My initial impressions of this title were not good, I’m going to write them down here and then correct myself so that you can see where I came from and where I went. Here I go.
So much text. I know it’s an RPG and RPG’s have story but come on, this was really taking the biscuit. The first quest to kill rats took about 5 or 6 pages of conversation to get to. The graphics are very sadly lacking as are the animations. Simply moving characters around looked awful. I actually cringed.
If you haven’t played any of these games previously then you’ll be in the same boat as me thinking the inventory and menus to be clunky, and most aspects needlessly long and confusing. Attempting to make my way though these underground passages became tedious due to constant interruptions to bring up more and more text. Perhaps I am impatient, perhaps I am not immersing myself in the story. I hold my hands up and say guilty as charged.
So I deleted my save file, not that I had progressed very far and started again, taking my time and reading.
First things first, you make your party of four (Soldier, Rebel, Priest and Sorcerer). Again to the new player it can be pretty complicated when you head in to edit the traits and statistics as there are so many. So many in fact that even on the iPad’s screen it can be difficult to select the right ones as the buttons are very small and close together. Perhaps there could have been a better way to present this information.
The story text is mandatory, you can tap the next arrow as fast as you like but it’s still all there and you might as well read it. It’s really not that bad. This game is all about the story, which is perhaps why it gets away with ancient looking graphics. There are many characters to meet throughout the story, along with dungeons and land to explore.
Spiderweb Software boat over 30 hours of gameplay in Avernum 6 and I can quite believe it. With all the silly tasks you be can busying yourself with, getting side-tracked from your mission happens, but these side quests are optional. If you don’t want to do them then don’t, but you’re missing out on the little bits of characters lives which is what fills this game with so much depth of story.
Combat is turn-based so you have time to think about your next move which is wise, sometimes you really need to think ahead. You can simply tap an enemy to perform a basic attack with your character or you can use one of the many abilities each party member has in order to enhance the combat experience.
I do wish that the game took advantage of the pinch-to-zoom feature the iPad is capable of as sometimes tapping wasn’t as precise as I’d have liked it to be.
Personally Avernum 6 HD is not my cup of tea, but for the RPG fans out there I’m sure this is a fantastic title.
7 long, long pages of text out of 10