Avencast: Rise of the Mage Review
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In fact, the interface in general is nice and configurable. For example, you're given special slots where you can quaff potions with a single key stroke, but if you don't like them then you can also pause the game and double click on the potions in your inventory, and quaff them that way. Plus, all of the keys (including the mouse buttons) are configurable, and you're allowed to map up to eight spells to hotkeys (or mouse clicks), giving you lots of control over your attacks. Probably the most interesting thing about the interface is that the game gives you an extra way to cast your spells. Each spell includes a specific combination of key strokes and mouse clicks to cast it. For example, the Mighty Ice Bullet of Penetration (which soul mages will cast a lot) can be triggered by typing A and then D and then clicking the right mouse button. The nice thing about these combinations is that they all use the WASD keys and the mouse buttons, which means that they allow you to do almost everything in the game without moving your hands around on the keyboard. The bad thing is that the combinations are clunky, and they require a lot of extra key strokes and mouse clicks to get anything done. I tried using the combinations for a while but never got the hang of it, and I ended up using the 1-8 keys to trigger my spells.
That being said, I appreciated that Clockstone attempted to come up with a new and more convenient way to control the game, even if it didn't work for me. The best interface is always the one that gives you the most options.
Gameplay
Avencast focuses on two things: combat and puzzles. Let me start with the combat, since it is the weaker of the two. Unlike in most action role-playing games, the combat in Avencast is much tougher -- at least at the start. Instead of just blowing through everything on your way to the next boss fight, most creatures in the game can actually kill you, and so you have to forge ahead slowly and carefully. Enemies don't re-spawn, so once you've killed something you're safe to catch your breath and prepare for the next battle.
The problem with combat is that all characters get some sort of freeze spell, and frozen enemies can be re-frozen before they thaw out. That means most fights go something like freeze, whack, whack, freeze, whack, whack, freeze until the enemy dies, which gets a little tedious. I played a soul mage, and so combat got exciting whenever I couldn't freeze an enemy (which was pretty much the case for every boss), but then Avencast also has the other famously exploitable spell, Inferno Wall, and so if I wasn't freezing enemies, I was dropping down lines of fire and running around like crazy until the enemy burned itself up, which also got tedious. Generally, I'd say that you should avoid relying on cheesy spells that the enemy AI isn't smart enough to avoid, but in the case of Avencast, I think the game was actually designed with them in mind.
The puzzles, on the other hand, work pretty well. They range from word games to tile puzzles to riddles, and they're almost always clever and effective. And better yet, they're all original. You won't see any (old favorites) like the Towers of Hanoi puzzle in Knights of the Old Republic. I was surprised about how well the puzzles worked. There were a couple where I actually had to go to a fan site to see what the answer was, and while that's a common enough occurrence for me when I play adventures, let's just say that role-playing games usually aren't that complex.
The problem is, the puzzles are only fun to do once. Once you've figured out the answer or the trick, that's it. There isn't any challenge to completing them a second time, and that hurts the replayability of the game. I'm sort of curious about how the campaign might go for a blood mage, but I have no desire to slog through all of the combat again, I already completed all of the puzzles, and there aren't any choices to make in the quests, and so there's not enough left to do in the campaign to draw me back in. If you're designing a role-playing game, then you should want your players to go through the campaign at least twice, but that isn't the case here, at least for me, even with the game's relatively short (roughly 25-hour) playing time.
Conclusion
Avencast: Rise of the Mage is a mid-priced role-playing game that feels a lot like a bargain-priced role-playing game. It has some things going for it, like the interface and the puzzles, but it has some other things going against it, like the monotony of the combat and the clichés of the story. Since the negative influences far outweigh the positive influences, it's tough to get excited about Avencast or even to recommend it. You'll probably find a better game in the bargain bin of your local software store.
