Avadon: The Black Fortress Review
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Avadon is slightly unusual. Vogel's RPGs aren't as hardcore as they might look at least not on their regular difficulty settings. This one actively tries to be a friendlier game, stripping out some of the complexity and making it easier to get started. You start by choosing one of four pre-built characters, choosing just their name. Levelling up is based on a very rigid skill tree that makes it tough to screw yourself over with a bad choice. There's more focus to the action too, with the titular fortress of Avadon acting as a central base, and your missions sending you out into the wider world via teleporters in a largely linear way albeit with choices to make while actually in the field, and plenty of optional quests to take on for extra XP and resources.
Hardcore fans have already complained that this makes the game feel dumbed down, although '˜simplified' and '˜streamlined' are arguably better words. I can safely say that this side of the game never bothered me, though it's worth noting that combat is usually the thing I care about least in an RPG as long as it's adequate and I was playing through on Normal difficulty, which was a reasonable challenge without forcing lots and lots of replay. What interested me far more was the story and its characters, both of which offer some refreshingly different gimmicks.
