Estimated reading time: 12 minutes
Who knew the start of being a delivery boy would lead to an epic adventure? Best avoid those monsters and get into that portal leading to a new age! Deliver unto them justice!
That is the start to the Epic RPG PVE map known as Across The Time. All hope is dying thanks to the beginning of the Apocalypse. As the last representative(s) of the human race, you must use the power of Dahal to gather the 9 powerful gems back.
The journey is wrought with obstacles, hard puzzles, a gargantuan amount of monsters, and much more. It’s best to learn how to use the Dahal through the spell books and grab personalized equipment. Good luck and save this world!
Highlights
- Custom made spells for older Minecraft
- A large variety of dungeons awaiting you
- Tons of handwritten lore and stories
- Various upgrades to unlock
- Over 20 hours of gameplay
Given this is a type CTM Map, everything talked about will be based on each of the sections involved and what the thoughts are on them in full. This will lead to a final score given for the map and full thoughts and what I wish to see improved going into the sequel map.
This review was from John Glacious playing the map live on StickyPiston.TV.
If you wish to catch me live playing Minecraft Maps, tune into 📺StickyPiston.TV on Sundays @ 6 PM CST / 7 PM EST & 12 AM BST (following day). You can catch the playthrough of Across The Time on YouTube. StickyPiston has provided a playback that is forever saved here:
Introduction
The tutorial is honestly not too bad! It gives you a pretty easy run down of how the map works and how you’ll be fighting everything. I decided to try out normal mode in my playthrough simply because I figured it wouldn’t be that tough.. right?
After the tutorial, we got into the introduction of the city which is where we learn how we’re just a menial delivery boy/girl. Well after some time, a zombie apocalypse happens (joy..) and we gotta escape the city! With the help of a disembodied voice, we make our way into a portal of the past and head on our way to meet the king.
It’s an interesting segment and a good segway into how this map goes “Across The Time”. After meeting the king, we get the choice of going to one of two different dungeons. Like an idiot I am though, I ended up going for the Desert of Kakkara…
Dungeon 2 – Desert of Kakkara
But before that we got to help this drunken man Emerald out. We help him out in trying to get his bottle of schnapps and he ends up giving us..a decent axe to use against mobs. It’s not terrible, better than our base sword, but outside of that it’s really nothing special. And as you’ll soon learn, durability becomes a big problem.
After raiding his house, we go straight into Kakkara and are bombarded with many skeletons. If I was smart I would’ve ended up avoiding this area first and would’ve went straight for Firone Forest. But nope, I continued onward.
I helped out some villagers from this desert village. They looked like Pigmen funny enough.. well who cares? We don’t judge folks from the way they look. After enough conversation, we learn about where the main dungeon is located and start making our way through.
The mobs were tough, but not unfair, and the challenges provided weren’t too bad. But then we get into the boss and I think you’ll soon see a pattern with all bosses going forward. It had a lot of health, a unique gimmick, and the only way you normally fight is just.. whacking it with your weapon. Whoo…
Dungeon 1 – Firone Forest
So after getting the Gem for Desert of Kakkara, we do a couple extra side objectives then make our way back to the actual first dungeon of the map – Firone Forest. Most of the hostile mobs are either Spiders, weak Zombies, or wolves we can easily one shot. Okay, now THIS feels like where I should’ve fought first.
We keep going through the thick forest, getting lost a few times, and after some time, get our way to grabbing the proper first gem. Yeah, we just take it. There was a silverfish we had to fought, but the only issue with it is that the boss had a lot of health. Outside of that? No challenge at all.
Dungeon 3 – Village d’Otauria & Sanctuary of Tamdor
I think the neighboring town alongside this dungeon is when I started to see proper cracks forming underneath this map. Mobs started to become more of an annoyance than a unique threat to encounter alongside a lot of quirks that made 1.8 and older charming start to go away. Combine that with a lack of gain in money for valuable items is… really starting to take its toll.
Slowly making my way through the water based dungeon, I got annoyed to the point where I started cheating which the game slowly hinders you on if you do that. So you gotta be creative if you want.. or find the command block that’s preventing you from changing gamemodes. I just took the easy way out of ending myself to mobs.
The bosses here also immediately start to be annoying. Not only is it not obvious who the boss exactly is… but it’s also apparent that it was stupidly difficult. Combine that with the dungeon itself being kinda confusing and not easy to tell where to go? Yeah this dungeon wasn’t fun to get through.
Dungeon 4 – The Catacombs of Earndhel
Hoo boy. Yeah I’m sorry I’m just gonna be repeating a lot of things. Another witch boss that’s annoying? Check. Another large set of mobs that are annoying? Um, check please. The only thing that I found fun to mess around in this dungeon was the puzzles. The puzzles were quite fun to get used to and to learn over all.
It also doesn’t help that I actually didn’t remember what this place was until looking back at my VODs. Seriously, it was super forgettable in the grand scheme of things.
Dungeon 5 – Angband
Okay so I had initially ran into a Nether disabling part for this. IMMEDIATELY got it fixed on my end so my bad.
After this though.. yeah this area wasn’t as bad as the last two to this. Initially encountered a bug where the main gate wasn’t opening properly, but that’s besides the point. The main fights I had weren’t as bad. Enemies felt many, sure, but unlike before these ones were Zombie Pigmen who you had to decide whether or not you wish to fight or wish to avoid fighting. Not to mention the boss involved was.. okay the boss kinda sucked, I’m not gonna lie.
It’s just a Wither Skeleton with stupidly powerful minions. You kill him to beat it. But the lead up to it was pretty neat! Fighting a mini boss then having to mess with the source of corruption itself.. that is what leads to the plot of Across The Time 2, but that’ll be saved to another blog.
Not to mention the builds here were honestly fantastic! Whimsical, fun, and overall just a joy for the eyes.
Dungeon 6 – Dungeon of the Past
And now we get back into the annoyances. Outside of the crypt that I didn’t end up partaking until Dungeon 8’s time, most of what’s here consisted of the following:
- Annoying mini-bosses
- Tons of mobs that just respawn and tank hits
- Lots of armor breaking
The only upside to this area really was the fact I enjoyed the boss fight in this.. that is until there wasn’t much explaining how to get to the top of his head. This was when I started looking at walkthroughs to get across.
Dungeon 7 – Echor & Dungeon 8 – Ouranos
I’m lumping Echor & Ouranos together for this one. Let me sum it up for you in how these dungeons both ended up playing out.
- Long confusing corridors with puzzles that are difficult
- Many mobs required for progression that are super high in health
- Tons of annoying pitfalls one could easily slip through and die without problem
- Stupidly annoying bosses that will require a few attempts
I was starting to basically reach my breaking point with this map and I think I officially broke it upon coming into the next dungeon…
Dungeon 9 – Desolation
Okay this dungeon takes the cake in pure annoyance. Not only are you stuck behind a lot of puzzles that make no sense AND are basically impossible to read as an English viewer, BUT you also are able to get stuck in a multitude of places, causing you to kill yourself over and over again.
Couple that with annoying enemies and more dialogue than I can recall being shown in the map at any point, I was just beyond done with playing it. I trucked on because not many people would do it, but I went out of my way to cheat through the dungeon.
AT THE VERY LEAST I will give it credit for having a chase sequence with the boss before fighting him. Well.. before you have to go through 7 annoyingly long puzzles to then fight him.
That my friends is what we call too much padding.
Final Dungeon – The Present
And here we are at the Final Dungeon.. which is the present in where this map takes place. I won’t lie, this combines the WORST aspects of all the map together.
Puzzles that are annoying and require you to go through multiple times in frustration? That’s there.
Swarming amount of mobs that not only don’t go down easy, but also take a while to cut through without the right weapons? Mhmm, that’s here as well.
A plethora of annoying sequences and corridors the players are going to have to chuck themselves through to reach the end? Don’tcha know it!
And to put the cherry on top, annoying mini-bosses and mob waves that basically KILL any amount of fun you might have had. The boss is no better at this too, being what is essentially a worse version of the “Dungeon of the Past” boss while having some more unique and fun (in the moment) attack patterns.
Overall Thoughts
I’m not going to sugarcoat everything – I got real tired of this map real quickly. It started out as a really nice visit back to Minecraft during its early days and I enjoyed a lot of what was around to begin with! But as we kept going on, mobs kept being harder to beat, kept being too plentiful to deal with, kept being annoying, and then there started being too many winding segments.
Everything just got tiring, unfun, and boring. Not to mention all of the reading involved without any supplementary context with not everything being translated just felt… exhaustive. Was it still a good map by the end of the day? Of course! It was still enjoyable and I was able to push myself to the end of it. But this is not something I’d really recommend to other people as a starting point and I’d recommend they find a way to play it with friends.
Overall, I think this map is a 5/10. It needs more work for an English speaker and difficulty for “Normal” needs toning down.
Things I’m hoping to see improved when I go back to play Across the Time 2 – Time for Regrets:
- Improved Class System – More of a reason to pick certain classes then just extra perks at the start
- Improved Translations – I want to see everything translated that needs translation
- Better Level Design – Make it at least make sense as to where I need to go next
- Less “Dragging” Sections – Make it long, but don’t make it feel like it’s a drag to get through
- Better Side Quests – Make me want to try out the side quests involved
- Improved Difficulty – Don’t just spam a bunch of mobs at me. Make them fun to fight or interact against
- Easier Readability – Make it easier to read lengths of dialogue. Bite sized chunks, easy to follow eyes on, the works!
I do hope that when I revisit Across the Time 2, I’ll be pleasantly surprised with it being improved instead of disappointed on retreads.