UBerserker has taken a fresh look at Mister Prophet's one-off single map release in the Jones saga, Na Pali Haven: Redux. Judging by the detailed review, the map, despite its bugs, has stood the test of time.

not to sound harsh, but why exactly was this map reviewed again? Not quite understanding what was wrong with the previous review compared to the new one...

Because it wasn't on the new schema.

Something I missed: Skytown Reduxx was actually a prize for EBM if I remember correctly.. right? He won a redux of a map and he could choose which one, so he told Proph to do a redux of Skytown....

Of Na Pali Haven (Sky Town), actually. You never revisit the caves (which is also mentioned in the following paragraph and needs to be removed).

Fair review. I still have satisfying dreams of me beating the crap out of those useless Nali guards.

OK. I misunderstood, and it's a long time since I played it. Will fix.

(To anyone who's confused: I sometimes rewrite bits of content if I don't think they read clearly. In this case I clearly got it wrong...)



As MMAN said. We've been on a programme of re-reviews to a revised schema, with more consistent and generally lower scores, for years. Only one left to do now...

Yes, that's correct. That is a bit of history that people often forget and it really explains why there are so many build bugs with this release. I did the conversion in one month many years back upon request by Eightball Maniac, who won some forum game...I don't even remember what about. Also, at the time I made this I was a reviewer at Nali City. Part of my motivation at the time to do this was to show that you could do a redux with a little more justice than some of the cheap ports people were uploading to NC at the time...although I think I failed my own test in the end, since there are no excuses for the technical issues this map has. I'm particularly critical of it now, even though I do like some stuff that's in there. Basically this was an encore to Xidia, and while it is now considered a prelude to Seven Bullets the truth is that this was made before I even knew what the hell 7B was gonna be. It really is not as polished as the other stuff I've released, and the unforgiving nature of the gameplay has much in common with parts of Xidia: The Escape.


UB, thanks for the fair review Although I think your score is far to generous given the technical quirks, the meat of the review itself really nails a lot of what doesn't quite work with this one. I look back at this as an experiment. I regret releasing it in the state it was in, but what are you gonna do.

EBM surely made an awesome choice regarding the map, though. Bluff could have been a good candidate as well.

I think I secretly hoped he'd pick Bluff since I had an idea for that one. I don't I really knew what the hell I was gonna do to Skytown until I started adding damage to the buildings and placing Xidia Skaarj.

If Bluff or something had been chosen for a remake, then would 7B have been comepletely different? Maybe no dark scary Kran or something?

Presumably. The smallest decisions create waves, eh?

Its something we could speculate for hours and the question would always come up in our minds, What if? then would it be something else? My motto is "everything has a reason". My mind is crowded with these thoughts, like at 7th grade there was a school party, and a random "contest" I won. There had to be a reason, and what if I didn't go as I first intended to do. Anyway Enough off topic for my part.

We could have explored a destroyed Mothership and Drago would have ambushed Jones outside of it, giving us an proper exploration of the crater itself. Then you could go somewhere like, secret areas of the Nali Castle.

Nah. I chose the Kran for a specific reason, and all attachments to Skytown were etched into the story out of convenience (timeline, ect).