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Spy's Quest is the first scenario by Stareye.
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Spy's Quest 6.26 (8.9/3.5)
MultiQuote#3 Terrors Martyr
Posted 27 March 2008 - 05:48 PM
The combat was bad, yeah. Nodework was innovative. Hell, any scenario that invents special spells gets at least a 5, in my book. And apart from that, this scenario is huge. Then again, the plot of this scenario is fairly poor. The Exile cave graphics are interesting, but they're really the only decent graphics included. The hand-drawn ones are awful. I don't know... I'm judging this scenario primarilly as an artform, because of Special Spells. And the ride could be worse. Do I reccomend this scenario? If you loved Doom Moon II, Demon Island II or Echoes, you'll probably enjoy this scenario. If you didn't find any of the above particularilly apetizing, then this scenario might not be much of an entree for you. 7.4
#6 ???
Posted 27 March 2008 - 05:49 PM
(Bruce Mitchell)
I really enjoyed the challenge of the constant and difficult combat. And the puzzles. I didn't attempt one puzzle (Twisting Temple) without a walkthrough.
Not a scenario where you can explore everywhere (like I did the first time), as after 150 days or something, you get hectic penalties, like constant disease or similar. Also, if you do the side quests, they may be buggy, and mean you can't continue on the main quest (as happened to me).
This scenario requires a minimum of about 4 characters in your party.
The story is not so hot and the name inappropriate.
After so much hectic and epic puzzles/combat, I was disappointed with the final rewards.
However, I did enjoy it! 8.
I really enjoyed the challenge of the constant and difficult combat. And the puzzles. I didn't attempt one puzzle (Twisting Temple) without a walkthrough.
Not a scenario where you can explore everywhere (like I did the first time), as after 150 days or something, you get hectic penalties, like constant disease or similar. Also, if you do the side quests, they may be buggy, and mean you can't continue on the main quest (as happened to me).
This scenario requires a minimum of about 4 characters in your party.
The story is not so hot and the name inappropriate.
After so much hectic and epic puzzles/combat, I was disappointed with the final rewards.
However, I did enjoy it! 8.
#7 Rosycat
Posted 27 March 2008 - 05:49 PM
6.2
I don't know if it's fair that I rate this one... anyone who's read other rankings of mine can probably guess that I did not enjoy it. Period. However, Stareye himself (no, it was Drizzt. BAD Rosy) once said that reviewers often confuse things done badly and things they would have done differently. There is definitely an issue of taste here. It would, I think, appeal to a narrow audience, but I'm sure that there is an audience. In my personal opinion, this one gets about a four.
Out of respect for Stareye and his later works, and since I'm ranking for the community, six point two. There was work put into this one.
And I did finish it!
EDIT: Agh. Thank you. Silly me!
I don't know if it's fair that I rate this one... anyone who's read other rankings of mine can probably guess that I did not enjoy it. Period. However, Stareye himself (no, it was Drizzt. BAD Rosy) once said that reviewers often confuse things done badly and things they would have done differently. There is definitely an issue of taste here. It would, I think, appeal to a narrow audience, but I'm sure that there is an audience. In my personal opinion, this one gets about a four.
Out of respect for Stareye and his later works, and since I'm ranking for the community, six point two. There was work put into this one.
And I did finish it!
EDIT: Agh. Thank you. Silly me!
#8 ???
Posted 27 March 2008 - 05:50 PM
(Lt Triest)
yeah, but I like it
Another outdated feedback (sorry I saw the topic too late).
"Spy's Quest" was one of the first custom scenarios I played after regisitering BOE a few years back but there's still a memory of it in my mind, despite that after that I discovered such masterpieces as the Spheres trilogy, "An Apology" and "At the Gallows". And I'll say it's a good memory, despite all the faults mentioned in other's feedbacks (which I agree with, basically). Yet, the scenario offers quite unique puzzles and we should not forget the "special spell" innovation. This was, in my opinion, a revolutionary move in scenario design.
Also the tactical/combat challenges should be mentioned: although they make the scenario quite unbalanced at times (too much heavy combat, too less plot), the player gets a sense of great satisfaction after completing such a challenge, not to mention that in most cases a brute force technique can't save you at all, if you don't have some wits to use together with it. This scenario demands special attention from the player, and much thinking - another two thumbs up.
The plot itself is not so bad, the idea is original.
Going back to tactical challenges, it's because one of those I wasn't able to finish the scenario, no matter how hard I tried. But in this case it is entirely my fault and not of the author (see "wits or lack thereof"). So surprisingly or not -
8.9
yeah, but I like it
Another outdated feedback (sorry I saw the topic too late).
"Spy's Quest" was one of the first custom scenarios I played after regisitering BOE a few years back but there's still a memory of it in my mind, despite that after that I discovered such masterpieces as the Spheres trilogy, "An Apology" and "At the Gallows". And I'll say it's a good memory, despite all the faults mentioned in other's feedbacks (which I agree with, basically). Yet, the scenario offers quite unique puzzles and we should not forget the "special spell" innovation. This was, in my opinion, a revolutionary move in scenario design.
Also the tactical/combat challenges should be mentioned: although they make the scenario quite unbalanced at times (too much heavy combat, too less plot), the player gets a sense of great satisfaction after completing such a challenge, not to mention that in most cases a brute force technique can't save you at all, if you don't have some wits to use together with it. This scenario demands special attention from the player, and much thinking - another two thumbs up.
The plot itself is not so bad, the idea is original.
Going back to tactical challenges, it's because one of those I wasn't able to finish the scenario, no matter how hard I tried. But in this case it is entirely my fault and not of the author (see "wits or lack thereof"). So surprisingly or not -
8.9
#12 BUURD
Posted 31 March 2008 - 02:30 PM
BURRD’s Review
Let me begin by stating that this scenario is, as Akhronath enlightened me, little more than an arcade game. This scenario is huge with a capital HUGE and very frustrating! Take the outdoor encounters. There are too many, and they are too big. When I have to find myself casting multiple avatars, protections and then constantly shockwaving, then have dervishes, his damned sorcerer monster and order mages charge me and kill me as my invulnerability wears off and my spell points have been drained, then I think something is wrong.
While Spy’s Quest has some excellent technical aspects, i.e. “Sorcerer casts Arachne’s Scourge,” “Demonic Priest casts Unholy Blast,” the overall overpoweredness of the scenario sickens me. Take the rebel supply fortress. I have to fight two sorcer-wizard-dervish-archer encounters, and then without any time to recuperate, I battle a stronger encounter than the one above! Then I beat it beyond all odds, and what awaits me? Death via special! Good thing I saved!
The custom graphics, while everyone loves to see E1 terrain and the Grah-Hoth graphic come back again all the original ones were pathetic! Then there was the Twisting Temple! The Twisting Temple twisted my mind for months and eventually I just gave up. I came back to the game, beat the damn temple, and just reached the general to find that someone needs me! THE HORROR! So I gave up.
Spy’s Quest gets a 3.5 from me, I was thoroghly disgusted. While I doubt I will ever manage to finish it, if I do I’ll still hate it!
Let me begin by stating that this scenario is, as Akhronath enlightened me, little more than an arcade game. This scenario is huge with a capital HUGE and very frustrating! Take the outdoor encounters. There are too many, and they are too big. When I have to find myself casting multiple avatars, protections and then constantly shockwaving, then have dervishes, his damned sorcerer monster and order mages charge me and kill me as my invulnerability wears off and my spell points have been drained, then I think something is wrong.
While Spy’s Quest has some excellent technical aspects, i.e. “Sorcerer casts Arachne’s Scourge,” “Demonic Priest casts Unholy Blast,” the overall overpoweredness of the scenario sickens me. Take the rebel supply fortress. I have to fight two sorcer-wizard-dervish-archer encounters, and then without any time to recuperate, I battle a stronger encounter than the one above! Then I beat it beyond all odds, and what awaits me? Death via special! Good thing I saved!
The custom graphics, while everyone loves to see E1 terrain and the Grah-Hoth graphic come back again all the original ones were pathetic! Then there was the Twisting Temple! The Twisting Temple twisted my mind for months and eventually I just gave up. I came back to the game, beat the damn temple, and just reached the general to find that someone needs me! THE HORROR! So I gave up.
Spy’s Quest gets a 3.5 from me, I was thoroghly disgusted. While I doubt I will ever manage to finish it, if I do I’ll still hate it!
#13 Lew Titterton
Posted 31 March 2008 - 02:32 PM
Lew Titterton’s Review
Get ready for the biggest, hardest, most impressive, and most confoundingly frustrating scenario ever to grace — or blight — the scenario landscape. I give it a 5.5, with the following explanation:
Spy’s Quest says “Very High Difficulty,” and means it. If you can get through even the first few missions without using the character editor or hitting the “monsters much weaker” button, my hat is off to you. I couldn’t do so. Very High is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case it is. This scenario is full of hack-n-slash, to the point of gut-churning, vomit-inducing, mind-numbing violence. Huge combat after huge combat bores the hell out of the player. This scenario needs, desperately needs, a reduction in all this fighting.
Custom graphics are ample but often weak. Those borrowed from earlier Exile games are used effectively, but originals just aren’t very good. Thankfully, standard Blades graphics are used diversely and attractively.
Outdoor areas are simply enormous — 6x8, I believe. They are actually pretty well filled, though. Subplots and little adventures abound. Getting a horse is essential, but they are rather readily available. Towns are well-done as well, especially given just how many there are.
Bugs are present, as would be expected of such a freakin’ huge scenario, but few are major. This is an impressively edited scenario, although a teleporter linking various towns has an extremely conspicuous lack of “change outdoor location” specials. Get teleported to one town hundreds of (virtual) miles away, and emerge outdoors from where you started! Not good.
The plot is an unwieldy monster. Mission after mission assaults you, all too many with towns that have level 10 difficulty, resulting in monsters that just keep regenerating. Ugh! Some missions are counterintuitive, by which I mean it’s hard to find the mission itself, and once on it, logic goes out the window. The “Twisting Temple” is so utterly difficult and arbitrary that you WILL want to exercise your second amendment rights on someone or something, and if you don’t live in America, you’ll just want to shoot things. The walkthrough is totally necessary on this board.
To sum up, I have to say that this scenario, despite requiring what must have been thousands of hours of work, should probably be avoided. Spy’s Quest stands as a testament NOT to try epic, Exile-sized scenarios! Jeff Vogel could build them because that was his job! The rest of us, I hope, have other things to do in life and simply cannot commit every waking hour to design. Had Stareye recognized this, and used equal effort and skill on a smaller scenario, it could have been a masterpiece. Instead, it is a gigantic, muddled, ludicrously difficult mess.
As a PS, I have to mention that title “Spy’s Quest” is simply wretched. Bland, generic, and not even appropriate, as the party does very little spying and very much butchering.
Get ready for the biggest, hardest, most impressive, and most confoundingly frustrating scenario ever to grace — or blight — the scenario landscape. I give it a 5.5, with the following explanation:
Spy’s Quest says “Very High Difficulty,” and means it. If you can get through even the first few missions without using the character editor or hitting the “monsters much weaker” button, my hat is off to you. I couldn’t do so. Very High is not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case it is. This scenario is full of hack-n-slash, to the point of gut-churning, vomit-inducing, mind-numbing violence. Huge combat after huge combat bores the hell out of the player. This scenario needs, desperately needs, a reduction in all this fighting.
Custom graphics are ample but often weak. Those borrowed from earlier Exile games are used effectively, but originals just aren’t very good. Thankfully, standard Blades graphics are used diversely and attractively.
Outdoor areas are simply enormous — 6x8, I believe. They are actually pretty well filled, though. Subplots and little adventures abound. Getting a horse is essential, but they are rather readily available. Towns are well-done as well, especially given just how many there are.
Bugs are present, as would be expected of such a freakin’ huge scenario, but few are major. This is an impressively edited scenario, although a teleporter linking various towns has an extremely conspicuous lack of “change outdoor location” specials. Get teleported to one town hundreds of (virtual) miles away, and emerge outdoors from where you started! Not good.
The plot is an unwieldy monster. Mission after mission assaults you, all too many with towns that have level 10 difficulty, resulting in monsters that just keep regenerating. Ugh! Some missions are counterintuitive, by which I mean it’s hard to find the mission itself, and once on it, logic goes out the window. The “Twisting Temple” is so utterly difficult and arbitrary that you WILL want to exercise your second amendment rights on someone or something, and if you don’t live in America, you’ll just want to shoot things. The walkthrough is totally necessary on this board.
To sum up, I have to say that this scenario, despite requiring what must have been thousands of hours of work, should probably be avoided. Spy’s Quest stands as a testament NOT to try epic, Exile-sized scenarios! Jeff Vogel could build them because that was his job! The rest of us, I hope, have other things to do in life and simply cannot commit every waking hour to design. Had Stareye recognized this, and used equal effort and skill on a smaller scenario, it could have been a masterpiece. Instead, it is a gigantic, muddled, ludicrously difficult mess.
As a PS, I have to mention that title “Spy’s Quest” is simply wretched. Bland, generic, and not even appropriate, as the party does very little spying and very much butchering.
#14 Big Words
Posted 31 March 2008 - 02:58 PM
Big Words’ Review
As far as first efforts go, this scenario was rather good. The time limits, the chance encounters are, in some cases, a very nice touch. The scenario has a half-way cookie cutter plot. In terms of style and the ability to keep my attention, this scenario was a 9. But there were certain parts of this scenario that, in my opinion, did not quite mesh together, and did not really do the scenario full credit.
First of all, the scenario is rated Very Hard. This is most likely true, due to the tough enemies and variance of battles. But some parts were TOO tough, or too confusing. There is one dungeon, that, thankfully, there was a walkthrough for, because it was next to impossible. It was the Twisting Temple, and certain parts of it were very confusing. There was the buttons. About 15 or so buttons, scattered across the level, that you have to press to win. Some, you have to press twice, some, if you press them, can mess you up badly. The entire point of this dungeon is to get the key to a exit door. Well, when I reached the exit with no key, I wasted many an unlock spell until I got the walkthrough and realized that it was an ‘I’ door. The only other problem with the scenario is that, personally, I rate it as ‘Unfinishable’. I went to Stareye’s website, and there are slots and towns for dozens of quests beyond the point where you get a mission from a general. But, unfortunately, the general just says, “Maybe somebody, somewhere, needs your help.” And that’s it.
But other than the fact that I could not finish the scenario, it was surprisingly good. Some of the custom graphics were on the low end, but the plot was very enticing. The lines of the plot were well drawn out, to a certain point, and most of the missions challenging, either mentally, or to my party in combat. I won’t spoil certain parts of the plot for anybody, but, as I am sure there are many plot twists to come, I can’t spoil much.
All in all, I rate this scenario a ‘5.5’. The gameplay was good, but there was a certain point when the gameplay became impossible. If I figure out a way to finish the scenario, maybe I will withdraw this review and make the rating higher. But, thing being as they are, the rating stands.
Big Words’ Review — 5.5
As far as first efforts go, this scenario was rather good. The time limits, the chance encounters are, in some cases, a very nice touch. The scenario has a half-way cookie cutter plot. In terms of style and the ability to keep my attention, this scenario was a 9. But there were certain parts of this scenario that, in my opinion, did not quite mesh together, and did not really do the scenario full credit.
First of all, the scenario is rated Very Hard. This is most likely true, due to the tough enemies and variance of battles. But some parts were TOO tough, or too confusing. There is one dungeon, that, thankfully, there was a walkthrough for, because it was next to impossible. It was the Twisting Temple, and certain parts of it were very confusing. There was the buttons. About 15 or so buttons, scattered across the level, that you have to press to win. Some, you have to press twice, some, if you press them, can mess you up badly. The entire point of this dungeon is to get the key to a exit door. Well, when I reached the exit with no key, I wasted many an unlock spell until I got the walkthrough and realized that it was an ‘I’ door. The only other problem with the scenario is that, personally, I rate it as ‘Unfinishable’. I went to Stareye’s website, and there are slots and towns for dozens of quests beyond the point where you get a mission from a general. But, unfortunately, the general just says, “Maybe somebody, somewhere, needs your help.” And that’s it.
But other than the fact that I could not finish the scenario, it was surprisingly good. Some of the custom graphics were on the low end, but the plot was very enticing. The lines of the plot were well drawn out, to a certain point, and most of the missions challenging, either mentally, or to my party in combat. I won’t spoil certain parts of the plot for anybody, but, as I am sure there are many plot twists to come, I can’t spoil much.
All in all, I rate this scenario a ‘5.5’. The gameplay was good, but there was a certain point when the gameplay became impossible. If I figure out a way to finish the scenario, maybe I will withdraw this review and make the rating higher. But, thing being as they are, the rating stands.
Big Words’ Review — 5.5
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