GB Feature: Avernum 6 Review

Spiderweb Software’s latest RPG closes the second trilogy of the Avernum series, and with that is the finishing chapter of the series as a whole. Has it petered out or is the series going out with a bang? Read our review to find out.

Specifically, the main plot will drag you into massive, high-level fights where you work alongside key NPCs or groups of elite soldiers. This resolves both the problem of it feeling implausible that you save the world single-handed, and helps in having the big fights feel different from normal fights. The fact that you’re not always working alone means the player’s team feels less important, and this might bother some players. But it is part of the game’s overall tone (more on that later), and to me it actually makes the fights feel more grand in scale, not less.

The other side of the improved combat situations sees your party fighting opponents as normal, but with specific requirements needed for victory. For example, there may be endlessly respawning spheres that need to be destroyed, the party may be forced to go shoulder-to-shoulder in a tight space, or there may be requirements to even damage an opponent. The idea is nice enough, and an expansion of challenge fights in Avernum 5. But I could imagine players don’t always feel like going through this, so it’s better when they’re stuck purely to side quests, something this game does most of the time, but not always.

Another (bigger) problem with challenge fights is how specific the requirements can be, and what a pain to figure out. At times, you’ll find a fight to be frustratingly difficult, until you do it exactly and I mean exactly as the designers intended it to be done, and then suddenly it’ll be a piece of cake. At times it feels more like a mini-game than combat, and while usually fun and challenging, it can descend into head-scratching and frustration.