Breakfree 2 - GrandmasterJ

 

    The sequel to Breakfree is more of the same. We don't have to go back down the elevator and there is now a boss fight! Unfortunately the biggest obstacle is still the elevator mechanic itself.

SCMapDB page

Author: Beather

Date of release: 2004

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Breakfree 2

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | April 29, 2023 | 3293 characters

    I'm getting something of a crisis of conscience with the Breakfree series. I just played Break Go, which was inspired by this series, and gave it a higher score than the original based solely on how much I exploded on the elevator. Elevators in Sven Co-op are very dangerous and throughout this map we were constantly exploding for no reason.

    So I'm going to try to judge this map without taking into account how many times I was randomly killed by the floor. We start off and the map is fullbright, just like the first one. We hit a button that is hard to discern against the background that starts the elevator, just like the first one we have a spectating area on the side where players who have died can watch the still living players complete the map. I saw an improvement right away in two doors in this spectating area labelled "spectate" and "play", I thought this meant respawning players could actually play. This is not the case, it only opens up the elevator gets to the top and we have to fight Eggman.

    I feel like the obstacles are worse in this map than in the original. There was one point where a big slab of meat (cliff textures, but the way it was shpaed evoked mental imagery of a steak) was rotating and there was absolutely no way to avoid it crushing me. ANother part had horizontal smashers coming out of the walls at random intervals, that got us both, how were we meant to get past that?

    Just like the original we have Eggman to thank for our predicament and Sonic music playing in the background. I am certain it is the exact same Sonic music. The original did have the elevator head back down after reaching the top but thankfully we don't have that here. Once we kill Eggman the map ends.

    Killing Eggman is a bit of a pain. My teammate managed to kill him through his glass screen and then we had no clue what to do. There was a spinning piece in the middle of the map that kept killing us periodically and my teammate figured out destroying it dropped Eggman's booth into the abyss, killing him for real this time. We even get a fun scream sound as the booth falls.

    The map has all the problems of the original, namely the reliance on the bad elevator mechanics in Sven, and not a whole lot of improvements. The 'Play' chute in the respawn area was almost an improvement, but it doesn't open until the end which means I am missing out on a lot of gameplay. The graphics are the exact same, the music is the exact same, and Eggman is back as our villain. The boss fight is janky, weird, and easily broken. Although I would say the shorter length is definitely an improvement with an elevator this bad.

Pros:

• Players now have the option of returning to play
• fun concept
• fun music
• fun Eggman death scream
• this map ends at a reasonable time

Cons:

• players only get to rejoin the game at the end
• worse obstacles than the first map, random side crushers were bad
• Eggman can be killed without completing the boss fight
• Eggman's boss fight was not telegraphed well and overall was a weak point in the map
• the map looks pretty bad

Score:

4.5 / 10