11/28/2016 - "The Battle at NyLeve Falls" by Eater

[Semfry]

Map Title: The Battle at NyLeve Falls
Author: Sergey 'Eater' Levin
From: Nali Chronicles
Filename: nclevel021
Music Files: NCMenu.umx, NESavage.umx, Warlord.umx




Video Playthrough:
Level: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xl733_map-of-the-week-nc-final-battle_videogames

Ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUihFZA59UE

Synopsis: Your destiny awaits just ahead. The only thing left in the way is a small army of Skaarj...

Discuss!

[integration]

The ideal map to try out all your cool spells and show the Skaarj who the boss is. Nali Master Race! I also liked to stay in the previous map (the revisit of the Nali base) and kill all the Skaarj you weren't supposed to kill. And then there's been the ship level with the ultimate Warlord fights.

PS: The guy in the video doesn't even try, god moding through the whole map. He doesn't even have spells in his quicklaunch bar.

PPS: Also cool ending with creating a prequel to the original Unreal game.

[UBerserker]

Best map of the pack, basically you could spam every single spell and almost never running out of mana. Also yeah being back to Nyleve in a climax is sort of cool.

[Semfry]

PS: The guy in the video doesn't even try, god moding through the whole map. He doesn't even have spells in his quicklaunch bar.

Yeah, if I have a save there I think I'll do my own playthrough, because watching someone get knocked around by enemies they should be insta-gibbing is kind of painful.

Edit: Nevermind I found my old playthrough of the map, which at least plays it semi-intentionally. Though I'll probably redo it for higher quality if I do have a save.

[Semfry]

No saves so I won't redo the video as I can't really improve it much outside of image quality.

This is a pretty fun final map that lets you go all-out with the spells you've acquired so far, and it manages to really feel like you're destroying a small army. This is a time where the lack of new enemies kind of sticks out though, because a Warlord isn't really a satifying final encounter at this point. The actual ending revealing this was a prequel all along is nicely handled too and manages to handle a somewhat negative ending well. Like most of it in NC the new music is great as well.

[Sat42]

I love Nali Chronicles.

The whole mod felt like a new game the first time I played it - in a more profound way than other big mods like Legacy, Xidia Gold, Operation: Na Pali etc. The RPG mechanics obviously have a lot to do with that! And the NC team did an amazing job on the spell system.

Incredibly, I found this recent review: http://jbladefps.blogspot.fr/2014/08/nali-chronicles-review.html

The Battle at Nyleve's Falls is a very suitable ending to the campaign in many ways but IMHO it's not the best level of the lot (for example, I feel The Sea of Despair is better and I really wish I'd been available to comment on it last time in MOTW).

The positives have already been mentioned: the design which lets you take advantage of all the powers you have acquired throughout your journey (yeah it really feels like you're destroying a small army), the nice handling of an ending which reveals that this whole adventure was a prequel to Unreal (with a rather impressive final cinematic)... and the new music too, of course.
I would also like to stress that the ending actually managed to be emotional for me, like I literally felt a chill go down my spine as I saw NaGaRuuk (the Nali mage the player impersonates all along) expire after channeling all the energy he could muster to "summon" the messiah. Sad but satisfying. Good handling of the story indeed.

The negatives: nitpicking but for a final map, the challenge is mediocre - to be fair, the first time I played through this I almost died at one point (I got one big hit from the giant Warlord) but given the fact that some levels just before the last one (like The Sea of Despair and The Temple of Zakaran) were actually quite hard (I remember dying a couple of times), I expected The Battle at Nyleve's Falls to be harder.

It's a great map, but it could have been purely positive if the challenge had been greater.

All in all, one of the most unique experiences in the whole of Unreal/UT. Yes it has flaws, but fuck that - I am really happy that in the world of Unreal/UT modding, Nali Chronicles exists!

[Semfry]

Incredibly, I found this recent review: http://jbladefps.blogspot.fr/2014/08/nali-chronicles-review.html

It's the site of Jblade, who used to post here quite a bit (and still does occasionally).

[Sat42]

Incredibly, I found this recent review: http://jbladefps.blogspot.fr/2014/08/nali-chronicles-review.html

It's the site of Jblade, who used to post here quite a bit (and still does occasionally).

Yo, that's right I remember coming across some of his posts now that you mention it!

I was just glad to see this mappack get recognition beyond the usual Unreal-centric sites. These days the game (Unreal/UT99) is so old that even if an awesome mappack were to be released today it probably won't get much attention beyond the dedicated Unreal community sites.

EDIT: actually the release of that Quake mod kinda disproves my point about age (it got an article on some mainstream site), but Quake (like DOOM) has a much bigger active community than Unreal (which is unfortunate).

P.S.: actually this year was pretty rich for our community when you consider the final release of G59, and even others like Enslaved or Unreal: Resurgence Part 1 (though those two may not be final). Besides new SP adventures there's also the Unreal HD Skins mutator... so we're definitely active (and I hope to become active again too, this winter) we just don't have the same weight as some of those FPS games that came "first".