Avernum: Escape From the Pit

This is a good game for a certain kind of RPG fan. Let's get the negatives out of the way first. There's barely any music, the sound effects are very basic, the graphics are very basic & the storytelling is done mostly through simple text blocks, and the character builds are kind of simple and yet imbalanced. But beyond that, this is a very open-ended turn-based RPG with an excellent setting & lore, with a good variety of quests, enemies, characters, locations and so on. Most dungeons do feel different despite the limited storytelling capabilities of the game and there's a good amount of tactical challenge to sink your teeth into, especially on higher difficulties. I think itemisation is another fun part of this game, there are a lot of gear slots and aside from throwing weapons, there's good variety in magic items and consumables to use. On a more vent-ish note, I 100%'d this on Torment difficulty and I do think the game is much better on lower difficulties. It could be so insanely difficult at times on Torment in a not very fun way, often RNG-heavy with status effects that could just lose a fight for you if they procced, and it requires use of strong builds & cheese tactics to really make progress. Ah well, that was self-inflicted. I'm curious if the dev's other games are just as brutal on Torment or if this is an outlier.

It's banana that a dev choose to totally give up balancing the game since it has to put in too much effort.

почти прошёл, но уже сложилось мнение. почему игра хорошая? потому что идеальные пошаговые бои, вариативная прокачка, крутяшные заклинанания даже призывы есть и очарования как в дивайнити!!!! пещерный мир упадка, разорения, холода и тьмы каждое спасение/убийство/поступок будут обсуждаться всеми в этом мире красивый классический визуал лорд Хохотун :) пауки пердуны говоруны комфортный слог без графомании мощные волшебники ублюдки нацисты волшебники ублюдки смешные глупые ящерицы страшные проклятия для жадных глобальная карта как в героях бродить тёмное фэнтези + юмор фаллаут 2 НО умеренный почему не очень хорошая? где саундтрек где развитие лора чет медленно оч надоедает одно и то же слышать где шлюхN

Great indie crpg. It's a little crusty, but I got used to it in 2-3 hours and it started to feel great to play. Cool world and engaging, if not revolutionary, combat.

Played Exile back as a kid and always loved Spiderweb and Fantasoft games. This one is an oldie but a good one if you like old school not necessarily DnD RPGs.

Great game if it comes to exploration and setting, the world is pretty much open from the beginning, limited only by the power of our party. Main plot isn’t particularly engaging but there are numerous quality side quests. Party development is somehow limited, especially on higher difficulties, it seems we are forced to optimise a lot. On the other hand we have a lots od magical items (but balance is off, pole arms, bows are rather rare and thrown weapons are straight useless) My main complaint is pacing, I played it on hard and even though I could progress through certain locations at rather stable pace, there were often ENORMOUS difficulty spikes. Some were that serious that coming back few levels later was still not enough to beat it. Some of the skill descriptions are either confusing or incorrect, also it’s hard to predict hit chance/damage we might take against certain enemies. Some spells seem weak vs AI but are really strong vs player, like domination, when your melee warrior gets charmed (due to usually low mental resistance), he can literally one hit your other characters, on the other hand it takes him good few rounds to kill even weak enemies - due to high resistance + big HP pools. All in all nice game, worth trying, if you want to try higher difficulties be prepared for some frustration and poor balance.

One of the best RPGs I have ever played. Great story and setting, with a lot of quests, side quests, and secrets. The gameplay is very well balanced—there is no grinding, nothing is overbloated, and the story progression has a nice flow.

Chainmail bikinis.