for the original mod in May 2021 - these additions include many new heroes with great models based on the movies for factions such as Isengard, Rohan, Gondor, the Elves of the Noldor etc - and the original submod by GwoodElf has new civilians in the civilian view that I think might be included.

Besides this Dagovax and his new team has implemented a second campaign to the mod which is expanding the original campaign with more regions (in the original game there were limits to how many units, regions, cultures etc you could have), units, factions and so on - in this campaign you have over 240 regions, 17 factions including the new factions of Erebor, Ered-Luin and Iron Hills (the faction known as the "Dwarven Clans" has been split into three different factions in this new campaign, while in the old campaign they're still only one faction - these three new factions are connected through the "Roman Senate"-feature and will be a part of the same super faction. Another changed faction in this new campaign is the "Orc Rabbles" - known as the "Orcs of the Misty Mountains" in other mods - basically the Goblins - they've been cut into two and you have now the new faction of Gundabad holding the regions to the North of the Misty Mountains such as Gundabad itself, and Angmar/Cairn-Dum. I do believe that these factions share units but do get a few unique ones each.

The new mod has the same features as the old mod - including the heavily scripted and movie-accurate "Fellowship of the Ring"-campaign - a much better version of this campaign than in Third Age: Total war - much more lore-accurate and detailed - in it you play as Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, Boromir, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli and will get to follow the events of the movies from Frodo leaving the Shire/Hobbiton to the end at Mount Doom - while the Fellowship travels Eriador wil be invaded by Goblin armies that you will need to defend against using the simple farmers and milita of Bree and Hobbiton - if you lose all the cities in Eriador, or if you have your heroes killed - you'll lose the campaign. I'd say it's pretty difficult at least in the old mod that I played it in.

Alright, unlike in the old version of the mod for the older game this game has enhanced graphical features. You can have more than one model in a unit and many different colors, faces and genders- in the old game every unit were the same per unit - this is no longer the case. Dagovax at first ported the same models to this game but later remade the models so that the faces got updated, certain gear got enhanced, colors were improved and such - every model should look the same as in the old mod but with enhancements by Dagovax made for the Remaster.

Also, a few older models were replaced with completely new and more modern models - this mostly concerns all the horses in the game, the wargs, the trolls, the Felbeasts, the Eagles and the Balrog - Dagovax updated the entire model of all these giant creatures.

In this mod, unlike in Medieval 2, and exactly like in Rome: Total War - I believe that each area is connected both on the campaign-map and in the battles - which means that when you fight in an area next to Mount Doom on the map, but not in the area of Mount Doom - you can still see the mountain outside of the playable area - this makes this mod very immersive.

All the settlements are custom except maybe the old Rohirim villages and towns - unless they've been changed. In the old mod for Alexander only the barbarian settlements in use by Rohan, the Free People's and the Wildmen of Dunland did use vanilla models - everything else is custom in terms of settlements.

You'd get Isengard, Mount Doom, Minas Tirith, Edoras, Helm's Deep, Minas Morgul, Dol Guldur etc - but not just the important cities - every Gondorian, Elven, Dwarven or Orcish settlement is fully custom as well.

This mod, unlike Third Age: Total war - has more heroes from the books and the movies, and is 100% following the movies, not the books - in terms of story.

The aim of the original mod was to make a Total War-mod based on the Jackson-trilogy - so this mod stays true to the Jackson-trilogy rather than the books.

I highly recommend it. It doesn't include any units that look out of place in a Jackson-movie.

I'd give it 10/10.

This particular fan-made game is named Pokémon MMO 3D - and is a MMO or massively multiplayer online game. It is aiming to recreate the Pokémon-world online where players can create their own character and then re-live the Pokémon world of the GameBoy-games together with friends or alone in a world with many other trainers that they can compete with and battle.

There is a huge world with many cities, wild forests and isles, over 200 different Pokémon - at least the three first generations are available. It is using a completely fresh battle-system that isn't turn-based anymore. You can choose to teleport to other regions using the Alakazam in each region, or you can travel the vast distances by journeying yourself from city to city like in the handheld games.

Just like in the handheld titles you can start with one out of three Pokémon - the original three which are a Charmander, a Bulbasaur and a Squirtle - then there is a free Pikachu upstairs in the starting building as well. Furthermore an Eevee can be found in one of the houses of Pallet Town, and a Hitmonchan and a Hitmonlee can be found in the gym of Cerulean city - there are no Gym Leaders to battle yet - but Brock is in the game unlike all the other gym leaders. Giovanni could be played as though.

I also did find a Kabuto, an Omanyte and an Aerodactyl inside of the pink building of Pewter City. They're supposed to be extinct Pokémon so I'll see why they're so easy to get. I thought the Aerodactyl would be harder to get. Easily one of my favorites from the original 151 Pokémon.

I enjoyed playing the game, and being an MMO it will take many hours to progress in order to travel to each region and catch them all. But I'd say this MMO has a lot of promise, it's been around since about 2017 - and I did first find it in 2019 when I did first attempt to play it and record it. I played it for about 4 hours back then and I did record while playing - but due to my mic not working due to being broken - I had to scrap the recorded material and try again a few days ago. So I did in-fact replay what I did the last time - but unlike back then I knew about the Pikachu and three of the other starting Pokémon after having watched Youtube-videos.

I didn't know about the extinct Pokémon of Pewter City so that was something I did find out myself. It's sad that they've removed all the alternative skins for the starting characters from the start. It would be better for this game if every skin was available when creating the character, as they were in previous versions of the game. Back in 2017 all the skins were available from the start while now you have one look for the boy, and one for the girl - that sucks. Of course they're unlockable during gameplay but that's just annoying to have to unlock things that should be there from the start.

Of course the game has many regions and cities that look barebones right now, and I think the game could use NPC-humans in the cities walking around. It has wild Pokémon walking around, and the players are not numerous enough for the cities to feel alive. The developers should consider adding human NPC:s to make each city come alive more - and make them walk around and run randomly. It's a little too empty currently - something players can't fix.

Think GTA and let the population be NPC as well. Because the cities feel empty of humans. All in all I'd rate this game pretty high it being made by fans. 9/10 as this is something I wanted as a kid. Nintendo let players down by keeping the RPG/adventure to the handheld systems - when everyone wanted Pokémon Stadium with the RPG features. It should have been on the Nintendo 64. Pokémon Colosseum was cool but it had a different style of capturing Pokémon, where you didn't capture wild ones like in the handheld titles - something I were always disappointed in.

I wanted the handheld title with Pokémon Stadium graphics and animations. This fan-made game has Pokémon GO models of the Pokémon, and it does offer the adventure and the huge world - but it still lacks the Gym leaders/Elite Four and the RPG-elements where you'd get quests from NPC-characters. Instead it's just up to the player what you wanna do and no-one is offering any story or any quests which is boring - but if you know the story then you can relive it pretty well even without the NPC:s and the gym leaders/elite four.

The developers do need to focus more on the single player experience for each player and add NPC-quests and Gym leaders. I can't say it's finished as it' probably a WIP (work in progress) and as such I can understand certain things missing in the game. But without what I just mentioned it feels empty and incomplete.

For more on this title check out my video here:

Impressive new terrain and assets like trees, new unit models, new animations etc - it's a total overhaul of Rome: Total War - Alexander turning it into RuneScape - an old MMORPG.

The mod has been made from scratch by KurdishNomad, but he had help from one other guy who made the campaign map for it that released in the latest update.

The mod has at least 5 factions with full rosters and then some additional factions with a few to zero units.

It isn't finished and won't be because KurdishNomad has ceased the development due to a loss of interest in this project.

Compared to his Avatar: The Last Airbender: Total War-mod it still lacks details like custom cities. But I know that KurdishNomad, the creator - would have been able to create such things.

A cool and unique mod that is sadly not completed 100%.

Edit:

Mod has a working campaign.

A great multiplayer mod, but I cannot give it a 10 without the campaign - so it's a 9 out of 10.

In development for 6 and a half years, has an open-world isle instead of the linear experience of the original game, five different levels make up the JPDS1-part of this unfinished project, it utilizes advanced scripts that will spawn dinosaurs such as velociraptors in the long-grass when the player gets close to certain areas, it can trigger for example a T-REX to attack a building with you inside, you will get scripted text-messages with tips, the levels have a properly done progression system in the level, new better models of dinosaurs, never-before-seen dinosaurs will show-up, the dinosaurs are the same as in the second movie, the mod has an intro-video and additional videos that will play at certain locations - it has a real story but unfortunately this part of the mod was never finished.

Still - I'd rate this mod a 10 out of 10 for all the new content that it brings. The story might be unfinished, as its final levels weren't made - but the terrain and world is properly made with much better graphics and more objects due thanks to the ATX2 engine used specifically for this mod.

Dinosaurs are using all their emotions, or at least more than in the original game - for example they can drink from water, Velociraptors can jump when attacking both the player and other dinosaurs and as mentioned the T-REX could attack a building with you inside.

All in all it's the most impressive mod for Jurassic Park: Trespasser to date.

I've seen many other mods/levels on the site Trescom.org - the official Trespasser-site - and there are some others that are close to this one but most are not.

I'd recommend the Isla Sorna-mod over there - a mod which makes the three first retail-levels into one single open-world level. It's also enhanced in many ways. It felt like a new version of the original game - remaster with new assets and such too and wider areas with more dinosaurs. Then we had some others as well.

Return to Jurassic Park: A Trespasser Mod - is even more grande in scale than this mod is. But due to not being playable it isn't in my opinion better. The 2013 version of it is playable though when using the TNEXT-cheat code to progress to the next area. It's the second most impressive mod after this one.

A very creative take on Napoleon: Total War, turning the game into the setting of the first World War. The units are great, the work on the old strat-map has been properly adjusted to fit the new setting, we have new art, new models, new factions and new sound.

The mod is lacking WW1 planes, and WW1 ships - but this is due to the game itself not allowing the Modders to add such things. Still, the work the Modders have managed to do here far succeeded people's ideas on what is actually possible to do in the more recent games of Empire and Napoleon.

The AI can't really use all the new units and features, so this mod is better played against other players. It will still have an entertaining campaign despite the AI being very easily beaten for a smart player. The AI will use Napoleon-era tactics and therefore is not that hard to beat.

I'd give the mdo a ten for all the work done, and we even have tanks, modern artillery etc. The AI is hardcoded so it couldn't become ant better.

This is the ultimate Third Age: Total War mod for campaign enthusiasts. If you'd want to play a grand campaign as any faction in Middle Earth then this mod is for you! It has improved on every aspect of the original Third Age mod in the campaign - with more factions, new music, a huge map, new scripts and unique events and features, new art and UI and lots of new models.

The mod has been developed since the first release in december of 2013, and the team continue to update it year after year. While certain models looked better in the older versions, others have been greatly improved over the years. I don't like models that look like taken from the vanilla-game - such as some of the middle eastern based factions. They looked a lot better in the first version where they had more of a movie-style (the developers made them like they thought they would look in a Jackson-movie) instead of real-life realistic as in the later versions.

But i still will give the mod a ten, besides this little objection - the "Variags of Khand" looked so good in the first version lol.

Anyway, the mod is amazing and it deserves a ten.

I have also made a Music Sub-mod for it that enhances all the factions, and enable faction specific music to almost all of them.

Moddb.com

Multiplayer - This mod is a ten because it takes Third Age, and does to the multiplayer experience what Divide and Conquer did to the campaign.

In this mod i do see the single player campaign as a bonus feature, and not essential for this review - otherwise i would have rated the mod a nine because of the unfinished campaign.

REFORGED being a multiplayer mod i will rate it solely on that. And it delivers the best Third Age multiplayer experience out there, ranking in popularity at the top between the other two huge Third Age mods, and Elder Scrolls: Total War.

A well deserved ten, but if you are looking for a single player experience i would say that Divide and Conquer is the better choice.

This mod has impressed me with it's campaign user-interface though, as it looks like "Battle for Middle Earth" but in Total War. I'd say this mod has the potential to rival Divide and Conquer with more work, as the factions, units and custom settlements are there - they just need to be implemented properly to the campaign. But as of now the campaign is a work in progress.

And as a multiplayer-only mod it is a ten for sure.

This is a clear ten, as it just overhauls everything from the models, to the map, the music, to the art, the voices and many of the settlements are custom now. In the earlier versions i thought the mod lacked in polish, but i can say now that it has indeed been polished to an extent that is simply amazing.

The mod has lots of cool gameplay features and scripts, events and such that will make the campaign completely unique and immersive. The mod still lacks a total overhaul of all the strat-map cities and battle-map cities - but besides this it has reached a level of "complete" that makes this mod stand out from most other mods.

This mod is right up there with Third Age, Divide and Conquer, Third Age Reforged and CoW: Beginning of the End Times (the last one would still be a top-five mod if it weren't for the official games) - and i think it is currently superior to my own Warcraft mod despite lacking custom settlements - as it's just so completed in all other areas.

I'd say this mod deserves a ten.