Siege of Avalon

CHAPTER 2 begins with receiving orders from General Roth to locate and retrieve the Earthstone. This Earthstone, as you later learn, if placed in its sconce, will cause an ancient temple to rise up and destroy Avalon. So it is vital that it must be returned and protected. This Earthstone also just so happens to be located in the caves below Avalon, so you must venture deep inside and find it. You are also able to add some members to your party before you venture forth.

The party management is rather limited in Siege of Avalon. You can equip them with different gear, however they don't earn training points so you can't level their stats. They also act independently during combat and will be scripted to attack or cast spells without your input. You are however, able to directly control your companions if you wish and use them in combat. There isn't really much point in doing so unless you need your mage to cast a specific spell or to try and sneak attack an enemy with a scout. For the most part, your party members will be on auto pilot while you hack away at enemies. It is nice to have some back up and someone to carry some extra items for you, but they take a back seat during combat and don't seem to have any other use outside of that.

Before you venture into the depths of the Avalon caves, you can explore some new rooms of the inner keep that you didn't have access to in the first chapter. Here you can find new trainers, party members to recruit, and quests to complete. You also have access to the inner bailey, which is another outdoor courtyard within the keep. This area, while not having much to do aside from a few traders and one quest, is quite beautiful and serene to stroll through. Most of the chapter however takes place crawling through the caves.

There is a lot of dungeon crawling in this chapter. You will spend a majority of the time running back and forward through dark caves and crypts. I really mean dark, you have no light source in this game. No torches or any kind of spell, so it can be kind of difficult to see where you're going. Luckily you do have a map that tells you your exact location, but I find myself squinting at the screen often when in dark areas.

As I previously mentioned, your main goal is to find the Earthstone and return it before it falls into the wrong hands. As you're exploring through the caves you also find what remains of General Roth's scout troop that he sent down to search for the stone. You also find a ghost woman named Lydia, who was part of the scout troop. Due to her horrific death, she remained in the material plane as a ghost. Upon speaking to her, you learn that a lich killed her and reanimated her corpse to fight for him. Once you kill her zombie body for good, she is finally laid to rest. Once you return to General Roth, he tells you to find the seer who can tell you more about the Earthstone and where to find it. Finding the seer can be rather confusing. The game doesn't tell you exactly where he is, and he won't appear in the game until you've reached this far in the story. Eventually I found out he is on the surface in the village, which you explored in the first chapter. There is a convenient staircase in the caves that leads to the village and the exact location of the seer. I already cleared that area prior to reaching this point in the story however, and so didn't think that there was anything there of importance. It took me a while to search that place again out of desperation and finally find the seer.

With that taken care of, then you can return to General Roth who will tell you to then talk to Felious about how to take care of liches. This step is very important to actually being able to kill the lich and finish the chapter. If you try to attack the lich without Felious in your party, like I did the first time, he is invincible and will kill you in one hit with his magic attack. So talking to Felious, you'll have the option to ask him about liches and he will come with you and destroy the crystal, which instantly kills the lich. With the horrible monster finally dead, you take the Earthstone from its corpse and return it to Roth.

EVALUATION: Overall chapter 2 was decent. The chapter mostly consisted of going through caves and fighting creatures, Sha'ahoul, and some skeletons. I enjoyed the areas in the crypt with the skeletons, even if it was a bit annoying to navigate. The main problem I had was getting stuck on how to progress during certain moments in the chapter, leading me to be running back and forth through the long winding caves and crypts over and over again. Had I known more clearly what to do, and didn't waste time needlessly backtracking, this chapter would have gone much more smoothly and probably would have been more enjoyable. Not that I want my hand held through the whole game or for it to be easier, but I found the lack of direction combined with the long and mazelike caves, made the experience more annoying than fun, for me.