[CD2 v1.06b] Sanctuary Corrupted v1.0 by JBouley

[CD2 v1.06b] Sanctuary Corrupted v1.0 by JBouley

Description: Reviewed by Darkmage for the Phrozen Keep.

Categories: Mod Reviews


What Works

Wow... where to begin? The huge amount of just new stuff is incredible. There's a large number of items you can buy that transmute into random 'real' items when you right-click on them. It's kind of like gambling, only you don't get magic items. Instead, you can get really high level items, gems, and some other stuff. This gives you a nice new way to spend your money, and if you're lucky you can actually MAKE money on some of the stuff you gamble for, which is a nice change. New item types abound as well, including many different Necromancer, Paladin, and Sorceress weapons with +skill bonuses on them. A handful of exceptional uniques are in, as well as some 'second' uniques for single item types. Like a second 'heavy gloves' for example that's much more powerful (but also much harder to find). Set items were kept intact, but made much more powerful for the most part (Vidala's Ambush grants a whopping +35 to Dex now). I'm still using Vidala's, and my Amazon's in hell now. Gems have been redone as well, sporting all new names and powers. Lastly, monsters can drop a variety of jewels, coins, and oils that are all worth a nice chunk of change, in addition to body parts that can be turned into items like healing potions and scrolls.

One of the big things was the complete changeover for all of the Sorceress skills, which, unfortunately, I never got to really check out. The spells I did see from my dad's character looked great and seemed really useful however, especially Frozen Spire. Excellent graphical work on many of them. The Amazon got a few tweaks as well, mostly cosmetic but cool to look at nonetheless.

Next up is monsters, and this is really cool. Most of the different types of golems have found their way into the game as enemies, and they work very well. You'll fight 'Flamechyld' creatures right from the get-go, which are like fire golems and work perfectly. Monster spawning is just different all around, with monsters moved around, new ones added in (including those rogue archers), and just generally overhauled. Izual, Andariel, The Summoner, and Diablo clones found their way into the game as regular monsters as well, and they're very cool to fight, and just add a nice amount of variety to the game. Last up is Diablo himself, who was actually HARD in this mod. My resists were not as good as they could've been, but he really took a lot to take down, and hurt me very badly. A nice final battle compared to the usual ho-hum pushover fight it normally is.


What Needs Work

Aside from a handful from gambling (which seems to have it's own odds), I don't recall ever finding a unique item, except possibly from an Act Boss drop. I managed to find a number of set items, and a good amount of rares, but no uniques to speak of. Outside of that, drop issues were good with gems and such as well. On the same note, you can never make enough new uniques/sets in my opinion. Certainly, tons of work has been put into other aspects of the mod (graphics, animations, gambling system), but you can't beat finding a green or gold item and having no clue what it's going to be like. More of those would be great.

Those mage-types that spawn in town just don't let up. The other enemies are fine and leave you alone unless you walk up to them, but the mages just constantly curse you and I think are causing me to go slowly insane. Shopping in Act I is very.... noisy. heh


Final Thoughts

What can I say... I love this mod! It's incredibly refreshing with tons of string.tbl edits, new items, lots of new monsters, new gambling options, and skill changes. A lot of new ideas are at work here, and they combine extremely well together. I haven't been able to take a brand-new character into Hell difficulty without switching back and forth between mods and between characters in a really long time. This mod starts out really cool with new monsters out in the Blood Moor and lots of different skills (especially with the Sorc), and it doesn't let up. Wait till you start fighting diablos and invisible mages and such in the River of Flame, it's just really cool. The Canyon of the Magi is a complete warzone, and the Chaos Sanctuary is truly fitting of it's name. If you haven't played this mod... do it, you won't regret it.





Anyone wishing to check out the Sanctuary Corrupted mod can do so by visiting the official website at http://sic.d2mods.com.

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