overdrive's Avadon: The Black Fortress review

Avernum swallowed quite a few hours of my time and I didn't even realize it. I never finished that game though, partly I think because I'm an aesthete, and Spiderweb doesn't seem to care much about polish (Case in point: Annoying sound effects, virtually no music, sub-par recycled graphics). The leveling process also bothered me a bit; it seemed like attempts to make a unique class, such as a cleric/fighter, would end up helplessly underpowered. I was at the point where I realized I had built all my characters wrong and would need to start over and just wasn't willing to do it.

Still, I think it swallowed about 30 hours of my time, and that's impressive for a game that I had a lot of complaints about. The storytelling and exploration were very solid. Spiderweb clearly has their own successful formula going and an oldschool audience who appreciates their stuff. This game seems to be in the same vein, and I wish them all the best.

Pretty good review, by the way. I'm still judging for ROTW so you will likely get some feedback in the article.

Yeah, I see what you mean. Seems like you're not expected to get cute with characters and just build them along their specifications unless you want to wind up with a bizarre and weak creation. And magic seems a bit overpowered compared to physical attacks. At least, I noticed I was doing more (and more effective) damage with my magic classes than with my fighter and archer. I think Avadon helped with that simply due to the cool-down meter. If you were a mage, you could only use the big, group-effect spells sporadically, while mainly relying on your single-hit fire wand attack (which was completely - or mostly - ineffective against fire-based creatures).

The minimalistic sound effect and reused graphics don't really bother me, though. As far as comparing Avernum and Avadon, my preference is Avernum. Larger, more open world as compared to a shorter, more linear game that delves more into world-building and story-telling, but (as mentioned in the review) has its holes. Like how all four of your potential sidekicks wind up with grievances against Avadon and Redbeard (with 2/4 even having really legit issues) and the game really seeming to direct you towards turning on Redbeard. But then the sequel shows that its canon that you didn't, as he's still in charge. At least I was smart enough to do a bit of reading and had found out that the optional Redbeard boss fight is considered the worst, most tedious fight in Spiderweb history, so I never bothered. Left the final "fight for Avadon" section to be really anti-climactic (you fight some assassins, make your way to Redbeard, go through dialogue trees and get to the ending), but still preferable to the alternative!