Planar Sphere Mini-Mod Mini-Review
(some low-level spoilers)
I?ve liked this mod since Inferno first released it. Despite its flaws, it makes the Planar Sphere a far more interesting stronghold.
The Good:
1) A Living Stronghold: This is the mini-mods strongest point. Your Planar Sphere becomes a fully staffed academy of magic, filled with tutors and apprentices. They chat, practice casting, and occasionally blow themselves up. Some of the dialog is very well done, in a Bondari kind of way. Even after you finish the mod?s mini-quests, your Sphere will remain an interesting place to be.
2) The mini-quests. The mod features around five mini-quests triggered by conversations with the Sphere?s new inhabitants. These are quick and generally funny, though some typos slipped through here. The item rewards are interesting and not excessive by that stage of the game.
3) The encounters. Your Sphere will be invaded three times, or four if you count the mod?s main quest. All of these invasions are good fun, even if the need for a good proofreader shows through here and there.
The So-So:
1) New spells. Most of the new spells feel over or under powered, and typos abound. Still, this is true for most mods that add new spells, and BG2 was never that well balanced a game. Some of the new spell effects are quite nice.
2) New Items. The mod?s new items are not overpowered compared to many in BG2 and ToB, but most of them aren?t all that interesting either. A few very nice concepts (Eye of Vecna, a working Nether Scroll) fall flat, mainly because the profound changes they cause in the character would require a mod to themselves to implement (that mod being The Forgotten Children).
3) The mod?s main quest. The main quest features many very entertaining and over the top fights; trying it too early would be suicidal. It also features a villain so over the top that he could only work as a joke; unfortunately he isn?t written that way. Added to that, the writing is not well done in the main quest. As a side note, I have yet to get the main quest?s final battle to work correctly in a BP-BGT-NeJ install, but that may be an install problem rather than a problem with the mod.
Final thoughts:
The Planar Sphere mini-mod is worth installing if you?re playing a mage, and nicely answers the question of what you?re going to do with that huge empty sphere now that you have it. You?ll get a kick out of at least a few of the spells, items, and encounters. After having tried to run through it several times just to get it to work, I now skip the mod?s main quest. Proofread and with a few minor storyline changes, this would be a great little mod.
Edited by Duality, 30 June 2008 - 01:43 PM.
