Revisited: Ravenloft - Strahd's Possession

GOG recently had a sale of old SSI games and I couldn´t resist buying a dozen old titles. Among them was Ravenloft: Strahds Possession. A game from 1994 which I had never played. At that time I still had my Amiga 1200 and so I missed out these great RPG titles that where released for the PC platform in the beginning of the 1990s.

Since it was a long time I revisited a real old-school RPG I thought this could be the moment for a comeback. I have no experience of the Ravenloft world at all. But it seems based on the AD&D rules of which I am very familiar with. 

The game begins with an introduction of a king that is robbed of an amulet and me and a companion are sent after the fleeing thief. But before that I have to create the two characters which is played out by a gypsie giving me cards with choices of gender, race and class. I can then reroll my stats until I am satisfied but to my astonishment I could also edit them to set any value I like. That seems very strange and it feels strange to spend time re-rolling (one of the traits we old gamers have) when I just could cheat. I will try to re-roll the best results I could get and I chooses a warrior and a priest. 

Character generation

I created a human figher and a human priest. I rerolled for 10 minutes until I got satisfied with the results. It turns out you start at level 6 already. That was a dissappointment because this is the first in the Ravenloft series and it will take them to raise a level. 

Now, we started just outside a wood and in the far distance we could see the thief. First I checked that all my weapons and armours were properly weared and the we run to the thief and a fight begun which we won quite easily. He dropped a few items, amongst them the amulet but also a parchment.

 The parchment suggested that the amulet was vital in order to defeat the vampire Strahd that seems to live in the castle Ravenloft. Just after reading this a mist formed around us and we were suddenly brought to another part of the world. There we could never leave the boundaries of the mist so we had to explore the way forward and soon came to small walled compound. In there we found another document but also a ladder leading down to an underground cellar. It was empy of denizens and we found a few healing potions and an armour. I never found any hidden passages so we had to return above again and leave this walled place. It was then we where attacked by worgs. 

The mist that surrounded us in the woods

Fights are done in realtime and I have to click on the weapons as quickly as they regain their coolness period. It was not too hard to kill a single worg but this place was full of them and also of goblinlike creatures which was very hard to kill. I had to reload at least once until switched tactic and decided to run through all encounters. That led us to some remain that we plundered of a few healing potions before coming to a walled maze of plants. Here I was overtaken by three brigands which I only hardly defeated before saving the game once again.

Exploring the underground cellar

Thank god there is an automap in the game

 The forested area I was in was called a road according to the sign. I explored this road southward and after having fighted some other bats, brigands and worgs - and rested in between. I came to some sort of fort or castle with double doors impossible to open. I had to explore the surroundings which was a forest but nothing of interst laid there. I returned to explore north and was ambushed by three brigands. After a tough fight where I was about to die the survivor yielded to me.

I let him go because i had so little health left and he told me how to get to their camp. When he was gone I continued my exploration northward. I had still to find any items. I have the same weapons and gold as in the start so it seems it will be hard to get items in this game. The creatures does not give you any loot, neither can you see their health bars when fightning.

After awhile I found a man who told med that Strahd is a good leader and that he is no king. He also sells a potion with which I could pass the inpenetrable mists at the borders. He would stay at a village farther north if I ever got the golds required. At least I had a goal. To reach the village and find out more. On my way there I walked upon a woman who clearly was only interested in gold or how to get it. I thought she was a thief first and after some conversation I recruited her to my group so we are three now. It turned out she was a thief/warrior/mage. Any help at this stage is good help. 

I reached the village and it turned out to bee quite large. I begun to explore house by house since  I didn´t find any visible inhabitants. I could enter any building but I never met anyone who wanted to speka to me. Meanwhile this background music is playing its horror themes in my earphones. The quality is what could be expected from this time but at least there are digitized voices of the NPC:s which is a nice touch. 

 I don´t know what to make of this game so far. I cannot say I am overwhelmed by the game, its graphics or interface (which is a bit clumsy to say the least). But I have read only good reviews of this game so I will give it a chance. What I do like is that you r characters are commenting on things seen or happening which adds to the story and atmosphere. I have no sense of progressiong right now. Since I am already at level 6 it feels quite unneccessary to combat these random encounters since I would need so much experience points to gain a level and they never carry any loot anyway.

Let´s see how this game evolved during the next hours....

Review: Avadon 2 - The Corruption

Game reviewed: Avadon 2 - The Corruption

Version: 1.0.1s
Created by: Spiderweb Software
Released: 2013

Formats: Pc

Difficulty: 7/10

Price: $9.49

According to Steam I have played for 83 hours. That is not entirely true if the time counts when the game has been paused for long periods tough, but it give a hint of the size of this game.

I have reached what I believe to be the last part of the game. The problem is that it is just damned hard. Even when switching difficulty down to casual I am not able to defeat one of the major subcombats before the final one (don´t wan´t to spoil anything here). So I give up. I don´t have the time and patience to try to complete this when other games are knocking on my door. I do have a good grip of the game tough to make a review.

This game was much larger than anticipated. It has been a solid experience. The game has a good story and world going for it and the dialogues are well over average for this type of game, only superceded by Biowares and Bethesda games.

I´ve already told you about how the system works in previous posts so lets get down to business and see how it fares in each category.

Gameworld & Story

The gameworld is well defined with several countries and faunas with their own cultures and motivations. The Pact, Avadon and the borderlands are interesting places and the game is filled with references to them all the time. The story of the game is quite good. A rebellion is forming and a former highplaces Avadon Hand has became a traitor and must be tracked down. Everything is twinned together. The aging Avadon commander Redbeard tries to keep the alliance together but is tired and dizzy. Still he or his subordinates send you out on different missions which is important to restore the balance and stop the rebellion.

I would say these parts are one of Blackspider webs strongest parts.

Rating: 4

Economy

You have access to several shops around the world with different prices and inventories. In the beginning you lack gold (as always) and there is much you would like to buy in the shops but only after a third into the game I felt the shops never contained anything really powerful when it comes to weapons or armours. You will always find better equipment than what the shops are offering which means that all your gold could be spent on buying different kind of potions (health, speed, restoration etc) and scarabs (scarabs give permanent effects as long as you wear them in special character slots).

The variety of weapons and armours are also not very good with just a few different kind of wands, one-handed and two-handed weapons.

So I am disappointed because there are very few good items out there and the difference between them is slight. Still, lockpicks and potions cost quite much and you never really get rich. I think I had at the most 9.000 crowns in the game and a potion costs around 200. You need them to survive the harder and longer fights. For a game this modern and with all the experience back in the trilogy I would have expected more.

Rating: 2.5


NPC & Interactions

This is one of the games stronger points. There are a lot of NPC:s in the game. Both those that are part of the main missions and sidequests but also the ordinary people and shopkeepers. The dialogues are very well written most of the time and keep up the interest without wasting any valuable time with nonsense texts. Characters, their appearance as well as environments are well described.

The interactions of the game consists of pushing the occasional button or lever to open a secret passage or door but overall it is not much. You will find chests and containers and the world is filled with different kinds of tools and junk. Most of it is worthless though.

Rating: 3.5

Monsters, tactics and combat system

Magic system

The game has no specific magic mechanics. It works just like skills for other classes so there is no mana. You will drain your vitality points just like when using skills. The only difference is that you usually equip your mages with wizards staffs since they are ranged weapons.

So in total I can´t say there is a separate magic system in the game. The mage classes do have their own skill trees though and these are quite varied between the classes. The shaman can summon creatures for example but I found even the most powerful ones to be quite weak. The other magic classes might do more direct damage instead but never do you feel enough powerful.

My favourite spells was mass confusion and mass haste throughout the game. Most of my area effect spells was pretty weak.

Rating: 2

Character generation & development

At the start you can choose among the different classes that exists for your main character. You don´t have to feel you will miss something because you will get followers in each category but in certain places in the game you will be playing alone and then it can be more or less hard depending on the class you have chosen.

When you increase in level you will get a randomly selected increase in an attribute (Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Endurance) and will get one point to freely increase. Then you get two skill points to distribute in the skill tree. Skills requires two points to aquire and one to level up. They also get more and more powerful the more skillpoints you invest and consists of part upgrades so you get a special feature at level 3 and level 6 in each skill. You also get a bonus skillpoint in a treebransch every 5 levels or so. This system works very well and I even found one person whom you could retrain your characters with.

To increase in level is really a pleasure. This part of the game works pretty well.

Rating: 3


Map design

Maps are irregular. At least underground so you will never be sure of how large a place is. The design and level layout are generally quite good with underground rivers, lava streams and tunnels. The outdoor areas spans forests, desert like landscapes and mountains. It feel like a thought is behind it all.

Rating: 4

Manual

At least there is a manual for the game (these days you couldn´t be sure of anything). It explains the game mechanics in the end part which is very good but I never noticed it until writing this.

Rating: 3


Graphics, Sound and Interface

The graphics in the game is quite simple, yet functional and easy to grasp. Even though there are a lot of garbage littering around which you could pick up but never have any reason too. The interface is also quite nice and easy to understand. You have the usual quickslots, garbage collector area and can switch between the characters easily when you swap items or sell/buy things in a shop.

The sound of the game is perhaps its weakest part. There are only some ambient sounds and never any melodies played in the game except at the start menu. The soundeffects are ok but everything sound just like the Black Fortress sounded which was released a few years earlier.

Rating: 3

Gameplay

No matter what the CRPG summary value gets, the gameplay value is the single most important factor and this game gets a solid four. The story is good and engaging as well as the environmental descriptions and most of the NPC:s you meet are portrayed in a good way. Unfortunately I found I could never play for more than two hours at a time because of the constant fights everywhere which gets tiresome. If the designer would choose to add more tactics available during tactical combat like flanking, backstabbing, taking cover etc it would be much more interesting. For example, I never see any enemy spellcaster run out of vitality points which is a shame. They could bombard you forever. Also it would be nice to see sometimes in a game a wounded creature that actually gets its combat performance reduced.

I would also like to see a better use of the money gained. There where not enough good equipment to loot or buy and the later combats became harder and harder. Credit to the developer for actually making some combats require you to think because not in all of them you can just slaugher the enemies without first solving some things like finding a way to harm the leader by breaking a protective barrier for example.

The game is well worth its money and can you get it on sale at Steam or GoG it comes highly recommended.

Section	Rating
Gameworld & Story	4
Economy	2.5
NPC & Interactions	3.5
Monsters, tactics & combat system	3
Magic system	2
Character generation & development	3
Map design	4
Manual	3
Graphics, Sound and Interface	3
Summary CRPG value	28
Gameplay	4