Avencast: Rise of the Mage Review
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Combat is not an aspect I normally concentrate on when reviewing a title because I love the RPG element far more. However, in Avencast, it is quite spectacularly designed, so I'll delve a little deeper. As the combat focuses heavily on magic, it may begin to feel as if you are going to be playing a standard slow mana regenerating style mage. Nothing could be further from the truth. Combat in Avencast is FAST! You do not slaughter thousands and thousands of enemies, because the enemies you do fight are not fodder for you to blast away; they will dodge your attacks, and counter when you are weak; or even outflank you while you are engaged by others. Some will have immunities to your knock back skills, and resistances to different degrees of freeze, etc. Your mana regenerates quite quickly, allowing you to evade, retreat, find quick cover for a couple of seconds and then attack again. I found myself too often in the middle of a 5 or 6 enemies as a soul based mage not capable of taking damage, diving and dodging, then throwing out whatever freezes and blast waves to push back my enemies.Spotted on Blue's News.
My time as a bloodmage involved using stealth to sneak into an area, hit on enemy hard, using knock back on a specific opponent and area attacks to control the rest - all the while focusing on any ranged classes first. Sometimes you need to decide if you can take the chance and charge up for a big blast, or hit them quick and keep moving. Combat evolves in Avencast. Rarely do you use the same tactics simply because as you level you gain new abilities and the old attack styles become wasteful. The simplistic combat at the start of the game is absolutely nothing like the high powered blasts, waves and combos you cast near the end.
