The Curse of Lazar Castle

Title: The Curse of Lazar Castle
Link: https://www.gamemaps.com/details/21267
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1741649436
Author: Dereck (Kvothe Venture)
Survivors: L4D2
Notes: There are no rescue closets and the campaign is somewhat restrictive with items. Reading diary entries may be required to solve basic puzzles.

The Curse of Lazar Castle is the second L4D2 campaign by the author of the notorious Labirinferno. This campaign is vastly different, spanning five maps roughly of equal size, taking place in a gothic-themed manor, with themes of Transylvanian lore strewn throughout with diary entries. The first thing you'll probably notice from the campaign's extremely wordy description is that this is apparently a very difficult campaign. Fortunately, let me assure you that it is not. The campaign does have a strong focus on exploration for items, but its resource limitation is very reasonable.

The first map is one of the better maps, as it has open areas outside as well as some interesting interiors. There are some hedge mazes, tank fights, and plenty of vertical climbing to explore various areas. The campaign starts you off with tier 1's and extra pistols. Since the description made it very clear that there is only a single ammo pile in the entire campaign, this simply translates to forcing you to rely a little more heavily on your secondary weapon. It doesn't take long before the campaign throws you a melee, and it's also possible to find a magnum in this map, too. Diary entries with short bits of information can be found all over the place, and often they include hints on how to proceed forward (such as which switches need to be used).

The second map is rather large but unmemorable and pretty unremarkable. There are tons of crates and boxes strewn around the gigantic rooms, and while it has some interesting connecting sections (long staircases) it doesn't have many memorable events. It's also not particularly difficult, and at this point you'll probably find the earlier warnings to be overkill. While there aren't ammo piles or many medkits in the saferooms, you'll notice by this point that there are plenty of extra weapons and supplies everywhere. Often you'll find multiple medkits in the same room, relieving the tension a bit. This map will also introduce poison gas, which isn't much of a problem yet.

The third map takes place in the Death Labs, and as its name suggests, it's pretty industrial and features lots of little laboratories. There are plenty of traps in the beginning section, so watch out for the obvious floor traps before flicking any switches. There are a few tank fights in the enclosed spaces, which really serve as the only major challenge thus far. Frequent molotov spawns ensure that they go fairly quickly. The end of this map is a good ramp-up in difficulty, as you first fight one tank, followed by two, in a make-shift arena. The only thing that slightly bogs this map down is the monochromatic coloration of it all, since it's mostly all orange and brown. However, the layout is fairly fun to figure out without being too hard.

The fourth map is by far the most annoying in a bad way. A lot of issues compound together unnecessarily and this is probably where the most work should go in improving it. First of all, this is where you may find an encounter with a creature of red eyes that will insta-kill you if you get near it. Since there are no rescue closets, this is a big problem. Another issue is that there is a room filled with poison gas that will do damage to you. Apparently there is supposed to be a switch to disable the poison in the room before, but we searched and searched but couldn't find it. A lot of damage is dealt in these rooms by things outside of your control. Finally, once you go outside you're forced to deal with a witch or two blocking your path. If you can make it beyond that, there is yet another double-tank spawn, which is made painful by the fact that there's a horde on top of this all. Bad directionality in the outside area also negatively affects this map, but the thing that irks me the most about this is the mandatory witch spawns because it essentially means you have to take a shotgun (if you can find one). And if you fuck up, it's sayonara, your chance is gone because there are no rescue closets. There's really no excuse for this and it really takes the fun out of the earlier parts of the map.

The last map is somewhat short compared to the others, but at least it's a lot more fun than the fourth map. After reaching the attic and fighting off a few tanks, it'll be your task to make it all the way back down (during a horde event) and through the exterior areas you went through in the first map, but this time during a grey, misty day time. It can sometimes be a little difficult to discern the way to go, but overall you just have to remember that you're going back to the very start of the campaign, so try and remember the way you came in. There will be at least three tanks in the way to hold you up but it shouldn't be hard unless you have to fight them through the foliage. Also, I'm not sure why but the animation of the rescue vehicle leaving doesn't appear on the screen.

Difficulty: While this campaign isn't quite in the same style as a lot of more typical campaigns, it's certainly not as hard as the description makes it out to be. More often than not, the hard parts are due to dickish tank spawns (such as in tight corridors) and unavoidable witch spawns. There are plenty of tier 2 weapons around once you get to the third map, and finding resources in general isn't too much of a problem provided you go into enough separate rooms. Trust me, I hate campaigns where you have to find stuff and I didn't find it to be a problem, so you shouldn't, either. Aside from the lack of rescue closets, you should be relatively fine on Normal and in fact you might not even find it too difficult ramping it up to Advanced. Overall the difficulty is just right for a campaign of this size aside from the boss spawns.

Final Verdict: I'm not sure what the story with Lazar is all about, but thankfully you don't need to pay attention to the story to enjoy the campaign. The map layouts speak for themselves and are well and good enough to warrant playing through. The limited resources was more of a fun than anything really difficult. The most annoying section was the unavoidable taking of damage (poison gas), unavoidable witches, tanks in enclosed spaces, and occasionally not knowing the way. The overall polish and presentation of the campaign could be better (lots of diary entries have typos and certain areas look primitive), but more often than not, the maps offer good gameplay. All of the maps are large and if you enjoy basic puzzle-solving, there is some good stuff here. Plus, the finale being a gauntlet is a nice change of pace from the typical holdout. The campaign isn't perfect and there's definite room for improvement, especially with the fourth map. However, all things considered it's pretty fun to play through, plus there aren't many campaigns of this setting yet (even though they're supposed to be vampires and not zombies, but whatever). Recommended.

Rating: 3.67/5.