Eternal Agony

  • Rating: 8.2

Reviews and comments

    Blackraptor Posted more than 20 years ago

    8

    Disguise’s first actual set with paint shop pro 8, lets see how this set does.

    TILES: The basic tiles are all there, suckers, destruct blocks, vines and poles. I have no complain with the basic tiles. The other tiles though, I thought this level could use some more. It would be cool if there was a jet of fire sticking out of the ground, so you get hurt if you touch it, or some skulls and stuff, but there isnt any of that. There are some tiles of strange things which I think are people in misery, but not much extra stuff. I like those blue and red ground tiles since they would be useful in CTF, but they dont fit the theme of the set much othervise. The ground looks strange, that peachy ground and that other one which looks like roots and stuff. Though its strange, its well designed and well textured. The backround is ok, the bg eyecandy is also good, though its hard to tell what those things are unless you stare at them closely in your JCS for a while.

    COLOR: The color, lets see. In the dark version there isnt that much of a variety in color, same with the light. Most of the things are a brownish color or a color similar to brown. Except for the red and blue ground and suckers (and maybe some other things which I possibly forgot) most of the tiles are a similar color. Though it is hard making an inferno or an agony tileset with as much color as a jungle one lets say (you can prove me wrong if you’d like) the set still could of had some more color.

    USERFRIENDLY: The user friendliness….hmm Disguise tried his best to make the set as userfriendly as possible, by mentioning some stuff in the description, pointing out what is what in the tileset, but still, it isnt very userfriendly. Though the things Diguise did definately helped people understand the set more, it still may be quite confusing. Though it is more userfriendly than some of disguise sets (take africa as an example) it isnt what you would call “simple to use”. People can still make great levels with this, it will just take some time to get used to the tileset, which is quite natural.

    TEXTURENESS: Wow, the texture is amazing here, Disguise has shown to us what PSP 8 can do. The ground and most things are quite textured, though Ive seen better, this is still great.

    OVERALL: Tiles=8, COLOR=6, USERFRIENDLY=7, TEXTURENESS=9
    That adds up to 8, which is what I would give this. Not the best disguise set Ive seen, but a good one to say the least. Great Job disguise.

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    Violet CLM Posted more than 20 years ago

    8

    A Disguise tileset, with 14 downloads, and no one (at the time I started writing this) has reviewed it. Something MUST be going on here.

    THEME: The theme is underwater. Nononowait, that was the earlier version. The theme is some sort of land of agony, where souls writhe in torment, and you play CTF. ….yeah! Anyway, with the proper music and good use of the eyecandy, you can indeed get it to feel like a land of agony.
    Pros: The theme is carried out well by the tileset.
    Cons: No shrubbery (j/k), looks a bit too underwater.
    Rating: 8.0

    GRAPHICS: This tileset has four different textures, really, three not counting the textured background (more on that later). They consist of the layer 4 background, the orangish viney stuff, and the pinkish coral. I’m sorry, it just does look like coral. Sadly, there are practically no variants for either the coral or the orange stuff, so you have to blend them together quite a lot to get an at all interesting wall (more on that later). The layer 4 background has the same problem, but it at least has some stuff to put on top, and it’s more distant so it makes less of an impression. I think I was supposed to be talking about graphics. They look good, except for some of the background eyecandy and the layer 8 (untextured) itself. However, while they look good, they do not look great, and if Disguise had spent more time here in addition to the various masking tricks, I wouldn’t complain.
    Pros: Everything looks good.
    Cons: Not enough tile variation, not as good as it could be.
    Rating: 8.0

    INVENTORY: I don’t feel like listing things that are here.
    Pros: Everything for a tileset is here..
    Cons: except for a hook.
    Rating: 7.7

    ORIGINALITY: This tileset is fairly original, but I can’t seem to give a rating here for some reason.

    COMPETITION: The only tileset similar to this is Unreal Imagination, and that only sort of. Overall, I’d say this has the monopoly on the land of agony for lost souls department.

    EASE OF USE: The author brags (if that’s the right word) that the tileset is very hard to use, but with the small strips of instructions, it looks rather simple. The only part that looks difficult is figuring out which of the orange viney stuff tiles is which, as their edges are not paticularly dominant in their appearance.
    Pros: Looks pretty understandable, thanks to the instructions included in the tileset.
    Cons: The orange stuff is a bit strange.
    Rating: 8.2

    MASKING: This is one of the areas the author seems to have spent the most time in, and it shows. You can create quite a lot of platforms and stuff with the tileset, and I can’t find any masking bugs at all. But I really need to show those leaves to Disguise and get his opinion on if they are used badly or not.
    Pros: Everything is well done, though the masking for this is rather simple.
    Cons: Few, if any.
    Rating: 8.5

    OVERALL (not an average): This is.. interesting. While I can not say I like it as much as some of the author’s other tilesets, it is very different, and hopefully will spawn some nice new levels (sadly they will probably be CTF, this feels like a CTF tileset (like Swamps..))
    Pros: Good graphics, great masking, turns into a good tileset.
    Cons: No hook, the textured background only Almost works, you have to use layer 5 (though I suppose this can’t be helped), some of the background eyecandy looks bad, no non-red/blue platforms.
    Rating: 8.5

    Edit: Oh yeah, and the night version is poorly done. The author appears to have simply adjusted the brightness for everything (including the sprite colors) instead of doing a little work on creating a good looking dark time.
    Second edit: Rating fix, calculated the average incorrectly before.[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

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    American Posted more than 20 years ago

    9

    I was one of those early #jcstalk beta testers, and I must say that I was impressed then, and I am definitely impressed now. This tileset has been labled as having many similarities to “Chocolate Land”, but they are really different once you begin using them. Chiefly, you’ll definitely have to look at the example level to understand how to use this tileset – it is not as easy as it looks, but it turns out looking great. This tileset, as many others, contains two versions – light and dark. The dark one is possibly a little tad bit too dark for me, but I have not seen it heavily in use (it kind of looks burnt to me). However, other than those very small problems and the fact it is pretty hard to use, this tileset is fantastic.

    THEME: To be honest, I am not exactly sure what the theme of this tileset IS. According to Wisety, it has no theme. And I suppose that might be true. The good thing about this tileset is that it can be used in nearly any way possible. There is plenty of room for creative eyecandy use. It is generally difficult to rate a theme that does not exist, and as such, I might as well leave the rating part of this at N/A. Still, it is best used as a haunted forest-y tileset. (Oh, and from what I’ve seen, the theme is NOT underwater. Though I might be missing something.)
    Pros: N/A.
    Cons: N/A.
    Rating: N/A

    GRAPHICS: This tileset’s best area is definitely graphics. The entire thing is well-done and good-looking. Well, at least the day version is. The night version obviously was done more or less in a rush. Everything was darkened down and has a “burnt” look as opposed to a quality well thought out dark version. All of the pieces in the day tileset are well-done and come out looking quite spiffy when used in a level. Everything is well-drawn and shows good detail. Nice job.
    Pros: Well-drawn and everything.
    Cons: The night version is blah.
    Rating: 8.7

    INVENTORY: Pretty much everything is here, though nothing much extra is included. Oh, yeah – it’s missing a hook, too.
    Pros: Almost every required thing is here.
    Cons: Missing a hook. Nothing extra.
    Rating: 8.0

    ORIGINALITY: This certainally is an original tileset. I have never seen something like this done before, and there is not much competition to speak of. The idea of having the required “ground background” if you will is new, but looks gopd.
    Pros: N/A
    Cons: N/A
    Rating: 8.7

    COMPETITION: Since there is not much of a theme, there isn’t really competition.

    EASE OF USE: It is good that the instructions are included, because otherwise this tileset would be quite difficult to use. While, by nature, this tileset still is not the easiest to use, extra points are awarded for including the strip-form instructions. There is not much that could be done to make this tileset any easier.
    Pros: Strip instructions included.
    Cons: Still fairly hard to use.
    Rating: 8.0

    MASKING: Masking was very well done, but not perfect.
    Pros: Few, if any, errors.
    Cons: None to mention.
    Rating: 8.5

    OVERALL (not an average): This is really quite a good tileset. I hope this will be used often, because it is of very good quality and definitely should be used. While the theme has not really been done before, this tileset does not look so unusual it can not be used. Rather, it leaves room for the person to make whatever sort of level they want to using pretty much any theme such as this. I would recommend avoiding the night version, which is poor overall, but otherwise this is a great tileset that will surely become a classic.
    Pros: Very good.
    Cons: The night version is highly blah.
    Rating: 8.5

    SCORECARD
    Bugs: A
    Eyecandy: A
    Background Eyecandy: A
    Foreground Eyecandy: A -
    Masking: A
    Tile Variaty: A
    Tiles Included: B+
    Quality: A
    OVERALL: A

    FINAL SCORE: 8.5

    - Trafton[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

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    FireSworD Posted more than 20 years ago

    8

    This is your typical Disguise tileset. The style looks similar to his others but the theme is semi – original (and the strong use of psp effects written all over it).

    What makes this set stand out from the rest is that it is designed to almost completely use transparent tiles (used on layer 5 in the example) and some weird looking ground tiles or if you would even call them ground. You’ll know what I mean when you see them.

    It looks cool but makes it quite difficult to use. It forces you to use layer 5 like Agamas Swamps of the Sleeping Jaguar.

    The masking is superb. Nothing else to discuss here.

    The overall eyecandy was a bit good but sorta weird with the light red and blue compared with the brownish ground, sky etc. It’s not very colorfull so that’s one of the down falls of this.

    I couldn’t find any innovative uses for this tileset. I don’t even see a way to make it look like something different from what you’d expect. This is the worst aspect of Eternal Agony. Tilesets like Diamondus, Swamps, Carottus (worst of all) and so many others suffer from this, and imo doesn’t make it such a great set.

    However, this is still a good set. I reccomend it to all, try not to overuse it since there doesn’t seem to be very many uses out of it (or at least from what i’ve noticed, dare to proove me wrong, if you wish).

    -fs [This review has been edited by Fire Sword!]

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    Superjazz Posted more than 20 years ago

    8

    Well, this is quite good tileset, except the eternal tileset. I don’t understand the meaning of that background tileset, maybe that would be a good intro or ending tileset, like destroy used this in his level pack for ending. By the way I noticed that this pack contained few levels. So I extracted the files to the directory of jj2 and when I started jj2 at home cooked levels, I didn’t find any of those. So, you may have hidden those all levels, or then there’s an error in my comp. So I checked the tilesets and levels in jcs. And I noticed that one level was only a background level and contained only scenery of snow. Then other two levels were battle levels, and the levels were just same but another were darker like the tileset.

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    Taz Posted more than 20 years ago

    8

    This is… a strange tileset, and, just like all others who reviewed it, I really don’t know what it is exactly.

    It’s a sort of uhm.. Fries of Chocolate Goo or something. Whatever, it looks orginal.

    To be Fries of Chocolate Goo, or not to be Fries of Chocolate Goo, that’s just a stupid question It ahves nice background layer eyecandy, nice graphics and it haves all needed tiles.

    You can’t say really anithing about this. You like it or you don’t. I like it.

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    defalcon Posted more than 20 years ago

    8

    Very nice set from Wisey’s new PSP8. Seems waaay too detailed for me to use, but nice nonetheless. Plenty of eyecandy, nice atmosphere, and choice of theme. The night version could use something different from the day other than the palette though.

    Download reccomendation? It’s Disguise, duh! :P Get it.

    This is a short review. It has less impact on the upload's score.

    Biohazard UOI Posted more than 20 years ago

    9

    Cool!

    Good Stuff:
    - choice and application of transparencies
    - detailing and gradients
    - layers harmonize well

    Bad Stuff:
    - needs more variety
    - somewhat dull-looking

    This set has wonderful eye candy for what it has, but it needs more stuff in it! It seems that this tileset was begging for some kind of intensity. What I mean by that is that this tileset is very suspenseful, but has no climax. There could be something included that frightens or surprises the player that would make this set much more intense (i.e.- skulls, flames, or faces). This reiterates some of what Blackraptor was saying at the beginning of his review. Other than that, it has awesome eye candy and tone.
    Great job, yo!

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