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dbf409d7cc4ee70f2ff804644d9d708bba25aacfe4fcbeed98c8cc11fa23e1bb
overall_rating
4.546391752577319
97
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An extremely immersive and special experience. When the map first started up I immediately felt lost in a special otherworld, the kind one dreams of experiencing in gaming but which so rarely happens. There are so many dark, inventive, occultish, gruesome and eerie touches. It’s beautiful to behold.
I have so far completed 238/308 kills, 16/50 secrets and have walked round a lot trying to find out how to get the bloody key, the crypt key, the silver key and to the Boglord. So much more to discover. What a piece of work. A stunning achievement, and a whole new world to get lost in.
Unregistered user “Ranger-Danger” posted:
Absolutely Amazing! Vast spaces and gloomy places!
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Also, I wholeheartedly agree with MikeTaylor on secrets. This is what I love about sock’s maps: secrets are not just some hidden health pack behind a poorly concealed door, they lead you to whole new areas worthy of exploration, often including side quests and so forth.
This is the kind of map that got me into treasure hunting (well, in the context of Quake, mind you) and gave real meaning to replaying maps. I didn’t really care about getting all secrets before, now it’s one of the things I look forward to in the maps I download from Quaddicted. The more the better — even though maps that take it to this level are unfortunately still rare to the best of my knowledge, but I’d be delighted to be proven wrong.
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Unregistered user “**octdamage **” posted:
Like much of the rest of AD, visually stunning, the monsters and weapons are inventive and interesting and the difficulty on Hard about right. But the non linear level design is frankly bad. I have nothing against non linear but it has to be done properly. Progression has to be intuitive. Guesswork is not fun when you have to run around places you have been to a dozen times before with no reasonable clues to find some obscure button particulary such a confusing labyrinth of a level. Another gripe - it is possible also to complete this game having seen only half of what it has because of the unnecessarily confusing multi options it offers. There are many points where after completing an objective, you are forced to guess at something that is completely non intuitive and leaves you lost for hours before the “really ?”. This is just sloppy level design. Such a shame beacause it is massive, beautiful, extremely atmospheric - clearly a lot of work has gone into it but profoundly confusing because of poorly thought out progression and an over egged non linear trope. If half the effort that went into the look of these levels went into the design of game progression, they would be brilliant.
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I want the Giftmacher and Sock to know, that there are people who love The Forgotten Sepulcher, not only for its visuals, but also for its gameplay and other things it does. I played it on the day of its release and played it again yesterday (3 years after), to refresh my memory before I’m writing this review.
For me, The Forgotten Sepulcher is an absolute pinnacle of a level design. A dream come true. I always loved Quake for several reasons. Besides the most obvious ones, like visuals, level design and setting, gunplay, movement, secrets, etc. for me, one of the biggest enjoyment comes from memorizing the 3D layout of a map. There is always some amount of confusion, where to go and what to do, in the beginning of each non-linear
map. As you often backtrack and revisit areas, you begin to get familiar with the layout. As I run through the corridors back and forth, I’m constructing a 3D map of the level in my imagination. After some time, as the pieces begins to fit, an overall image starts to uncover. It’s like a 3D puzzle. I prefer term “puzzle” instead of “maze” which in my opinion is not accurate, because a maze is usually just a trial and error run (not fun for me). At some point of the game, when I have a considerably good “3D map” in my head, there comes a very rewarding feeling. And this is what I like about FPS games in general, especially in Quake.
It is important to say, that the non-linear level design is very difficult to make properly. Many things can go wrong during the design process and gameplay. I don’t mind getting lost as long as I feel I’m making a progress. But when you got desparately lost, and despite your effort you cannot proceed further, and if the key parts are easy to miss, then something is wrong and the fun is lost. For me the Forgotten Sepulcher does this right in most parts and is “on the edge” in other few parts. Considering its size and the fact that these guys pushed everything to its limts, I would describe it as a success overall. I don’t want to flaunt (to show off), but during my recent second playthrough (3 years after its release), it took me 2 hours to finish (0,5 hour of
backtracking). Without dying once, without much effort I found 47/50 secrets, which most of them I had still in my memory (to my own surprise) and I left only 5 monsters alive. I wouldn’t remember as much, if it was badly designed. This is the reason I
think the Giftmacher and Sock got it right. It is overwhelming, but fairly enough. BTW: there are arrows all over the place, navigating you forth, don’t forget about that!
To be fair here are some of my complaints: The silver key door is easy to miss. Some of the breakable walls are hard to identify as breakable. I would appreciate more power-ups along the way, at least one more quad-damage. If you reach the exit portal and you want to find the rest of the secrets (let’s say you killed all the enemies, but want to find some minor secrets), you will have a hard time. A very very hard time. This is probably what drove people crazy the most.
It is a let down for me to read some of let’s say not-so-positive comments here. I thought here on Quaddicted, we all are a bunch of nerds, playing a 24 years old game, feeling things similarly… But clearly not. I can understand some of the criticism, it could be overwhelming for someone (note that my second playthrough took me 2 hours), but I cannot grasp an argument like: “it’s gameplay is different than the original”. Yes it is, for Chthon’s sake it is! 24 years is a good amount of time to
push things further. It is different, but I think it walks in the same spirit as the original swampy/medieval maps, expanding upon it, exceeding the limits, mastering the design and complexity. Forgotten Sepulcher truly is a masterpiece.
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