Avernum: Escape From the Pit - Review @ RPGamer

[Dhruin]

Avernum: Escape From the Pit has been reviewed at RPGamer, with a score of 3.5/5. Here's a bit on a criticisim, which might be viewed as a positive by some readers:

The game's balance can be rather peculiar at times. For the most part, it provides an excellent level of challenge, assuming the party is at the appropriate level for a fight. In such cases, fights are fun without being either punishingly hard or disappointingly easy. Many encounters against major foes have a variety of tricks or gimmicks to them in order to spice things up. A major problem, though, is that it can be hard to find enemies who are of the appropriate level for the party to fight, especially early on. There are far more mid-to-high level enemies than low-level enemies in the game, so players will stumble into unwinnable battles quite often. This issue is aggravated a bit by the strange design of many dungeons, in which a player may be able to easily dispatch the enemies in the early part of a dungeon and yet find the bosses of the dungeon to be nearly impossible foes. This balance improves significantly by the second half of the game, but it can be frustratingly slow progress until then unless players know the best route beforehand.

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[TomRon]

I would say that negative is a positive for me. Constant "just right" challenge is just wrong. Oblivion comes to mind as the worst offender, but I felt the same way about DA:O and to a lesser extent Fallout 3 which had a less obvious mechanic. Skyrim was also a letdown. Killing adragon at level 3??? Completely ruined the game for me.

Games that get it right in my book are for example Kings Bounty and the Gothic games. If you don't pick your battles carefully you die. Alot.

 

[DArtagnan]

Have no interest in the game, but that does sound like a positive aspect to me.

 

[Carnifex]

The most challenging games I see these days are from Spiderweb. Playing their games on hard mode reminds me of old school rpg's. Bouncing between Avernum and LoG is gonna cut seriously into my sleep this month!


-Carn

 

[Thrasher]

Yes, I prefer a little harsh trial and error exploring of the world to know what to avoid. But I also hate a lot of tedious running back and forth. I know, it's a deep conflict.