Reviews - YurkoFlisk

Very interesting idea of a story and pretty decent execution. Ending is somewhat confusing and open to different interpretations, but I guess that it is at least partly intentional. Soundtrack is composed largely from Broken Notes project and not originally created for this story, but still is very good, fits well and adds to immersion (the collective itself notes this mod as list of works where their music is used). Though levels are not the most detailed by standards of some of the more recent mods, they contain some unique ideas (including puzzles) and are creatively composed largely from new, non typical for usual Amnesia setting, assets and models. Setting and environment are presented well, and atmosphere is strong and absolutely on point and IMO doesn't suffer from rarety of monsters as some other reviewers say. Voice acting is mostly ok, but for Sofia it could be better.

*** SPOILER ***
The last puzzle has interesting idea, but is a bit too long and it's possible to get stuck there if all bricks are used, which is exactly what happened to me even though there were 100 bricks, because I was, well, slow to uncover what bricks do and was throwing them randomly until no were left and auto-save happened :) I ended up manually editing save file to change one brick's location (luckily it's in text xml-like format, though not the clearest one) and use it to touch the rest of plates without throwing bricks, though probably it was much easier to just load old enough auto-save. Anyway, IMO the puzzle would be more complete with something like death when all bricks are thrown, or additional bricks generated/old bricks moved to original places, possibly with some comment from Sofia. And possibility of touching almost everything with a single brick feels like a hack and probably could be avoided if close plates were a bit farther away.
*** END SPOILER ***

Overall, good job. I'd say 8.75/10, which rounds to 9/10.

Truly The Great Work. Definitely one of the best and most immersive custom stories/conversion mods to this day. Atmosphere is incredible, in significant part due to custom music by Python Blue (which is just phenomenal) and generally sound design of the levels. Overall level design is good, though, comparing with some more recent CS/mods, environments could be a little bit more detailed at times (especially later chapters). Custom monsters are great and directly ingrained into the story. Puzzles are interesting and difficult, but not too much. Story is very solid, with multiple endings, and not just compatible with the main TDD one, but even complements it in a way, and does so pretty well. I'd not even object if someone considers it canon.

Overall, I'd say 9.8/10, but of course it rounds up to 10 on this site. Especially considering a bunch of same-day (May 23 2022) "3 points" fake reviews (which just straight out lie about the mod) by already banned empty accounts, which are still present and should be compensated (btw, this was exactly what triggered me to register here and leave this review).

Still, in 2022, together with Kanes Wrath, one of the best RTS's out there. Gameplay is uniquely well-done and can be very varied, in part due to not having unit cap unlike Starcraft, which allows more different playstyles on different (especially custom) maps (in particular, very big battles with hundreds of units). Soundtrack is wonderful and fits the atmosphere perfectly. Story is good and has interesting twists. Features FMV cutscenes with great cast which helps presenting the story (and was recently found to be a good meme material :) ). Graphics is decent even by modern standards. Good modding and map-building tools available. All in all, everything is thought-out and well-executed. The only downside is that its original GameSpy servers for multiplayer are closed, and generally the game is pretty much abandoned by EA (unlike Starcraft 2 by Blizzard), but luckily there is community-made C&C:Online which embeds into original multiplayer GUI, is pretty stable and has all functionality (including stats), and generally the community is still alive creating mods, maps, even balance patches regularly.