You're given just enough for your mind's eye to work with, so suspending disbelief isn't a problem. Some areas feature a considerable amount of detail when it comes to furnishings, with elaborate layouts in bedrooms, libraries, and other locales. Thankfully, Avadon has a lot of appeal beyond this admittedly off-putting surface. Still, there is no way to roll up a custom character, so you're stuck with a quick choice before delving into the action.
There are some variances, most notably in the way that the classes veer off into slightly innovative directions. The only difference is their names: the warrior is called a blademaster, the wizard a sorceress, the cleric a shaman, and the thief a shadowwalker. You get to type in a name and pick from four set Dungeons & Dragons-inspired classes that touch on the standard fighter, wizard, cleric, and thief archetypes. You start off with no real character customization options. Game options are sparse in the beginning. Oddly, a near-constant wind seems to blow whether you're indoors or out. The game has no music or voice acting, and monsters share a handful of attack noises. Only some of the textures stand up to scrutiny: the gravel roads and stone walls look pretty good. Outdoor locales are loaded with symmetrically arranged cacti, rocks, and other terrain features that make the landscape look surreal. Dungeon furniture and architecture mainly consist of standard chests and wardrobes like the set dressing in summer stock theater. Characters and monsters are soft-focus multicolored blobs, and you can't zoom the camera in to get a better look. Crude isometric visuals and paltry sound recall the 286 era. The single-player-only game could almost have been developed in 1989. If you don't have any experience with Spiderweb's previous games, your first moments with Avadon are likely to come as a shock. With that said, you definitely need to possess the nostalgia gene to get the most out of this one.Īvadon ain't pretty, but it offers a lot of RPG depth to get your imagination working.
Just like the developer's earlier efforts in the Avernum and Geneforge franchises, the game compensates for its archaic visuals and sound with an engaging focus on storytelling and turn-based party combat that recalls the glory days of the Gold Box games from the late '80s and early '90s.
Avadon: The Black Fortress is a fantasy epic that's as appealingly retro as the big red demon on the cover of the first edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master's Guide.
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