Avowed Is A Shallow Experience Claims TheGamer review

[AdahnGorion]

When you say a game is ‘unfinished’, it conjures up very specific images. Ones filled with flat textures, blank NPC faces, clipping through walls and floors, and a general bugginess blockading your every move. Despite Avowed director Carrie Patel warning players of “jank”, this is not the way Avowed is unfinished. It is unfinished on a deeper, and unfortunately far less fixable, level than simply needing a couple of weeks to work out the kinks.

Every avenue you explore in Avowed feels like a dead end. It’s a game that strives for a depth it cannot achieve, but has overcommitted to that depth. At one point I spoke with a council, and both members were dismissive of my plan.. Privately, one of them found me afterwards to admit it was a ruse and plot against the other. I told the other and… she didn’t believe me. Nothing changed, it was the illusion of role-playing inside a set narrative. Another time I had no choice but to fight characters marked as ‘Desperate Smugglers’ before reaching the top of their camp and discovering these smugglers were desperate, at which point I had the option - which was really an obligation - to help them instead. There are dozens of examples of this, big and small, across Avowed.

https://www.thegamer.com/avowed-review/

[mps]

Publicado originalmente por AdahnGorion:

Publicado originalmente por mps:

What are you on about? It's a full action RPG in the veins of Might and Magic.

You have health, mana, stamina, damage reduction, critical chance, attack speed, action speed, move speed, maximum attack range, fire/cold/shock/poison/bleed resistance, elemental resistance, second wind efficiency, stun, damage types, and more.

Calling it a "first time action adventure with light RPG elements" shows your ignorance. Be glad, it's a sweet game.

No its not.
It is an action adventure with very light RPG elements.

It lacks fundametal core RPG elements and the features/mechanics it does have are cross over compatible with the Adventure genre.. those are very watered down.. its more Action than anything.

The main thing here is, that you don´t have agency in any, nor the statsbasings (that do not interact with the world anyway)

This is not 1986 anymore.. With that being said, even the older versions of M&M have more RPG elements than this game have and that is saying alot.

The main features of Avowed are the Action oriented combat and a dash of adventure elements.. Nobody is claming it does not have RPG elements however.. its just not the focus and its all so dumbed down... its more comparable to a modern shooter or action adventure, than ie. a cRPG (that the first two games set in the IP is)

I never however needed the full complexity.. but making it a railroaded action progression with no agency is just a no go.

Again... Patel said this game was made to be a welcoming game to newcomers in the genre... (Action Adventure with light RPG elements) and that is sure is.. I can respect that, but I have no interest or time for that.. even less so when writing is so abysmal, I dare say an AI could do a better job than half the quest in this game..


The vast majority of Pillars of Eternity fans have rejected this game and are not interested.. Don´t take that from me.. look at the overall sales numbers, the reviews (where even positive reviews say, this might not be for PoE fans)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416240854

Ah, a troll, gotcha. Easy enough to block.

[AdahnGorion]

Publicado originalmente por mps:

Publicado originalmente por AdahnGorion:

No its not.
It is an action adventure with very light RPG elements.

It lacks fundametal core RPG elements and the features/mechanics it does have are cross over compatible with the Adventure genre.. those are very watered down.. its more Action than anything.

The main thing here is, that you don´t have agency in any, nor the statsbasings (that do not interact with the world anyway)

This is not 1986 anymore.. With that being said, even the older versions of M&M have more RPG elements than this game have and that is saying alot.

The main features of Avowed are the Action oriented combat and a dash of adventure elements.. Nobody is claming it does not have RPG elements however.. its just not the focus and its all so dumbed down... its more comparable to a modern shooter or action adventure, than ie. a cRPG (that the first two games set in the IP is)

I never however needed the full complexity.. but making it a railroaded action progression with no agency is just a no go.

Again... Patel said this game was made to be a welcoming game to newcomers in the genre... (Action Adventure with light RPG elements) and that is sure is.. I can respect that, but I have no interest or time for that.. even less so when writing is so abysmal, I dare say an AI could do a better job than half the quest in this game..


The vast majority of Pillars of Eternity fans have rejected this game and are not interested.. Don´t take that from me.. look at the overall sales numbers, the reviews (where even positive reviews say, this might not be for PoE fans)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=416240854

Ah, a troll, gotcha. Easy enough to block.

This is often the counter when people can´t counter a valid argument made, then they will disengage in the debate.
I don´t mind this game, I understand the idea behind it.. but calling it a full blown aRPG really is odd.. its nothing of the sort really.. its a rather generic (classic) console action adventure with light RPG elements... you have lots of these.. they are never really complex, as they are made for the console not PC and with accessability in mind.

[AdahnGorion]

Publicado originalmente por mps:

I don't get this at all, game is such a blast so far, looks to be very long. Big Might and Magic vibes. At 10 hour mark, it's as good for me as Metaphor or Unicorn Overlord in last year.

I'm also only still on the first map and tons to do at 10 hrs. I don't get how people say is boring at 8 hours since you've only unlocked one maybe two ability tiers out of 5?

Edit: to add, I can't stop playing, it's that good. If you love Pillars or RPGs in general, you'll love this game.

I think its awesome that you like the game and most people are not talking about the lenght..

Most people feel like this is soulless, lifesless and to dumbed down from an RPG perspective, this is why the peak is still so low for players.
Overall there have been some more reviews to suggest this as well..
We also had the comparison video with how Oblivion was more technical advanced than Avowed.. its a problem that a 80m project like this lacks so many regular features and mechanics.

[RickyRockFish]

RPG genre has always been cloudy. Several sub categories. This game without a doubt rests squarely in the action rpg space. which is my favorite category. I have thousands of hours into skyrim, due to modding options with that game. I suspect I will have a couple hundred, at least with this game. I'm a huge fan. This is not a DarkSouls so dont expect that. I would not call shallow either; some of the mechanics appeared simple at the surface, making it easy to play at first, but learning how the mechanics work makes the game tons more enjoyable. It does not follow traditional RPG game mechanics, I think its a good thing.

[AdahnGorion]

Publicado originalmente por RickyRockFish:

RPG genre has always been cloudy. Several sub categories. This game without a doubt rests squarely in the action rpg space. which is my favorite category. I have thousands of hours into skyrim, due to modding options with that game. I suspect I will have a couple hundred, at least with this game. I'm a huge fan. This is not a DarkSouls so dont expect that. I would not call shallow either; some of the mechanics appeared simple at the surface, making it easy to play at first, but learning how the mechanics work makes the game tons more enjoyable. It does not follow traditional RPG game mechanics, I think its a good thing.

Nobody expected this to be an action game with time sequenced combat (Dark Souls) they expected it to be an aRPG with focus on core mechanics and features within that spectrum..

Something that this game is not doing. In essence this is basically an Action Adventure with light RPG elements dashed onto it.
Its main issue is not gameplay however (albeit it might as well have been from 2003) its the fact the world feels soulless... its just not immersive in any way.. it feels like a last century tech demo on the technical end.

[Gravity]

Its basically a playable tech demo. good way to describe it. very unpolished, empty and static. its liek they hired level designers and a writing intern and forgot to hire the rest of the team

[Kyota]

Publicado originalmente por AngelofChaos707:

so it's mixed i guess? listening to another review he loves it! i'm excited

"Mixed"...yeah right.

Except, one side is paid, the other isn't.

[Sugram22]

Publicado originalmente por AdahnGorion:

Publicado originalmente por mps:

I don't get this at all, game is such a blast so far, looks to be very long. Big Might and Magic vibes. At 10 hour mark, it's as good for me as Metaphor or Unicorn Overlord in last year.

I'm also only still on the first map and tons to do at 10 hrs. I don't get how people say is boring at 8 hours since you've only unlocked one maybe two ability tiers out of 5?

Edit: to add, I can't stop playing, it's that good. If you love Pillars or RPGs in general, you'll love this game.

I think its awesome that you like the game and most people are not talking about the lenght..

Most people feel like this is soulless, lifesless and to dumbed down from an RPG perspective, this is why the peak is still so low for players.
Overall there have been some more reviews to suggest this as well..
We also had the comparison video with how Oblivion was more technical advanced than Avowed.. its a problem that a 80m project like this lacks so many regular features and mechanics.

YEA, and i agree with it paste on what i have seen from gameplay videos, outer world is better, well its one step towards avowed but still has a lot soul, can fight and kill any npc and steal and also its possible to get inner turmoil, like u go 2far companion leaves, in avowed they disagree and then brush it off, like i disagree with u but still stick with u even if u burn down my home

i would buy it with 5-10 bucks, its worth 20 at max

[JolyJew СлаваУкраине]

looks like someone didn't read the whole review.
the final score is 3/5
with the verdict being "Avowed Is Good But It Wants To Be Great"

using this to somehow prove this is "woke slop" is childish and dishonest.

[Retro]

choices don't matter, static npc, the list goes on why it's not worth

[AdahnGorion]

Publicado originalmente por Gravity:

Its basically a playable tech demo. good way to describe it. very unpolished, empty and static. its liek they hired level designers and a writing intern and forgot to hire the rest of the team

Indeed.. the fact that Oblivion have more advanced physics and a better AI system showcase one of the huge issues.. the game feels soulless and lifeless.. its not a good look.
But they did their best.

[Raï 𓆣]

I think, just speculation, this game suffered from poor time management and perhaps the top was too soft on the schedules. Being a director sucks - because you gotta be the bad guy that puts everyone back on track all the time. It's not an easy role to manage.

[AdahnGorion]

Publicado originalmente por Retro:

choices don't matter, static npc, the list goes on why it's not worth

Indeed. The worst parts for me is these.
Watered down RPG elements. (no agency, no story focus and characters are not deep) we can all into that the fact the world feels lifeless with static AI that does not react.. they are like props put into the world..

Its not acceptable for a game that had 80m in budget.

[SurvivorDragon]

Publicado originalmente por AdahnGorion:

...it was the illusion of role-playing inside a set narrative. Another time I had no choice but to fight characters marked as ‘Desperate Smugglers’ before reaching the top of their camp and discovering these smugglers were desperate, at which point I had the option - which was really an obligation - to help them instead. There are dozens of examples of this, big and small, across Avowed.

https://www.thegamer.com/avowed-review/

This is a very clear example of just the kind of lazy DEI crap I was hoping to NOT see.

Trapping you in a quest/sub-quest/mini-quest where you end up being 'the bad guy' that has NO PATH OUT then 'guilting' you for it because you need to be taught a lesson.

BAD game design.

BAD director's decision to let that crap stay in there.

[AdahnGorion]

Publicado originalmente por Raï 𓆣:

I think, just speculation, this game suffered from poor time management and perhaps the top was too soft on the schedules. Being a director sucks - because you gotta be the bad guy that puts everyone back on track all the time. It's not an easy role to manage.

Its important to note that Patel have no real experience in this field, they are a writer.. not a game director and you this means you will not be able to understand all the processes (normally directors understand coding etc)