Requiem Sanctuary

Description
Ah, Requiem Sanctuary. Xenon's back, and this time he's going solo to produce something of a spiritual successor to [url=http://jediknight3.filefront.com/file/The_Enclave;80479]The Enclave[/url]. I'll go through, room by room.

You're likely to spawn in the garden, which I must say is exceptionally well decalified (Is that a real word? It is now!). Sprites have been used to excellent effect to give the garden a good variety of plant life without drastically decreasing the game's performance, and so long as you don't look too close they look great. They are just sprites, though, so don't expect them to look perfect. There's the usual Yavin trees, and a very nice palm tree, as well as four pwetty entryways each denoted by a symbol.

First, let's go into the lightsaber section (marked by the crossed lightsabers icon).

Upon entering this lovely hall, you'll notice the small water feature, which again is understated yet attractive. The three doors each lead to duel rooms which are quite stereotypical, but still fitting. Duel Room #1 is your typical Academy duel room, like the rest of the map it's finely crafted, but nothing particularly special. Your standard duel room for standard duels. Duel Room II is your standard Korriban room. Broken platforms over a precarious pit of lava, with all the architecture except said platforms carved out of the rock walls. Some minor flaws in this room, such as one or two texture alignments, but if you notice those, maybe you should pay less attention to the wall and more attention to the guy trying to cut your head off. This duel room is the only actual shared component from The Enclave to Requiem Sanctuary, it would appear.

Those rooms are both unremarkable, though. Duel Room III, I like. A lot. It is by far the most elaborately crafted of the three, and has a much lighter, sanctuary theme to it. I get the feeling this is the "major" room, primarly for team duels and tournaments and such. The water features are perfectly implemented and look great compared to most waterfalls I've seen in this game - again, they're understated and clearly not meant to draw your eye but instead compliment the rest of the room. Water is a central feature, also implemented on the duel pad itself as a decal, and the finely-crafted pattering on the duel pad makes this a very stylish arena.

Now, back to the garden and let's go to the rifle section (marked by rifle icons on both sides of the door).This passage was longer than the others, and I found myself involuntarily doubling back and looking for an elevator. What can I say, reflex from my times as a TJA student. Hehehe...

This is a full-featured map-within-a-map. You could easily get away with putting this section out there on it's own as a 2-6 player FFA map without question. The shuttle is constructed entirely from brushes, and looks great despite the problems inherent to applying textures to irregular brush objects such as those fuel pods on the side. Great work on that, if I'd tried that it would've looked like a pile of bread dough. The Korriban temple acts as an armory, and is loaded with goodies on the inside. But, it's in the temple I found a glaring error! :o Yes, that's right, a wall textured with the "shader not found" grid. Okay, sure, so it's inside a wall and you'll never see it without noclip. Still, shoulda caulk'ed it. :p Roleplayers will love the control tower, fits the bill just fine, and the shuttle is explorable too (not much in there though).

Back to the garden, and we shall explore the "Sun" room next. All I have to say about this lobby, is [i]damn[/i].

This is the kind of level design really reminiscent of a game I've played, but the name so horribly eludes me at this moment. It's nice, though. Major deja vu, however. If you take a left after entering the lobby, you'll come to a part-duel part-NPC training room. Nothing much to say, it's pretty, but relatively standard issue. Railings are a nice touch though, not many mappers take the time with such minor details. 'North' of here is the jump room, also standard issue. Totally disagree with the green rock texture used on the railing here though. 'South' of the jump room is the lounge, which is so "Oblivion meets Star Wars". Finely crafted, no visible errors, and the skybox pictures on the walls are a very nice touch.

Back to the NPC room and right across the hall - ooh, samurai stuffs. Dojo! This'll be where you're taught ninja skills, eh? The Dojo, whilst most scenic, is disappointingly plain compared to the rest of the map. Ah well.

Going through the sheltered door in the lobby takes you to a jump room very similar to the one in Academy v3. At the
back is a lockable meeting room, which again is nice but understated. To the left and right are plain white and plain black duel rooms. No, I'm not screenshotting those. Use your imaginations!

And finally, the rather impressive icon-less buildingfront to the north of the garden. One word: campus.Upon entering you will notice the great hall. Which is great. Very magnificent in scale and style. The door to the left will lead to the archive/library, where all the dynamic lights will make low-end graphics cards have a heart attack. To the right, is the bar. Frat party! :o

Through the back of the great hall, we reach another long (and pwetty) hallway. First door on the left, medical facility. Nothing specific to highlight, it's standard issue. Second door on the left, prison block, which isn't so much. Averus would love this, it appears delectably evil. The walkway with lava pits on both sides? Lovely touch. Prison wardens desk? Nice minor detail.

The door on the right, leads to another nice hallway, then to the council chamber. I adore the architecture in these rooms. Yavin-themed council chambers are rare, and when they do pop up they are almost never natural looking. This one is surprisingly close to achieving that status, though. Lovely patterning on the floor, the roof statue is beautifully crafted, it's all so elaborate yet so understated.

And finally, right at the back. Another hall similar to the one preceding the council chamber (check out the gargoyle heads spitting the water - nice!). Beyond this hall is the final room, the grand meeting chamber. Again, understated, again, finely crafted. Error in here though - the large plus cut out of the southern wall allows you to see through the top of the hall roof. Bit of an oversight there. (Side note, I've seen an awful lot of those patchwork structures hanging from the ceiling, while playing [i]Guild Wars: Factions[/i]. I've spent the past hour trying to work out why those looked familiar!)

See the screenshots for yourselves, don't rely on my half-arsed descriptions. You have to see it to truly know what's got me so praise-ful.

You'll notice that during this review, I didn't really point out any flaws or errors. Why, you say? Because, they'd all been thoroughly searched for and fixed before submission, which is an extreme rarity and something which makes this job worth doing - not getting to review quality maps, but seeing first-hand that there are still people who go the extra mile to make them. This is the standard everyone else should work towards, and it's really not as hard as any of you think.

I mean no offense to Xenon, but one thing I commonly hear, is people saying maps like this are in a seperate league to what they can produce. That is simply complete and utter crap. Everyone has the potential, the difference is that some - like Xenon, Szico, Virtue, Orbitius, to name just four of the many - work hard to reach that potential, whereas others just... give up. Look at how many maps Xenon has made - [i]two[/i], one of which was a collaboration - and you see that Xenon is the living proof. Work at it, and you'll soon find there's a lot more in your "league" than you think. Just because one cannot do something effortlessly, does not mean one is not capable of doing it.

From what you see in-game to what's going on under the surface, I can honestly find no glaring flaws with this map that aren't either niggles, personal preference, or totally irrelevant.

It's rare for so many themes to be mixed together, and obviously they don't look natural here, but still, they just... flow. The merging of said themes doesn't look artificial as such, it looks constructed. As in, "Yeah, we meant to do that when we built the place, it's part of the facility's design!" rather than "We randomly threw that in because we thought it looked cool!".

The question I [b]know[/b] people are going to want the answer to: Is it an Academy v3 beater? That's a question I'm so very reluctant to answer. Both maps have their strong points, both maps have weak... Okay, yeah. Both maps have their strong points. I simply do not want to write off either Virtue [i]or[/i] Xenon, they've both created great works. However, if the two were to do a collab project... ;)

This is a great map for multiplayer servers, be they clan, roleplay, training, or just chillaxing. It's functional, and it's heavy on the aesthetics, but the aesthetics could be a problem for those with lower end systems or for those who just want a functional map. Basically, it's all preference in the end.

If you're into Academy maps, this is one you will definitely want in your rotation. Emphasis on [i]rotation[/i], because there are so many great maps out there now, anyone who can choose just one has some deep-seeded pathological issues. No kidding.

A great follow-up to The Enclave, without question.

~Kouen

[b]Bot Routes:[/b] No
[b]Custom Meshes:[/b] Yes
[b]Custom Textures:[/b] Yes
[b]Custom Music:[/b] No