Pkdragon

Yeah, this is very true. I'm currently playing through Avadon 1 for the first time, and the last stretch is really killing me for that reason. The first time going to a region was great, similar to Geneforge, because ~3-4 areas opened up more or less at the same time (well, other than the fact that even then you have to proceed linearly through the maps to unlock them all, but still). Each return trip though has gotten very formulaic- 1 new world region then 1 connected dungeon- oh and I'd better hit up the same sidequest NPCs to do the current batch of sidequests while they are relevant. The Kva is especially bad, because the plot itself is copied and pasted 3 times to match the regions (including the side quests!). Combined with the fact that I've more or less unlocked all the skills I want in my builds, it's turned the progression of the last third of the game into a bit of a slog. I'm still enjoying it, but not as much as the Geneforce games, and a lot of that is because of the linearity. As I've only played Geneforge 1 and 2 and a bit of 3 before this, I'm glad to hear that Avadon is the exception to the rule, because I loved how open the first two Geneforge games were.