17 hours into Avowed. finished the first gameplay area. Felt like writing something.
(Not sure how many areas total, they mention 4 settlements, so maybe 4+?)
Generally, I feel it's good, but not great. That might still change, of course.
+ Story. I kinda feel like I know where the story is going, but we'll see. It certainly advanced a great deal in the first area. So far seems to fit in the universe well enough.
+ There's lots of decisions you can make about stuff. Quests resolutions, story etc. No idea how much meat there actually is behind those decisions yet, since I only played once. There seem to be two main dimensions you make decisions around, whether you want strict or more lax rule in the Living Lands, and about the fantasy stuff going on. Maybe it'll get more complicated in the end, dunno.
+ Exploration: Lots of parkour, but because the town layouts are realistic, it's fun enough. By default the game highlights treasure with both visual and audio clues, and the game is basically designed around it, ie. there's stuff you're very unlikely to find if you don't have the cues on. But due to the itemization (below), it doesn't matter much if you miss treasure.
+ Combat is fun. Very explosive, probably even if you weren't throwing around fireballs. I'm playing a pure wizard, wands and spellbooks and so on. I use the book of elements and book of greater elements, so it's fireballs and chain lightning etc. Bit of a glass cannon, I win most combats by killing stuff before they get in my face. I lose when there's too many coming for different directions. Thankfully the first companion you find has taunt abilities, so that helps a lot. Enemy AI often prioritizes the PC, and ranged enemies don't seem to ever miss, so that's hard for my wizard. Aiming AoE spells is hard unless you have the high ground.
- Itemization. Because you're only equipping a single character and there's a upgrade/crafting system, 95% of what you find is materials to upgrade your items, so it isn't very interesting.
- The starting area has only 2 companions, so it's either them or none at all. At least I didn't find either annoying.
- Encounter design isn't very varied. First area has basically 4-5 different enemy groups, so it's always a mix of them, even if there doesn't seem to be any reason why Xaurips, spiders and bears are hanging together. It gets repetitive. Hopefully there's different enemies in future areas.