You can read my previous review, covering the first 5 missions, here:
https://www.thiefguild.com/topics/58796/the-black-parade-based-on-mission-1-5-so-far
After finishing the full campaign, I can only repeat what I said in my previous review: this is peak Thief quality- and a fantastic, respectable effort. The biggest achievement here is, I think, that (unlike in the original campaigns of Thief 1-2) there are no bad missions here (personally, I found mission 6-7-8 the absolute peak of the whole campaign). The creators have managed to succesfully avoid quite a lot of problems - which is impressive - and even the final mission is pretty decent once you understand how simple it is.
About my previous nitpicks:
- I still don't like the voice acting of Andy Bartmess, but it's pretty obvious he did the best he could with the direction he was given to.
- I still think way too many readables are over-written - and over-explaining stuff for the sake of fan service. About the latter: I usually have very mixed feelings about it, but here it's been handled pretty well. Though I preferred the non-readable fan service aspects (like integrating the two headed ogre monster cut from the original Dark Project, the cameo of Gamall and Viktoria, etc.)
- "The campaign doesn't really add anything new to the Thief universe": now this is something mission 6-10 (and seeing the campagin as a whole) have 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 changed my mind about. Yes, there is no fundamental spin on the Thief universe, nor completely unique settings (the last mission is somewhat of an exception though), but the creators did an amazing job at respecting the foundation of the world and expanding it with little ideas, new creatures, fun events, or restoring cut contents!
- Unfortunately there is one thing that often overshadows the campaign and a nitpick I have to address as a serious critique:
Around 5 missions out of the 10 are somewhat over-sized and suffer from some pacing problems. I often find strange how the active members of the Thief community rather critizise a mission for not being big and complex enough - and I kinda think that is a wrong tendency. I understand that hardcore Thief veterans are the most active and outspoken members of the community, but I think the long term goal would be inviting new fans to play these missions. Maps with brutal geometry are technically impressive and creators deserve praise for their effort, but as missions with a narrative and pacing, they're often rather alienating and questionably challenge the player's patience.
But enough of my nitpicks, because I admit the campaign is definitely much-much more than the sum of its parts - and an amazing improvement over the original ones! I really hope it will inspire new people to play Thief, or creators to dive into DromEd.
𝗧𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸𝘀 𝗮𝗴𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗴𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆!
(don't forget to vote for the campaign on moddb.com to the mod of the year award)
thumb_up thumb_down Votes: 4
star 9 / 10
Thanks for the full review.
On a technical note, you created an interesting set of categories, but you might want to know that the website will propose to you those categories when rating future missions.
To rate each mission individually, just go to the mission page Campaign details and click "Reveal missions"
or click here.
I really hope it will inspire new people to play Thief, or creators to dive into DromEd.
thumb_up thumb_down Votes: 0
Thanks for the tip, but I've been aware of that (so much so, I even rated the missions before posting the review).
While I didn't expect the categories to get rearranged in this way, I thought it would be cool if readers could easily see what I thought about the individual missions rating wise.
Not sure if you plan to polish the custom categories in the future, but I think the feature has a fun potential. It's a little bit shame editing them is a bit chaotic and unreliable.
thumb_up thumb_down Votes: 1
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