Avowed

this is the kind of game that was made for me, i love the slower levelling progression, the rewarding skill system when you do level up, the gear that you find while exploring wonderous landscapes, a story line worth investing time into and deep lore that has spread across 3 games.

First thing, don't play mage. The game is gas, but most gripes that I have with this game has to do with the fact I played mage. Your followers barely draw aggression, the enemies do not care if there is a giant with a shotgun charging them, you will be the one they target. Melee is also broken; I didn't play as melee myself but the enemies are always able to smack you from across the room with aimtracing, range does not matter in this game. The other ♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing about mage is that your magic does not regenerate. You have to kill enemies and collect the essence to fuel your spells. Despite all that, I did beat the game as a mage, though I could not have possibly attempted that on a difficulty higher than normal. Visually, the game is beautiful. What makes it beautiful is less the graphics, and more the environment. Every act in the game has wildly different scenery. Many enemies are reused throughout them but it didn't really bother me. The goal of the visuals is to give the impression of a very hostile land that seems nearly untamable, and I think it succeeded. I've seen a few reviews that rag on the environment being empty because all the NPCs are in the city and I gotta disagree. The island is very hostile and it makes sense for the player to be the only idiot wandering around, except you aren't the only one out there: there's a ton of quest givers to find outside of the city, I don't even know why people are complaining. Another strong point is the general quality of life for the player. While there is a weight system, it's nonconsequential as you can just send stuff to the stash from inventory or dismantle it because materials don't weigh anything. Fast travel points are generous, food/resources are abundant, previous upgrade materials can be used to make the next tier of upgrade materials. Point is, the devs went out of their way to remove obstacles that are just there to be annoying/time-consuming and it's kind of nice. Companions are honestly pretty weak sauce. There's only one that I find compelling as a character, the rest are just sort of there. With a lineup like this, I'm not shocked the devs didn't even attempt romance, it's probably a better game without it. There isn't any sort of affinity system and you can pretty much do what you want; your companions will complain and you'll be chooms again by the next conversation. The narrative: it's simultaneously the strongest and weakest point of the game. The setting is actually very compelling, and I found real reason to keep moving forward as the character. NPCs are genuinely affected by your choices and you can earn their hate or love. You have many choices to make and very few of them are actually ones which you don't know what will happen. However, every interaction is saturated in a very typical Colonial Power vs Free People vibe, and ALL of your companions oppose the colonial power that you're Avowed to. Being the "good guy" involves running around apologizing to everyone for the way your empire conducts themselves [spoiler] before betraying that empire [/spoiler] That being said, you actually do have a choice to be good, bad, or anywhere in between, it's just obvious what the writers consider to be "good". Observe the main antagonist if you doubt that. RPG elements. Pretty standard skill/attribute point system that awards just enough points to make you feel like you have a build going by the time you're halfway through the game. I've seen better and worse. The game caps attributes at 30 but you'll never see anywhere near it on a single skill if you're playing the game right. It has New Vegas-like dialogue skill checks but those checks are much more common and much less rewarding. I do recommend this game overall, and once again, warn the reader against playing a mage.

The game is a solid 8/10. One point off for having no romance in a party-based rpg. One point off for being poorly optimized to the point of crashing after playing for around 2-3 hours at a time. Aside from those two main gripes, everything else about the game is amazing and if it wasn't for those two factors, I would definitely play through multiple playthroughs.

This is a fairly decent game but you should know what you are getting. If you are into the worlds of obsidian then it is a must buy. For others, this is a fairly decent RPG. In some of the last patches they went and made alternate builds viable, like ranger or gunslinger. Which, I don't know if they nerfed enemies but they seem to have a limited attack range which means you can dodge projectiles and shoot until the enemies are dead. The world is pretty vast, broken up into zones, each of which the rarity of weapons/treasure increases. Aside from named treasure in special locations the rest seems to be pretty generic. So I'd advise doing story and side quest missions rather than mainly exploring, as that, although rewarding, can get tedious. I have to say the landscapes are very beautiful, especially at night, with glowing fungus and toadstools everywhere. The game has a stealth mode, but it isn't a good one. Companions will always engage enemies and apparently you cannot get rid of them except perhaps by story choice. So stealth is for the first shot.

Forget all your expectations about this game and this game will be ridiculously fun.

It's just like dark souls but in first person

I love this game! Combat is super fun, companion chats feel just as sharp and interesting as the dragon age games. The romance mechanic isn't as deep but I wasn't expecting it to be from this series, and there are still enough conversations to make the team feel like a real team. The world is beautiful and I have so much fun exploring it. All the different areas are super unique and it's awesome seeing the POT monsters up close and personal.

Pretty interesting so far. Game play is good. I'd watch out for Game Services and the Xbox App, though. if those aren't right, you'll have issues.

Fun game. The combat and the looting got a bit old, so towards the end I kind of sped past things, but overall it was not a bad game. I got this game when it first came out and it was a buggy mess, a year later I play it and all the bugs seemed to be fixed! Didn't have any issues. I will say though that the NPCs in the towns seemed a bit lifeless which bothered me a bit. The fighting gets old because it's the same old thing each time. You start with mobs and then new mobs spawn in and then there's a priest that heals, rangers, maybe a mage, some spiders or so, and then the tank. It definately got old but the story was decent. I enjoyed having a say in what I wanted to do. I liked how when you go back to the older cities, there are chances of new dialogue with certain NPCs. Lots of secret areas, it pays to be adventerous and look around a lot.

game looks great. if HDR is not fixed still. use renodx reshade to improve hdr a lot. renodx ue extended works best. game is good runs nicely without stutter and fps is not bad.