Avowed

Honestly, this game is not exactly horrible and perhaps it's worth buying it with a generous discount, BUT The word which describes the game best is "incompleteness". When you play, you will always bump into things that feel incomplete or underwhelming. There is no stealing in the game, you can just pick whatever you want. You can't attack the neutral NPCs. When you open a chest, you don't crack it wide open, the character just leaves it slightly ajar. Combat becomes boring over time (because you either faceroll a pack or you get swarmed by summons) and I straight up dropped the difficulty a notch because the enemies were way too spongy for my taste, not to mention that it's quite important to raise your item level often. Yes, upgrading your gear is important if you don't want to suffer. Dialogue is weak and quite often is there just to have a dialogue. The story could've been quite interesting but it fails to grasp your attention and then stumbles in its own narrative spaghetti, failing to properly set expositions and unravel the important bits step by step. All in all, I went into the game with rather low expectations and I saw exactly why Avowed is not exactly a great game. Not only it's lacking by modern standards, it's even worse than the games which came out 15 years ago. Avowed would've been better if it was an adventure, but as an RPG you'd better play Skyrim or Oblivion. In fact, any other Obsidian RPG is better than this game, and I can't comprehend how a company that made KOTOR 2 and New Vegas made this thing... I finished Star Wars Outlaws recently, and as a game which is also hailed as a failure I found it surprisingly good. Outlaws, despite glaring flaws, isolated them into specific parts of the game and left you with an immersive adventure. I enjoyed it, to my surprise. In Avowed, the essence of the second to second gameplay is flaws. You will meet them constantly. Something will bug you at any moment you play. If you really want to play this game, pick on a generous discount.

Nette, motivierende Spielweise. Man kämpft in diesem RPG in Egoperspektive gegen Feinde. Gut gemacht. Die Spielweise im Kampf ist flott und actionlastig. Allerdings auch etwas unübersichtlich oft, was der Egoperspektive mit ihrem eingeschränkten Sichtfeld geschuldet ist. Wahlweise lässt sich das Spiel aber auch aus der dritten Person spielen. Das ist aber ähnlich wie in Skyrim: nicht optimal, aber spielt sich deutlich besser. Es ist gut, dass man das Sichtfeld wechseln kann. Ständig sammelt man nützlichen Loot ein, was auch motiviert. Die Geschichte, Charaktere, Quests und Dialoge finde ich meistens sehr, sehr langweilig. Mich interessiert das bisher null. Sie hätten das Spiel besser reduzieren sollen auf die Spielweise mit ein wenig Story. Auch, weil die Dialoge teils ellenlang sind und sich nicht abbrechen lassen (man kann die einzelnen Sätze natürlich unterbrechen, aber nicht aus einem gestarteten Dialog vorzeitig aussteigen). In der Handlung geht es um irgendeine Seuche, die sich im Land der Lebenden ausbreitet. Nach jetzt knapp 14 Spielstunden finde ich das leider immer noch nicht sonderlich interessant erzählt. Grafik ist gut soweit. Musik ist auch in Ordnung, nicht, was man sich merkt, aber stimmungsvoll. Sprecher (Englisch) sind auch okay. Fazit: Das Spiel Avowed glänzt dann am besten, wenn es sich nicht in seine lahme High Fantasy-Story verliert. Es macht Spaß, das Land zu erkunden und gegen Gegner zu kämpfen.

Great addition to the Pillars universe, I prefer the isometric style gameplay but this game is very pretty and the combat is fun. I particularly like the guns & combining them with magic. The story is interesting too, I'm curious to see how it all ends.

Ignore the negative reviews, this game is a lot of fun and really in-depth.

Just finished my first playthrough. Loved it. Combat is fun and the story is gripping. Definitely worth the price.

The game feels like a solid C at best. When people cry about The Witcher not being a real RPG, they just didn't play one of THESE "RPGs." If we remember the "200 endings in Fallout 3" meme [i](in a 2008 interview, Todd Howard claimed that Fallout 3 had "over 200 endings")[/i] and count all variations of slides in the end as a separate part of the ending in this game, we won't get even 50. Nearly none of your choices or actions matter. We talk about a straight-as-a-board game that branches a bit in the very end to give you a different flavor of the ending. Walls of dialogues with characters you can't relate to, walls of texts in books and letters that are just boring, leading to nothing. Combat. It's a step up from Skyrim combat, that's for sure. But there is a problem. It has been over 14 years after Skyrim's release, and these small improvements in combat are something that had to appear like 12 years ago and get a few even better installations at this point. But no, here we are 14 years later with just some minor improvements that make the combat feel less tedious. Movement feels very fluid and casually fun. With all this in mind, I can for sure say that being an RPG and not action-adventure does actively hurt this game. More focus on linear experience with more developed locations and enemies with fun mechanics and a tighter experience overall would make this game into a solid B project, but we are where we are: a puddle-deep RPG with mediocre writing and untapped potential of a decent movement and combat system. Buy only on a big sale, decent for 30$.

The game is obviously not without flaws, but what it does well, namly the exploration, it does REALLY well. Climbing towers, jumping rooftops, descending sinkholes ... So many nooks and crannies filled with hidden loot! The story and writing are also alright, despite what I had heard of it. It is not "Pillars of Eternity" level detail but for an action rpg it is pretty good.