Avowed Criticism

[Frenetic Pony]

Putting this here so the devs will see it (hey all).

Finished the game and enjoyed it overall, but having kept notes here's a list of criticisms:

The biggest one is, Avowed doesn't do anything particularly new in any category. I'm not suggesting a party based RPG needs to revolutionize everything, rather that it would be nice and enticing to see a one or two things that people have never seen before in between all the things we have. A new game mechanic that changes how you talk to characters fundamentally, or maybe just steal one that already works well but is underused like the "real time" conversations from Oxenfree. Or maybe just a crazy type of monster not in the D&D handbook, or even just some bizarre one off quest where you travel through time or into a characters mind once. A thing or two that stand out as new and memorable, that's all, take a big risk here or there.

Moving onto the host of minor criticisms:

The game felt overly combat heavy to me. I enjoyed the combat certainly, but a good 75% of the playtime, plausibly more, is shooting stuff over and over and over again. I know there a lot of places and times in games that are "filler". Do the simple puzzle, do the simply platforming challenge, etc. But sometimes even filler is nice just for a change of pace.

There's a lot of "video game!" enemy and loot placement in a very story heavy game. Why and how did the chest of random treasure get here? "Because it's loot that's why" isn't a very satisfying answer in a world on the more serious end that you're asked to emotionally invest in. Why are there enemies 5 feet from the city and the city guards? I get "nature is attacking" and etc. but bandits just hanging out around the corner feels overtly silly.

There's a sense of story and environment progression, but not one that's matched by game mechanics, or enemy types, or etc. There's nothing new to discover in these new environments, no new type of weapon or enchantment on a weapon that does something different. No new enemy type that makes you change how you approach combat, no new type of trap even that you have to watch out for. Progression can be more than just scenery and story.

That's mostly about it. There's a ton of "obvious" feeling things to do. If you're going towards a Dark Messiah (finally, what an underrated game, entire direction for action gaming even) one could go farther. Kick enemies off cliffs and into spikes, heck make a boss or two that can do that to the player! Make the physics a bit more unified and coherent (why don't explosions set things on fire?). Etc etc etc, I'm sure there's ideas aplenty there and I'm looking forward to any sequel or otherwise. Thanks for a fun game.

 

[ElderSpacer]

For me(and I'm only 80%ish done), I was in the mood for a simple game I could get lost in. Not say the game was overly simple, but it was easy to pick up and play. I did have a new mechanic I haven't seen before which was the gear system, which is what allowed you to progress in the next area as long as you leveled it up, and leveling up yourself was more about adding abilities and such to myself and my party. I was worried when I saw this is how it worked in reviews and resources were scarce, thinking it may be too cumbersome. You did need to figure out what to keep and upscale, but it worked better than I hoped.

I'm not familiar with the lore and such of the previous games and I got to admit I speed through some of the historical dialogs. I would say it could be more dialog-heavy. More than you may usually see in this kind of game, but I completely understand why they did that. You could really immerse yourself into the lore and get the complete backstory. For that reason, the amount of combat, for me, felt just about right. Really, that's what I came for and it didn't disappoint. I usually play a knight or warrior in these kind of games, but heard that wizard was the most fun in this game so went with that and have really been enjoying it. It's great as it kept me engaged and refreshed combat as I added new spells. I'm going to try a runthrough as my usual warrior player, as spells can be splashy and fun to see, I'm worried a warrior may not progress as well due to that, but will see. Will likely do a hybrid build with maybe archer skills if the amount of points allow. 

I found the loot system pretty good compared to others and found most of the gear used throughout the game that way. You find real meaningful things instead of just trash. Even if it isn't something you want, you still need it to break it down to be able to upgrade equipment. It really kept me looking around everywhere to be sure I didn't miss some top tier stuff. There sure didn't seem as much wizard stuff out there to find versus tons of warrior weapons and outfits. What I didn't get was why there was all these boxes around to be destroyed. When I noticed you could generally see into them and if they had anything inside, I just stopped destroying them. Maybe I'm missing what the deal was with them.

I'm looking forward to DLC to keep my interest before I go onto other games. I hope an Avowed 2 is in the works where the team can really stretch out and add the living things, like a living world where you see populated areas with people going about their business etc and a more stretched-out world.

The only real negative I have about the game(as a PC player) is the constant fatal errors crashing the game. As I said, I was looking for a world to get lost in and can play for a few hours. WIth that, I average 3-4 crashes to the desktop. I set the auto save to a short time frame and save myself often, so I can usually get back into the game without losing too much time. A lot of games come out not fully cooked nowadays, but I thought this would be fixed by now. I saw a reviewer who crashed at the end of the game and wasn't able to see final cinematic. This is a big worry for me, and could ruin what has been a great experience. Hopefully we'll see this patched very soon. In reviews of those who played the game with PC, they did note they told Obsidian about the issue, I just hope the issue isn't baked too deep into the game to fix.