The focus on finding things make it an interesting one. The rest is decent, good considering its time.

I've really come to like Neil Manke's medieval maps with their exploratory gameplay. Like the Alba maps (alba01 and alba02), this does look dated and the abundance of pitch black areas can become a little tiring, but it is still original and worthwhile. 3 plus.

I liked the map. It's got a nice atmosphere and setting to it and it was interesting to explore. Brushwork is good for its time and the new textures are good too, so finding the necessary triggers to unlock the next door came pretty much as a sideproduct while I was appreciating the work put on the architecture. In other words, finding the triggers didn't get tedious, and might I even go as far as to say, it was fun to find them to see what was in store for me next.

Speaking of secrets, there are a lot of them. They're not very hard to find, either, so they've been balanced out by keeping the rewards rather lame. The secrets don't contain any higher level equipment or armor, which makes the secrets kind of fall flat. Having fewer but harder secrets with greater rewards would probably have been preferrable.

A good chunk of the challenge comes from limiting the player to lower tier weapons and green armor. And sure enough, there is sufficient challenge even with the map mostly populated by mid-tier monsters.

I'm kind of torn on this one. The result of limiting the "tech level", so to speak, is that there is less variation in equipment and combat encounters and secrets are disappointing, but the map has been skillfully designed and balanced around that limitation, keeping it suitably challenging. In the end, though, no matter how well balanced, the tech limit does stand out a bit in a not so favourable way, and I think the secrets suffered the most. Even if the journey of finding them was fun, the rewards fell flat.

In short, if you like exploration and appreciating map architecture, you'll probably like this one.

I should probably add, after reading Crash's review, that the map just flows so well and the pacing's good, that you almost don't notice the low tech level. (I really should add "flow" and "pacing" to my review vocab, btw.)

But as mentioned in my previous comment, the flat secret rewards did kind of stick, but not that much, that they'd ruin the flow. And for its time, I'd like to rate the map higher than 4 for the overall experience, maybe something around 4,25 and 4,5. It just flows that well for me.

damn sticky buttons!