In a world of wizardry, wonder and untold mystery, you must undertake some of the most diverse quests to hone your skills in spell casting, weaponry and melee combat. Armed with countless combat moves and spells, and a vast arsenal of equipment you must uncover the source of this evil by vanquishing an onslaught of enemies. Treachery and deceit reveal themselves as the vicious army threatens Avencasts very existence. Amidst the mayhem, an astonishing truth unfolds which will forever change the battle scarred Wizard.
Avencast Rise of the Mage
Your martial skills are soon put to the test as demonic monsters descend upon Avencast, turning the academy into a state of chaos and destruction.
Avencast: Rise of the Mage is not a standard RPG game that you will encounter these days. This genre is mixed with a lot of other sub-genres of RPG mixed in a very odd formula which seems to have come up real good. There's always a danger in trying to do too much, but somehow Avencast manages to make an RPG with action-based controls and tricky puzzles like an adventure game should have. The game starts by creating your character, even though the only thing you can create about him is only the name, the rest come pre-defined. The only things that can later be custom developed are his skills. As the game is started you will be acquainted with the story of the game as his adoptive parents have found him as a baby in the river and carried him home with them. After he grew he started to show a great potential for magic and soon his parents sent him to a magic academy to develop his skills. As he finishes his studies the real game begins as right in that time a horde of demons attacks the whole world and you take place in that epic battle to save it. Quests range from infuriating side tasks like keeping some overheating pots from exploding, to main story missions like exploring crypts beneath the school and hunting ghosts. You would probably by now expect a game of a Harry Potter type, but the game turns in another direction. For starters, combat has been enhanced with dodge maneuvers. Double tapping any direction causes your character to do a roll, while spacebar is a one-step dodge. You move through the game using the WASD keyboard buttons. Going al brave and unbeatable and charging direct on the enemies will cause a heavy damage on your HP, and even if close combat is a part of combat strategy available for fighting there are two additional battle systems to use with less risk for your HP, but also a little less efficient attack power. There are three battle systems: Blood, Soul and summoning spells. Blood Magic consists of more melee range spells like previously mentioned, while Soul Magic allows you to attack from a distance. As the enemies will throw fire skulls on you and what not else, using your movement abilities to dodge them combined with the Soul Magic gives you a very nice and efficient combination to perform and win the mostly heavy battles. The most useful spells were the "Wave" type under the Soul umbrella. There are also a number of summons, and Killer Flies are awesome. Not only do they make every enemy they attack flail and run in circles, but they distract his friends, too. You can decide what type of camera you will use but mostly players pick out the third person camera behind the character as the best solution. When it comes to combos for creating spells you use the WASD keyboard buttons. Most of the monsters will be destroyed by the standard magic you use and won’t require some special hocus-pocus, but when it comes to Boss battles, you will have to solve a puzzle that surrounds him to figure out how to weaken him or your magic won’t have almost any effect. The puzzles that you encounter will test your skills for real, even though we are not use to puzzles in an RPG/Adventure game this combination of genres gives the game additional kick which makes it one of the surprises in the game world. The games graphics and sound are not something special that must be mentioned but it keeps up with the game in its own way. The sound acting and the surroundings do they job with no unusual standing out, then just enough to finish the job. Avencast is not a game that will hit the market and win in it in a whip lash, but the potential that the game has is great, and with just some polishing to the game we could get a game that could be in the top 10.
