Fascinating title, this one is. A blend if you will, of Icewind Dale and Fallout 1. With a dash of something even more old-school - the Ultima series.

Icewind Dale because it's fantasy, but much more desolate than you're used to, and with a heavy emphasis on combat and dungeon raiding. Most of all quests and situations in this game are solved through combat. A couple through theft or following a linear dialogue tree. But none through negotiations - except for the fact that you can either choose to complete the quest and the combat associated with it, or leave the baddie be. You don't actually need to complete more than a handful of quests to beat the game technically speaking.

Fallout 1 because it's the exact same premise. You're thrust from your comfort zone into a completely unknown world, where every expectation is subverted with something inherently lower quality or more dangerous. And you're left to do what you want right from the opening minute. The focus is on exploration, and it's an equally fascinating realm to Fallout's one, with secrets and encounters hidden in every nook and cranny, items to pilfer, quests to solve at every corner and horrific monsters to be ambushed by.

I remember playing the shareware version of the original Exile: Escape from the Pit on my mum's Mac, this must have been in 1997 or so. I was never good enough to get far in it as a kid, but there was something about it that stimulated my interest and imagination. The mechanics in that version were pretty hardcore - severe encumbrance penalties, getting dumbfounded, diseases, and so on. And you best not get any of your characters killed as their revival will cost a small fortune. I'm glad Spiderweb Software toned it down for this remake. It's a better game for it. But if you're an experienced RPG player - do play it on hard. You can always dial the difficulty down for the odd battle if you really do become stuck somewhere.

Anyway, I got the first Fallout a year or two later and it quickly became my favourite RPG. Now that I played through this remake, I know why. Because this game and Fallout - well they're basically apples from one and the same tree.

And finally there's the Ultima influence. This is related to the game's art style, its combat system, and its heavy reliance on text descriptions. The writing I should note in this game - is superb. The Ultima games of course were also I believe the earliest open-world RPGs and in this sense are the progenitor of both Avernum and Fallout.

Altogether it's a unique package. I don't feel like it's an all-time classic. There are some things which aren't to my preference in Avernum. Too much reliance on going back and forth and leaving dungeons half-completed only to have to return later as difficulties and challenge ratings even within the same dungeons or across different floors can vary quite widely. The I'd say more primitive combat system compared to the D&D RPG games or Fallout or most contemporary CRPGs really. The story not hooking you emotionally.. or really being there 95% of the time. Character development being non-existent. And some parts which break immersion - such as being able to pilfer a dragon's treasure but it just carries on interacting with you as if nothing has changed. I guess you're always aware that it's ultimately a remake of a remake of a game from 1995. But it's still a great time. And a great game.

A sprawling open-world RPG that's evocative of BECMI edition D&D until dawn in somebody's basement. Like early D&D the mechanics are relatively simple but satisfying. Your characters have four stats ( Str / Dex / Int / End) and two skill trees (Combat and Magic). When they level up, you can add one point to a stat, and two skill points which cannot both be used on the same skill. Paper doll inventory and you find better stuff over time but it's not the treadmill of gear upgrades many RPGs are built around. My characters at level 16 are using the same weapons as when they were Level 6.

Combat is pretty simple but with enough room for tactics to make it interesting. Fighter types have access to "Battle Disciplines," special moves that can be used every few rounds on a cooldown timer. Mage and Priest spell lists are short and simple with a mix of elemental attacks, summoning spells, buffs / debuffs, and healing. Combat does feel a little grindy and repetitive after a while but it's a satisfying grind.

This game is big and there's rarely a shortage of things to do. You will probably be overwhelmed by how many threads you are given to follow. I started keeping notes in a text editor because the game expects you to remember a lot of information. There's a Quest Tracker with a clunky interface, and there's a Journal you can copy specific conversations or item descriptions into, but there's no references of monster types or the kind of Avernum-pedia like you would expect in a contemporary RPG. There's an Event Log but it doesn't really like you scroll back or search past a few lines back. The worldbuilding is really cool and full of detail. Most of the quests are on the order of "find this item" or "kill these monsters" but the setting is so big and creative that there is always something new to discover while running errands and murdering critters.

This is a game where you will want to save often. There's no indication of the difficulty of a monster until you get into combat with it and there are plenty of monsters that can kill off your whole party in a single round. Sometimes there is incongruity between the monsters in a dungeon vs the boss monster at the end of the dungeon. You might be able to one-shot all of the regular monsters but you'll need to come back a few character levels later before you stand a chance fighting the boss of the dungeon. Save frequently.

The presentation is mostly okay though honestly it can be a little tough to parse what's going on. An in-game zoom/scale feature would go a long way to fixing this and save a lot of squinting. There is a nice keyboard interface in combat where each monster and each spell / battle discipline is indexed with a letter, so you can quickly type "mgb" to cast mage spell G targeting monster B. Or "ad" to attack monster D. The only thing is the pathing is sometimes glitchy and characters will take an unexpected route when trying to engage with a monster. This doesn't happen super often but it's a good idea to manually position your characters when a fight gets complicated and don't count on the targeting to behave as desired.

Overall this is a great game! If you like retro / old-school RPGs and can get past the slightly clunky interface, there's a cool well designed setting which is ikelly to satisfy.