I have been playing Avowed for a couple weeks now, and while I haven’t beaten it, I do want to share my experience with it thus far. First and foremost, I keep seeing people comparing it to Skyrim, and while I get why the comparison is getting thrown around, I do not feel Skyrim while playing it. It actually reminds me of Hogwarts Legacy more than anything. Maybe that’s because I am doing the wizard thing, but the sound effects of the wand, the sounds/animations for chests… It feels like Harry Potter.

I’m gonna keep this as spoiler free as I can, but one of the things that makes it hard to do is the fact that this game doesn’t have photo mode. Honestly, it feels unheard of, especially for a game that looks like this, to have no photo mode. I wanted to take pictures of pretty locations, but they’re all crowded with my hud, quests, and other markers. It’s a bummer and definitely a missed opportunity in my opinion.

The character creator is fine. I forgot to take a picture when I made my character, but as a godlike, you have the option to make “godlike” features appear in the game and have people react to them. I opted to turn it on and have largely felt like it is inconsequential to my gameplay experience. People might think I’m weird or feel suspicious of me, but I haven’t felt impeded by it and I also haven’t felt like I have any shortcuts to anything because of it. With the exception of screaming when falling, the character is largely voiceless and doesn’t emote about anything. I am generally opting for passive/peaceful options in dialogue for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I am squishy and don’t feel strong in the game.

I am enjoying playing the game overall, but I do have some gripes. Please note that some of my gripes are probably due to my general play style in games and refusal to learn anything about builds. This may be me being a noob so if these things exist in the game and I just suck, that’s fine. But I do want to say I don’t find it intuitive if it does.

The first thing that is a struggle for me is the leveling/skills. I am in the third act and have played well over 24 hours and I think I’m level 18. I’m not sure what the level cap in this game is, but that feels low. Additionally, there’s skill points for abilities and skill points for attributes (like you can see in the screenshot of my character). Every time you level, you don’t always get a skill point for your attributes. I am constantly running out of essence (mana) and I am running out of stamina which makes it so I can’t use my wand or dodge. I ended up just standing around sometimes hoping I don’t get hit while I wait for it to recharge. I will admit, I am probably playing incorrectly, but it does feel frustrating to be a godlike that gets tired so easily and so often. Also, it is really hard for me to see speaking options I can’t use because I don’t have enough points in the allotted attribute to choose it.

I don’t think there is an option to craft your own potions? If there is, someone tell me where it is. I’m picking up all of these ingredients all the time and I have a ton of food, but I don’t know how to make a potion. They are the only thing you can use during a fight to regenerate your health/essence (and they can get knocked out of your hand if you get hit while trying to drink one). Having food or drinks will do it, but it is very slow in combat and really only works outside of combat. I tried investing my points into higher skill spells, and they are cool, but again, I run out of essence. So, I try to go up high, play further back, and stay out of the way… but then they run me down anyway. Or punch me off the edge so I am in the fray.

The game has a heavy auto aim feature that was overpowering even when I turned it off. This can be frustrating in some situations. For example, I’ll be in a room with multiple enemies and want to target an exploding barrel in the room. My reticle will be on top of it and I will be staring directly at it, but my shots are still tracking to the enemy next to it. Sometimes there’s nothing in the way and I still have to take multiple shots to get it. Maybe that’s me being terrible at aiming with a controller, but I think on more than one occasion the auto aim really went overboard.

I do think it is cool that there are elements you can use to interact with the environment. Can’t get up a tall ledge by some water? Throw a freezing grenade to make an icy platform to stand on. There’s little boxes to electrocute to open doors and walls that can be blown up (although I think there should be more options to clear these out than there are). The enemies are varied and a lot of them are kind of goofy looking. The Xaurip lizard guys jump around like dorks when they don’t know you’re there and the mushroom guys are also nerds. Like, why are these guys walking in a line together like they are on a field trip? Dorks, I say!

As far as navigating goes, the map does that annoying thing Palworld does where it kind of fills in depending on where you walk and it doesn’t completely become revealed unless you specifically walk 6 feet to the left or whatever. So, the map ends up looking patchy because I don’t want to run back and forth in one area just to uncover it. I already know nothing is there; just show it on the map!

I like that the game let’s you fast travel from any point (unless you are overencumbered). It is nice that they allow you to dismantle things from your inventory or send things directly to your stash. No need to drop things and lose the loot! If you do get overencumbered though, you can repeatedly jump to move faster if needed. The walking is slow, but for some reason, this doesn’t drain your stamina and you can repeatedly hop until you get to a merchant.

I am really enjoying the game, but I will say the survivability is my biggest gripe. I am playing on normal difficulty and getting absolutely crushed in some fights where I don’t think I should. The resources are the biggest reason for this, but even when I got a healer companion, I still had to tell her to heal me and she wouldn’t just do it on her own. It was driving me crazy (but it is easier when you have her with you).

Unrelated to anything I’ve said so far, but I am hearing so many familiar voice actors in this game. Garrus, Savathun… and I’m pretty sure I heard Ash Ketchum. Also, why do they have a random NPC that looks like Nate Bargatze?

It might sound like I don’t like this game, but I do! While I do have complaints, I am enjoying the experience. I might be in the minority on this, but I enjoy that the game doesn’t respawn enemies. Once you kill them, they’re gone, so I can traverse freely without being beaten down repeatedly. I don’t have strong feelings towards any of the characters, but I am curious how the story is going to play out and I want to know what happens next. I just like wandering around and stumbling upon random NPCs or cool locations to explore. Damn you for not having photo mode!

Anyway, that’s all I gotta say for now! Are you playing Avowed? How do you feel about it? Let me know in the comments!