Lazarus

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According to Pohsyb in beta, it's the sum of the lengths of the maps, plus a little extra if you have a defeat all. It's an imperfect metric, but it's not a bad ballpark.

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The problem with this is that all Unique maps are considered to be very large, no matter if it's Atlas Park or The Midnight Club.

Arc: The Case of the Late Richard Faraday
Arc ID: 181165
Author: @Awesomus Prime
Morality: Villainous
Number of Missions: 5
Description: When one of Detective Morgan's men is taken hostage by the Freakshow, an old enemy emerges wielding a new and devastating threat to humanity.
Rating: ****

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Character used: Anna Nethema, Level 50 Dark Melee/Fire Aura Brute
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 50

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Mission 1:
This is by far not the first time that I've had a contact address me by name, but it is the first time one has recognized my super group as well. Nice touch there as he mentions working with them in the past and that I came highly recommended. Detectice Morgan informs me that Officer Bruce O'Leary has been taken hostage by the Freakshow and that there is generally a 24 hour window in this situations for a safe retrieval.

It's been 12 hours, so I've been called. I do wonder why they didn't call earlier but that is a minor detail. Anyhow, seems that the Freakshow managed to pull of an ambush on the SWAT team and I'm needed to help clean up the mess. Detective Morgan also mentions a Dr. Armington who has set himself up with the Freaks recently.

By the way, you spelled Dreck wrong a few times.

I enter the Freakshow warehouse and hear some Freaks talking about the new Doctor right away through use of a destructible object in the form of a rather inconspicuous rusted oil drum. Another nice touch, I like these sort of details.

Not long afterwards, I ran into O'Leary, or at least what had become of him. This was when I realized why the names sounded familiar, I've played this arc before, or at least an earlier version of it.

O'Leary is a cyborg Elite Boss and not in control of his faculties, in fact he even begged for forgiveness as he tried to kill me. I put him down after a tough fight (perhaps too tough) and continued onwards to find the man who had done this too him, Dr. Armington.

I fought through more Freakshow and ran into the first of group called the Faraday Cult. These appear to be transhumanists who have been modified using nanotechnology and they were talking about converting the Freakshow to their cause. I put them down before they could begin their recruitment drive.

Past them I found Dr. Armington, whom I notice is set to ally like a hostage or escort. When I defeat the Freakshow around him however, something rather interesting happened. The mission ended, an ambush of Cultists appeared out of nowhere, and Dr. Faraday ran away while telling the ambushers to cover his escape. Rather creative!

During the debriefing Detective Morgan tells me that the doctors are already doing what they can for O'Leary and that it concerns him that Armington was negotiating with the Freaks for their drug Excelsior (would have been nice if that was in the dialog during the mission). He also tells me that he wants to look into this name Faraday and will contact me again soon.

Mission 2:
Detective Morgan asks me to come down to the lab and see O'Leary. He informs me that the doctors found the same nanomachines in his body and that a signal being broadcast from somewhere was being used to control him. They were able to jam the signal, for now, and are working on a way to remove the stuff without killing him in the process.

I enter the lab and immediately see that it has been overrun with Cultists. However, O'Leary is right in front of me, being held captive by the Cultists, and is friendly this time. I free him and around the corner we found Detective Morgan as well. He doesn't fill me in much, but I can see from the Nav Window that I have 6 Researchers to rescue and a Raid Leader to defeat, so we set forth.

Both of my allies are aggro hounds, constantly running ahead of me and I realize why when I notice the Super Reflex auras. You might want to make sure that they don't have enhanced perception. They are also a bit overpowered as EBs, regular Bosses would probably have done well enough.

We cleared out the lab and saved all the researchers, one of whom informed me that the nanomachines were actually a technological virus capable of spreading from person to person. Apparently they believe that the version infecting O'Leary has the "contagious switch" turned off or absent completely.

Mission 3:
Detective Morgan has managed to track down Armington and has asked me to bring him in. He also fills me in on Richard Faraday, an end-of-the-world prophecising darkity-dark type villain who died back in the year 2000. Hung himself when his prophecies didn't come true.

Well we know that nothing tends to stay dead in this universe.

I entered an abandoned lab and came across a Cult boss who mentions that they will take care of Armington once the transaction is completed. Rather ominous and that boss was a pain to fight, hits pretty damn hard with that axe. Also on this floor were some of Armington's androids, the Alpha Men Prototypes.

On the next floor I ran into some more Alpha Men Prototypes as well as some Cultists discussing how once the virus is mixed with the Freak's compound it will be ready to distribution. I am really not liking the sound of this.

I'm also not liking how the Alpha Men Prototypes are all Lieutenants, no minions at all. This become very frustrating in the battle with Dr. Armington on the last floor.

Here is the problem, Dr. Armington is a Bots/Force Field Mastermind, surrounded by LTs who are all Claws. Not only if the Force Field part redundant as the Protector Bots already cast bubbles on him and cast their own Dispersion Bubble, but it leads to the Doc spamming Force Bolt and Repulsion Bomb over and Over and OVER AGAIN! 8 points of knockback resist didn't do jack to stop this nonsense and I was dead simply from being knocked on my rear repeatedly. After rezzing and eating a bunch of Break Frees I ws able to withstand the constant knockdown spamming long enough to defeat Armington, who told me that he would talk as long as I kept him safe from Faraday.

Anyhow, Armington gave up the transmitter frequency for the signal controlling the nanobots (Wouldn't we have known this frequency already? I thought Morgan said that the issue was that the signal was encrypted. Even that though wouldn't stop us from triangulating it and finding the transmitter though.)

Also, he claims that Faraday has risen from the dead.

Mission 4:
From Armington we have the location of Faraday's hideout in Boomtown, but he may have gotten word from Armington (why would he tell him that he told us?), one of his robots, or one of the Cultists that Armington squeeled and that we have only a couple hours to raid the place before he packs up and moves the operation somewhere else. Anyhow, both Morgan and O'Leary are coming with me on this one.

I entered the abandoned office building and saw the first of 6 objectives, a Nano-Virus Control Computer. After smashing that I found Detective Morgan and two more objectives, Viral Bombs. You know, it may just be me but smashing a bomb containing a virus sounds like a rather bad idea.

On the next floor I heard some PPD fighting the Cultists ahead. I also found an odd thing, a PPD Guardian being held captive that ran away once freed. That made no sense.

With the last of the viral objectives destroyed it was time to find O'Leary and take down Richard Faraday. Fortunatly he was on the 3rd floor but tucked into a loop that made him easy to miss.

On the last floor we found Faraday and he was as darkity-dark as described, a Dark/Dark Corruptor AV apparently. After a brutal battle in which he even summoned reinforcements he went down but didn't seem to concerned with his defeat.

According to Detective Morgan, Faraday arrived at the Zig and immediately resisted arrest. Then the strange thing happened, when the responded with force, he suddenly went powerless and let himself be killed. Nobody knows why.

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The Verdict:
This arc has improved a LOT from the version that I remember playing a month ago, but it is not without its faults. There are some inconsistencies in the writing as well as a few things that make little sense, as well as a number of spelling errors. The Alpha Men are annoyingly an all Lieutenant group, which makes no sense and is just poorly balanced when they swarm you. The Elite Boss fights are also very annoying as one is overpowered and another has powers which are simply aggravating. The allies are also a bit overpowered as well. I'm not going to comment on the lack of lower limits on the level ranges as issue 15 will allow the author to easily fix that issue in due time.

Overall I give it 4 stars. With enough fixes and polish it can easily be 5.

It's my theory that they've been holding off on granting new DCs until after issue 15 goes live because of these improvements.

I've been checking out some of the new MA features in issue 15 and there will definitely be some changes coming to my arcs. I haven't republished them on Test yet, but I can tell you a few that I am planning.
* Use of Custom power settings to further tweak the custom critters.
* Anna Nethema, Iron Samurai, and Vikki Vandale will be most likely downgraded to Bosses.
* The more efficient storage in issue 15 means a lot of details will be added to flesh out the stories better.
* Might be seeing some new Minions, Lieutenants, and even Bosses in the Nagan Hegemony faction.

Stay tuned, I might have some of the updated arcs published on Test soon for those who want to check out how they change and give me feedback on what works and what doesn't.

[ QUOTE ]
Was this the Portal Bandits arc? Having played that one I'm guessing most of the file size was taken up by the custom critters, so a reduction that huge....

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It is Portal Bandits. The 11 customs alone eat up close to 80% of the space on live, so seeing this huge reduction makes me very happy. I can add a ton more details now to the missions as well as put in a few critters that got cut earlier due to space limitations. That and the new custom settings means I'm not as done with balancing as I had thought.

Also, you can now set a boss to be "unique" by going into the Custom Group editor and flagging them as "Don't Auto Spawn", which will make it so that they can only appear as a special detail. This applies to all custom critters, so I can see a way to make certain mobs special like in how Malta Sappers can only spawn once per group.

Who knows, but my critters weren't missing anything and they had a lot of unlocked items. Some of them do have wings, which would have been pretty obvious if they had been missing.

I also created two new critters for the group in that arc and the file used only went up by 6KB when before it'd be at least 12KB. Interesting.

One really awesome thing, they did something to make the storage of arcs more efficient. I saw that an arc that is at 99.6% on live, when copied over to test, was only 75%! I ran through it and didn't find anything missing.

[ QUOTE ]
QR - tweaking, for sure. One thing I'm happy to see is the ability to level select the mission. Makes the awkward workaround of forcing an auto-exemp by having an 'invisible mob) unnecessary.


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Yep. Since I'll be able to drop the custom Crey group from one of my arcs I'll gain 3-4 KB that I can stick a bunch of new details into.

Well I just confirmed that Custom allows you to take Knockout Blow away from Super Strength Bosses. In fact the default Custom for Bosses is weaker than Standard. It looks like Custom only requires the first two melee attacks and the ranged attack, everything else is optional.

Haven't been able to test yet if it makes the file bigger as all my arcs and critters are invalidated on the test server due to it not recognizing all the unlockables I had bought, as well as not allowing me to rebuy them.

I'm a bit disappointed with the current "Custom" setting. It's just a version of Extreme that we can remove powers from, I still cannot give Power Shield (Fire/Cold/Energy/Neg Defense) to Minions or LTs but I can give both Energy Drain and LTs Entropy Shield (Mezz Prot), which I don't want to do. So far Custom only means anything for Bosses, it doesn't do jack really for LTs and Minions.

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And it doesn't let you CHOOSE the spawn points. Just see them. They are color coded for front, middle and back.

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That is useful enough in itself. I tire of running the same mission over and over trying to figure out just what counts as "Middle".

Are planning to redo their arcs entirely with the new tools in issue 15 and how many are pretty much happy with their arcs as they are and are just looking forward to having more details to play with and finer controls over the powers of their custom critters?

I'm firmly in the later camp, how 'bout you?

[ QUOTE ]
That was my suspicion as well. I noticed that most regular COX missions also bear a villain or hero tag.

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I'm not sure what you mean by most. I've leveled a new villain from 7 to 30 in the last couple weeks and noticed that most missions had no tag at all. Contact missions, not paper ones. Maybe only story arcs and certain missions have the Villain tag?

Huzzah!

Though it will be odd going "huh, that crate wasn't there before!" It'd be nice if you can have the glowy set to be already in place but not marked as "active" until the triggering time.

[ QUOTE ]
For the time being, though I have realized that 4 is the new 5. I ignore 5 starers and go straight for the 4 starers with loads of reviews.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's pretty much true.

Quick Review!

Arc ID: 179648
Arc Title: The Self-Improvement of Sophia Schwartz
Author: @Malimar
Morality: Villainous
Length: 4 Missions
Description: A low-ranking member of the Freakshow wants your villainous assistance to build herself into an unstoppable killing machine.
Quicky Review: This arc was pretty amusing. The contact, who was referred to you by Doc Buzzsaw, offers to give you hot tips on a series of opportunities to steal various good from different groups in exchange for you keeping whatever she cannot use. This leads to a finale where you help her make the big move up the ranks while making a profit at the same time. While the first three missions are mostly glowy hunts, the glowies themselves contain many amusing clues and the writing makes this arc stand out.
Rating: *****

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, he's actually Energy Melee/Energy Blast, but he's set to Melee so he'll only blast if you fight him at range.

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Ah, it's a bit hard to tell as right now the Devs goofed up and gave Energy Melee blue energy blasts (instead of red) for the ranged attack, so I couldn't tell the difference as he only blasted once.

I figured his secondary might be Regen as when set to Standard it has only passive powers. That's what I used on my Nagan Roboticist and Engineer so that they would focus on being Masterminds rather than spamming their secondary powers. Plus there was an issue with the Protector bot having Dispersion Bubble and it stacking with Energy Aura when the Engineer used to have it.

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As far as the level ranges go, they're as tight as I know how to make them. The two police maps have no room for any level-limiting spawns like rescues or destructible objects, and the enemy groups involved in the arc have a slight difference in level ranges (some are 20-30, some 21-30, some 20-29).

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Good thing we're finally getting level range settings in Issue 15.

Arc: The Scavenger Hunt
Arc ID: 187076
Author: @StrykerX
Morality: Villainous
Number of Missions: 5
Description: The Freakshow are hosting a scavenger hunt for objects belonging to prominent do-gooders. Trash the forces of law and order to win the prize.
Rating: *****

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Character used: Raikou Shingai, Level 29 Electric Melee/Dark Armor Stalker
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 29

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Mission 1:
The arc begins with a Freak tank named Mistah Khaos explaining the contest in a very straightforward fashion. The goal is to obtain five objects that belong to prominent do-gooders and bring them back for a gold medal and a fistful of cash! Of course I'll need t watch my back as other villains will be trying to get in on this as well. Raikou, being the greedy little Stalker she is, signs up in an instant.

First item on the list: Beat up the Chief of the Rogue Island Police and take his distinguished service medal!

The first mission is pretty small and simple, set inside one of the police station maps and Chief Wiggins is not far from the door. Deciding to play it safe and expect some ambushes, I cleared out the lobby first so as to have a clear escape route.

And I was right, Chief Wiggins did summon some more RIP to back him up. With him down the mission was completed and I went back to see Mistah Khaos. He tells me to hold onto the medal and sends me after the next item, which is...

Mission 2:
A trophy owned by Captain Harris of the Paragon Police Department! Mistah Khaos warns me before I go that I'll probably need to clear out the station before leaving to make sure that they don't get to call ahead and cut off my escape boat at the port.

A slightly different police station map this time, set in Kings Row and full of PPD SWAT. Gonna have to be more careful here for sure. I cleared the station of PPD and found the trophy, which for some reason was a big vase, sitting in front of the armory window before the elevator.

I grabbed the trophy and then had to deal with Captain Harris on my way out. I noticed from the clue that the trophy was awarded to him for marksmanship, uh oh.

Well I guess it was a very accurate grenade launcher, though I was expecting him to maybe be a custom rather than a standard PPD SWAT Boss. Neverless, I took him down and noticed that he called for backup but never saw an ambush.

Mission 3:
Mistah Khaos tells me that I'm in the lead and that the next item is the bow of one of the leaders of Wyvern. They're hiding out in a ship down at the docks, which means the dreaded boat map.

Now I don't mind the boat map myself really, it's just that it is a bit overused. I do wonder why they are hiding out here though and get the impression from the dialog that it is a temporary hideout for a mission that is about to begin. I also see from the objectives that I need to defeat someone named Furio, who turns out to be a Brute waiting for me in the middle hold with the idea of beating me up and taking the items that I have for himself.

Now I don't see any reason for Furio to be a required objective and tested to see if he was by skipping him and taking out the Wyvern Leader first. Indeed it turned out that he was required. I'd recommend making him optional since it doesn't make much sense to force a battle with him if I can simply avoid him. It's also very odd that I knew he was there the moment I arrived on the boat as well, not much of an ambush then.

I also wonder why he is hanging out in a spawn of Wyvern. Shame that we cannot make Bosses spawn alone, but it would make more sense to put an appropriate villain group around him instead. Another possibility would be to make him an escort instead (optional of course) who is set to betray you at the door. Just an idea.

Amusingly, right as I was about to assassinate him I saw a Wyvern patrol wander in and aggro both him and his two Wyvern accomplices. I already knew from his description that he was Energy something, but this way got to see that he was Energy Melee before fighting him myself.

Furio hits hard as he has Total Focus, but appears to be set to Standard (no Build Up) and had no visible secondary so was probably Standard Regen. Overall he was not a very difficult fight, nicely balanced I think.

Mission 4:
After making fun of them a bit, Mistah Khaos sends me to retrieve the fourth item: a necklace worn by a magician of the Legacy Chain.

The mission is a straight up office building with the single objective of finding the Legacy Chain leader. Along the way I came across a number of destructible artifacts as well which were all optional. The artifacts were all the same though and each had the same dialog, a little variety would be nice.

Searching the office, I came across a bodybag that contained the still-warm corpse of the leader, sans necklace. Seems a little odd that the killer was nice to bag him up but I can't think of what else the author could do other than stuff him inside a trunk and hope that I thought to check it.

I continued further into the office looking for the killer, who turned out to be a woman named Black Amelia. Looking at that Shadowfall surrounding her and noticing that she was a Hard-level Dark Miasma critter, no wonder she was able to get around undetected by the rest of the Legacy Chain. I took her out as quickly as possible before she could debuff me signifigantly.

Mission 5:
Last item, a Longbow Officer's rifle and I got a sub ready to take me to one of their underwater bases. Mistah Khaos also gave me some bombs to use for blowing up the base. Not part of the Scavenger Hunt, but it is too good an opportunity to pass up.

Not much to say about this mission, it was very simply to plant the two bombs and defeat the Longbow Office. His dialog was funny though.

I turn in all five item to Mistah Khaos for the gold medal and prize money. The final debriefing was rather good and interestingly shows that the Freakshow aren't quite a dumb as they often appear.

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The Verdict:
The arc is very solid, not much that I can see that needs improvement aside from Furio in mission 3 as him being a required battle didn't make sense. Also the author should look at tightening up the level ranges, nothing that affected my character on this run but it could be annoying for someone at the upper and lower ends of the range. Overall I give it 5 stars.

I like the recommendation list idea as well.

Quick Review Time!

Arc ID: 137561
Arc Title: Time Loop
Author: @Bubbawheat
Morality: Neutral
Length: 4 Missions
Description: You're stuck in a time loop and you must find your way out. You're stuck in a time loop and you must find your way out. You're stuck in a time loop and you must find your way out.
Quicky Review: A minor case of "nice job breaking it hero" leads to a humorous Groundhog Day situation. Well worth playing through!
Rating: *****

Oranbega is a much easier place to get into that the Midnight Club, story-wise. Anyhow, I went through nearly a dozen maps before settling on that one, since it has no trick portals and very predictable spawn points. No matter which direction you take at the start, both will lead you to the final room where you need to go. I also gave you big hint as to where the books were kept, so the majority of the map is just there for those players who enjoy exploring it.

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In my experience, Stalkers are much stronger against single powerful targets than multiple weak ones. I think you might have had an easier time of things on diff 3.

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Your mileage will vary. Raikou has multiple cone attacks and fairs better against an extra minion around her level rather than foes that are +1/+2 levels to her. Especially in the pre-IO set stage.

But that has little to do with my issue. It was that at this low level I had a group to fight where instead of "Ok, that one critter can be a serious problem and needs to die first" it's that there were multiple critters which were equally threatening. That BS/Shield, gotta take him out or he'll stomp me. But I need to do it in one shot or the Thermal will heal him and the Kin will buff him while debuffing me. If I take one of them out first, then I have the LT to deal with still.

It gets worse in the boss spawn, where that LT was present plus one of every minion, around a type of boss which is hell for Stalkers already. It just seemed a a bit too much for a group in a mission meant for level 20-30 characters. Also keep in mind that people may be playing the arc while leveling up instead of being malefactored into it and won't have all IOs or even SOs yet.

[ QUOTE ]
Unfortunately I can't do anything about that. Defendable objects always spawn an ambush when you attack the guards and currently there's no way to give the ambushes any text.

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I never used destructibles myself, so I wasn't aware of that.

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Well, no. If you were a 50 you'd be 30 for the first 2 missions and 50 for the last 3.

[/ QUOTE ]

My argument still stands then. If an arc is meant to be played for 20-30, then every mission should limit the player between those.

Lazarus Seal of Approval!

Arc: Teen Phalanx Forever!
Arc ID: 67335
Author: @PW
Morality: Heroic
Number of Missions: 4
Description: The Teen Phalanx is on a recruitment drive, and they've extended an invitation to a teen version of your hero to try out! Do you have what it takes to be on Paragon City's premier teen supergroup?
Rating: *****

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Character used: Raikou Shingai, Level 24 Electric Melee/Dark Armor Stalker
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 24

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Mission 1:
Coyote greets me as the teen sidekick of my assumed hero character and informs me that he is in charge of recruitment for the Teen Phalanx and that I'm being invited to try out. Normally this would involve a danger room simulation but for some reason I'm to be field tested instead while the Teen Phalanx takes on Doc Vahz. Talk about a trial by fire!

So after some helpful tips about dealing with the Vahz from Coyote, I venture down into the sewers to catch up with the team and find them to be scattered. The first one I pick up is Manticora, the daughter of Manticore and Sister Psyche and possessing of a mix of their powers. Just like her father, she is quite snippy and cocksure. Kid Valkyrie, Citadel XP, and Back Alley Boy were a lot nicer though.

Citadel explained to me that women were going missing after using an online dating site. Then a man I found being held captive told me that he had been sent to the complaint department and dropped a magazine ad for mail order brides. The fact that the address was "The Facemaker" didn't make this look any better.

It was a bit annoying that with each ally I picked up, spawns would be dying before I could even get an assassin strike lined up. All four were bosses though that is necessary as LTs would die quite easily with all this aggro. Things got pretty dicey during the Doc Vahz fight but we won out in the end.

Geez Doc, you gave your Brides claws and didn't think that something might go wrong with that?

With the mission complete, I've been voted in as a full member of the Teen Phalanx. Yay!

Mission 2:
Turns out that The Clockwork King has been on a rampage and I didn't know because Manticora "forgot" to give me one of the team communicators. Anyhow, I head to the scene right away.

According to the briefing, which included some tips on fighting the Clockwork, the King has taken Penny Yin hostage. That had to happen sooner or later.

The mission is in the final map from the Synapse TF, the Hall of the Clockwork King. I've always liked this map and surpised to have not seen anyone use it until now. I link up with the other four members of the team like last time and freed Penny, which summoned the Clockwork King himself. At some point looking for him I lost both Manticora and Penny, apparently they have no Stranded text so I never noticed where it happened and ran into the King before I found them again.

Mission 3:
It's funny how the daughter of Manticore has a crush on the son of Statesman. Anyway, they're off making up or something and everyone else has to cover her monitor duty shifts at the Teen Phalanx base. Tonight is my turn to handle it for a couple of hours.

The 2 hour countdown begins and I am appaled at the terrible condition of the base. Along the way to check the monitor I peeked into the lockers of the rest of the group and gained some more insights to their personalities. (Nitpick: I think you meant that BaBy's locker should contain a matched pair of "Dumbbells".)

I clicked on the monitor, which took a long time but it was fitting in this case. So long that I returned to hidden status while waiting for it. Of course this caused some Freakshow to break into the base. Bad news...for them.

I wonder how long the author has been waiting to use that line. I was disappointed that the Freak Tank didn't have a name though. After defeating him I got a new objective to meet up with Val, who apparently had just arrived. She wanted to know who had been going through her stuff, I blamed it on the Freaks.

Next BaBy showed up and needed some backup. Upon freeing him Clamor arrived, annoyingly right on top of us. After taking her down she confessed to be hired to hit the base by a Mr. V of the Council. Gee, I wonder...

Coyote informs me that Statesboy told him that Cora never showed up and that Citadel XP is also missing. Uh oh.

Mission 4:
We got a message from XP and traced it to Striga Island. I traveled there to meet up with the group at an abandoned Council base that was of course, not abandoned. Instead it's filled to the brim with Rogue Robots.

I found Val first and then rescued XP, who informed me that Mr. V was not Vandal (as I had guessed) but Citadel Vista! What sort of evil fusion of Citadel and Council tech is this?

Apparently he looks like Vandal, so it seems that I was partly right on my guess. He was also standing between us and Manticora, so I had to take him on with just Val, XP, and BaBy. Cora can sit on the sidelines for this one, serves her right.

With that all done, Coyote informs me that my hero needs more of my time as a sidekick now, but that I will remain a reserve member of the Teen Phalanx and to keep my communicator as a souvenir.

================================

The Verdict:
Well this was a fun romp for a lowbie character, despite it's few annoyances. The level ranges can be annoying, especially as you're in the group for too short of a time to explain why the enemy threats escalate so fast. I suppose for some ATs, like the one I played, it can be annoying to have 4 kill-stealing allies. Still the story is fun enough to accept it. The dialog is pretty good as well and full of fun jokes and references. I give it 5-stars.

The quest for XP continues on Raikou, so I'll run another requested arcs before I outlevel it entirely.

Arc: Teen Phalanx Forever!
Arc ID: 67335
Author: @PW
Morality: Heroic
Number of Missions: 4
Description: The Teen Phalanx is on a recruitment drive, and they've extended an invitation to a teen version of your hero to try out! Do you have what it takes to be on Paragon City's premier teen supergroup?
Rating: *****

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Character used: Raikou Shingai, Level 24 Electric Melee/Dark Armor Stalker
Difficulty: Tenacious (Diff 2)
Level for Arc Playthrough: 24

================================

Mission 1:
Coyote greets me as the teen sidekick of my assumed hero character and informs me that he is in charge of recruitment for the Teen Phalanx and that I'm being invited to try out. Normally this would involve a danger room simulation but for some reason I'm to be field tested instead while the Teen Phalanx takes on Doc Vahz. Talk about a trial by fire!

So after some helpful tips about dealing with the Vahz from Coyote, I venture down into the sewers to catch up with the team and find them to be scattered. The first one I pick up is Manticora, the daughter of Manticore and Sister Psyche and possessing of a mix of their powers. Just like her father, she is quite snippy and cocksure. Kid Valkyrie, Citadel XP, and Back Alley Boy were a lot nicer though.

Citadel explained to me that women were going missing after using an online dating site. Then a man I found being held captive told me that he had been sent to the complaint department and dropped a magazine ad for mail order brides. The fact that the address was "The Facemaker" didn't make this look any better.

It was a bit annoying that with each ally I picked up, spawns would be dying before I could even get an assassin strike lined up. All four were bosses though that is necessary as LTs would die quite easily with all this aggro. Things got pretty dicey during the Doc Vahz fight but we won out in the end.

Geez Doc, you gave your Brides claws and didn't think that something might go wrong with that?

With the mission complete, I've been voted in as a full member of the Teen Phalanx. Yay!

Mission 2:
Turns out that The Clockwork King has been on a rampage and I didn't know because Manticora "forgot" to give me one of the team communicators. Anyhow, I head to the scene right away.

According to the briefing, which included some tips on fighting the Clockwork, the King has taken Penny Yin hostage. That had to happen sooner or later.

The mission is in the final map from the Synapse TF, the Hall of the Clockwork King. I've always liked this map and surpised to have not seen anyone use it until now. I link up with the other four members of the team like last time and freed Penny, which summoned the Clockwork King himself. At some point looking for him I lost both Manticora and Penny, apparently they have no Stranded text so I never noticed where it happened and ran into the King before I found them again.

Mission 3:
It's funny how the daughter of Manticore has a crush on the son of Statesman. Anyway, they're off making up or something and everyone else has to cover her monitor duty shifts at the Teen Phalanx base. Tonight is my turn to handle it for a couple of hours.

The 2 hour countdown begins and I am appaled at the terrible condition of the base. Along the way to check the monitor I peeked into the lockers of the rest of the group and gained some more insights to their personalities. (Nitpick: I think you meant that BaBy's locker should contain a matched pair of "Dumbbells".)

I clicked on the monitor, which took a long time but it was fitting in this case. So long that I returned to hidden status while waiting for it. Of course this caused some Freakshow to break into the base. Bad news...for them.

I wonder how long the author has been waiting to use that line. I was disappointed that the Freak Tank didn't have a name though. After defeating him I got a new objective to meet up with Val, who apparently had just arrived. She wanted to know who had been going through her stuff, I blamed it on the Freaks.

Next BaBy showed up and needed some backup. Upon freeing him Clamor arrived, annoyingly right on top of us. After taking her down she confessed to be hired to hit the base by a Mr. V of the Council. Gee, I wonder...

Coyote informs me that Statesboy told him that Cora never showed up and that Citadel XP is also missing. Uh oh.

Mission 4:
We got a message from XP and traced it to Striga Island. I traveled there to meet up with the group at an abandoned Council base that was of course, not abandoned. Instead it's filled to the brim with Rogue Robots.

I found Val first and then rescued XP, who informed me that Mr. V was not Vandal (as I had guessed) but Citadel Vista! What sort of evil fusion of Citadel and Council tech is this?

Apparently he looks like Vandal, so it seems that I was partly right on my guess. He was also standing between us and Manticora, so I had to take him on with just Val, XP, and BaBy. Cora can sit on the sidelines for this one, serves her right.

With that all done, Coyote informs me that my hero needs more of my time as a sidekick now, but that I will remain a reserve member of the Teen Phalanx and to keep my communicator as a souvenir.

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The Verdict:
Well this was a fun romp for a lowbie character, despite it's few annoyances. The level ranges can be annoying, especially as you're in the group for too short of a time to explain why the enemy threats escalate so fast. I suppose for some ATs, like the one I played, it can be annoying to have 4 kill-stealing allies. Still the story is fun enough to accept it. The dialog is pretty good as well and full of fun jokes and references. I give it 5-stars.