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Being a skyrim and fallout fan, I wasnt necessarily disappointed by Avowed, just understimulated.
The whole 15ish hours I played i found myself just craving the depth of a bethesda game, which really wasnt there.
Cons: The lack of a fully integrated item physics system. No wanted or theft system. 1 dimensional npcs that only seem to physically adhere to any lore if they arent human. The human npcs look randomly generated in a character customization screen. The lack of an open world to explore and invisible walls all over. Shallow inventory management that doesnt feel like it matters. Very Mid story with a zero effort intro/character background. Weapons/magic combinations arent as versatile as I would like.
Pros: Streamlined inventory management, for people that dont enjoy it. Combat is solid. Magic and effects are beautiful, fun and tie into exploration well. Platforming is solid with excellent level design. Graphics and performance are great also. Unlimited stamina while exploring is great.
The scales just dont tip in the game’s favor, especially when a game from 2011 outdoes it in almost every way.
I understand that obsidian is focused on churning out more easily digestible games more often, but is that really what rpg fans want? More shallow games that leave us wanting?
Idk maybe skyrim left me with unrealistic expectations, but all i want now is that level of world building and depth when it comes to rpgs of this type.
Avowed reminds me a lot of Kingdoms of Amalur, in that it’s not really an RPG and is just an action game with some RPG elements. Still fun if you go in with the right expectations of just looting stuff and killing random enemies.
Yeah i definitely think its a good game, just not the right game for genre veterans with high expectations.
To each their own, but Bethesda’s games are all too often criticized for having breadth but not depth, and as time has gone on, I’ve agreed with that more and more. Avowed is scoped smaller than an Elder Scrolls, by a lot, but its depth appears to be in its combat.
I guess it depends on what kind of depth youre looking for. Depth of lore, attributes and upgrades? Skyrim has plenty. Depth of gameplay? Things get a little more murky.
I will agree that Elder Scrolls games have never had combat be their strongest feature and that is definitely what Obsidian focused on with Avowed to make it stand out.
I think attributes and upgrades tie back into gameplay, but we also all ended up playing stealth archers, and even if you never put stats into something that made things like lockpicking easier, it kind of didn’t matter, because the minigame wasn’t difficult and lockpicks are cheap. I think Bethesda’s games at least up to Skyrim have been great evolutions of the medium, but it also feels like, for all the work they put into their systems, they never got anywhere close to what Larian has built since Skyrim’s release.
I mean, yeah, the systems in skyrim werent deep, but at least they were there and somewhat entertaining. You just hold a button to “lockpick” in Avowed. You just roll a die like you do for everything in BG3. Personally I never used bows in skyrim, always enchanted single-handed weapons and destruction.
Larian Should have built more intricate rpg systems since then and they have, Skyrim is a decade and a half old. The caveat is that they have done so by abandoning active combat gameplay. Their combat systems are fun, they just arent engaging like Avowed or even Skyrim. Again to each their own, im sure many rpg players dont care one bit about active/realistic combat simulation. If Elden Ring’s success is an example though, then many people do want engaging combat.
Again with Avowed, it is a brand new game and compared to its only direct competitor(14yo skyrim) it feels lacking in every way except when you hit something with a weapon. And i guess thats ok, but only for like $30 or less.
I think what I’m getting at is that, from my perspective, the only thing that’s really in Skyrim’s favor compared to Avowed is how big it is, because if I wanted satisfying RPG systems or such, I’d find them elsewhere. I enjoy both real time and turn based games, and nothing about Larian’s RPG systems require them to be turn based, so it would be nice to see more of those kinds of systems in games like Bethesda’s going forward, but given how Starfield turned out, I doubt we will. Bethesda gives all of their NPCs schedules, there’s physics at play, and NPCs will care if you steal their stuff, but those systems never seem to manifest in anything more interesting than putting a bucket on someone’s head so they can’t see you thieving, so I’m not really missing anything in Avowed when those systems are absent.
I’m about 6 hours in, and I’m loving it so far. The combat is very unique and feels great. The way the levels wrap around vertically often reminds me of Dark Souls. You can see some vestiges of the previous designs the game went through before it landed on this one, but what they’ve got is very good.
I enjoy it. Good themeparkey action-adventure-rpg. Beautiful and awesome environments. Gameplay is good enough as I’m mostly there to see the spiritual fallout from PoE2.
I think it’s great. The maps may be smaller than some other open world RPGs but it is packed with content. The voice acting is great, I don’t know what the hell people here are talking about. Graphics are good enough although the facial animations are pretty wooden and stilted.
Refunded, was expecting an Obsidian interactive world got served a dead open world with static NPCs, static everything. The only saving grace is combat but it’s not nearly deep enough to carry the game. I’ll get it again when it’s at 10-15€ which is the price I’m comfortable playing for this level of competence. Was back to Kingdom come in a flash.
kinda sounds like The Outer Worlds, in a way. Which is kinda the feel I got from some youtube videos I watched about the game. Got to wonder how on earth the current 70€ pricetag is in any way justified.
Oh well, wishlistforgotten, maybe some sale notification at some point comes a long
Outer Worlds was so try hard I couldn’t get past 5-6hrs of play
I thought it was okay, though not without it’s issues. The itemization (everything being “standard -> better -> betterer -> best”) and the size of the playable areas were kinda weak.
IIRC Finished the main game twice, couldn’t be arsed with the dlc though.
I like it, but haven’t played more than a few hours.
The voice acting and (most) character faces feel insanely dated, though. Fantasy just comes off weird in an American accent.
The game runs poorly and doesn’t really look and feel that great considering the processing cost, but that’s just Unreal Engine 5 being shit.
Those are my biggest complaints.
Combat is pretty engaging and I think it’s pretty cool, but it can be kind of health-spongey. Feels like it needs some work to feel better and more fluid.
The story seems okay, although I haven’t gotten far. Kind of generic fantasy akin to Divinity Original Sin 2/Baldur’s Gate 3 or Pillars of Eternity (duh).
Honestly, I like that it’s not just another murder hobo simulator and has a bit more focused story.
It’s a pretty solid 6-7/10, which is fine. Maybe it’ll grow on me, but there’s no chance of it becoming another Cyberpunk 2077.
Hopefully they learned from making this and The Outer Worlds 2 is a lot better than the first one.
I played it for a couple hours and it was fun enough, but… I’ve found myself drawn to playing other things very easily and haven’t gone back to it.
So far I kinda like it but haven’t played much, just arrived at the docks.
The art style is nice and you really can see the love for details. The voices feel a bit off, for a non-nativ english speaker it sounds like americans trying as hard as they can to speak with a british/Victorian era accent.For those who’s playing on PC, check mods for performance. After some tinkering I’m getting solid 120+fps @1080p with high/max settings with RT enabled (FSR quality and FG) on a RTX 3060 and a Ryzen 3600.
I will give an update as long as i don’t forget it
$95 for a case with no disc in it. No thank you.
