Avernus

This is without a shadow of a doubt the most challenging isometric action game I've ever played. It kept bashing my head in at every turn but I instantly crawled back for more 'cause of how solid the combat is. And the whole art deco, "tombs of mechanical gods" concept is so freaking awesome. I loved it

Good game. More people need to know about this

Let’s make things clear from the start. Avernus is not a good game. It seems like its creators took notes from Demon’s Souls and decided to implement its worst elements in the most annoying ways possible. Perhaps they lacked beta testers who would inform them just how aggravating their ideas turned out? But let’s put things in order (or you can just scroll down to pros and cons). Souls mechanic nr 1 (bad) There’s the old stupid thing when you lose all your exp upon death and have one chance to retrieve it. Only in Avernus you need to know the game well enough to actually get to the point you died and retrieve your exp. That’s why you will be losing all your hard earned exp over and over again especially at the beginning when you most need it. Unless you abuse the ‘quit game’ system. If you see you’re about to die, you can quit, which will respawn you in the hub area, but with all your exp intact. I found myself using this more often than not. Souls mechanic nr 2 (bad) Instead of a stamina meter, the player has stamina charges which allow dodging (attacking doesn’t use the charges). The player can have a maximum of 3 charges, but only 1 recharges by itself. If the player wants more, they need to hit enemies. Sounds cool, like mixing the mechanics of Bloodborne and Hollow Knight. There’s only one problem: the dodging is clunky, so it’s unreliable. Moreover, melee damage is poor compared to what ranged damage provides, not to mention it’s safer to be further away from danger. Souls mechanic nr 3 (bad) There are shortcuts in every stage, but their system is flawed. On one hand, they connect the stages nicely, on the other hand they are mostly useless since you still often have to get through hordes of enemies. It’s annoying to keep going to a boss only to lose some of your heals on the way. Or to try and get your exp back after you died. Souls mechanic nr 4 (bad) Sometimes the player encounters very powerful enemies that require quite a bit of skill and maybe luck to beat. However, there are times when there is no indication of anything so powerful being nearby and it’s impossible to run away from it. Other than using ‘quit game’ and resetting all the other enemies, of course. Not souls mechanic nr 1 (good + bad) There’s a mechanic that gives the player extra heals based on how much exp they absorb from defeated enemies which is an okay system. BUT There’s also an orb that gives extra healing charges if you hit it 3 times before it disappears. It seems to spawn once every couple of minutes even if you do nothing but wait. That would be okay too, but it has a few drawbacks. Firstly, simply waiting for things to appear isn’t fun, but boring and annoying. Moreover, if you’re just playing instead of waiting, the orb tends to appear at the worst possible times and in the most inconvenient places. It’s also not stationary, but keeps running away, often baiting the player to run through a horde of enemies. This often lead to my death, so I learned to ignore it. Happens during boss fights too. This is NOT good game design. Not souls mechanic nr 2 (good) The player gets a notification when they’ve gained enough exp to level up. They can also do that right away, even in the middle of a fight. There’s also something I would call a ‘bestiary mechanic’. If you kill the same type of enemy enough times, you can make them deal less damage or turn off some of their annyoing behaviours f.e. self destruction on death. I think it would be more convenient to automate this system, but the way it is, players can check what they’ve already unlocked. Side note 1 There are times when enemy placement doesn’t seem to serve any purpose other than to be annoying. Sometimes you can’t even kill them because if you try, you’ll either take damage or die. It was especially bad when I was slowly navigating very narrow walkways/ledges (the element which was in the game God of War from 2005 and never appeared again). Side note 2 It seems the only way to play this game is to max out the ranged upgrades on the right first, then health upgrades in the middle, and lastly melee upgrades on the left. I found melee attacks to be useless most of the game since they did around 60-80 dmg, while a fully charged projectile did 300-500 dmg. Melee attacks did eventually come in useful though. It was on the stage with gardens. I suggest going there last if someone decides to play this game despite my warnings. In short: Pros: - Nice graphics and design, - Decent story and world, - Getting a notification once you have enough exp to level up. Cons: - Horrendously long stages with only one respawn point and a not very well thought out shortcut system, - clunky dodge system which makes ‘fancy playing’ much more difficult than it should be, - a map that doesn’t show the player’s exact position and has to be accessed manually every time (annoying and could be fixed by adding a mini-map), - most enemies hit too hard and some of them have WAY too much HP, - exp gained is too slow and can very easily be lost, - spawning healing orb system which often baits players to their deaths, - difficult, but boring boss battles, some of which require 1-2+ minutes to get to from the closest map point. Overall, my experience with Avernus wasn’t fun for me. It’s not like it’s impossible to beat because I managed to do it in around 18 hours. But I regretted starting it, even considered dropping it, but wanted to finish it due to the ‘finish what you've started’ mentality. And there was also the time I had invested to beat the first boss which was around 6 hours. And I did it in 25 minutes when I tried again after finishing the game. That’s because I knew all the game mechanics and could upgrade myself twice before the boss. If there was a mini-map, less damage from enemies, more damage from the player, better checkpoint system and no losing experience on death, then it could have been a much better game.

Avernus is an isometric Souls-like game. You found yourself as a reanimated guardian. And in order to save an ancient tomb of a dead god you need to go through hordes of enemies. To fight you have weapon for a close and ranged combat, and reinforced close combat sword. Also you can heal and dodge using ambrosia and stamina. After you kill an enemy or destroy environment items (mostly jars) you gain ambrosia and experience points which you can spend on developing abilities like more health, more stamina, more damage. The difficulty of the game consists in that enemies deal a significant damage to you and to defeat each type of enemy you need to use different tactics. Also quite a lot of bosses here and there. After you die you need to start the level from the beginning, if you opened new areas they remain but all enemies are on their places again. So you have to master all the same places till you finally can proceed further. It was frustrating for me. I can be ok with difficult games but not when it almost completely erase your efforts. So in 1.5 hours I barely finished a half of a first level and finally abandoned the game. The artstyle looks awesome. It's kinda ancient Greek-like. Avernus has a lot of detailed locations, with good lighting special effects, shadows and it also very well optimised. Enemies have unique visuals. The sounds are nice. I didn't pay much attention for this aspect, though this may be a sign of a quality sound design. It just suits well. Overall, controls are ok. Possibly I had a couple of disappointments when I accidentaly fell of a bridge when using a dash. Or when I got under the fire because there was a significant delay in actions that you can make with a character. Verdict. Avernus left me confusing. It has beautiful visuals but instead it gives a frustrating feeling because of its difficulcy and questionable balance. Perhaps fans of mastering their skills could love this game. It should be a strong neutral review. [list] [*]Gameplay: 5 [*]Graphics: 8.5 [*]Sound and music: 7 [*]Interface and control: 6 [*]Impression: 4 [*]Rating: [b]6.1[/b] [/list]

===2023-0121 目前沒有類魂的樂趣，只有堆怪、扣血多而已。 而且感覺角色像是打殘了讓你去升級 路途中沒有像魂的存檔點，起碼我玩的這一小時內沒有 死掉了就是重頭走一遍。 戰鬥方面普普，用近戰是白痴。 探索方面沒有，單純升級的魂跟回血用的能量。 技能感覺還好，敵人的技能看起來都比你好，速度也比你快一點點，只有前搖會比你慢一點點。 第一關畜牲boss跟牠繞圈圈慢磨就能打贏了。 總之就是一個很平常的動作遊戲而已，想玩爽game或是想要有點樂趣的，可以跳過。

Controls are VERY laggy and unresponsive. Incredibly frustrating. Refund.

Great spin on the souls-like formula ! Solid et well made combat. Hard but faire difficulty. Gorgeous world and design. More people need to know about and play this game ! Congratulations to the Subsolar team for their first game, can't wait to play more of them.

This one's a gem: a sleek, smooth playing and elegant little action game that guarantees a good time with minimal commitment.