Reviews - Shyrtexx

Positives:

-Some original ideas scattered here and there
-A few areas, such as the Choir, looked nice
-Baguettes!

Neutral / Nitpicks: (will not affect the score)

-Grammar was so-so at times
-The maps were way too big for their own sake. If the rooms in them had detail,
it would not be a problem

Negatives:

-The story is as messy and as confusing as it gets
-The rooms were basically copies of each other. They had nothing interesting in
them either, making exploring the map and solving the so called puzzles
incredibly irritating and tedious. As if that isn't bad enough, the rooms
lacked detail
-Speaking about puzzles, they were so god damn vague. No hints for levers, no
proper context for some items, and no directions. Not bad as themselves, but
no hints.
-The flashlight was a failure in many ways - worst of all, the light was not
centered.
-Way too dark with massive lack of batteries
-The language usage in the notes was immature and broke the immersion

Storyline: 3/10

It was super confusing. It felt like every note was out of context and had nothing to do with note I had read prior - and also, there was and incredible amount of people, groups and other story elements that I completely lost the track after the cellar part.

I do give some kudos for the effort you had for the story, but unfortunately it was a complete miss.

Level Design: 3/10

While some areas looked decent to good, around half of them were just empty corridors, filled with rooms which in turn were filled with way too symmetrical boxes - this really started getting me near the end. The rooms had nothing interesting in them - absolutely nothing, aside a random tinderbox here and there. Very lazy in my books. The bad areas severely outweigh the good ones, so the score is low.

Also, one incredibly huge downside is the terrible lighting this mod had. Many areas were completely pitch black, and considering the lack of batteries, it made solving some of the puzzles m

Puzzles: 2/10

So god damn irritating.

No hints, no directions and the lack of lighting made solving the already vague puzzles a total hell on Earth.

Scare Factor: 7/10

This is the only section with a score above average. Though silly at times, the mod actually mad decently good jumpscares and got me screaming a few times. One such event was a Brute spawning upon me interacting with a door in one of the levels. Also, you used some ambient sounds pretty well, and gave me an uneasy feeling.

Overall:

A below average mod, honestly. However, I will have to consider its release date, all the way in 2011. For the standards of those times, I probably would have given this 8-9/10. However, by the masterpieces we've had ever since, this is really average, and almost in the verge of being straight up bad.

Score: 3,75/10 -> 4/10

Positives:

-Absolutely awesome design. Especially the maps at the end. Nice detail,
creativity and uniqueness
-Scariest mod I have played after 2018 (actually true)
-Some uniqueness with puzzles (only for original ones)

Neutrals: (won't affect the score)

-The map near the end was way too reminiscent of Choir - Main Hall of the
original game. It even had the same unfitting menu music in it. Not too
annoying to be a negative however.
-Way to many doors were locked, blocked or jammed, making the gameplay very
linear at times. Again, not too annoying to be a negative

Negatives:

-The story was very, very weak and the grammar in the notes was absolutely
terrible
-Not only in notes, but the grammar at item names and mementos was rerally bad
as well
-Some repetition with the monster encounters at the end

Story: 3/10

Yeah. Unfortunately a huge miss. The story starts with the most cliché note of all time, and the story never develops into anything. All of the story was written in notes, and given the awful grammar, understanding them was super difficult at times. Unfortunately the weakest part of the mod.

Level Design: 10/10

Absolutely phenomenal. A lot of details, unique layouts and creative areas. Crystal clear 10/10 here, with my favourites being the Sewer machinery areas, the last maps and pretty much everything else too. Design-wise probably the best mod of the entire year.

Scare Factor: 10/10

It has been ages since my last 10/10 for the scare factor, yet here I am now. The monster encounters were absolutely terrifying, timed perfectly, and teased properly. The fear of the unknown was present here clearly. No cheap scares, great atmosphere and scary overall.

Puzzles: 8/10

The first puzzles were straight up copied from the main game, but towards the end they became better and better overall. Fixing the sewer machine for example was really fun. They were not vague at all, and I could solve them with no real problems.

Overall: Such a great custom story ruined by nonexisting story and terrible grammar. With a proofreader and a more throughoutly thought story, thus would have been an absolute masterpiece.

Score: 7,75 = 8/10 - Great

Positives:

-Amazing level design (parts you made)
-Creativity
-Liked the different voice acting
-Interesting puzzles

Negatives:

-Pretty confusing at times
-Is everything alright?
-Some of the areas are literally copy pasted from original game and changed
slightly
-The ending was slightly confusing as well

Story: 7/10

Not the most original, but fine regardless. Easy to follow, nicely written and overall entertaining.

Level Design: 9/10

Without copying some of the areas obviously (Archives, Entrance Hall and Guest Room) I would have given the easiest 10/10 of all time. The maps were richly detailed with unique layouts, nice creative ideas scattered all around and overall good. Extra kudos from the last map, amazing work.

Puzzles: 8/10

Great, if not original. The last puzzle with the long note was extremely enjoyable, and overall I found myself liking the puzzles a lot. The only part I got confused though, I really did - after getting the chipper I was stuck a pretty long time. Still, pretty neat.

Scare Factor: N/A

This was not supposed to be a scary story (or so I assume), so I won't rate this section.

Overall: A nice, enjoyable custom story I can recommend for people.

Score: 8/10

The Fugitive III is a mod that has been praised over years. A mod that is one of the longest ones released, unfortunately happens to be one of the most overrated custom stories of all time, if not the most overrated.

Positives:

-Original and creative puzzles
-Creativity in general was insanely good. This only applies to maps with
original
stuff in them though.
-The Spider Cave was one of the most terrifying Amnesia maps ever

Negatives:

-The notes are so incredibly long it made me lose the interest to read them
completely. Most of the notes' stuff was about irrelevant stuff regardless
-The puzzles are so god damn vague it is unreal. Zero hints, zero indication,
not even the slightest clue on stuff what you have to do
-Most maps were intensely boring, bland and undetailed, filled with pointless
corridors and nothing interesting
-A feast of glitches and bugs which made me restart the mod thousand times
-The story is nothing but a collection of every possible cliché there is
-The whole mod is basically trying to be The Great Work, but fails miserably
-The Prison map was god damn annoying
-Super boring most of the time

Storyline: 3/10

Cliché, cliché and cliché. Alexander, Orbs, The Shadow, Altstadt, torturing of people, vitae, all these were included in the story. A majority of the story was also purely written on notes (some visuals were included though), but 50% of the notes were so long it felt more like a visual novel than a custom story. If I wanted a book, I would have gone to a book store. The story itself was not that bad, but the way it was presented was so incredibly boring.

Puzzles: 3/10

I have never been this frustrated over Amnesia.

The puzzles were original. There were ideas I had never seen before. The puzzles made sense, and were logical. But then the creators, for some reason, decide to make them the most vague puzzles in Amnesia history.

Examples:
-The cloth pile in Sewer is a prop you can't usually interact with. Now you
could, with zero indication
-The pipe in the map where you had to swim. Zero indication at all
-The levers in the Panorama map. I did not know what they did
-The whole Water Cliff map was a huge failure in its own, with an impossible
Kaernk and the hand

There are way, way more than that as well. They would have been some of the most amazing puzzles of all time, but the creators simply don't give jackshit about hints. Super frustrating and annoying, especially considering the potential they had.

Scare Factor: 3/10

This mod was not scary the slightest. There were a few, certain moments that made me feel even slightly uneasy, and the only reason the score here is 3/10 is because the Spider Cave. Coincidentally I suffer from extreme arachnophobia, so that is your fortune on the score's behalf.

Level Design: 5/10

Super bland and boring for the most part. Empty corridors, rooms with no details aside for the puzzle items and some random boxes here and there, bland and poorly used lighting, and rooms with nothing interesting in them. The areas near the end (lava maps, caves and such other unique areas) were good however, and this is the reason the score is 5/10.

Overall:

I am at the loss of words. How on Earth can there be people who consider this one of the best mods of all time, when all this was was snoozefest of vagueness, clichés and frustration. One of the most overrated custom stories of all time.

Score: 3/10

Positives:

-A lot of creativity
-Variety of areas to explore
-Interesting story

Nitpicks:

-Many grammar and spelling errors

Negatives:

-Some areas were a bit empty
-Not too scary

Story: 8/10

A story about an epidemic is never the most original, but as this is a mod from 2013 it is good. There were a lot of characters, and following the story was easy enough.

Level Design: 7/10

Good usage of modern assets, and clever map layouts. Some maps were incredibly small however, especially some of the areas near the end.

Puzzles: 9/10

This was the greates area of the mod for me. A lot of different items to use in a different ways, and some puzzles which required some logical thinking (the freezer part for example). This is a thing in the mods of this dev I really enjoy.

Scariness: 6/10

Not the scariest mod around. Not that many scary events or small jumpscares. A few of the enemy encounters were well executed (such as the suitor), but it could have been a bit scarier.

Overall: A good overall custom story I can recommend to anyone.

Score: 7,5/10 -> 8/10 - Great

After playing this mod for the second time in a couple of years, it is no wonder why this is regarded as one of the greatest Amnesia mods of all time. However, still, there are some flaws.

Positives:

-Incredibly good story. Simple, yet very intriguing
-Breathtaking design
-Amazing music. Especially in the Library level
-Variety of items and puzzles
-Challenging enemy encounters (a huge plus)
-Great voice acting

Nitpicks:

-I felt like there was a little bit too much of backtracking - not enough to be a negative though

Negatives:

-The way the story ended made me really disappointed. It was way too abrupt. We never got to know what happened to Cornelius in the end, and this is a massive flaw in my books. I was so immersed with the story and then it just ended.
-Third chapter was weak when compared to the first two

Story: 8/10

I feel so sad for having to give the story an 8 instead of 10 which I so wanted to give. It was well written, greatly explained and simple. But the way it ended, I just can not get over it.

Level Design: 10/10

Pure class. I think I saw a few flickering textures, and that is the only thing I can even remotely nitpick about the design. Great variety, nice looking areas (the town especially) and amazing creativity.

Puzzles: 9/10

Puzzles were insanely good. My favourite was the piano puzzle, and the water directing puzzle with the lamp. The reason I am not giving 10 is the fact that the backtracking was slightly annoying, and most of the puzzles required an item - some visual puzzles would have been appreciated.

Scare Factor: 9/10

Although the Ghost enemy is pretty cliché already, it was well utilized here. The encounters were scary, if slightly predictable, but great regardless. The fact that the enemy was silent made all the difference in terms of scariness.

Overall: An incredible mod, which deserves its score.

Score: 9/10

Positives:

-Really good basic design, and occasionally creative too
-Amazing scares which made me scream a couple of times
-A big variety of puzzles and items throughout

Neutrals/Nitpicks (won't affect the score):

-Some handholding (especially with the key on the pipe)
-At times, there was way too much to read and little to explore
-You could glitch out the map several times. This is partially my fault, but I
had the urge to investigate. This happened at the window in Storage, and the
two boarded corridors in the Tome map (name of which I can't remember)
-Many items were missing names

Negatives:

-A lot of texture glitches in almost every map
-Story was mostly pretty average and very confusing
-A bug in the Foggy map (read below)
-Some of the puzzles, while creative, were way too easy

Story: 6/10

It wasn't your typical cliché story, but I can't really ignore the fact how confusing it was at times. So many names and terms used for each Head Dignitary, all the otherworlds and all those shenanigans made me feel really confused about what was going on. Still, it was a great attempt of a story, but the potential was much bigger.

Level Design: 8/10

Even if it was basic, it was really good. Some creativity was also seen, especially with the map with the two fallen pilars. The mod also had some good and original creative decoration ideas scattered throughout. This would have been a 9/10 perhaps, but sadly I can't ignore the amount of glitching textures all over the place.

Puzzles: 8/10

I loved the variety of puzzles here. Instead of using the boring vanilla items all the time, you actually included some rarely seen items such as the wooden crank, copper tube and the iron bar, which is a definite plus in my books. Only downside here is that the puzzles were mostly very easy, or vague (the string to the door for example). Still, good job.

Scare Factor: 8/10

Was it the scariest mod of all time? Nope, but still scary. The storage Brute scared the absolute **** out of me and there were some areas which were incredibly ominous and uneasy to play in, to mention the Book Storage part.

Bug:

In the Foggy Temple, you could break the mod by turning the wheel before removing the rust. This would result in the protagonist removing more and more rust all the time, but not making the door work at all. Instead, you'd have to remove the rust only once before turning the wheel. This broke the mod and made me feel really confused - considering that many people might miss it, you should definitely fix it.

Overall: Such a great and fresh breath of air. Not the most original, but very good and coherent in its own.

Score: 7,5/10 -> 8/10 - Great

In short: Looks good but lacks everything else

Positives:

- Great level design for the most part
- Music was fine

Negatives:

- Nonsense and nonexisting story
- Too much key hunting
- First map was misleading and vague as hell
- Bad grammar for the most part

Story: 2/10

I don't know anything that was happening. First, we had a start of a story with Nicolas torturing Daniel. Two notes later we hopped to a story of a life elixir, and after this the creator gave jackshit about the story with no more notes. The notes were also badly written, and there was no visual storytelling. Pure confusion.

Level Design: 8/10

The design was great all around. There were some empty parts especially near the end, but for the most time the levels looked nice with some creativity in them.

Puzzles: 3/10

Mostly finding items from a room to get to another room. What was the point of the strong needle? It unlocked an useless door.

Scare Factor: 3/10

Some surprising monster events, but other than that, it lacked scary atmosphere and the feeling of pressure.

Overall: A below average story. Nothing remarkably bad, but nothing to praise for either.

Score: 4/10

In short: Incredibly great concept, but the execution of it left me slightly disappointed

Positives:

-Incredibly innovative. I have never seen anything like this ever before, and
most likely won't ever see
-Animations and sounds were both very good
-Great visuals

Negatives:

-Insanely short
-I needed a friend with me to help with finding the staircase. The arrow pointing
towards it was so obscurely placed it almost made me quit the game
-I confused the main menu button as the "go back" button so many times it's
unreal. It is not necessarily a good design to have that button visible at all
times, while the actual go back button only appears upon bringing your cursor
at its location
-No introduction for how to play the game. I had no idea if this was Amnesia or
not, kept looking for inventory and whatnot by pressing random keys here and
there. Turns out I only had to click on things to make them do stuff, but at
the point I found that out I had already finished the game with neutral ending

Still, despite the long wall of negatives this was pretty cool, if slightly frustrating to play. If those issues would be fixed, this would be a really nice little game. At this stage, I can only call it above average for simply what it is.

Score: 6/10

Positives:

-As a metalhead, the outro song was gladly appreciated

Negatives:

-Bland design with bad lighting
-No challenge
-As cliché as it gets
-Story was nothing but a mess
-Terrible grammar
-Nothing but key gathering

Story: 2/10

About as messy as one can get. Nothing made any sense, references to Amnesia monsters within file, people dying strangely, ladida. Nothing interesting, and nothing but confusion.

Level Design: 3/10

I am being generous here out of my own will. At least there weren't too many glitches, but aside that it was just overly below average and offered nothing unique to the papers.

Puzzles: 1/10

Nothing but key hunting. Enough said.

Scare Factor: 1/10

No ambience, no atmosphere, no terror. Nothing.

Overall:

The mod is barely, and I really mean barely over 1/10. Not the worst mod in existence, but not far from it either. 2/10 -> Very bad