Avadon: The Black Fortress

This is a thumbs sideways review, but ever slightly more to the positive side. I really enjoyed the setting, and story of the game. There were some cliché moments here and there, but also some unexpected events that made it worthwhile. The writing is good, and the gameplay is passable. There are unfortunately a lot of essential features missing from such an RPG. The tracking of quests is not done well, and it was often difficult to remember the locations of NPCs who originally gave me a quest. The quests also lacked a lot of important information, and only displayed the initial goal. Once the quest was updated, and there was a next step, the quest information didn't reflect that. The biggest annoyance with the game, is at times, your party members would spontaneously decide to disappear on their personal missions. The big problem with that is they took all the gear you gave them, and you couldn't take it back unless you knew the moment before they would leave. The store page also claims there are "hundreds of magical items to find". Okay, sure...hundreds of absolute garbage magical items, yes! I struggled to find anything actually useful, as every item or enchantment has some…

Game play is vibrant, story is very flexible, and characters are realistic. The clues and the maps are clear.

The good: a solid, well-balanced, isometric party RPG. The bad: neither story nor gameplay impressed me personally, seems more engineered than a work of art.

I’ve been diving into the world of Avadon and Avernum for years now. Even though the graphics are simple, the way the stories intersect and the characters keep coming back is done really well. It’s one of those games where the depth of the world totally makes up for the old-school look. [The Breakdown] Graphics: Potato-friendly Gameplay: Solid old-school RPG Story: Deep and well-connected Difficulty: Easy to learn Grind: Average Worth the price? Yes Rating: 8/10

I just finished my second play-through. I really enjoyed the story this time more than when I played years ago. I wanted to know who was trying to bring down the mighty Avadon. The combat can get repetitive, and sometime the followers pathfinding can be frustrating. There is no music in game. This seems a little odd to me. Overall it is enjoyable.

Avadon: The Black Fortress is a deliberately old-school role-playing game that exemplifies Spiderweb Software’s long-standing dedication to narrative depth, meaningful choice, and mechanically rich gameplay over flashy presentation. As the opening chapter of the Avadon trilogy, it introduces players to a morally complex fantasy world where authority, loyalty, and power are constantly in tension. You take on the role of a Hand of Avadon, an elite enforcer serving the Pact, a fragile alliance of nations held together not by trust, but by fear of Avadon’s absolute authority. From the beginning, the game makes it clear that your position grants immense power, but that power comes with consequences that are rarely clean or comfortable. The world of Lynaeus is one of the game’s strongest elements. It is divided between the Pact lands, which rely on Avadon’s protection, and the Farlands, a hostile region filled with rebels, monsters, and enemies who refuse to submit. What makes the setting compelling is how rarely it presents clear moral binaries. The Pact is not portrayed as purely benevolent, nor are its enemies universally evil. Through dialogue, lore, and quest design, the game repea…