Avencast: Rise of the Mage Review
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Once you make it past the minions, though, bosses tend to be needlessly long and tedious. If you know the pattern and that's all there is to it, it probably doesn't need to take more than a few minutes to whittle down the HP. Plus, there's one particularly lame bug that seems to have not be addressed yet involves bosses disappearing, which leaves you with an obsolete life bar and nothing to whack on.
Completing the trio of genres here is the adventure puzzle segments. You don't always expect puzzles in an action-RPG, and certainly not ones that put you to the test (or to the forums) as much as in Avencast. While figuring out how to operate the machines in the Planetarium or put your magical imprint on your special glowing crystal could be very frustrating, it was also really nice to have something outside of the dodging, spell launching, and staff wielding to accomplish.
The well-rounded gameplay is complemented decently by the sound and graphics. Instead of not really noticing the music at all, I found it to be actually sort of good, and mood-fitting. The battle theme seems to come in with its fat staccatos at a slightly higher volume for an extra alert. Voice acting is pretty consistently good, even if the dialogue is sort of bland.
