Diplomacy Through Kicking Ass
HIGH Combat is way more satisfying than the usual RPG.
LOW Enemy variety is somewhat lacking.
WTF 56 hours of play and I didn’t find a single decent greathammer.
Plague. Plague never changes… even when it originates on a distant island, turns people into homicidal plants and spreads across the land threatening to engulf all of civilization if not torn out by the roots.
Wake up hero, looks like we have a dreamscourge to burn.
Taking place within the Pillars of Eternity universe, the player is hardly the standard RPG protagonist who begins as an unknown hero of humble origins. Not only are they the personal envoy of the Emperor sent overseas to root out the cause of the dreamscourge plague wreaking havoc, they were also touched at birth by an unknown god, resulting in their head sprouting a customizable amount of fungus ranging from a few cosmetic markings to a veritable forest cascading down their face.
As if that’s not enough, major political forces are at play in the background. A mass immigration is forcing the native population into shantytowns, and a rogue military element are more than happy to bring this lawless nation to heel by butchering everything in sight. Our fungally-blessed hero has the freedom to fight back against injustice or profit from it wholesale, making loyal companions or bitter enemies along the way, all while having an internal conversation with a new and unexpected voice in their head.
After initially wrecking on a small island just short of their destination, players are given a brisk tutorial on how Avowed works. The game can be seen from first- or third-person perspective and despite wearing half my body weight in plate armor, exploration via parkour is heavily encouraged. It’s common to leap across yawning gaps, haul oneself up ledges and duck under waterfalls to collect any loot squirreled away within.
Avowed doesn’t take place within a a truly open world, instead opting to whisk players to new regions via the overworld map, but each area is expansive and absolutely filled with tons of loot, sidequests and secrets to discover. Whether hunting down bounties or poring over treasure maps, there’s plenty to take care of while out romping through the world.
It’s a dangerous environment out there, and combat is particularly impressive in the flexibility it allows. While I settled on a warrior build wielding a giant two-handed axe, it’s entirely possible to dart around the battlefield wielding a pistol and a magical grimoire in either hand, blasting lead into the bad guys before broiling them alive with flame spells during the reload. Or perhaps players would prefer to be stealthy, sneaking up on unaware groups and thinning the herd by shanking them in the back, one by one.
Charging up massive power attacks, parrying the strikes of enemies twice the player’s size and dancing in and out of danger with quick dashes all just feel right. Rather than simple sword swings or outcomes that depend on behind-the-scenes virtual dice rolls, Avowed‘s melee is surprisingly gratifying for an open-ish world RPG.
As players level up they naturally obtain access to better skills and bonuses, and they’re not locked in to just one archetype — they’re able to mix and match skills and buffs from the Warrior, Ranger and Wizard trees at will. If the build goes awry or doesn’t perform as expected, paying a paltry sum in the upgrade menu will allow for a complete respec at any time.
I will say that the loot pool doesn’t cater to all players equally though. I wound up swimming in magical swords and shields by game’s end, and yet never once found an enchanted greathammer after more than fifty hours of play. Given how I initially wanted to build my character as a stun-focused berserker, that totally sucked, despite finding plenty of neat stuff otherwise.
Avowed‘s performance on the XBX was surprisingly solid in performance mode, with a smooth framerate that only stuttered or dropped while under load. It may not be rock solid, but it’s more than adequate, especially considering that the environments are nicely detailed, featuring lush scenery, barren hellscapes and even more in between.
My quibbles with Avowed are few.
During the prerelease review window, I did notice a few of the quest chains in the third major area did break prematurely. More fundamentally, as good as the combat is, the lack of enemy variety does become an issue in later stages. There are only so many humanoids, beetles and bears a player can kill before wishing something else was being crushed under their mace instead, and each enemy group encounter becomes lamentably predictable.
Avowed may also be a little too streamlined for stat-obsessed RPG players. While there is scope for setting up combinations of spells, debuffs and companion specializations, simply wading in with an axe and chopping everyone in the head can usually do the job just fine.
The final thing about Avowed is a little more fundamental — as fine as it is, it doesn’t break any new ground. It does everything it sets out to do, but there are few surprises in store for fans of the genre, and the scaled-down and guided approach that comes about as a result of a not-truly-open world lends it a slightly compartmentalized, more predictable and borderline regimented quality that some might find less than ideal.
Despite those complaints, I had a great time with Avowed. The dialogue is well-written throughout, the storyline keeps things interesting, choices and optional sidequests can have big impacts on events as a whole, and perhaps most importantly of all, everything eventually wraps together in a satisfying manner that pays respect to the player’s various choices made throughout their adventure. Plus great-feeling combat!
Avowed is just comfort-food adventuring all ’round, and if there’s more of this universe to come in the future, I’ll signing up for the next journey in a heartbeat.
Rating: 8 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Xbox Game Studios. It is currently available on XBX/S and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 56 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is provisionally rated M and contains Extreme Violence, Drugs, Use of Alcohol/Tobacco, and Strong Language. While it’s not particularly gory in combat, there is a fair amount of blood and nasty stuff to be found throughout. F-bombs, corpses lying with half their body missing or spilling out, the usual.
Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available. I couldn’t see any at least, which is odd considering the exceptional amount of other accessibility options found in the menus.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and/or resized, with a very generous amount of options for tinkering with background opacity, font sizes and the like. There are no significant audio cues. This game is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.
The chance discovery of a muddy, burnt out copy of '50 Shades of Grey' in a hunting pit gave him an appreciation for complex plots, characters and overarching narrative, and the unexpected gift of a Spectrum 48k allowed him to indulge in these newfound sensibilities with intelligent, highbrow games such as 'flee from the badly animated spinning turquoise dolphins' or 'avoid the deadly glowing bricks of doom'.
The fusion of both these interests finally culminated with Darren teaching himself how to write by basically guessing at what words might look like when jotted down on paper as opposed to being howled inarticulately at the skies.
Now others occasionally get to read his scribblings. Lucky them.
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