Certified Demon Flame Review

[Certified]

This review will try and remain as spoiler free as possible. Demon Flame was run at level 32 on Elite Difficulty with this character. Spread over two days it took approximately 4 hours to complete. Overall I would say that this is much improved over Serpent Lantern.

 

The adventure starts out with a simple investigation and quickly balloons into more. While the writing is improved compared to the general content I think this opening to the adventure could have been spread out a little bit more to build the anticipation before entering the Qliphotic Realm. However, the mission runs fairly quickly and dumps you into the action.

 

While the adventure is started from the UNTIL base this Adventure Pack does a good job of reusing existing locations. There isn't a lot done in Millennium City but the initial meeting with Witchcraft is one of the better scenes in the arc. It helps to create a interconnected world and really has a strong comic book feel.

 

On cut scenes and voice work. One of the more pleasant surprises in this adventure pack was the inclusion of voice overs for several of the cut scenes. Although some of the dialog got a bit comical the voice work really did a good job of adding to the immersion of the storyline. Hopefully, this is something we'll see more of in the future.

 

The bulk of the adventure takes place in the Qliphotic Realm or as I like to think of it the swirly purple place. There's some great scenery here with a few, did you catch that images scattered here and there. Like in Serpent's Lantern you are charged with clearing certain locations before going on to the main objective.

 

Not to harp to much on the Serpent's Lantern but it really begins to feel like doing the same mission three times with a different boss at the end. In Demon Flame they manage to avoid that varying the maps, objectives at each location and through dialog with NPCs.

 

In addition to that, these missions are broken up by events happening in between to help illustrate the growing tension in the Qliphotic Realm. This was actually another major highlight for me as it gets you interacting with Friendly NPCs interacting in a very solid fashion. There was some confusion at the end after a large encounter and I'm not sure if that was due to something that happened in my instance or a scripted event. Sorry to be vague but again I'm going to try and stay as spoiler free as I can.

 

Each of the bosses had their own play style. Unfortunately in the preliminary missions I really didn't need to change my tactics all that much. This changes for the final battle and giving us a fight where you have to actually think about everything going on is a major plus in my book.

 

While I would have liked to have seen more variation in the enemies I think they were a good addition with their own feel. Granted they draw a lot of imagery from other sources but with each mission you get background information that is enjoyable to read but relatively short.

 

Towards the end I did find myself a bit disappointed with the dialog of one NPC. It was clear the designers were trying to add a bit of levity but to me things came off as forced and missed the mark. The joke works once, please don't over use it. Really my only big problems with the writing come in at the end with the last few objectives and some of the dialog.

 

The last battle gives a great epic feel and the cut scenes could have added to that but were hampered by some of the dialog. Sorry to harp on this but it really became distracting to me. Upon completion the process of leaving the adventure pack is actually an understated gem. Everything going on after leaving the Qliphotic Realm really gives you a sense of accomplishment.

 

The overall difficulty seems to be on the low side. While I died maybe five times through the course of the adventure pack this was solo on Elite. Had I run the Demon Flame on the normal difficulty I don't think there would have been any issues at all here. However, difficulty can be a subjective thing this is why I've included a link to the build used in the adventure.

 

To speak on rewards, if you do Serpent's Lantern for gear, you do Demon Flame for experience. While I did find once piece of equipment I could use the rewards do not come as frequent. Don't expect to replace a piece of gear with each mission.

 

In conclusion I would say Demon Flame like Serpent's Lantern is a solid addition to Champions Online and I hope it is telling of things to come. Personally, I would like to see much more voice work, especially as they tighten up the writing.