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Avalon


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Alcritas

 

 

One of the Reasons this Forum is Necessary

 

Profoundly boring. AVERAGE 5.0

 

Alcritas’ Review

 

The women of Avalon have taken the King’s daughter hostage, or at least he thinks they have, and it’s up to you to get her back. In a nutshell, that’s what passes for the plot of Avalon by Clara Kim (Clara_Kim AT brown DOT edu).

 

To be blunt, there’s not really much of a point to this scenario. The plot isn’t anything spectacular to begin with, and the big twist is telegraphed from the very start of the Readme file. The scenario hurdles never come off as more than busywork, and even after winning the scenario, I didn’t really feel like I had actually accomplished anything. Normally I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending for you, but here there’s nothing really to spoil. As you can guess ten seconds into the scenario, the King’s daughter isn’t being held against her will, she’s there to learn some things. Why she didn’t bother to inform anyone of this is beyond me, but it leads to your party blundering along until they find her. Of course, she promises to return, after the party repeats one more busywork dungeon. Why? I don’t know. I was left wondering why I shouldn’t just go back to the king, and say “Your idiot daughter is there of her own free will,” or better yet, just leave the area. Oh well.

 

Avalon also loses a lot of point for being bug riddled. I tend to be more forgiving than most over a few bugs — so long as their few in number and significance, I don’t really think they hurt the scenario too much. Here, they’re very significant both in number and relevance, and they too often come across as aesthetically offensive. You’ll talk to slimes with human faces and Golems with “Unused” personalities. A mystic city exists, that when you try to enter from the east, you encounter a white dot special that tells you that you need a something special to enter this mystic city, and will refuse you entry. You need something alright — the common sense to walk ten paces to the south, and enter from there. Sure, there’s a white dot there as well, but nothing happens when you step on it. Some areas are intended to be blocked off to access, unless of course you have a simple “Flight” spell, which can take you past them without any hassles.

 

The Dungeons in Avalon are at best forgettable, and at worst annoying and illogical. They consist of pointless and monotonous mazes of conventional and teleporter variety, that have been both done countless other times, and usually much better to boot.

 

At times Avalon is merely mediocre, but it never engages the player. When the high point of the scenario fails to arouse your interest, it’s a sure sign it’s time to move on to another effort. Avalon is designed for medium level parties, and is rated G.

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