izigame.me

tainted grail: the fall of avalon is an ambitious and promising early access title with an interesting take on the arthurian legend. honestly this one is as early access as it gets and got some severe issues (i'll listen some of the worse ones below), so keep that in mind before buying. people will compare this game heavily to the elder scrolls series and they're not entirely wrong, but the game got enough identity and personality to be it's own thing. although if you love games like the elder scrolls, arx fatalis and even dark messiah of might and magic, keep an eye out for this one. despite having some serious polishing and performance issues in this early state of the early access, it is genuinely fun to play and got enough good things going to keep me hooked or hop right back into it after a crash occurred, again. and again. i don't know why i'm torturing myself and spoil the experience with this rough state, but it just got that special glimpse in it's allegorical eye.
the potential for being a remarkable video game is definitely there, so i'll keep my eyes out for future updates and fixes. hopefully some of the more serious issues will be addressed soon.

what i liked:

(+) the atmosphere in the fall of avalon is grim and menacing, which i'm enjoying quite a lot and the grave soundtrack adds up to this perilous experience. definitely one of it's strongest aspects.
(+) the setting and lore of the tainted grail is quite interesting and already pretty fleshed out. books are usually well written, even the most basic ones about crafting and there is plenty of text to be read. lovely!
(+) decent role play mechanics and skills increase through usage, immersive.
(+) combat got it's problems, many tied to the poor performance and the lack of polishing, but under the surface of issues, there is an interesting first person combat to be found. they're even providing a dodge input which isn't as usual for first person games. i'm quite intrigued to see this improved in the future.
(+) kinda loving the art style and overall art direction of this game. dark fantasy at it's finest.
(+) the level design is showing first signs of being marvelous, but there is yet again still much work to be done. can't say much about the diversity since i'm still early on, but hopefully there will be a decent amount of.
(+) exploration is mostly engaging and feels rewarding. there is quite an amount of locations and stuff to be found.

what has to be improved:

(-) the game's performance is pretty terrible outside of the starting area. a solid 80 fps with high settings on the first isle, but once you enter the regular open world it dips down to 40 fps with low settings at best. at least on my rig. performance and polishing has to be worked on intensively. thankfully it doesn't seem like an impossible task over the course of this early access and the game is already playable as it is.
(-) a lot of crashes which can be severe when you run the game in full screen. for me personally, this one's the biggest issue so far since i'm living in a constant fear of the next loss of progress and have to spam save.
(-) shadows and lightning overall requires much improvement. also the game is too bright for my taste and got no in game settings to adjust.
(-) the voice over is hit or miss and nowhere near finished. some characters even got some robotic voice generator v.o. which is awful. i'd prefer reading instead of listening to this mess. there are several issues with the dialogue volume as well.
(-) got almost stuck on several occasions, so there has to be some issues with the collision or something.
(-) the starting area was yet again pretty great, the open world after lacks polishing and feels somewhat callous. castles, dungeons and forts are decent already (not perfect tho), but the placement of environmental objects aren't - especially outside in the nature. there is still a lot of room for improvement.
(-) they didn't reinvent the wheel for the lock picking mini game, which isn't a problem at all since it's good as it is. well, despite many chests having the literal same pattern. or example, there is a sleeping room in the first town where all 'em got the exact same one.
(-) the day and night cycle is rather odd. i don't know if that's a lore kind of thing, but it feels like the sun is shining all day long and even at night.
(-) the weight system is killing me at this point.

i can't and won't say much about the balancing since it definitely will require some fine tuning, but honestly, that's nothing to be focused on in this early stage of the game.
these are my first thoughts about this rough gem and i'm gladly recommending it since i want to support the developers and see their game succeed. this review will be updated as well as i progress further into the game.