Avadon: The Black Fortress

I really enjoy these games. They are old school fun. A lot of text in this one. Huge story line. I am enjoying it immensely. Runs very smooth on my new iMac as well.

I’ve been diving into the world of Avadon and Avernum for years now. Even though the graphics are simple, the way the stories intersect and the characters keep coming back is done really well. It’s one of those games where the depth of the world totally makes up for the old-school look. [The Breakdown] Graphics: Potato-friendly Gameplay: Solid old-school RPG Story: Deep and well-connected Difficulty: Easy to learn Grind: Average Worth the price? Yes Rating: 8/10

Spiderweb Software games are always fun to play and this game is no different. Although Avadon was released in 2011, it still has playability today. Avadon, as with other Spiderweb games, is heavily linear and story-driven.

Excellent writing from Spiderweb Software, as usual.

Because Steam only has a Up/Down rating and not a 'middle of the road' I'll err on giving it a positive for the interesting story and many options to change the course of what happens. This RPG starts so easy that you left click your way through most fights with maybe an aoe spell or some healing, so easy I think the tutorial is the entire first mission. Then you hit the second area and suddenly you gotta really fight. That's great, I want enough of a challenge to think. Then the game slowly gets harder and this is also fine for a while. You get better gear, more options, and the ability to choose all the classes plus the one you chose at the start to play as 'you', giving you a good feel fore flexible options, though one of the companions will always share your class choice, so that's either annoying or good for doubling up. Then the enemies start spamming stuns, knock backs, charm, daze, slows, curses, and every other effect causing fights to drag if you don't focus on counter-buffing/cursing to keep them from riding on a million advantages. And, maybe it's just me, but Charm only seems to work 1/3 of the time while Daze gets really hard to rely on. Then enemy HP bars become trees you need to saw through even if you've got the fight itself in the bag, with some bosses even spamming (group) heals so you'll need to saw through that. And their constant summon spam. Then some enemies just get to move twice and others get that bonus while also casting buffs to move even more often, causing enemies to practically triple their action economy while slowing you to a crawl by throwing out more stuns, slows, or daze attacks. Hope you love fighting basilisk with cone-shaped aoe stuns. In groups. That eventually become elites. The game's got a lot of great moments but eventually you just crawl through this swamp in every single fight just hoping to see the ending of it all as yet another boss just SPAMS and endless wave of foes that get to cast buffs too. And the ending has some of the worst stun-locking jerks you'll ever encounter, alone. Because of course they had to put a rotten cherry on top. But, then you get to see the reflection of all your choices during the entire game and a really see that they mattered. That you get to feel satisfied with the story, and if you really like the game, ready to follow their sequel bating. TLDR: Combat starts too easy, gets good, gets grindy, ends up miserable. Classes are fun but buff/debuff abilities start to feel out-right mandatory near the ending. Enemies become tree's with loads of health to chew through and self-healing spam. The story feels fun to explore and the ending actually changes based on your choices, with fun little mistakes you can make to change the outcome. If you really love top down games this is still gunna be worth it, but you might need some leather to chew on for when the warriors all self-buff for bonus damage/hit and the archers cast group haste before their mage hits one of your party members with a charm. Ugh.

Avadon is a good game, and sadly overshadowed by its older siblings, Avernum and Geneforge. While Avadon cannot match the highs of either of those games, it is still an incredible time. Jeff Vogel's writing is consistently high quality, and the storytelling found in this game is extremely impressive in comparison to the games out there that don't even try to say something interesting. Your party is full of interesting people, people you can relate to and want to work with. There are several great twists and turns, and I enjoyed most of my time with Avadon. The issues that I would bring up is that the ending is a little sudden (at least the ending that I got, dunno if there is any secret ones besides the obvious work for Avadon ending or go against it.). It doesn't really even culminate in a final boss fight, even after getting your entire party together for the first and last time in the game. I would also say that a lot of the combat encounters in the mid to late game felt like padding. I was rarely in any real danger from common enemies, yet they still took some significant time to cut down, I do wish the common rabble were a bit more easily deposed of. All in all, Avadon is a story worth telling, with fun and memorable characters, and is a pinnacle of the CRPG genre. Spiderweb Software really does provide a very specific experience you can't find anywhere else.

História bacana, um ótimo RPG clássico para desbravar um novo mundo

The good: a solid, well-balanced, isometric party RPG. The bad: neither story nor gameplay impressed me personally, seems more engineered than a work of art.

REDBEARD fight is completely retarded. other than that everything is wonderful. i have no idea why Jeff decided to put up a fight like that... beautiful story. there is everyhing a rpg has to have.

Game play is vibrant, story is very flexible, and characters are realistic. The clues and the maps are clear.