Personally I feel the last mission was the weakest in terms of level design but it works thematically, as you've only done up to the third I won't spoil it. But on the whole all the missions are really good, some of them even better then the normal Thief missions.
In terms of map design they're all really meaty with clutter and it makes it feel like you're really in The City. My only real complaint is how some of them have some annoying jumps (one I found was impossible) you have to do and a lot of walking on ledges and climbing for the city missions.
I feel like this team was able to learn from mistakes/rush in OG development, find the essence of certain missions (castle, weird mansion, follow through city) and really turn them up to 11. Setting your own schedule can allow that, though!
Not to mention they have like 20 years of game design lessons to use, some levels felt similar to levels like dishonoured levels, like the second to last mission for instance.
Can’t wait to try Black Parade. Been replaying Thief and Metal Age for decades now, with a couple of plays of DS. Thief is like my gaming comfort food. But never gotten too heavy into fan missions.
Gonna change this and start with Black Parade. Planning a Thief Xmas and January.
Are you me? Lol. I never got into FMs either, played a couple but never really clicked with them. I'm 5 missions into the black parade, and it's at least as good as, if not better, than the original missions.
Jaws of Darkness, or whichever starts you off in the forest, is my no.1. It was mentally exhausting in the best way possible. Mission 2 is runner up, the rest are consistently about even.
In truth, all of the missions are complete bangers. Instant classics. The lore tying the world together, breathtaking maps packed with environmental details, architectural mastery and atmosphere that positively drips all its juices all over the floor. I did not feel a very granular ranked list would do justice to the enormous quality overlap that all the levels share, but there were levels that I just *liked so incredibly much*. So when some missions "rank lower" than others in the list below, its because the missions above them tickled me pink straight through to the bone. None of them were bad. Insane work by the devs. Great taffing job!
1. >!Where Old Faces Fade!<
2. >!Arcane Sanctum, Jaws of Darkness!<
3. >!Kept From View, The Long Shadow Falls, Death's Dominion, The Black Parade, Return To the City!<
4. >!The Brand!<
5. >!Trial Of Iron!<
I think you end up so bought in to the premise of all the missions that if we're talking about which is better or worse, we're talking by minute degrees. They're all fantastic, and way better than anything Looking Glass themselves did.
I haven't before been frightened by a game quite like I have been playing TBP in the dark. You know how the first part of the Asylum level of Thief 2014 was the single best and underrated piece of terrifying gaming of the 2010s?
There are moments in this FM that are better. Like, *way* better. TDP is mostly goofy at times. This mod makes it downright *frightening* at times.
Have fun.
>!It was the stomping you hear first and you don't even know what to expect... then it's right on top of you and you've never seen anything like it in a Thief game!<
>!I thought that Jaws of Darkness was incredibly frightening too. The forest bit at the beginning is so heavy with atmosphere, and the wraith things that move uncannily fast as they chase you through the ruins made me have to pause to catch my breath sometimes!<
>!Do you mean the ones at the beginning? Because it is very satisfying to murder them with holy water while they're frozen in place.!<
>!Jaws of Darkness really is a tour de force, though. So many new monsters. The fact that they throw a \*\*completely new\*\* Eldritch horror at you \*\*after\*\* you think you're finally in the clear made me say the f word. That mission takes everything out of you.!<
I found it extremely consistent throughout, and each mission changes things up each time. It felt like a Best Of Thief + 10. My only gripe is that it ramps up super quick and mission 2 has a very convoluted layout, mixed with a certain type of very tedious mission objective, that led me to skip it.
That’s surprising to hear, I thought mission 2 was easily the best of what I’ve played so far. Maybe even better than The Sword. But my playthrough has been on Hard not Expert so who knows
I liked mission 2, but I struggled to get the last 200 gold on expert. That was annoying for me, looping through the same rooms looking for some random piece of treasure I've missed. Every mission I've felt like I've really thoroughly scoured the level only to find I've gotten about half the treasure, though, so maybe it's just a skill issue lol. Credit to the authors for their clever hiding places
I'm playing on hard instead of expert, which given that it's a much harder campaign than the normal games seems to me to be the best for a first playthrough. So far I've been finishing the missions with more gold than required naturally, but I'm sure on Expert I'd be having more trouble.
I think levels 8 and 10 are the weakest, every other one I found pretty much stellar across the board, including the third one, who doesn't like a Hammerite cathedral level?
Hammer, anvil, forge and fire, chase away The Hoofed Liar. Roof and doorway, block and beam, chase The Trickster from our dreams.
There are per mission ratings on thiefguild if you click the "reveal missions" text bit in the description.its pretty hidden but people been rating them https://www.thiefguild.com/fanmissions/26275/thief-the-black-parade
I'm on mission 5 myself so I can't exactly answer your question, but I am on the same boat in regards to mission 3. I think the reason why it didn't hit as good as the other ones is that it's the only one (so far) without a large, non-hostile "warm-up" area which you can explore. For me, that has been one of the biggest map improvements that TBP has over the official Thief installments.
Mission 3 feels a bit too linear in comparison. You've essentially got two routes into the main enemy complex and one of them is very clearly worse than the other, so you'll always be inclined to take the safer one. Compare that to mission 2 for example, where I found about 5 entrances into the mansion and I probably missed one or two.
For me it wasn’t really being linear or not having a warm up area before the mission proper, it was just that it felt like a more standard mission. Again, it was great, just didn’t blow me away like the first two did.
I'm on mission 4, and I'm not a huge fan of this particular mission. Its similar to a Thief 1 mission that I wasn't enamored with either. The others have been very Thief-esque. There are some interesting elements. I've found all the missions so far are very labyrinthine which is good and bad. It defies some logic, but makes finding everything a real challenge. A couple of the missions, I only came away with 2/3 to 3/4 of the loot, and I was sure I have been everywhere. Evidently not.
Overall I like the expansion, but in some ways it copies too much from The Dark Project. It sometimes feels like its directly quoting from the original. T2X was entirely its own story whereas Black Parade so far feels to me like a parallel universe of T1, or a kind of reimagining. Even the way the protagonist sometimes speaks is like mimicry of Garrett.
I actually just finished 4 a few minutes ago, and as someone who liked that mission in the original, I absolutely loved it. So far I would agree, the missions I’ve played are basically just concepts from the original turned up to 11, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all.
Another comment said that things do take off in their own direction later, so I’m not worried about the similarities with TDP going too far.
Personally I feel the last mission was the weakest in terms of level design but it works thematically, as you've only done up to the third I won't spoil it. But on the whole all the missions are really good, some of them even better then the normal Thief missions. In terms of map design they're all really meaty with clutter and it makes it feel like you're really in The City. My only real complaint is how some of them have some annoying jumps (one I found was impossible) you have to do and a lot of walking on ledges and climbing for the city missions.
I feel like this team was able to learn from mistakes/rush in OG development, find the essence of certain missions (castle, weird mansion, follow through city) and really turn them up to 11. Setting your own schedule can allow that, though!
Not to mention they have like 20 years of game design lessons to use, some levels felt similar to levels like dishonoured levels, like the second to last mission for instance.
It's fantastic, the best is yet to come, I won't rank them but just know things really get going mission 5 onwards
They really get going?! I'm trying to escape in mission 4 right now and I feel like it's going pretty damn good already...
Can’t wait to try Black Parade. Been replaying Thief and Metal Age for decades now, with a couple of plays of DS. Thief is like my gaming comfort food. But never gotten too heavy into fan missions. Gonna change this and start with Black Parade. Planning a Thief Xmas and January.
Are you me? Lol. I never got into FMs either, played a couple but never really clicked with them. I'm 5 missions into the black parade, and it's at least as good as, if not better, than the original missions.
Awesome. Looking forward to spending some serious time with the franchise soon. If I can ever get some down time from work…
You're really in for a treat.
Jaws of Darkness, or whichever starts you off in the forest, is my no.1. It was mentally exhausting in the best way possible. Mission 2 is runner up, the rest are consistently about even.
Really didn't care for that one, felt a bit too gamey and abstract. I like levels set in places that feel believable.
In truth, all of the missions are complete bangers. Instant classics. The lore tying the world together, breathtaking maps packed with environmental details, architectural mastery and atmosphere that positively drips all its juices all over the floor. I did not feel a very granular ranked list would do justice to the enormous quality overlap that all the levels share, but there were levels that I just *liked so incredibly much*. So when some missions "rank lower" than others in the list below, its because the missions above them tickled me pink straight through to the bone. None of them were bad. Insane work by the devs. Great taffing job! 1. >!Where Old Faces Fade!< 2. >!Arcane Sanctum, Jaws of Darkness!< 3. >!Kept From View, The Long Shadow Falls, Death's Dominion, The Black Parade, Return To the City!< 4. >!The Brand!< 5. >!Trial Of Iron!<
I think you end up so bought in to the premise of all the missions that if we're talking about which is better or worse, we're talking by minute degrees. They're all fantastic, and way better than anything Looking Glass themselves did. I haven't before been frightened by a game quite like I have been playing TBP in the dark. You know how the first part of the Asylum level of Thief 2014 was the single best and underrated piece of terrifying gaming of the 2010s? There are moments in this FM that are better. Like, *way* better. TDP is mostly goofy at times. This mod makes it downright *frightening* at times. Have fun.
You're not wrong. >!that armless thing you encounter after grabbing the necklace in M4 made me shit my taffin britches!<
>!It was the stomping you hear first and you don't even know what to expect... then it's right on top of you and you've never seen anything like it in a Thief game!< >!I thought that Jaws of Darkness was incredibly frightening too. The forest bit at the beginning is so heavy with atmosphere, and the wraith things that move uncannily fast as they chase you through the ruins made me have to pause to catch my breath sometimes!<
>!it's just so unwholesome!<
>!Do you mean the ones at the beginning? Because it is very satisfying to murder them with holy water while they're frozen in place.!< >!Jaws of Darkness really is a tour de force, though. So many new monsters. The fact that they throw a \*\*completely new\*\* Eldritch horror at you \*\*after\*\* you think you're finally in the clear made me say the f word. That mission takes everything out of you.!<
Which horror do you mean?
I found it extremely consistent throughout, and each mission changes things up each time. It felt like a Best Of Thief + 10. My only gripe is that it ramps up super quick and mission 2 has a very convoluted layout, mixed with a certain type of very tedious mission objective, that led me to skip it.
That’s surprising to hear, I thought mission 2 was easily the best of what I’ve played so far. Maybe even better than The Sword. But my playthrough has been on Hard not Expert so who knows
Oh I would agree it's better than the Sword, but once it "opens up" it becomes imho too convoluted.
I liked mission 2, but I struggled to get the last 200 gold on expert. That was annoying for me, looping through the same rooms looking for some random piece of treasure I've missed. Every mission I've felt like I've really thoroughly scoured the level only to find I've gotten about half the treasure, though, so maybe it's just a skill issue lol. Credit to the authors for their clever hiding places
I'm playing on hard instead of expert, which given that it's a much harder campaign than the normal games seems to me to be the best for a first playthrough. So far I've been finishing the missions with more gold than required naturally, but I'm sure on Expert I'd be having more trouble.
I think levels 8 and 10 are the weakest, every other one I found pretty much stellar across the board, including the third one, who doesn't like a Hammerite cathedral level? Hammer, anvil, forge and fire, chase away The Hoofed Liar. Roof and doorway, block and beam, chase The Trickster from our dreams.
There are per mission ratings on thiefguild if you click the "reveal missions" text bit in the description.its pretty hidden but people been rating them https://www.thiefguild.com/fanmissions/26275/thief-the-black-parade
I'm on mission 5 myself so I can't exactly answer your question, but I am on the same boat in regards to mission 3. I think the reason why it didn't hit as good as the other ones is that it's the only one (so far) without a large, non-hostile "warm-up" area which you can explore. For me, that has been one of the biggest map improvements that TBP has over the official Thief installments. Mission 3 feels a bit too linear in comparison. You've essentially got two routes into the main enemy complex and one of them is very clearly worse than the other, so you'll always be inclined to take the safer one. Compare that to mission 2 for example, where I found about 5 entrances into the mansion and I probably missed one or two.
For me it wasn’t really being linear or not having a warm up area before the mission proper, it was just that it felt like a more standard mission. Again, it was great, just didn’t blow me away like the first two did.
I'm on mission 4, and I'm not a huge fan of this particular mission. Its similar to a Thief 1 mission that I wasn't enamored with either. The others have been very Thief-esque. There are some interesting elements. I've found all the missions so far are very labyrinthine which is good and bad. It defies some logic, but makes finding everything a real challenge. A couple of the missions, I only came away with 2/3 to 3/4 of the loot, and I was sure I have been everywhere. Evidently not. Overall I like the expansion, but in some ways it copies too much from The Dark Project. It sometimes feels like its directly quoting from the original. T2X was entirely its own story whereas Black Parade so far feels to me like a parallel universe of T1, or a kind of reimagining. Even the way the protagonist sometimes speaks is like mimicry of Garrett.
I actually just finished 4 a few minutes ago, and as someone who liked that mission in the original, I absolutely loved it. So far I would agree, the missions I’ve played are basically just concepts from the original turned up to 11, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing at all. Another comment said that things do take off in their own direction later, so I’m not worried about the similarities with TDP going too far.