Sunken City, quite the masterpiece of map design, haha!
An RPG within Warcraft 3, and one of the best maps I have ever had the joy of playing!
I am very much a fan of Warcraft's blend of RTS and RPG, and of course, love it when I get to play RPGs in RTS, haha!
Look, honestly, I am at a loss for words on how to describe how good this map is, but I'll do my best. Sunken City is an amazing RPG style map that I have never quite gotten to the end of, on account of the long playtime, but I certainly enjoy my moments spent playing. The sheer variety of ways to personalise your playstyle in terms of heroes, abilities, items, and passive bonuses is ludicrous, and offers so many ways to play the game in a way you want to play, within bounds of course!
The heroes provide a wide variety of base playstyles the player can build into, even within their respective primary trait group, some even having special features that allow them to go above and beyond, such as how the Naga heroes are able to swim, and access extra secrets. Talents in particular alter ability effects in quite a numerous selections of ways, and essentially allow any given hero to specialise which abilities are going to be primarily made use of - allowing the player to hone particular abilities to great effect, or diversify the powers available to them. On top of this, also is specialisations, which typically affect one of the primary abilities or passive of the hero in a way that allows it to become the focus of your arsenal, which can be combined with your talent choices. Glyphs are similar, however, offer less specific bonuses, as all glyphs are available to all heroes, and come in several categories that allow you to hone the playstyle you are encapsulating during the course of play, or pick up helpful special bonuses. There are also ESC points, which are simple passive stat bonuses you can upgrade as you level up, a simple way to specialise, yet still very much a part of developing your playstyle. In combination, these personalisation mechanics mean you always have a way to make a hero 'yours', in a sense, you can play them the way you want to play them, and that is great! One could even develop playstyles they at first think might not be supported, with the right allocations.
Of course, the hero customisation is not the only way one can develop their own playstyle, items, the lifeblood of adaptable customisation, provide even greater ways to specialise. On top of the typical stat bonuses you expect from items, are powerful passive and active benefits, particularly rare items hold immensely powerful bonuses that can solidify a playstyle, or even turn it on its head, allowing for quite the wide variety of extra customisation.
The atmosphere of this map is legendary, this overgrown and sunken city has risen from a 10,000 year watery grave, and comes with a history the player can find scattered throughout bookshelves and interactable scenery across the entire map. While I have not viewed this story to completion, it is definitely intriguing, and I enjoy the snippets of it that I have come across over time, and I do hope that I will see the end of this grand story one day, but for now, I play on. Everything about the map design feels just right to evoke the feeling of the city, ancient and brought back from the dead, old masonry falling apart, gardens growing out of control, and the feeling that something isn't quite right. It's quite the artistic display, love the scenery! Not only is the map excellent, the utilisation of amazing custom models and effects really brings the spectacle to the player's actions, it gives all the customisation the 'oomph' to make the player feel powerful both visually and statistically.
Of course, what are you going to do in an RPG without some conflict, enemies to fight? There are plenty of enemies to fight of all varieties as you progress, slowly developing in strength to push the player harder as they go on, and the sheer variety of mechanics one can find throughout the map creates quite the diverse challenge. The extra challenges the player can complete for bonus rewards are a nice touch too, pushing the players to play around the mechanics of any given boss in a special way, to achieve the extra glory. You've got to play well to complete the map, the enemy isn't going to hold out on you, and you're gonna need to work together as a team to get through the unknown terrors ahead.
Truth be told, I don't feel my words can do this map nearly enough justice, it is absolutely deserving of high appraisal and what I can say about it cannot ever truly get the point across about how polished this map is. Absolutely amazing work.