Great game, totally recommend it to fans of atmosphric story heavy crpgs.
But beware, it is full with bugs. Like your or your teammates inventory can get broken randomly and needs older save reloaded to be fixed.
Accidenlty my inventoy got swapped with the shop keeper... items do not fit in and break it. Expect similar stuff.

I've played this game when I was younger, and I was literally obsessed with the story telling. Captivating tale. Challenging game play. Music and graphics are very nice.

The big bad "but" comes in when the game blue-screen of death reset my PC several times in less than 1 hour. I'm running Windows 10, nVidia Gforce 1050 Ti. Using AVG for anti-virus. So... I can't really recommend it for that reason. :-C

Unfortunately, this game is too rough around the edges for me to recommend it. Waiting real time to rest is really a deal breaker, and the overall UI lacks several basic components.

Video game preservation. No matter how you look at it, it's a very important thing. I mean, you know how it is. There's heck of a lot of games out there that you just can't buy anymore. For different reasons. Sometimes those are games that were removed from stores due to copyright issues (like all of those Ninja Turtles, Transformers and Star Trek titles in Steam), sometimes those are just old titles for the obsolete systems and sometimes those are just rare or little-known games. That's why the video game community is so important. But you know, all those preservation websites, where you can download all of those old games for free aside, it's always great to get something like that released in Steam. Especially when it also comes with some basic updates to make it playable on modern systems. You know, like it was with games like Fallout and Hexxplore. So... ladies and gentlemen, please, welcome – Siege of Avalon.

Now, what the heck is Siege of Avalon? Seriously, I bet most of you guys didn't even hear about this one. And, well, you should not feel ashamed since this game was never really that big. Partially because it was one of those early episodic games that wanted you to download the new episodes from the Internet. You know, like ShadowFlare. Except the first episode of this game (which was completely free for everybody with Internet connection) was released two years before it, in 2000. And that's... what used to make it interesting. I mean, the new generation of players may think that episodic games are something quite new, but actually, quite a lot of games in the past used such format. Even the biggest names like Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D were like that. Except we were supposed to order the rest of the episodes by phone. You know, that landline monstrosity that's completely obsolete nowadays.

What was interesting about games like Siege of Avalon is that they offered us to avoid waiting for our orders and download the game directly to our computers through the global network. Obviously, it's, like, the most common thing you can ever imagine nowadays, when using physical media feels more weird than downloading games from Steam, but back in the days? It was rather interesting thing to do. So... yeah. Here comes an episodic game from an early Internet era. Sure, the complete game was later released on physical media (right after the final episode was finished and released online) and even got big box release (actually, some countries had big box release for every single episode), but still, it's impossible to talk about Siege of Avalon without talking about its origins.

Naturally, what we have here is the complete set. The game comes in six episodes, but only four of them are needed to see the ending. The 1st, the 2nd and the 6th chapters will contain the main story, while chapter 3, 4 and 5 will include class-related stuff. Technically, you'll be able to play through them all, but the game will force you to play only the one that's directly related to the class you'll choose at the beginning. Fighters will be forced to play chapter 3, scouts will need to play chapter 4, while chapter 5 will be for mages. Sounds a bit confusing, huh? Well... that's what Siege of Avalon does best. Being confusing. See, despite quite a lot of text (don't expect much choice here, though, this game is mostly about reading, not choosing, in other words, it is not Baldur's Gate), the game does terrible job explaining and organizing things for you. Read every line carefully, take notes (you know... by using pen and paper in real life), draw maps (paper... pen...), or risk to end up being completely lost. Especially if you'll decide to take a break. Seriously, it's one of those games you either finish without taking long breaks or forget about what to do completely.

Which... isn't really that bad. I mean, sure, Siege of Avalon feels a bit too archaic even for 2000, but let's just admit it, we all need something old-school from time to time. All those confusing maps with no markers, lack of proper explanations and stuff like that only makes you care more. Sure, it's uncomfortable as heck. But it's like... part of the fun. Playing this kind of role-playing games is like playing the old school point-and-click adventures that won't conveniently highlight everything for you when you press spacebar. In other words, it's one of those games, in which you're supposed to suffer to have fun.

The real problem is - Siege of Avalon is not... really... that good as a game. Not because it's a bit too old-school (seriously, you can't take old school – stay away from this one), but just... because it is not. The battle mechanics, for example, is way, way too clunky. Real-time battles were a mistake and turn-based ones from games like Heath: The Unchosen Path will be way better choice. UI is a complete disaster too (this version doesn't have manual, so, make sure to google the controls before starting), while all in all, there isn't much stuff to do. Look at the Steam achievements. That's pretty much all of the quests you can do in the entire game. And most of them are optional. So, most of the time it'll be you, trying to figure out what to do and where to find certain NPC instead of doing the real thing. Thankfully, the game doesn't have that many screens, so, traveling through the entire thing won't take too long, but... I can't say that it makes the game any better. I mean, most of the time here you'll just walk through the same exact screens again and again with no end. Where's the fun in that?

So... yeah... Let's just say that Siege of Avalon is not a blast from the past you hoped for. Personally, I actually enjoyed it (up to a certain degree, of course, but still), but I can clearly see that it was mostly because of my personal nostalgia. Because yes, I used to play it back in the days and, since my old CD version doesn't work on modern systems, I always hoped for something like this to happen. And you know what? They did a pretty nice job on bringing the game back to life, really. In my case, it worked perfectly well on 64-bit version of Windows 10, there's Full HD resolution support, widescreen and, naturally, all the official updates are included. That alone made the purchase worth it for me, since ages later, I was able to finally finish this game. Unfortunately, the game still comes with a couple of pretty annoying technical difficulties (for example, in my case it just kept crashing on me on one of the screens during the late stages) and... you know how it is.

Like I said, video game preservation is a great thing. And personally, I always welcome (and ready to support) any less-known titles from the past in Steam. Seriously, guys. Give me Heath: The Unchosen Path! Give me ShadowFlare! Give me Mistmare! Give me Korean Fate (not to be confused with WildTangent's title we all know and love)! Give me the dang Spells of Gold! I'll pay for them. Just because having such things in my Steam library? Fully playable? It's cool. But when we're talking about the actual gameplay... well... Look at those games I've mentioned above. If you've played at least one of them... you know exactly what kind of game we have here. Siege of Avalon is not one of those games you play because they're good. It's one of those you play because (let me quote Clint Basinger here) they're lost... forgotten... and obsolete. So... do I recommend this release for geeks? Sure thing. But do I recommend it for those who just want a good game? Heck, no!

I had Chapter 1 when I was a kid, and I had good memories with that Chapter.

Unfortunately, SOA runs stable, but is still buggy as hell. I spend TP in my abilities, yet I do no damage unless I cast shadow, and enemies keep respawning so fighting is barely doable.

To many bugs with NPC's inventory and NPC brain :)
Too small font for 1920x1280, very hard to read

So i beat the game(didn't get the achievement for the final act for some reason). Being an old one it is not bad, but 100% not worth playing nowadays. It is buggy, clunky, the ending is underwhelming and you most likely would need a guide. I like old games, but right now there are so many more better rpgs to play.

Doesn't work on windows 10 Pro 64x on a mid-high end PC

3/10 hasnt aged well
- load times... ive got an SSD. most games load before i can read the help tips
- minor bugs
- cant see things behind walls because the angle

Inventory between party members is completely broken. Thought this was going to be a good ol' gem at the start, but the problems didn't occur until you get party members in the game. Click on a member, try to go to inventory, and it's like you're on a bad LSD trip with the way the game reacts. Completely immersion breaking.

I think there's a reason why games like this stay in the past, it's because they were broke back then and even after all these years, they still can't fix it. Maybe you'll be someone who doesn't come across any of these bugs, but is it worth rolling the dice? Maybe if it goes on a deep discount. Otherwise, my recommendation is to avoid this one. There are better old games.