Overview

Avowed, this is the last kind of video that I wanted to make and when I saw reviews and the discourse around this game start, I thought to myself, there has to be a misunderstanding, there has to be more to the next big thing from Obsidian. Unfortunately, despite its efforts Avowed is an experience that feels hollow in its choice and reactiveness, an illusion of impact, coupled with progression and rewards economy ripped from something like an MMO. I'd like to say the rich storytelling of what you'd expect from a universe that is as dense in history as the Pillars of Eternity series, would be a fantastic center stage for a game like Avowed. But unfortunately Avowed's narrative is about as satisfying to sit through as watching paint dry with predictable plot points and diatribes that feel like they're inconsequential.

Avowed is a shockingly weak RPG, but as an action game it feels like it full of some satisfying combat, and beautiful locations, that are actually quite fun to explore. The way I'd approach a game like Avowed is similar to how I feel about a game like Final Fantasy XVI where it felt like a weak RPG in many respects, but redeemable with qualities of action combat and stunning visuals, and whilst I do feel FF16 has more redeemable qualities like a decent story, Avowed isn't entirely a wreck, and I wouldn't even call it a bad game, but it feels middling and average and honestly safe to the extent that it doesn't try to do anything new, and ends up feel dull and familiar, fun in particular pockets, but forgettable upon completion. But I need to systematically break to really tell you just what I feel about Avowed, and why I don't feel I can recommend this unless at a deep sale, but strangely, why I'd welcome a sequel. So let's get into it all.

Story

Avowed's main story is setup in a way that feels like it has a ton of promise and those opening hours do feel like they are slowly easing you in for a fun fantasy adventure. You are the Envoy, a Godlike a special being coming to the land of the living to find the cause on this ongoing plague called the Dreamscurge an put an end to it. But after eight hours, I had been exploring the area did some side quests which were meh, but once I got around to tackling the broader main story, it took awhile to really get going, and when it does it feels like it meanders around wasting time, where you feel like it is so predictable as to where it is going to go next. It feels like all your companions want to pull you aside for a stop and chat every two minutes and every place you explore. Every time you rest you have to interact with this deity who has similar vibes to the relationship with the Mindflayer from BG3, but man these convos drag on and she talks in riddles and similes contributes sweet nothings, and its painfully obvious every twist and turn that this game is setting up with its story, and it isn't just the predictability that is the problem, but the momentum the feeling of urgency progressing through this story. I felt none of it, I felt no commandry with my party, no connection to the living lands, and ultimately unsatisfied with the main story.

The main story feels dry, it feels like you're listening to people waffle on over-explaining things, it is like no one in The Living Lands understood what brevity was. It feels like the writers knew Avowed would be many people's first time diving into this universe, so they tried hard to explain the world and its many moving parts to its player, there is a glossary of terms that reference so many different names cities, gods, and all that jazz. But where it becomes frustrating is that all of these characters both in the main quest and out in the world, will sit there giving you history lessons about the world, like a mannequin in a museum. It leaves each person you encounter feeling void of any personality, character, and it feels like there are so many other ways that the world of Eora could have been explained and elaborated on to players. I think sometimes less is more, you can articulate cities, culture, and beliefs of different people through different means than them simply explaining their life story to you. I wish I could say your companions are a saving grace but outside of Kai who has a decent character story, the others are uninteresting, they have no personality, no stand out character traits or personality that makes you connect with them. They feel like archetypes of a fantasy adventure.

I'm someone who had barely explored the world of D&D before Baldur's Gate 3 I know nothing of its world, characters, the different gods, deities, political strife or racial divides amongst its different characters in the universe. But the game presented it all to me through showing rather than telling, the side characters had an arc, a story that slowly would unfold, and feel like they're growing for better or worse based on the impact I had on those characters during the adventure. Avowed feels like I did a thing and they want to talk to me about it, regardless of what I say it doesn't matter because they're just checking in because I completed a quest that triggers them to want to talk. I've been playing Dragon Age Origins recently for a first time and every convo feels like a tightrope, you can be up or down depending on what you do. I managed to piss off Alister real bad for not bringing him to Redcliffe and like now he is cold with one word response. You can feel the scales tip. In Avowed you feel like you're in neutral even after completing their companion quest.

Last but not least can I just say how annoying I find many of the different dialog options too. They're corny, some made me laugh from just how lame they feel like brackets taps foot "I'm right here you know" or brackets smiles dangerously. It's like very weird writing and dialog choices and its crazy because even when you pick these options they don't anger or escalate outcomes in anyway, people will just carry on with their lecture like they would anyways. Avowed's world and interacting with its people and stories, felt like a miss for me, and honestly in the last third of the game I had really switched off the story, and was more prioritizing the combat and getting through the game, and speaking of combat, let's talk about something I feel Avowed gets right.

Gameplay

Combat

The combat for Avowed is surprisingly satisfying, flawed yes, but fun. It really does allow you to experiment with a plethora of different weapons, and the melee combat can feel a little stiff, but overall pretty fun, and there is a decent variety of unique weapons that actually makes encounters a ton of fun to engage with. But the one facet of combat that I feel that Avowed really does a great job handling is the magic combat. There is something that is so satisfying about shooting your wand at enemies feeling like a badass wizard. There are also spells that you can call and a great variety of them too, along with different mage books which provide you access to an assortment of different spells, that provide you a try before you buy feeling before purchasing a skill, and on top of this further opens the gates to different spells and variety to how you tackle combat. The spectacle of it all too is fantastic and really does lend itself well to the overall atmosphere of Avowed which we'll get more into later on. But there are some drawbacks to the combat, and that comes with the enemies themselves, the boss encounters are decent enough, nothing to complex in their skill set, and the enemies themselves are lacking in variety with you fighting many of the similar enemies that you encountered in the early hours of the game, at the final act of the game too. There are also issues that correlate to how the game handles progression which believe me I have a lot to say about, and this in turn makes some enemies feel spongey and rough to engage with. Overall the combat for Avowed is fun and inoffensive and is overall one of the more entertaining aspects of Avowed.

Exploration

If there is one aspect that I feel Avowed absolutely understands is how it approaches exploration, which each location that you visit feeling distinct in its presentation and design, but also the amount of landmarks that are in the distance that are readily available to visit.

Avowed in many ways does feel old-school to me with its combat that I feel is somewhat arcadey and action focused and in some respects can come across outdated. But I would disagree with this feeling like a weakness as one of Avowed's strengths to me is how it handles the thrill of adventure, and there are little puzzles and a level of interaction with the environment which is nice.

It makes every house, farm or castle feel like something that you can wonder what are in there. There are many dungeons in this game, which feel like they fit into the games theme correlating to the mossy plague that is the dream scourge. The hub worlds are visually comforting and nice to look at, but are lifeless to traverse through with nothing more then a few vendors that serve as glorified menus, and quest givers that stand glued to the floor waiting for you to take on their quest.

Another thing that I feel throws me out of the experience is how responsive and reactive the world of The Living Lands is to the players actions. You can steal items in major cities with no repercussions, no guards will approach you, no NPC's will try to attack you, when you're in these cities you can't attack random NPC's either. It is also interesting that in the open world you can't even attack friendly wildlife. I feel like there is an absolute removal of being able to play the bad guy role that many of these games thrive on. Yes, there are bad endings, and choices and dialog where you can be an ass, but it doesn't feel like your mannerisms or behaviors make any difference and you're still ultimately able to be good with all your companions, and have good standing with all the major cities. What this results in is an open world that feels as shallow as a puddle.

The side quests serve as a way to make sure you find your way to each dungeon and major city and they do have some interesting stories in there that sometimes do come with choices that you're able to make. The quests suffer from similar narrative issues as their main story counterpart, but are at least an opportunity to open you up to some side bosses, and different locations and dungeons which are fun to explore.

Gameplay Systems

Progression and Rewards Economy

The progression for Avowed has to be one of the most out of place and infuriating progression systems that I've come across in awhile. So basically let's talk about the first two modes of progression that I don't have an issue with, and that is levelling up progression. So when you level up you get a skill point which you can place into a skill tree that tailors and crafts a build and playstyle along with skills for your companions. There is also a point that is allocated to your character sheet abilities like might, intelligence, and resolve things that provide a broad outline to your characters proficiency and all of this can be respec'd as well which is all good, and par for the course for the genre.

I think one aspect of Avowed does well, given that I do like the action RPG aspects of its combat, is the skill selection and speccing, where I did play primary as a mage, but I also was using a sword for a period and I also wanted to have crowd control abilities that come from a ranger. It was fun to continuously unlock new abilities and level up to see how you can expand your kit and how you can break the mold and tailor your character to a more bespoke playstyle. Avowed's skill trees and class structure isn't ridged and and does allow for a great level of experimentation.

Where it falls apart is how the gear and rewards economy works in this game, and how effective you are in combat is reliant on your gear and upgrading your gear. So you'll get two types of equipment common and unique, with unique items coming with special traits and perks, and all armor and weapons being able to be improved to different rarities and unique weapons being able to reach the highest rarity that is Legendary. But the resources are stingy to find and unless you're picking everything you find and doing a lot of exploring you may find yourself in a bind, and this results in having your progress halted by enemies that absolutely roll you, and it isn't just through the main quest but through side content too.

It really does make exploring and side questing mandatory to progress the story, and on top of that, it makes side questing feel like a secondary backseat for rewards, like sure it gives you good experience for the next level, but when you can run around farming materials to level up your gear instead, it makes the games progression feel reductive. There was a moment when I hit the second zone I was level 9 and had did a bunch of side content and exploring of the first area, which I genuinely had fun with, but the second zone felt like all the main and side quests were outclassed for me, leaving me to resort to farming materials and visiting vendors to try and level up my gear so I could make enemy encounters more manageable, and it honestly felt like a major disruption to the overall flow of the game, and it felt like it had strong-armed me into doing resource grinding like I was playing vanilla Destiny 1 and it sapped the enjoyment out of the experience for a good while there. Thankfully, as I mentioned earlier, the exploration for Avowed was actually quite satisfying given its fun puzzles, and beautiful and distinct environments, that felt plentiful in area to explore.

For me, I find it odd to see a rewards economy that is commonly found in MMO's and mobile games, as a core pillar of the main progression in a single player RPG, and it really does feel like it hinders this experience and the overall sense of flow that this game would otherwise have if the gear, skill tress, and more traditional build approach was leaned into more instead. I think that it is important to mention and this also crosses over into the absence of the reactiveness in the open world, but I feel this progression system and absence of RPG elements stems from how Avowed was originally designed to be a more multiplayer experience before being refocused to be a single player experience.

Choice and Reactiveness of the World

One thing that I feel is a letdown for me when it comes to Avowed, it is how it handles choice and consequence, more importantly consequence. There are many times where it feels like you can play the saint or the asshole, but both outcomes feel like flavor text, they feel like majority of the time they offer little to no real change to the living lands or how your character stands with the different cities and their leaders. The element of choice just feels haphazard, like it is something that is there on a technicality, not something that has been consciously worked into the games building blocks, and the narrative puzzles pieces that can alter with each choice.

In comparison to other Obsidian titles like Fallout New Vegas or The Outer Worlds, Avowed feels like it is liter on the front of choice, and it feels like the actions and outcomes are binary and timed with how the ripple on the world and your companions. There are many interactions with your companions feel pre-planned. Now look, I know every game has a conditional list where a set of actions trigger a reaction with our party, but Avowed's approach feels inconsequential and static. For example I confronted a ranger who was a traitor and killed them to complete a quest and this was prior to Giatta joining my party and yet when she joins she is probing me about my choices and talking like she was there, and it feels like I was supposed to complete this in a particular order, and I know it isn't a big deal, but it provides this sense of disjointed building blocks for how the Avowed has you interact with your party where it is just recounting events that happened and how it made you feel. It makes quality time with your companions feel like more verbose rehashes and lectures, when this is really the quality TLC time that you should be having were you're supposed to be getting to know and give a shit about them.

Another Issue where I feel Avowed falls short with its choice is how it handles skill checks particularly ones that are tied to your background or skills you've invested points into. There are so many different skill checks that appear in the game, but barely ever did I feel like my background story or the skills I put my points into really do make a difference in how a scenario plays out, or they have the most minor of outcome which again leads back to making the RPG aspects and character building ring hollow and ultimately feel like smoke and mirrors and it made me feel unfazed every time a skill check would appear, because despite Avowed's best efforts to convince you it is a role playing game, it really does not feel like there is a role to be played here in this experience.

Visuals, Sound and Performance

The visuals presentation and overall sense of art direction that Avowed has is undeniably fantastic, with incredible biomes that are distinct and striking with their mood and atmosphere. I touched on this when discussing Avowed's exploration but there is something that does feel nice about exploring Avowed's world, and I think that is largely contributed to how nice everything looks from architecture to environments, and the designs of the enemies. It is these elements that I feel sell the world of The Living Lands nicely, and I do think this aspect of Avowed is one thing, that I will absolutely remember this game for.

The overall sound presentation for Avowed is pretty par for the course, the voice acting for me was kind of hit or miss, but I'm not sure if that is more attributed to how much I was connecting with the writing and things characters had to say. I will say that I loved Kai's vocal performance by Brandon Keener and I will give the obligitory reviewer factoid that this is the voice of Garrus Vakarian from the Mass Effect series, which is probably one reason why Kai's character just has a strong presence and is memorable.

The overall performance for Avowed I was greeted with a steady framerate, and I rarely would experience and stutters. I did have my game freeze on me three times over the course of my 35 hours playing the game. I was playing Avowed on a computer with a 4080 super, but your mileage may vary and I'd say consult with other reviewers on performance.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I can understand how you can walk away from this video thinking, man, it sounds like you really didn't enjoy Avowed Tarrmu, and I yes and no. Avowed held a lot of promise, and I ultimately feel like for a studio that gets this genre as well as Obsidian, Avowed feels weak in the areas where it counts. This doesn't mean that I see it as a bad game, I think there is fun to be had and it does have aspects where it shines, but there is no defining thing that Avowed does so well that makes it stand out from the competition and when we're living in a world where the cost to buy into a triple A game is on the rise, it is hard to find a good justification to pick up Avowed, compared to many of the other games releasing this year.

Again, through Game Pass, the worst thing you can lose is some time, but overall Avowed is a game that I'd love to see get a sequel where it builds on the combat, reworks the progression and leans into the RPG mechanics because I do think there is something here that can be special and I think that is the double edged sword that ultimately disappointed me here, but gives me hope for what could come in the future, but as it stands Avowed is a painfully average experience and one that I sadly can't recommend you go out and buy.