Avernum 3: Ruined World Review

Kordanor

Wastelander
Joined
June 2, 2012
Messages
4,691
Heyho,

it's time to promote my youtube channel again. :p

Well, actually I also spend some time in doing a transcript of the content this time.
Using google translate I got myself some basics and then I corrected the worst mistakes and made it somewhat readable. It's not really professional quality though.

So here is the Review (In German)


And here is the english transcript:
Well … how should I begin this review? An "And it's groundhog day again" is almost too trivial. I found the following comment in the RPGWatch forums very nice, which, in free translation, reads: "This guy - that's the developer Jeff Vogel - should be part of the Save the Planet Committees, because no one is recycling better than him."
What is meant? Well, January 31, Avernum 3: Ruined World by Spiderweb Software, is not only the 3rd installment in the current Avernum series, but also the 6th game of the company, which uses exactly the same graphics and assets. In addition, it is also a remake of the 2002 Avernum 3, which was a remake of the 1997 Exile 3 Ruined World.

According to the developer, some of the game's features have been updated and quests have been enhanced in this remake. However, since I am only with the current Avernum series and have never played the old versions, I can not judge that unfortunately.

Avernum 3 Ruined World is the first Spiderweb game (I know of) that does not introduce the story with text and pictures, but with a self-running ingame sequence.

There is quite a lot to talk about, as the rough content of the two predecessors characterizes the story of the current part, and the sequence also sums it up pretty well:
The ruling empire uses the underground system called "Avernum" as a prison in the underground and has accordingly stuffed its prisoners there, including real criminals, but above all political enemies, or people who have once expressed a negative attitude to the Empire. And this is also how the first part start, in which you explore the underground cave world with its numerous cities.
While the intro sequence also mentions other details that happened in the first and second parts, I'll skip those at this point and get straight to the point where Avernum 3 Ruined World begins: The realm of Avernum has finally managed to dig a path to the surface undetected somewhere in the hinterland, with the intention of carefully exploring the surface first, in order to weigh up the options of settling the surrounding area itself. Our team of four is now one of the first groups to carry out these expeditions. The title Ruined World in turn describes the state of the world. Instead of a country of milk and honey, we find an area where chaos has broken out and from which the Empire has largely retreated to the heartland and sealed off the way there. The left behind citizens of the hinterland are now, how can it be otherwise, relying on our help, and we we can also dazzlingly demonstrate that way that we are the good guys.
Also the world in Avernum does not stand still. As you can see from the feature list of the game, cities will crumble after some time, as long as players do not intervene in time. The forum also has a detailed list of when and which city will go into another phase when it is more damaged.
Although I have played very time efficient in my playthrough, but also very thoroughly with all side quests, I saw nothing of these developments. Sure, there is a time display on the top left, but to really notice the changes in the game, you would first have to enter the city early, then wait beyond the threshold, and then re-enter and remember the original state.
I fixed all the threats before switching to the first phase, but you do not need to be afraid that the game would eventually end and lose because time has run out. Such a limitation does not exist, and even if everything was destroyed by enemies, you can still make the game.

The story is told in typical classic role-playing style, as it is known, for example, from the old The Realms of Arcania trilogy: First, of course, through dialogues, which are also divided into very good packages, so you never stand before a wall of text (even if you have to click through several dialog branches several times to find a branch with a new task), and on the other hand there are a lot of pop-up text windows. These will further describe the current environment, for example, that you just entered a house which has been abandoned for several months, which you conclude due the dust and spider webs, which would be difficult to show in detail in the very rough graphical representation of the game. The writing in the game, which is only available in English, is very good and the world is in itself very logical, so the question "and where are the goblins going to the bathroom" can be answered as usual in the worlds of Spiderweb Software. However, the behavior of some Avernites in relation to the re-exploration of the surface was described as somewhat illogical. Because not every Avernite was born in the underground and so a sheep should not be something nobody has heared of.
As for the story itself, or the implementation, I think, you could have made more of it. For example, I found the situation particularly exciting when, after the first few hours of play, I was one of the first Avernites to visit a city on the surface. But while the game always makes allusions that you should not be identified as Avernite, and there is amazement about the pale skin color, everything is quite prefabricated and static. You can not act as a secret spy or an agent, and there are no different reactions or effects, and by the third or fourth city at the latest, you have almost forgotten your task of sneaking around undiscovered, explore the surroundings and spy on the population. You just run around as usual hero squad meet many requests for help from the population.
Not a big drawback, apart from a little credibility, but I think there could have been more to it.
And while we are at it, I would like to go into the feature list on Steam, because it lists some features which are exaggerated quite a bit:
I have already talked about the development of the world over time.
It was also mentioned that you can simply put aside the main quest and be able to “pursue peculiar jobs" and become a "bounty hunter or trader". In the end, this just means that there are side quests from the bulletin board, including randomly generated bring something from A to B quests, as well as those where you have to kill creatures.
However, regarding these randomly generated bounty quests you can already see in the achievement list on steam (the achievement requires to complete 3 of these quests) that only less than 3% of the players completed this achievement, compared to over 10% who have completed the game, which demonstrates that it's really not a big deal in the game.
The same applies to trading. Yes, there is a way to buy something in a city through a repeatable quest and to sell it profitably in another city. But that really does not add anything substantial to the game. The same can also be said about the buyable house, with which you will spend less than fifteen minutes in the game.

These are not any points which would lead me to give strong deductions on the overall score, but as they are used so open as features advertising the game, I wanted to point that you should not pay much attention to them.

The statement regarding more than 100 villages and dungeons is also to be taken with a grain of salt. Yes, the world of Avernum 3 Ruined World is huge, and you can certainly plan on spending over 100 hours of gameplay to fully explore the 3 huge areas and complete all the quests. Personally, spent about 126h playing this game on the highest difficulty and doing all unique side quests. But in regards of the number of villages: These are much more diluted than in previous games, even compared with previous Avernum titles. Meaning that instead of having dozens of NPCs in each of 3 cities, you have like 2 or 3 named NPCs to talk to in each of a dozen of cities.

This is not really bad either, since you are not stuck in dialogues for hours, but it's a bit misleading and the total size of the game, measured by the actual game content or the game length, is similar to the two predecessors. Due to the somewhat decreasing difficulty in the last part of the game I finished Avernum 3 even more quickly than its predecessors.

The game mechanics are almost 100% identical to its predecessors. At the start of the game, we can put together a group of 4 characters, with 3 races to choose from, each with their own small advantages, of which the extra trait points of the humans are by far the strongest which is quite apparent right away. However, it is nice that there are a couple of situations in the world where the inhabitants react differently to the group if you have one of the lizards or cat creatures in the group, even if thats not making a significant difference.
As far as the classes are concerned, these are just templates with pre-placed attribute- and talent points. But you can also select a classless character so that you can distribute the points freely after the start of the game.
Experience is gained by solving quests, lockpicking and killing monsters, which also respawn to a very small extent so that the experience points are not severely limited. For each additional level you need 1000 experience points. However the number of experience points you get by the same task is getting smaller and smaller, so that by killing slime over and over you should not expect a rocket-like ascent through the levels. I also liked that depending on your partie's progress opponents on the map can be bypassed, are automatically killed by text if you solved a particular quest, or can even try to flee from you if you have a very high reputation. However it's not that great that there are also some places in the game where you lose experience points which is not really obvious right away. At some point you look at your characters and are horrified to find that they have less experience points than before. The fact that you have suffered these losses due to a certain interaction in the game world is not revealed, and without knowing it you will probably first think that this is due to an error, which is certainly not very elegant.
When you level up, you can then distribute an attribute point to the Strength, Dexterity, Intellect, or Stamina attributes. Strength for the melee classes, dexterity for the ranged and intelligence for caster classes. Of course, Endurance is essential for melee, but basically everyone can use it to some degree.
Furthermore, the characters receive 2 talent points that can be distributed to the talent trees. Either on weapon talents, magic talents, or on utility talents.
The base weapons and magic talents also determine which spells you can learn. Although the value of these skills can be increased to 30, the highest spells only need a value of 20. The other talents can be increased to a maximum of 10, with the exception of luck, which has only a maximum of 5. You can only increase a talent by a maximum of one per level though.
Utility talents have more special features. Lockpicking simply requires a minimum value. But there is no dice roll, no consumption of lockpicks and no mini-game. The same goes for Arcane Lore, which is needed to identify some books that contain the third level of learnable spells. These and similar talents work in such a way that the total value of the group is added up. So instead of raising Lockpits on a character to 10, it can be increased to 5 points on 2 different characters.
In addition, some of the talents can be upgraded by up to 2 points with the help of trainers in the game which costs lots of gold though. It's important to know that this can also increase the value above the limit of 10. But only if you rise the first 10 points the normal way. The same applies to increases with the help of crystals, which can also improve a few talents.

Finally, every 2 levels you can also select Traits. While humans can increase their traits 2 times every second time, it is always only once for the other races.

These traits include some things that could have been implemented just as talented, but also other small bonuses, such as faster gain of experience or more effective item sales.

And in addition to these increases on level ups you can also buy spells from trainers as long as your talent is high enough.
While the first two levels can be learned from these trainers scattered all over the world and which also have different prizes, the final level, which often adds extra buffs or debuffs to the damage or healing spell, can be learned as mentioned earlier by finding these often hidden books, as long as you'r Arcane Lore Talents are high enough. Although there are also melee skills, these are automatically learned and they only come with one level. The balance of melee skills, however, is so bad that once you unlock a certain ability, you will never use any other one after that.

The system sounds somewhat complicated, but be assured that it is extremely simple and intuitive for the most part (not including the maximul talent values). However, it is not very complex, and while there are certainly some possible combinations, you will probably make a decision at the start of the game and then build up the appropriate skills level by level, without any great surprises or gamechangers. For example, a new talent will never open up a new style of play or new tactical options. These are usually added by new spells and attacks, although you usually only use a very limited number of the numerous existing spells.

The character system generally works quite well and it does not annoy the player by any means, but it's not terribly interesting or involving either.

As mentioned, the trainers can be found scattered all over the world. The accessible world in Avernum 3 is subdivided into 3 main sections with dedicated maps, and it basically works like in Commander Keen or Wasteland 2: You can move freely in an overview perspective of the world, where there are also several roaming enemies and numerous special places you can find, which mostly present a small event in text form and let you chose something, which mostly gives a small reward and triggers a fight. If you enter a special area such as a dungeon or a city, the game's perspective changes to a larger scale. In these zones, most of the dialogues and fights of the game take place.
There's tons of stuff to discover in the world of Avernum. There are plenty of optional places to find, quests to do and some special artifacts to discover that are not needed to complete the game. The quests are usually quite simple in their structure and are displayed in the quest log, where they will down a bit later in the game with all the repeatable quests which keep staying there as well. Most of the time, there aren't multiple solutions for a single quest.
Particularly noteworthy, however, are the many uses of gold in the game. In many games, the gold eventually loses its value, or you hardly use it at all. In Avernum 3 on the other hand there is always something to buy with gold. Sometimes there is equipment you want to buy, sometimes you need gold for quests, and then there are always new spells and talent improvements to buy, so you really have lots of options to put your gold to good use at any point in the game.

Next to the story and the exploration the combat is the third core element of the game.
If you are on the “map” perspective and trigger a combat, an artificial combat area is created. If you are in an zone of a dungeon or a city, the fight takes place directly in the normal game environment. The participants turns take place one after the other, and the order depends on the settings in the options and character values.
Each character has 8 action points by default with which he starts in the round. Any action such as casting or attacking in melee costs 9 points, but can also be done with less if your remaining points are less. But if you happen to start a turn with 10 points due to buffs you could also cast two spells, which is otherwise only possible with a haste spell, which randomly reduces the cost of an action.
While in fights outside of zones it often makes sense to rush towards the opponents and kill as many as possible right away, within zones it is often most effective to position your party on the sides of doors and to draw the opponents through these choke points to slaughter them one by one.
A step backwards to the last release of Spiderweb, Avadon 3, is the pathfinding. While the Avadon 3 group members have avoided paths that send them directly next to opponents, this is no longer the case for Avernum 3 . Although running out of adjacent fields does not trigger a counter attack, it costs 4 points instead of just one to complete that movement. On the other hand the game usually suggests incorrect paths and distances when you attack the opponent from farther away. While I would describe this as a clear bug, the developer responded to the feedback that this solution was deliberately chosen because it is more resource-friendly. Although the graphics and the requirement of the game on the PC are rather ridiculously low, I guess the limitations are mostly coming due to mobile devices. But to me that doesn't excuse to also cripple the PC version.

Otherwise, the fights are working very well as usual. There is a lot of luck in many battles. But as the battles usually go quite fast, this random factor is rarely really frustrating mostly you just try to optimize something on the next try.
However, Avernum 3 Ruined World, like all the other games I have played on Spiderweb so far, has the problem that spells scale much more with difficulty than melee attacks. At the beginning of the game, magical opponents are many times stronger than pure melee opponents.
While in the previous Avernum games you reached some kind of soft level cap at level 30, you can increase your level normally in Avernum 3 even past level 30, which breaks the balancing for the final part of the game, which will become trivially easy even on the highest difficulty level.
And while there were some interesting boss fights in previous games, there aren't many in Avernum 3. There are a few tricky fights now and then, but rarely battles with sophisticated mechanics like in MMORPGs.

Although the combat aspect of the game is generally doing quite well, it also has its weaknesses in some regards.

Finally we come to the technical aspect of the game. The graphics are still extremely old-fashioned, but at least they can be adjusted to modern resolutions. The sound effects are very crude, but mostly seem quite fitting.
But what is an absolute no-go is that apart from the music-track in the main menu and the short intro loop, the game does not offer any music at all. This is actually thothing new but standard for Spiderweb games, which does not make things better and has bothered me since I first played them. As workaround, I've put together a playlist of royalty-free music from Kevin McLeod's Incompetech.

While I would have given the game a thumbs up if it had music, as I have done with previous Spiderweb games, there are too many little things at Avernum 3 that are a bit lacking, including once again the balance of Magic damage, but now also the endgame fights, and the lack of the otherwise good boss battles.
The oversold feature list I would not count as a negative for the game rating itself, but is another limitation, if, for example you are reading this review due to being mislead by the featurelist. The game really shines through the very good writing and the big, well-designed world, even though some potential has been wasted and the exploration of the underworld in Avernum 1, for example, has brought more fascination.

In any case, Avernum 3 Ruined World is a good game, with some weaknesses and limitations, so my rating is between “mediocre” and “recommended”.

It will be interesting now what the developer Jeff Vogel will do next. He has already announced that there will probably be a Kickstarter project for the next game, which should come with a new engine. It might be good if it really is an improvement, but with such a small team and such a low budget, there is certainly a chance of making things worse, for example, by exchanging static sprites with super cheap looking 3D models. But we will probably have to wait until summer or fall. In addition a remake of the Geneforge series has already been mentioned, which could also be interesting.

And that's it from me. I hope this review was helpful to you!
 
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Either this game or Azure Saga: Pathfinder will be up next for me, when I complete the Last Remnant. Every time I think I'm close to finishing the game, I find more random quests to do!
 
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Hrm, can't really judge here. Azure Saga's Graphical style puts me off but that's just personal preferences. But that's the same case with Last Remnant, so...obviously not any of your issues with that game. ^^
 
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Do you have to play 1 and 2 before 3 - i.e, are they story related. Also (if not story related) which of the three is best to start with (I presume these are better than the avadon series).
 
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"Jein" in both cases, which is btw the combination of the two German words for Yes and no. ^^

In Avernum 3 you have references to the previous games several times, but it's never really assumed that you played them.
On the other hand, some things happening in Avernum 1 and 2 might be spoiled by first playing Avernum 3. I mean just by knowing that Avernum 3 is partially playing on the surface you already know that you manage to escape in Avernum 1 or 2. Which isn't really a huge spoiler, but which also makes it a great example which applies to several things.
Personally I think the first one is the best. It has the most interesting setting, where you are starting as prisoner thrown into the pit and have to explore the underground world. I think you have the most options for decisions there, and it's also the hardest (which you can regulate down with the difficulty setting of course).

In comparison to Avadon 3 however you have to consider that while being games with the same graphics, sounds and big similarity in systems, they also have their differences. And with that I don't just mean different character systems and small differences in combat (e.g. attack of opportunity vs 4point costs vs 1 to move out of an adjacent tile) but mostly that Avernum is a "open world" game, similar to let's say skyrim where you have main story but a map free to explore with tons of optional stuff whereas Avadon has a more streamlined and limited apprach like Baldurs Gate where you have moving linear unlocking one zone after another without having an open world in between. I'd say that the story is a bit more interesting in Avadon, but I prefer the open world approach.
That said, I didn't like the strange Ending of Avadon 1 and a couple of other decisions in that game. Avadon 2 or 3 however became extremely easy due to a not so well balanced class. They are still great games, but I'd say that my favorite of all these 6 games is clearly Avernum 1: Escape from the Pit.
 
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Ruined World was the first game I played, back when it was called exile. It was also my favorite story. I didn't feel like I missed much by not playing the previous game, although it did spoil a few things about Crystal Souls. Escape from the Pit barely has a story (although there is tons of background and world building) so you don't have to worry too much about spoiling that.
 
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I also played this when it was known as Exile, and bought the new version when it was released in January simply to reward the work, and this new version is fabulous. I'm having a blast romping around the world, finding both new and old quests, and random loots/encounters.

And you by no means need to have played the prior games to enjoy this one.
 
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