The Four Horsemen - Released!

[Kreekakon]

I just beat the mod today, and I have to say it's really quite something! Here's my review.

The review will contain LIGHT SPOILERS in talking about a bit of art direction.

Mapping/Setting:

The mapping starts off fairly standard...nothing too out of the ordinary in what you'd see in most custom stories, but when you get to the second half of the story I have to say the art direction is some of the best I've seen in a custom story.

The last two thirds of the story have you scouring each of the four horseman's domains. Each one has a specific theme, and for the most part masterfully depicts it. My personal favorite was Famine's chamber, but all of them have their own unique charms as well as outstanding level design, and mapping.

As for "technical" mapping however, there are quite a few noticeable mapping errors such as clipping textures, and entities.

Scares/Atmosphere:

Scares are in my opinion a lower point of the mod. It probably is just my hardened Amnesia soul not responding, but I was rarely in this mod genuinely scared at all.

Some parts of the mod, especially the earlier areas would benefit greatly from there being some more ambiance.

I can tell however lots of effort has been put into the scares, and atmosphere...some of which is quite creative so even if I personally wasn't scared by any of it I can still notice a "scary" custom story when I see one if that makes sense.


Storytelling:

Storytelling I feel is a lost opportunity in this mod. You get to know who your main character is as well as a couple of relationships, but that's pretty much it. I wish there had been some more characterization, or ANY characterization at all to better shape the characters, and the world. Most of this falls flat due to having little to no character moments at all in the mod to make it more interesting.

There are also a bit of logic inconsistencies when it comes to some stuff happening as well as the layout of rooms, and items.

Also the storyline of the mod while I understand what it is I have to do much of it after a while felt too fetch-questy for my taste. Without proper pacing in certain segments it can quickly feel tedious although the insanely good art direction, and puzzles were enough to save the custom story from such a fate.

Gameplay/Puzzles:

Almost all of the puzzles were really interesting as well, and quite creative. Many of them also will focus around each horseman's specific theme, and even if some are quite easy the freshness of the puzzles more than makes up for it.

Technical Issues:

All throughout the mod I only ran into one bug:

Spoiler below!

In the war chamber where you find all the shards of war's orb you can hear a girl's voice talk when you enter the room. Repeatedly entering the room will keep causing the voice to say the same line again.

Also there are a few mapping errors in form of clipping textures, and entities.

Verdict: While the story, and actual scares are not amazing by any means the insanely good art direction, puzzles, and certain gameplay aspects makes this mod a must see 8.7/10