Avowed

While [i]Avowed[/i] has many strengths, it also highlights why Obsidian no longer sits at the forefront of the CRPG genre. Its shortcomings are difficult to overlook, especially when compared to the standout AAA RPGs released over the past decade. Let's start with the positives. The world and level design are easily the game's strongest features. Exploration feels consistently rewarding, with richly detailed environments and plenty of environmental storytelling. Traversing the world and reaching hidden locations through light platforming feels intuitive and satisfying. Unfortunately, the quality of the environmental design declines toward the end of the game, giving the impression that development was rushed. Every region relies on the same enemy types, encounter layouts, and environmental templates. By the time you've cleared your fifteenth Xaurip camp, the sense of discovery has long since worn off. Combat is another highlight. Melee, ranged combat, and spellcasting all feel distinct, with satisfying hit reactions and responsive status effects. The game strikes a good balance between exploration, dungeon crawling, and combat encounters. However, enemy variety is disappointingly limited—you'll be fighting the same xaurips, skeletons, bears, and a handful of other foes throughout the entire adventure. One of the defining strengths of the [i]Pillars of Eternity[/i] ruleset is that character attributes are remarkably well balanced, with no obvious dump stats. Avowed preserves much of that philosophy. While it doesn't offer the depth or build variety of [i]Pillars of Eternity[/i] I and II -- nor should anyone reasonably expect it to in a first-person action RPG -- it still provides a satisfying selection of skills and meaningful character progression. The main story begins with a fairly generic premise but gradually becomes more personal and engaging. The pacing is solid, and the overall length feels just right. My completionist playthrough lasted roughly 70 hours. Since the story revolves around one of Eora's gods, however, it misses an opportunity to further develop one of the setting's greatest strengths: its rich pantheon. Aside from collecting god totems, the deities themselves have surprisingly little presence in the narrative. Character writing, unfortunately, is one of the game's weakest aspects. Very few NPCs leave a lasting impression, and much of the dialogue feels stiff and overly scripted. Companion quests vary in quality -- Kai and Marius receive more attention than the others -- but, overall, each companion largely fills a familiar archetype rather than developing into a memorable character. Dialogue choices are similarly disappointing. I experimented with responses ranging from openly hostile to empathetic, yet they almost always led to the same outcome, making role-playing feel largely cosmetic. Quest design is equally conventional. Most objectives boil down to fetch quests, clearing enemies, or following quest markers. Navigation is so heavily guided by the map and compass that there's rarely any opportunity for the player to think through a problem or discover a solution independently. The result is competent but formulaic questing that rarely surprises. Perhaps my biggest disappointment is the world itself. Despite its name, the Living Lands feel strangely lifeless. NPCs stand in predetermined locations waiting to deliver scripted dialogue whenever you approach, regardless of the time of day. There is a day-night cycle, but beyond different lighting, the world barely changes. Towns lack daily routines, NPCs don't travel organically, and the environment never truly feels inhabited. I don't expect every RPG to simulate a world on the level of [i]Red Dead Redemption 2[/i], but role-playing games have featured more convincing living worlds for decades. Visually, the game is competent, though the stylized, comic book-inspired art direction introduced in [i]The Outer Worlds[/i] has never really appealed to me. That comes down to personal preference more than objective criticism. On the technical side, however, the game is in good shape. Since the 2.0 update, I encountered very few bugs, and over the course of roughly 70 hours, the game crashed only once. Ultimately, [i]Avowed[/i] is a good action RPG with excellent exploration, enjoyable combat, and a strong foundation built on the [i]Pillars of Eternity[/i]s universe. Yet it rarely reaches beyond competence. Shallow role-playing, repetitive content, forgettable characters, and an unconvincing game world prevent it from living up to either Obsidian's legacy or the high standards set by the genre's best modern RPGs.

Avowed no es un juego que vaya a revolucionar nada pero que, en general, está bien llevado. Es a Elder Scrolls lo que Fallout New Vegas es a Fallout 3: una mejor historia, una mejora de mecánicas, mismo espíritu. Al menos en cierta medida, ya que los mapas aquí son independientes y más pequeños. El combate está mejorado para encajar con los tiempos actuales, con esquivas, paradas, counters, etc. La historia no es la mejor historia del mundo pero es bastante decente, con compañeros interesantes y algunas decisiones realmente interesantes sobre el perdón, el riesgo y el poder de los dioses. Y en el mundo de Pillars of Eternity, que siempre es un mundo interesante de explorar y conocer nuevas facetas del mismo. La progresión del personaje está guay, con una buena cantidad de habilidades pasivas y activas a elegir y combinar de entre las clases disponibles libremente (aunque solo 6 en acceso rápido es un crimen). Lo que sí le haría falta es más variedad de enemigos, ya que en general los ves casi todos ya en la primera área y a partir de ahí los siguientes son los mismos (más o menos) con stats más altos; además, cada uno de los grupos (nomuertos, humanos, enanos...) tienden a tener los mismos tipos de enemigos en ellos (el invocador, el healer, el guerrero con escudo, con arma a dos manos, el arquero...) y solo los enemigos más animales se alejan de ese patrón. El loot es raro, porque como en realidad una vez que tienes un arma única que te gusta lo que renta es irla mejorando, pues la inmensa mayoría del loot que encuentras es para vender o para desmantelar y solo muy muy muy raramente encuentras alguna pieza única que te guste más que la que ya llevas (yo, de hecho, me terminé el juego en Path of the Damned con la primera espada única que encontré), lo cual le quita un poco de gracia a explorar (y eso que es un juego que lo recompensa mucho, habiendo cofres y cosas por todos lados). Y en ciertos sentidos a nivel de diseño las zonas parecen un poco repetitivas (todas tienen 5 enemigos para cazarrecompensas, 3 tesoros a encontrar, un recuerdo, un ardra a limpiar...). Gráficamente el juego está bastante bien, aunque yo personalmente esperaba un mundo más original visualmente, y el juego acaba teniendo muchas zonas y cosas que se sienten como muy prototípicas. El sonido está muy bien, desde las voces de los actores (al menos en inglés, que es como lo jugué), a la música y los efectos. Eso si, tiene aún algunos bugs, lo cual es prácticamente inevitable en un juego de este tamaño y, al menos, los bugs que tiene no suelen ser importantes. En resumen, por todo ello quizás no sea el mejor juego de rol de la historia, pero sin duda es un buen juego de rol, con buena cantidad de horas de juego y una historia interesante. Un 8.

very very very very disappointing. i prefer action to CRPG combat so i was cautiously hopeful for avowed, but the writing is a massive step down from pillars of eternity 1 and 2, both in terms of the overarching narrative and individual character dialogue where the pillars games were confident in the seriousness and nuance of their setting and reflected this in their dialogue, avowed falls back to the insufferable quippy "marvel" writing that has plagued high budget games for however many years now. everything is more [i]cartoonish[/i], from the factions, to the quests, to the companions. the pillars games had moments of humour and levity, but the "jokes" in avowed are relentless. your companions butt in every three sentences with a "well, that just happened" tier quip. npcs all feel like they're performing [i]bits[/i] at you. the large majority of the skill check dialogues are too cringe to pick, and that's even ignoring the fact you're meant to be roleplaying a high ranking diplomat. the world avowed creates is a lot more reminiscent of fallout 4 than the franchise it's meant to be a continuation of, which is a massive letdown one side quest stood out to me as a good example of avowed's approach to writing. in short, you help the woman running a bathhouse/brothel retrieve a package, and upon some prying you find out it's a contraceptive herb. a contraceptive herb the empire you're an envoy of banned about ten years ago, leading to the arrest and subsequent disappearance of the woman's mother, who was something of a local reproductive rights champion. so, do you approve of banning contraceptives, [i]player?[/i] do you enjoy ruining people's lives, [i]player?[/i] will you snitch on this woman too, [i]player?[/i] let's be real, that's neither interesting writing nor even an effective allegory for current events. you are not given any more context for why the herb was banned, there's no mention of any changing attitudes either among the populace at large or just the ruling elite, absolutely no attempt to tie this into the politics or history of eora, no attempt to make this reveal cohere with the world at large. you're just [i]told[/i] it was banned not too long ago and asked if you're a mean enough bastard to enforce that ban yourself. it's shallow and lazy in a way the previous pillars games simply were not, and those games were plenty woke themselves! the game loves to mention events and proper nouns from the previous games, but all it does is make me want to go back and replay them instead. writing aside, the game is piss easy. i played a wizard at normal difficulty and every combat encounter has posed absolutely no threat to me whatsoever, leaving me drowning in potions and resources and crafting materials i don't need to use only 11 hours into the game. the game is pretty, but the aesthetic suffers from not having the high fidelity of the isometric games. also, the game runs like ♥♥♥♥ and turning off raytracing doesn't help i hope this isn't the last we'll see of eora, but given the way xbox is being managed, i wouldn't be surprised if obsidian was either not long for this world or about to spend the next decade churning out more mediocre mass market garbage like this. i'll keep playing until i get too bored to continue, but to be honest i don't have much hope that the game can turn itself around.

C'est... plutôt bien ? L'histoire est sympa, ancrée dans le même univers que les Pillars of Eternity donc si vous avez joué à ceux-ci il y pas mal de références sympathiques. Difficile d'en dire plus sans spoiler, mais disons que l'univers est original, mais souffre d'un certain classicisme visuel. Les quêtes annexes oscillent généralement entre le bof et le bon, mais certaines sont vraiment bien et réhaussent clairement le niveau (généralement associées à des donjons). Côté gameplay, je ferais la différence entre les combats et l'exploration. Concernant les combats, ils sont sympas mais limités par le système de progression: le classique arbre de compétence propose des choix intéressant, permettant de mixer les 3 classes du jeu à l'envie, mais en réalité, le "sel" des builds viennent des armes légendaires, dont les effets peuvent être assez marrants. Cependant, le jeu n'encourage pas de changer régulièrement de builds à cause du coût d'amélioration des armes, qui est assez important. C'est dommage, j'aurais aimé pouvoir expérimenter plus. Pour l'exploration, c'est une réussite : il y pas mal de petites histoires racontées par l'environnement et des recoins cachés à découvrir. Cependant, le plaisir est assez diminué aussi par l'aspect récompense, un peu limité par celle associé aux armes légendaires. Les accessoires ont aussi été traités assez simplement, avec pas mal de bonus simple de caractéristiques plutôt que des effets plus originaux. La durée de vie est bien calibrée, même si je pense qu'on aurait pu supprimer certaines zones. Pour finir, j'aborderai deux gros points noirs : le nombre de combats BEAUCOUP trop élevés. C'est presque au niveau d'un DOOM avec un combat par salle ! Cumulé au fait qu'il n'y a pas énormément de variété d'ennemis, la lassitude arrive rapidement. Enfin, j'ai trouvé la partie finale complètement ratée avec deux combats tout nuls. Ca fait un peu pétard mouillé, surtout que narrativement, il y a pas mal de bonnes idées qui nous vendent bien les affrontements finaux, nous les font anticiper. Pour finir, c'est un jeu honnête, de bonne facture qui vous satisfera si vous acceptez ses qualités et ses défauts.

Ich hab nach 6 Stunden aufgeben. Das Kampfsystem als Zauberer ist echt Hammer, die Welt auch an sich auch. Aber das Spiel so dermaßen woke, dass sich mir die Fingernägel kräuseln und von den tausenden Dialogen ist jeder einzelne eine absolute Folter, selbst Dialog Skip dauert ewig und dann noch die stupiden Kommentare der NPC Mitstreiter die einem nonstop folgen. Ein Free-mode wo man allein rumlaufen kann wär schön gewesen, aber so absolut unspielbar.

Es verdad que no es el sucesor de skyrim ni un sustituto, pero es bastante entretenido y tiene muchisimas mecanicas y exploraciones muy variadas

Its not bad after all the updates and worth a buy if its on a good sale

As an ancient Pillars fan I do recommend Avowed. The lore is a bit less deep indeed, but the story is still great, the decisions tuff and I loved the combat system. I was playing on hard and in the end it got too easy but I normally play on normal, so I did not dare to try even harder. But it was super fun.

All the women are strong all the men are dwarves or crooks. Feminist power fantasy. Garbage.

There's nothing groundbreaking about this game, but it doesn't deserve the "mostly positive" rating that it has now: it's a very good RPG in the traditional BioWare/Obsidian style with good mechanics and solid writing.