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PLATFORM
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Mac |
BATTLE SYSTEM
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INTERACTION
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ORIGINALITY
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STORY
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MUSIC & SOUND
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VISUALS
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CHALLENGE
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Adjustable
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COMPLETION TIME
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40-60
Hours
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OVERALL
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+ Excellent
story
with
plenty
of
surprises
+ Challenging
turn-based
combat
+ Terrific
voice
acting.
- Difficulty
not
balanced
for
side-quest
skippers
- Takes
a
while
to
pick
up
- Archaic graphics and sound
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Click here for scoring
definitions
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Avadon: The Black Fortress is the
latest title from
venerable indie developer Spiderweb Software. Rooted squarely in
classic PC RPG gameplay, Avadon manages
to
stick
to
its
roots
while
still
feeling
like
a
very
modern RPG,
blessed with many of the features that BioWare games brought to RPGs
over
the years. Despite a lackluster visual presentation and minimal
sound and music, Avadon
manages to tell a compelling fantasy tale full of intrigue and betrayal
that players won't soon forget.
Avadon takes place in a fantasy
world where a pact of nations is constantly at risk from outside
threats. To keep the peace, the titular fortress of Avadon plays host
to an elite group of warriors
who protect the peace of the pact at all costs. Run by the merciless,
and apparently ageless Red Beard, Avadon is certainly a force to be
reckoned with. While this could have made
for a rather generic story, the plot picks up rather quickly
and provides plenty of intrigue to keep players going. This is due to
the fact that players will notice that everything is not quite
right with the pact. The missions the supposed heroes are sent out on
don't always feel particularly heroic, and it's clear that placing the
pact above
all else, often leaves the common man in the dust. As one completes
varying seemingly unrelated quests, a larger plot begins to show
itself, with several surprising twists before the end. Not everything
is
answered, as the game clearly sets up potential sequels,
but the ending is still quite satisfying.
Of course, a great story is
nothing without good characters, and Avadon
certainly provides them. Classic style RPGs of this type generally task
the player with creating a party from scratch, giving players a great
deal
of creativity, but preventing the game from providing interesting
characters to bring along. In this game however, players only
create one character, and there are four other characters, one
for each of the game's classes. They can be brought along two
at a time for a max party size of three. The characters come from
various regions, and provide a great way to dynamically teach the
player about the game's world in a way that doesn't feel forced. They
provide interesting commentary while on
quests, and players are even free to chat with them while resting in
the fortress of Avadon between objectives. These characters will also
wander off during certain parts of the story, and lengthy side-quests
are required to get each character back. While breaking
the flow of the main adventure a bit, these quests provide a nice to
introduce more
back story to the party members. They also further help to develop the
various cultures of Avadon's
game world.
Avadon is not a friendly place. |
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Avadon would be quite good based on
these aforementioned story qualities, but were it truly shines is with
its classic turn-based battle system. Outside of combat, exploration
happens in real time. It uses a simple point-and-click interface that
is easy to navigate. Given
the simple look of the game, exploration is quick and easy. As soon as
the player is spotted by monsters, or when a specified key is pressed
to
enter
combat mode, everything switches to turn-based. Unless buffed, each
character can generally only move and use one attack or ability per
turn. The game's simple combat setup is made interesting by the variety
of scenarios the game throws the player's way. The player will often be
outnumbered, surrounded, or in the case of many of the game's fantastic
boss encounters, forced to deal with all kinds of extra factors
beyond just enemies. Thankfully, the game's four classes provide a vast
array of tools to deal with the various challenges the game will throw
the player's way.
The four classes Avadon
provides are blademaster, sorceress, shaman, and shadow walker. The
blademaster provides the usual warrior abilities of drawing enemy
attacks in addition to powerful strikes, including some attacks that
damage all those around him. The sorceress naturally has many powerful
spells for attacking large groups of enemies. The shaman is a jack of
all trades, providing everything from healing to monster summoning.
Finally, the shadow walker fills the function one would expect from a
rogue, with many skills based on maneuverability and enemy distraction.
Freedom is somewhat restricted in developing these characters, as
certain skills are required in order to acquire the more advanced
skills. Still, the player is allowed a
certain amount of freedom in what types of skills to specialize in,
while the restrictions in place help prevent unbalanced character
builds. This is
quite important, as the difficulty of the game quickly picks up, and
unbalanced characters would certainly make the game unreasonably
difficult. The only issue with the difficulty is it seems to expect
players to do at least some of the side-quests in the game. It's
a minor issue, as the side-quests are often interesting and add depth
to
the story. However, those trying to just play through the main
storyline exclusively will find that things get quite difficult quickly
unless, at the very least, the character side-quests are completed.
Yes these lizards also bark like dogs.
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Naturally, one look
at the screenshots for Avadon
will
show players that it doesn't push the boundaries of graphical
presentation by any means. Player characters and monsters don't have
much animation to them, and locations don't provide a great amount of
detail. Despite this, the graphics get the job done, by presenting to
the player all the information they need. Monster types are very
distinct, distances easy to observe, and chests and items easy to spot
on the map. It all feels like a computerized representation of a
table-top RPG. This is further reinforced by constant text
descriptions the game provides to detail the finer points of a location
and the situation in that area. It all feels like some unseen dungeon
master is presenting this adventure to the player, and it goes great
lengths to making up for the lack of sophisticated graphics. Where
things don't fare so well are the sound and music. Beyond a rousing
main menu theme, the game is completely devoid of music, instead opting
for background environmental sounds which leave a lot to be desired.
The sounds in combat are mostly adequate, but when a spider attacking
uses the same sound as that of a wolf, it serves to take away from the
tense and immersive feel of combat.
In the end, the
presentation issues don't prevent the great combat and story from
shining through. Avadon is a
great example of how a classic RPG formula can still feel quite fresh
in the modern era. With a massive quest that can take forty hours or
more
depending on the number of side-quests undertaken, Avadon uses its lower graphic
fidelity to its advantage to provide a fast-paced and lengthy
adventure. With multiple endings and lots of surprises in its
intriguing storyline, it's sure to be an experience many gamers will
remember for a long time.
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