25/01/2025 - "River Ruins" by Neil Munday & Yrex, directed by Delacroix

[Sat42]

Map Title: River Ruins
Author: Neil Munday & Yrex, directed by Delacroix
From: Steele Dawn
Filename: SD3_RiverRuins_V2.unr




Video Playthread:



Video playthrough with text commentary by ebd:


Synopsis: After a mighty close call with Gal'Razik (the leader of the invading Skaarj force), Brandon finally reaches some ancient Nali ruins where he hopes to establish contact with the resistance. The ruins lead underground: where there's the barren red sand of the hot desert above, below a cold and eerie complex runs along subterranean rivers and natural passageways...

Discuss!

[TigerTheGreat]

Frankly, this is the one map where players can be met with a bit of a curveball. Touchscreen stuff was meant for Steele Dawn originally, as hinted by the presence of a keypad texture in the alpha. But, it was my decision to go a step further and expand the Nali lore by adding these Mass Effect Andromeda-style Sudoku puzzles.

The main purpose of this level is to offer more story to the player. There's little action - just the epic boss fight against two Skaarj summoners. Unless you retrace your steps and try getting back at the Skaarj force massacring the Nali population, that is.

Overall, Neil constructed a really nice ancient-themed level and Yrex made an excellent job finalizing it.

[ebd]

I played this one by mistake some months back when trying to play a different map in the pack. I will edit this post if I find the recording.

Edit:

[Sat42]

Nice one ebd, thanks for sharing! I like the custom video thumbnail as well and as usual thank you Semfry for the official playthrough video, and speaking of thumbnails, I like how your video displays a Sudoku moment - which is one of the defining features of this map

I really like this map: it isn't as good as the best levels in Steele Dawn, but it's a nice change of pace from the traditional romp, with most of it being a comfortable exploration of the environments with some story moments and, as mentioned, puzzles in the form of Sudoku with Nali symbols. Of course, the climax with the final boss fight is quite the contrast and is another nice surprise. River Ruins is simultaneously very modern (way more than Unreal) and old school. It's unique to the same degree as the previous maps in the campaign and, while not as epic as Old Township, it's a good example of how to give a breather after a long, tough map without reducing the experience to being merely a "transition" level.

Now some criticism about the voice acting: I feel the need to say this with some care as, historically, a bunch of mostly young people on a game-related online forum has resulted in rather poorly communicated feedback, rife with exaggeration and attempts at elevating oneself by putting down others (young people often have something to prove, right? plus insecurities, right? and it doesn't help that folks aren't communicating face-to-face, the anonymous nature of posting stuff online "disinhibits" etc.). I remember broadly enjoying the voice acting in ONP - even if it clearly has moments where it fails due to the script or acting or sound quality (or a combo of those things), other times it works in both serious and funny moments, and I like the actual voice too most of the time - and the same goes for Xidia: The Escape, and especially 7 Bullets, and we'll talk about another example later as well, but basically I wanted to say that incorporating voice acting in Steele Dawn is broadly a success IMHO. Brandon Steele is hit and miss but mostly OK, Captain Taylor is good, Gal'Razik is good, and for the record the similarly sounding Skaarj Worshipper brothers are fine too (ebd is right btw, it's pronounced "Scare" :p ). The atmosphere in River Ruins is generally speaking good but one thing pulled me out of it: the voice acting for Alvai. This isn't to say that I don't like the person's voice or something dumb like that: there is a sincere effort at doing the job seriously, but aside from not being professional, the voice simply reminds me of a young, modern Western man. This isn't a Nali, and the actor tries to have a deeper voice in a way that's very noticeable. It's at least a casting issue (though I sympathise with the difficulty in getting hold of anyone - this is all hobby material after all, and it's nice when someone is brave enough to step forward). Not helping is the fact that we've all heard how Nali speak a million times before, with notably Nali Chronicles opting to re-use and remix the sound bytes from Unreal for its numerous conversations.

Aside from the Sudoku puzzle sequences which benefit from the novelty factor (definitely a first in our modding scene, and excellent implementation), the boss fight also feels unique: it's like a Yrex take on EXU2, great fun! I didn't care much for the music which was too "lighthearted" for this sort of thing IMO, like I'm in some kid-friendly old school Final Fantasy or something, but I did enjoy the cinematic with the anime style "You die here, softskin!" and the fight itself - while easy on Medium difficulty because you're pretty much fully stocked at this point - is very dynamic. The visuals go pretty wild in that flashy way which, again, reminds me of EXU2

Another first I have to mention is the presence of female Nali: hell yeah baby, we finally got there however the model is merely OK: it's obviously the result of sticking together parts from two default Unreal models, but it gets the job done (it's even associated with some very brief female "unit taunts" to borrow a phrase from the RTS scene). The Ravager as a matured Predator remains the best new creature type in Steele Dawn.

[Semfry]

This is mostly a story map, which works given that the maps both before and after are pretty intense in terms of action. The environment looks decent enough, although relatively simple, but there's enough details to be interesting, such as the bridge cave that the hideout is kind of built around, and there's still that nice Jupiter colouring to the exteriors. You also get a proper look at the new beta Nali look here, along with the female Nali, as I said in the review the original beta Nali models looked kind of horrifying, but they're tweaked enough to look fine here. The Sudoku is intimidating on the surface, but for these mandatory ones you just have to fill in the grid and then it literally tells you what the correct choices are, so it ends up working out as a small gameplay mix-up.

The boss is probably my favourite in the set, because it has a bunch of stuff that can easily make a very frustrating fight-teleporting, multiple bosses with further spawns on top of that, and invincibility periods-but it works and results in a unique fight with none of those aspects becoming a problem. The intro to it also does some interesting visual stuff with the split comic panel moment. I agree with Sat that the Nali voice is one I don't really think fits, but I also have a hard time thinking of a good way to handle them, so if you must have Human voices for them maybe it's better this than the alternative of laying on a bunch of effects or something similar.

[Aspide]

This is one of my favorite maps from Steele Dawn, which is funny considering how little action there's in this map, this map is a perfect change of pace after the previous level which is very action packed and difficult. This level is all about exploring the place, interacting with the Nali and at the end you have a boss fight, very simple.

The level geometry is basic but it works really well, it really has a classic Unreal feeling to it, like a map that was done in 1998 or 1999, and that because that's true. This map was recovered by Leo TCK and Yrex found a way to complete it, and all the hard work paid off. The area that steals the show is the final boss arena, which takes place in a small fortress with very pleasant geometry. Textures are from the original Unreal and they are used very well, nothing stands out but there aren't any issues either. Lighting is pretty good too, the skybox looks amazing thanks to clever use of lighting and textures. The map also uses fog which really adds to the atmosphere.

Sound is good, ambient sounds are well used and environments have a lot of interactive things with good choices of sounds. This map is probably the one that has the most voice lines in the campaign, the back and forth between Brandon and Alvai is effective and the cutscene before the final boss is the highlight of the map. Music is very strong, the main theme of this map is one of my favorite tracks from Steele Dawn, also big surprise to hear Concerto for Laser and Enemies .

Gameplay is well executed, this map is like taking a well deserved vacation after the chaos of the last map, the only big challenges in this map are the final boss and of course the sudoku puzzles, the fact that these puzzles don't use human numbers makes them a little more difficult than usual but they aren't that difficult if you understand the basics, it was a very good decision to not have 9x9 sudoku puzzles as a requirement because of how difficult and time consuming they are, however a 9x9 sudoku does appear in the campaign as an extra challenge. The final boss is a lot of fun, fighting two Skaarj with the unique ability to spawn Gasbags is more fun than it should, however this fight requires to create strategies, especially in Unreal difficulty where one mistake can cost you everything.

Just like all the maps from SD, there are plenty of secrets and even secret messages that tell you hints to complete the map more easily.

Issues I found :

- This map has a bug when you open it in the editor, this is because the port to Unreal 225 is incomplete.
- Every cutscene from SD has a glitch, if you switch weapons just before the cutscene starts, the weapon gets stuck forcing you to throw it in order to get unstuck.
- If you kill Alvai the map will still play his voice lines, also after completing an important objective he will respawn but at the location where he died.
- During the final fight, if you hurt one of the Skaarj near one of the pillars, he won't be able to spawn the Gasbags. However I'm not sure if this is an issue or an exploit.
- Normally when the final bosses die, their corpses activate some special effects and then fade away, but this doesn't happen if you play this map in UT99 with OldSkool