Reviews of the Saerileth Mod

[Karajuan]

Saerileth is the better, with the exception of Minsk, than the origional game NPCs.  The psycho teenager is compelling love interest, strong enough to pull her own weight, yet not so powerful to overshadow your own character.

The age thing is overstated.  Little mor than a hundred years ago, a man usually didn't establish himself sufficiently to take a wife until he was around thirty, and a woman was becoming an old maid around sixteen.  Women often died in childbearth, so there were a lot of older widowers looking for a new wife.

This should be disturbing because years ago, girls raised on low protein diets did not mature as quickly as girls today.

In any case, the character I'm playing is quite disturbed by being the subject of affection of a little Talibani.  This makes for some interesting role-playing.

[DragonMaster]

Well now I finally got all the way through including the Bhaal. And might I say once again that the mod was very well written. Grace voice acting as well. I just wish that there were some way to  expand her  with a couple of more quests in Bhaal. No one seems to do anything with that part of the game for some reason.

Thanks again for the great Mod

DragonMaster

[Feanor]

Well now I finally got all the way through including the Bhaal. And might I say once again that the mod was very well written. Grace voice acting as well. I just wish that there were some way to  expand her  with a couple of more quests in Bhaal. No one seems to do anything with that part of the game for some reason.

Thanks again for the great Mod

DragonMaster

   Well, ToB is quite unpopular because it is a lot of hack&slash there, with little role-playing.  

[DragonMaster]

Well now I finally got all the way through including the Bhaal. And might I say once again that the mod was very well written. Grace voice acting as well. I just wish that there were some way to  expand her  with a couple of more quests in Bhaal. No one seems to do anything with that part of the game for some reason.

Thanks again for the great Mod

DragonMaster

   Well, ToB is quite unpopular because it is a lot of hack&slash there, with little role-playing.  

Well now that is true there. How is Neverwinter nights? is it worth buying? Provided I can still find it.

DragonMaster

[Kraile]

Newbie here, with a very preliminary review.

I want to like Saeri. I do like Saeri. She's sweet, beautiful, everything you could ask for in a romance mod. It is indeed refreshing to have a love intrest you don't have to play Freud to.

Nevertheless, this mod's given me more grief than any other I've downloaded. There's just a cavalcade of minor annoyances that continue to niggle at me.

1) The voice takes a lot of getting used to. I've grown used to it, but the accent still sounds somewhat wrong, and too computer-y.
2) The romance moves way too fast. I could tell Saeri I loved her three seconds after she joined, and she'd accept it.
3) Having Saeri in your party causes the elf-hater to attack you. Which forces you to kill an Amnish Guard. WTF?
4) The biggie: Rescuing Saeri from the Devil. All spells, items, and abilities are disabled. I can't have my blade do a defensive spin or make Nalia cast Stoneskin. Aerie can't even heal me! There's no way to strategize, and no way to win without using CTRL-R. And with the Devil's impenetrable Stoneskin and the way he was shrugging off my attacks, I had to CTRL-Y him to end things. How is anyone supposed to beat this?
5) In the same mission, Isea is able to come to Sigil to abduct Nalia. WTF?

[DragonMaster]

Well now I'll have to admit that your right you can't use spells in Sigil with the devil. I know that you can use scrolls though. Just put them in your quick slot. Also don't know how it work out if you've got them in  a spell trigger. But I always make sure I buy and and all Chain contingency scrolls I can find till I can memorize this one since it's a leve 9 spell.

Otherwise I've never had any problem with the Devil and never had to use CTL-y As long as I've been playing the game. This includes running Solo which I do allot of times. As for the Devil he's such a wimp any way I don't use spells against him. I'm just dual weilding a Pair of Long swords.  

As for when Saerileth gets abducted by the demon depends on the love talks and where you are when the devil shows up. I've had him show up in Winspear hills, The temple area and the slums so far.

DragonMaster

[Kraile]

For a higher-level fighter, perhaps, but for a relatively low-level blade whos uddenly finds himself unable to cast something as elementary as Magic Missile, or even use his defensive spin...the only way to beat it, apparently is to let Edorem wail on it. The PC is forced to take a passive role in the rescue of his beloved, watching his competition save her life. Does it get more unsatisfying than that?

[DragonMaster]

For a higher-level fighter, perhaps, but for a relatively low-level blade whos uddenly finds himself unable to cast something as elementary as Magic Missile, or even use his defensive spin...the only way to beat it, apparently is to let Edorem wail on it. The PC is forced to take a passive role in the rescue of his beloved, watching his competition save her life. Does it get more unsatisfying than that?

Thats why I don't go and pick her up right away. You see I wait and do De Arnise and Some of the slums quests first. And usually do them solo so I level up allot quicker. Even in Irenicus' hole in the begining I don't pick up minsc or Jaheira till I'm ready to go to the next level. that way only have to worry about splitting the xp with imoen.<G>

DragonMaster

[Gregor]

Just finished Saerileth through ToB; here's my review:

What I liked:

* LOTS of work obviously went into this mod.  I appreciated (for the most part; see below) the many different quests the mod provides, especially the far-too-short trip to Sigil.  Also, the detail and care that went into crafting Saeri's character was evident: she fit into the game extremely well.

* Saeri's portrait is BEAUTIFUL.

* She's a good fighter: not extraordinarily powerful or pitifully weak.  She needs no more care than the average NPC when it comes to picking armor or weapons.

* Her dialogues are all in character, and add levels to the game.  I particularly enjoyed her banter with Yoshimo ("I am skilled in avoidance").  Her flirts are similarly interesting, if a bit too tame (I really found it hard to muster any enthusiasm for the response to "What's your favorite play?"    )

* I experienced no bugs at all.  

What I Didn't Like:

* Things move a little too fast.  I can buy the "falling in love at first sight" bit...in fact, I found it refreshing and interesting.  However, unless you're picking her up well into Chapter 2, you're not ready to fight a dragon, even one that you can take most of the bite from by stocking up on Potions of Freedom.  And the awkward positioning of said dragon prevents you from performing a few quests in Umar Hills until you get rid of him.  And then there's:

* The devil guy.  WAY too hard for a low-level party.  While the quest itself is interesting, it should be timed to occur much later in the relationship, when the characters have had a chance to build some XP.

* She's a little TOO chatty.  I experienced this with the excellent Nathaniel mod as well... apparently, Lawful Good characters just can't seem to resist putting their two cents in with any discussion      I didn't find Saeri's devotion to Tyr TOO annoying, but she did lean more towards the bossy side of helpful on many occasions.  Just personal preference, and the main reason I'm not a big fan of Paladins in general (although, for a Paladin, Saeri wasn't too bad    )

* Her voice is quite monotone.  I liked the accent (very exotic), but her voice was very flat and emotionless; not at all in keeping with her written dialogue.  Also, it sounded like it was recorded underwater, which I can only imagine is a necessary evil when you're creating a mod without access to Bioware's state of the art sound equipment.  

* There's not much build-up to the major events.  I don't know if I just didn't get all the dialogue I should have, but it's especially noticeable when the devil comes for her: Edorem just pops out of nowhere, with no previous mention, and wisks you off to save her.  Having her mention him prior to this event would have been nice.  The rest of that storyline is similarly jerky: he shows up every now and then to glare at the PC, but she makes little mention of him between those times, until he's gone for good, at which point, she has LOTS to say about him.

* Her wedding ring was EXTREMELY hard to put on her finger.  I mean, it took many, many clicks before I could find just the right spot on her ring slot to have her wear it.  Although, I must say, the ring itself was a nice touch.

* Her holy symbol is placed MOST disadvantageously (is that even a word?  :?  ).  With all the great helmets in the game, it's criminal to have that spot taken up with something so useless (any party with a cleric can cast PFE 10' and have it last seemingly forever).  It's nice that she HAS a holy symbol, but if it's going to be in such an important position, it really should do a lot more than it does.

* While it's nice that players now have a third option to get to Spellhold, the dragon quest doesn't contain nearly as much depth and detail as either the Shadow Thieves or Bodhi's quests do.  From a role-playing point of view, I'm sure there are some people who are thrilled to not have to deal with thieves OR vampires, but I've never had a problem in justifying my involvement with the thieves guild as a necessary means to a noble end (saving Imoen).   In fact, I like the moral quandry this raises, particularly when Bodhi shoves it back in the PC's face.  But this, of course, is personal preference.  The main point is that it would be nice if the third way to Spellhold were as involved and complex as the other two.


While it may seem that the negatives outweigh the positives, I can assure you that I very much enjoyed Saerileth, and that I'm in awe of the time and devotion clearly expended in her creation.  It seems that the things you don't like seem to stick in your mind more clearly than those you do     Congratulations on an excellent mod; I'll be playing with Saerileth again.

[SuperNovice]

There isn't much I can add that hasn't already been said but...

I found that I had a tough time not being nice to Saerileth. I just couldn't bring myself to be a jerk to such a sweet girl.

I guess that says everything when the story and voice acting makes you actually care about the character.




Spoiler:
--------------------------------------


And, for the love of god, choose mortality if you value your happiness...  

[nethrin]

@gregor:  thanks for the in-depth thoughts.  they're appreciated.

[Gregor]

You're welcome!  

[tempest4]

The Saerileth mod is by far one of my favorite mods available, and one of my favorite NPC's-not even Kelsey seems to be such a polished, well-built mod. My only bone to pick is how submissive she becomes in ToB. Granted, she's your wife, and in the world of Faerun, wives are expected to be that way, but it just seemed a little strange to me.

Oh, and my belief in her purity (and that of the design team) was kinda shot to h*** when, while playing around with Shadowkeeper, I found the "sexy saerileth" portraits. Naughty designers...

[nethrin]

in ToB, if you ask her to wear her sexy clothes, she WILL, and then her portrait will change to the sexy one until 24 game hours pass.  try it.

yet another saeri treasure!!

[tempest4]

And you see no problem with the sexy clothes vs. Saerileth's basically modest and innocent nature? She's been called a prude to her [boyfriend's] face, and to me, at least, her defining attribute is her innocence, despite the fact that about 5min ago I posted a reply on another thread describing her as a trained killer. People defined by purity and innocence despite horrific circumstances (such as the brutal six-person war waged in ToB) generally don't wear sexy clothing, nethrin...