Apr 2007: Frosty Forest

*The actual article for this area is Frosty Forest
Builder: Lilly
Source: Secret of Mana
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Player: Benamas
Review date: 12/1/2009
My primary reason for writing this review is because nobody else has, and because I've never thoroughly explored Frosty Forest. Lets see what I find! 
Descriptions: FAIR
The descriptions are not bad as far as writing; they also seems to be kind of big, because of all the flowery language, or because of some downright weird sentences; "These conditions couldn't possibly be bearable to many creatures, much less plant life, but these... 'crystal' trees seem to have been created directly from the area, healthy and full of life (if you could call it that, from the surrounding weather)." Say what?
There's at least two places where a sign is mentioned in a room description but can't actually be looked at. Things like trees and guard rails and stuff I can understand not having an extra description, but SIGNS ought to be readable? A few other odd objects that should be interesting aren't described either. I'd say that their presence in the room desc was pointless filler to bulk out the descs, but they're generally 7+ lines anyway so that wouldn't make sense.
Color is used in room descs a few times but it's really jarring since it's not very effective or consistent or common.
Layout: POOR
This area is mostly a web of spindly little roads through the woods, linking together in weird configurations. There's a couple dead-ends in these paths that serve no purpose at all. The room names don't seem to have a lot of relevance to their relative location in the area, and all the colors are the same so there's no sense of traveling through different parts of the forest either. 
Monsters: GOOD
The monsters have reasonable descs and stats and even some special abilities. I wasn't like, WOW, but they are good.
If you try to look at the Boreal Face mob you instead look at 'a writhing mass of vines' named 'borealblocker' (and not 'vines' or anything like that). Killing it didn't remove the vines but that was an mprog error so I fixed it. How did people get through here otherwise??? Oh they didn't because there's nothing on the other side until Phendrana is finished.
Santa Claus is really picky, but the reward isn't anything useful (it's a key for fortress of doom) so don't even worry about it.
Linkage: GOOD
Its location seems to make sense; it's at the far north end of the continent, between a high mountain peak and the Ice Fields (and soon also Phendrana) on the other side. Ice ice ice. The descs make it seem like it's so cold that nothing should be alive and that even the trees aren't real trees but some kind of bizarre ice structures, but I don't believe it since it's not THAT bad
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Category:Area of the Month