Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

I tried this game because people were saying it was like The Elder Scrolls, but better. It's not better. It's not worse either. It's just as boring as TES games. Unfortunately it took me more than 2 hours to realize that the game was likely not going to get any better, and Steam thinks if you can't speed run a game the first time you play it you shouldn't get a refund. Unless you are really into quite binary choices, I would suggest staying away from this game.

Грааль пройден на все ачивки. Могу констатировать, что игра сделана с душой! И багами конечно же. Все как мы любим. Оторваться невозможно при первом прохождении, и внезапно приятная для второго. Можно квесты пройти с другими концовками и вообще находишь много нового. Немного расстраивает так себе оптимизация (лютые фризы при прицеливании из лука в отрытом мире например) и забагованные ачивки. Например я хз как такое произошло, но в одном из ДЛЦ они дали новую более дамажную удочку, а ачивка засчитывается при добивании босса ТОЛЬКО обычно удочкой. Или баг, что сдача жетонов Хранителей засчитывается только, если сдать их все залпом. Ну и мое любимое: есть 2 ачивки на убийство бытовыми предметами, но у героя есть перк, который наносит урон в радиусе, если тот получает урон. В итоге начинает марафон загрузок в попытках успеть добить босса пока не сработает перк. И длц немного странный по сеттингу. Морская тема не моя. Но хорошего все равно больше! Я даже спойлерить не буду. Грааль стоит своих денег даже без распродажи!

Have been wondering why I could never get into this game as much as other open world RPG's that it obviously takes inspiration from. The dark fantasy setting is something I always enjoy and the game has some interesting takes on the genre along with some very cool visual design. But something always felt off and I could not bring myself to get invested in the world and characters no matter how much I tried. Come to find out recently that its because the game used generative AI for a lot the writing and some of the art. This leads to the writing and dialogue to be very awkward and "unnatural" as well as the pacing just not making sense. I am beyond disappointed to learn this. I would have much preferred the all the problems this game has been due to amateur writers and voice actors, but sadly it is due to much lazier and less endearing reasons.

Undisclosed AI usage everywhere and still no mandatory disclosure tag.

Constant freezing/stuttering. shader cache for it does not exist in my system for me to reset it. uninstalled, verified, reset everything. put on lowest settings with everything turned off with no change. game is super bottlenecked. even installed the mod to help with it. this game is just very unplayable. ive heard before a couple friends played with no issues but that was a way while back. Now this game is just unplayable. Seems like a super fun game though, if it ran.

Аряяя, дожили!! В 2025 году выпустили РПГ в стиле Готики и Скайрима! Я ныла буквально несколько лет, потому что играть в онли сюжетик с деревянной боевкой уже не так интересно. Получается, наныла, снимаю шляпку. - Вайбовые саунды. Я слышала, что их украли, но мне, откровенно говоря, литтерали пoxyй. Я довольна и это главное; - Я уже говорила, что это РПГ? Большие локации, минимально данжей, в отличие от Скайрима, есть прокачка (сыроватая), прогрессия в броне. Есть квестики на кулинарку, алхимию, рыбалку. Какое-то воспоминание от Варкрафта исходит, пока Близзард не превратились в нынешний Близзард, но это уже другая история; - Персонажи. Нет, город не живой абсолютно. Это не бесконечные гонцы с письмами, это не подбегающие к тебе челики. Здесь просто кто-то есть, кто-то походил, кто-то дал квест. Ну.. и всё) Дед терпел и нам велел, мальчики и девочки. Душнить не буду, мне и так заходит; - Боевка. Я играю за лукаря, потому что потому. Мили здесь +- как и везде, ну и как лук. С магией я если честно в первое прохождение возиться не захотела, потому что рассчитывала, что игра будет сложнее. Что скажу по поводу магии: здесь вы покупаете или находите касты. Что скажу по поводу лука - имба, сук. Хороший дамаг, замедло при прицеле. Даже сырники справятся. Играю на среднячке; - Броня. Есть прогрессия. Либо ты ее учишь через рецепты, либо находишь с умерших бомжей. Ниче нового; - Рецепты. Мне нравится система, что ты когда покупаешь книгу, ты сразу видишь, что изучишь; - Сюжет. Я не понимаю, как здесь без спойлеров, ну давайте так: [spoiler] Если что сами виноваты [/spoiler]. [spoiler] Ты заболеваешь красной смертью, тебя спасает чел и потом ты еще забираешь короля Артура. Все круто, все классно, но в первом акте просто челиксы несколько раз упоминают короля и фсё. Где какое-то повествование про красных братьев и прочее? Мне нужно больше золота... ой, информации. [/spoiler]. Он есть, но спрятауся немного от моих глаз; - Хитбоксы. Хотите шутку? Я файчусь с боссом, который бил меня стаффом и я была в его спине. Я, видимо, получила хит с его спины, который размозжил мне всё лицо. Мне это не нравится. Хитбоксы здесь реально кривоваты. Это скорее смеха ради, мне играть не мешает, пока я доминирую по мапе. Как только мне начнут присовывать здесь появится отредактированное нытье. В целом, идк что добавить. Есть моменты сырости, есть вайб, что что-то забрано с других игр: от разговоров с персонажами вайб дарк соулса, что-то от готики, много чего от Скайрима. Мне самой рил вкатило, я любитель бегать, качаться и закрывать кучу очень нужных квестов. Одна из немногих игр, где я хочу купить длс и пройти некст вместе с ним за мага. Контента много)

Great game but far into the game in the second act they just had to slip in the dialogue about a guy making a magical heart for his male lover. Imagine that line popping up ten or twelve years ago in a game but here we are. For those that scorn me and my perspective just know the feeling is mutual. I don't want stuff like that in my games and when it's tucked so far in and past the point of refunds I feel it's deceitful and intentional. Side note - In the last 45 minutes I have been banned from the forums and given a penalty for any free downloads because the moderator stated "slip it in" was discrimination. They are actively watching game reviews and handing out punishment because I dared say anything. I will NEVER buy from this company again.

I'm doing a positive review now because I know that when I finish this, it'll still be positive. But I will update this review a lot later, this is just to get the positive out the gate. Let's start where the game starts. The character creator. My favourite bit in any game. This one is decent, it's not lot's of sliders to shape everything and eventually wind up with a monstrosity because you slid something and sliding it back doesn't seem to do the job. You can play as male or female, you can change whether they have defined muscles or not. Choose skin colours and then get into the more defined details. There's choices to choose for face shapes, rather than fine tuning. There's choices for tattoos, not just on the face but the body as well. It's a lot for a first person game. (There is a third person button. Z by default.) If you want to be a bald man with a beard, a woman with a ponytail, or a pale grey man with bright pink hair and a bright blue beard. You can do that. You cannot be a woman with a beard. I don't personally mind, but I know people who would've liked that. Then you choose your name, which for me, takes anywhere between 5 and 20 mmmm....onths. (There's a website, fantasy name generators, I usually use that and merge like 3 names together, cuts those months down to minutes.) When I first started this game, waking up in a prison cell and someone commenting on how I was waking up. It felt eerily familiar. But that's where most of the familiarity stops. The gameplay, while similar to skyrim. Feels more polished. There's still the occasional bug. But for the most part, the game plays well and wants you to play it. I say this, as someone who loves Skyrim, I have over 3000 hours in Skyrim, I had better bloody like it, right? This game is better than Skyrim in a lot of ways... but it's not Skyrim. Do not go into this game thinking "It's just Skyrim but." This is it's own game and it does a really good job of differentiating itself. I like the combat, but the biggest issue I've found is that regardless of melee build, you're going to need stamina and lot's of it. You'll run outta that ♥♥♥♥ right quick. Early game magic is very bad, but it can get good later. Archery is great, but again, you're gonna need stamina. You don't need stamina to sprint while out of combat, which quite frankly, I'm really upset more games don't do that. I've only played roughly 8 hours. And most of that was trying different builds with different characters. I'm barely out of the starting area. Enemies get real strong real quick. So definitely focus on combat skills and stats before you focus on improving your fishing. (That wasn't smart of me...) Stealth is okay, not amazing. But if you can get up behind someone with a knife, you can take them down extremely fast. By default, walk is holding caps lock... I hate that, so I set it to toggle and on G. Out the way enough, AND IT DOESN'T MAKE ME SHOUT AT PEOPLE RANDOMLY. Combat overall for me, I typically go for sneaky stabby builds first. Not sneaky shooty like most people. So I can avoid the bulk of a fight if I get a good stab in. But the actual fight itself tends to be dodging to get behind someone. I typically dodge through them when they run at me, quickly spin round mid dodge and slash them in the back. This works extremely well in this game. (Minus the stamina issue, I really should get more stamina, much more.) I'm really bad at timing parries, my instinct tells me to dodge. I did try the parries and I was really bad at them... as usual. But I'm really bad at them myself, so I can't tell you if this is everyones experience. You'll get a feel real quick out the gates for whether or not the combat suits you. Some of the first enemies are slow, zombie like things. So you can backpedal and shoot, or run around them, or whatever. Play with them a bit, practice with them. They're zombies, they're not going anywhere less you kill them. The quests are phenomenal. I don't want to spoil things, but even small side quests feel important to do. If you pick up and read a letter, it'll give you a quest. Which can feel just like, Oh, I just have to deliver a letter... But that opens up so much more in time. And seriously.... read the letters. Read everything. Read it out loud and put on voices like I do. The people writing dialogue and text in this game really put their soul into it. You should too! That's about it for now. I am just at the start of the game. But I really wanted to get some words out. I will update this, promise! <3 Thank you for reading, or skipping to the end. Have a lovely day.< 3