Avadon: The Black Fortress is a new RPG by Spiderweb, creators of so many other great rpg game series. This is the first chapter to the Avadon series, bringing us a whole new story and style to the fantasy rpg genre. Spiderwebs focus in this game, and their previous games, is the character development and story. With their release of Avadon: The Black Fortress they hold true to that focus and brought us another great experience.

Upon opening the game you’re greeted with an orchestra of music and a scene of the drawbridge of Avadon, The black fortress, as well as your typical title and list of options such as start new game, load game and so on. When you first enter your new game, you get to choose your character. You can choose from Blade master, a heavily armored melee combatant, the Shadowwalker, a stealthy and tactful character, Shaman, a nature bound healer and summoner, and the Sorceress, a master of the element. You get to read a little about the classes strengths and weaknesses as well as a little background on the class. Once you pick your name your ready to go.

When you start your adventure, you go through many screens telling you about the fortress itself as we as its leader, Redbeard, the pact, and their influence over the land. The fortress and its members are the law of the land and have supreme authority. You are a member of the pact, which is a pact of the five nations, who devote themselves to keeping order and peace, and to keep the nations safe from anyone who would corrupt or destroy them. After reading some well written story, your placed on the ground in the courtyard of the Fortress where you learn some general things about the story and the game.

As for the story, you are a hand of Redbeard, the enforcers of his will. There are hands, hearts, and eyes. The Hands take up the duties of protection and doing missions. The Hearts advise Redbeard and are the ones who give you many of your missions. The eyes are the ones who gather information for the Pact and report it back. As a hand you do not need to worry about following laws or rules, you have complete authority to do what is necessary for the good of the pact. The characters and their background stories and descriptions are all very well written and presented, giving you a full feel of the environments and characters. Some of these characters are also available to be in your party, in the beginning you get to choose from a warrior or a mage to accompany you into your first dungeon.

Your first experience with combat is the fight between you and some filthy looking wolves. They are easy of course but this gives you a great chance to explore the combat. The combat is tile based and each character can move a certain number of tiles before their turn ends automatically. Their turn will also end when they cast a spell or use an attack. The turns go around giving every person in your party and chance and then letting each of the enemies have a go at you. Each character has a normal attack, as well as special attacks and abilities. For the warrior you will find more taunts and melee damaging attacks as well as a handy heal for only the warrior. The Sorcerer has an AoE stun and a move to de-agro enemies. The shaman can summon a companion as well as heal for an ally, and the shadowwalker has an attack that will lower outgoing damage from the enemy as well as a heal for himself. These skills will go on to be upgraded and enhanced by gaining added effects. There are many other abilities to acquire for each character as well as items and scrolls the player can obtain and use during battle. Also, to my surprise and enjoyment, when I used a potion, it didn’t take up my turn.

And of course as most popular games do, Avadon has items and gear. You can pick up things from armor, to trash, as well as potions and scrolls with abilities on them. You can pick up weapons, cloth and other objects, as well as items purely to sell. Something I really liked about the loot and items is that you won’t always find them from a enemy dying or in a draw. Sometimes you have to look closely at your environment to see an item on the floor, then open your inventory screen and pull it out of the available items window into your inventory. From there you can put it on your character, use it, or even put it back and drop it on the ground.

You also gain levels in the game, upon leveling up, you will gain attribute points that will enhance and power up your attacks, health, and among other things. You also get skill points to use that, as I said above, will upgrade and enhance your previous skills, or grant you new ones. Each character has their own levels and attributes, as well as skill trees and inventories.

I felt this game was an all around great experience. The story was rich, the characters were developed, and the scenes were tasteful. While the graphics weren’t great and the style resembles an older game, it really doesn’t take away from the game as a whole. In fact, the lack of graphics and new aged mechanics makes the story and character development all the richer. The evniornments themselves don’t require better graphics to still give you the right feel of the area, with the help of the sounds and noises of the game. Avadon: The Black Fortress is a an exciting new adventure that delivers around 30+ hours of gameplay (depending on frequency) and tells a great story. For anyone to truly appreciates a good rounded RPG experience, or anyone who enjoys any of the class rpgs.

Game hard, play happy!

Hayley Clements
Impulse Gamer
United States Team Writer