Déjà Vu Gryphon Revisited is as classic as you can get, this project is soo well made that it could have been an official expansion for Unreal, just like RTNP, however Déjà Vu suffers from the same issue as RTNP and that is the story, there is an opening cutscene that sets the plot however as soon as you start the next level the story gets deleted from existence, not even the final map does a good job at ending the story, however the final cutscene is very funny.
This is one of the most entertaining maps in the campaign, it's so easy to pick and play (this being the first map also means you don't have to worry about other items when you start the level). Level geometry is very good especially terrain (however opening the level in the editor reveals that Hellscrag made the terrain in the most difficult and time consuming way possible
). The rest of the geometry is good as well, I really like that Hellscrag reused the houses from The Landing, those houses are very unique especially considering that most mappers reuse the same house from Unreal over and over again, however I was disappointed when I realized that you cannot break the houses windows. Lighting is very well made, I notice some similarities with The Landing and even Tashara's Cove, also nice choice of textures. This map has translator messages however they don't expand on the story at all and they are just there to either tell stories of the Nali or how to proceed, however I really like the signs that tell you the names of places you are visiting, Hellscrag really likes adding plenty of detail in his maps.
Sound design is very strong, every sound has a source and the map uses plenty of DynamicAmbientSounds to give life to the environment, decorations are also well used especially everything that has to do with flora and fauna. Music is excellent, the track (called "Nagomi Passage" or "Journey") is great to set the mood of the campaign where everything you remember from Unreal and RTNP is back to its full glory, however I wished that there was a music event at the end of the map so the transition to the next map was more seamless.
Gameplay is the highlight of the map, you have plenty of weapons, ammo and health packs to deal with the opposition with no trouble, however in Unreal difficulty you have to be more careful with ammo and that means using the dispersion pistol more often, so better get used to that gun
. Enemies have a nice progression, from Mantas to Kralls and finally the Skaarj , every enemy has a chance to shine and thankfully the map has plenty of difficulty filtering so there's plenty of replay value, however a huge let down is that the map doesn't use OddsOfAppearing, so there's no randomness here
. It was a nice surprise seeing the Squid (an unused enemy from Unreal), they are everywhere in the area with the Kralls and the water.
Also this map has two secrets, one is a pickup and the other one is an easter egg, the last one is at the beginning of the map, good luck in finding it
Issues I found:
-If you start the map from the opening cutscene the difficulty will reset to Medium, this forces you to skip the intro if you want to play other difficulties.
-Map doesn't use OddsOfAppearing.
-There is no Coop filtering except for some items at the beginning and the player starts, yes that's right, player starts have coop filtering, a very big technical problem since navigation points should never have any kind of filtering.
-Level has pathnodes but it isn't perfect, there are plenty of places with no pathnodes like the water or the inside of the houses.
-Elevators have Lift Exits and Centers, however the Lift Exit at the top has connections to the bottom, which can confuse the enemy AI.
-The doors of the houses are ReturnWhenEncroach, so it's very annoying to enter the houses since you keep bumping on the doors. This could have been fixed by making the doors IgnoreWhenEncroach or change the doors so they open differently. This happens with the mover in the secret area as well.
-The key you get at the end is a mover set to ReturnWhenEncroach, this means that if you get very unlucky you can bump into the key preventing it from moving, thankfully this won't soft-block the map.
-The final doors and the elevators are CrushWhenEncroach.....
-The lighting of the final area doesn't match the start of the next map.
Somewhere in Nevada...
. Obviously it was never serious. What can I say? Repeated exclamations of 'Cheese!' were a thing among my University housemates and me at the time.
