A new review of A5

[64566788]

http://www.gamebanshee.com/reviews/software/avernumv1.php

 

Well,i am currently running toward the Anama lands.And i find this article quite well describe the pro and con of A5.

I am most concerned about the storyline and most agree with the below quotes.

PS:English is not my first language.

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The story of Avernum 5 is ok, but not great. There's nothing particularly inspired about the tale of Dorikas, his assassination attempt, and you hunting him down. But there are some elements woven into the plot that work well, including some (fairly superficial) intrigue and betrayal, and the (somewhat predictable) tragic nature of the main enemy character (which was present in Avernum 4, as well).

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In general, Averum 5 sports several design improvements over earlier installments, including combat scenarios scaling better with your characters from area to area, fewer annoying fights in which you have to walk through tunnels while guys pelt you with rocks, and better quest design overall.

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To start off, for a game that prides itself in huge open-world gameplay, it sure has an overly linear feel to exploration. Not that you aren't relatively free to move around, but there are clearly segmented areas separated by bottlenecks. Sometimes you have to do a quest to go further, sometimes you don't, but each time you pass a bottleneck you know you're going into a tougher zone and you are supposed to be finished with the last zone. It works, but it's not ideal.

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Avernum 5 is – to use Jeff Vogel's own words – a “gigantic game”. But bigger isn't necessarily better, especially not for quality-over-quantity players like me. The size is beginning to tell in key areas. As I mentioned, the game's quest design is better, there are less “hey please pick up 8 green rocks for me”-type things. But that doesn't mean quest design is actually good. It's still fairly weak and – more importantly – very repetitive.

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The thing with Avernum quests is that they rarely challenge your faculties. Avernum 5 has more quests that require you to puzzle or think a bit, but the majority of quests is solved in the good old Avernum way – by simply going everywhere and walking around every corner on every map. This works to a certain extent – hell, it's probably where Avernum's exploration charm comes from – but when the game gets this long, it starts to be a drag, especially if combat isn't very challenging any more (see below). I was actually glad to see how small the penultimate and last areas were, and how focused the quests were once you're beyond Vahnatai lands. Such relief borders on “it's almost over, yippee”, which is never good.

 

I mentioned above I had some issues with balance and that showed up in annoying way in combat. Right from about halfway through the game, in the Anama lands, average combat stopped being something I had to think about. Just buff up and click a few times. Only the special fights brought some relief, but otherwise combat became a drag. Moving through a late-game area where your walking is continually interrupted by wolves that pose no challenge just isn't fun. Again, this is something that was present in all Avernum games and it's improved compared to Avernum 4, but it still wasn't fun.

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Overall, I was impressed by the feel of the game and the consistent futility of the frontier societies that runs as a thread throughout. This helped alleviate the somewhat mediocre nature of the plot itself. As far as main plots go, I liked Avernum 4's better. (Here,i personally like A5 more)

 

 

 

The gameplay is pretty well improved, mostly in spots you won't notice immediately, such as overall location design, design of certain big fights and quest design. The battle disciplines are a fun addition, but they need some polish, to be made slightly more complex. Perhaps with separate branches of disciplines you can learn, one focused on disabling the opponent, the other on buffing yourself, etc.

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