In Crystal Souls, it was recently attacked by the Empire before you meet and has become gravely injured. In the first game, Motrax an elderly dragon that eagerly looks forward to meeting the player characters and offers some missions. An early example that players will encounter is with the dragon Motrax. Couple that with the war and mysterious barriers and you’ll find location and NPCs to be in quite different situations. Five years have passed since the events of the original Avernum and that translates to lots of change. While players will notice a lot of familiar locales in Crystal Souls, the beauty of the story is in how they’ve changed. Your immediate goals? Defend the people of Avernum, investigate and hopefully dispel the mysterious barriers, and repel the Empire army. After defending your fort from a small time battle, you’re sent to take care of the local threat before being let loose upon the world. However, the standard invasions from the other denizens of Avernum have. As a group of four soldiers on digging duty in a remote fort, war hasn’t quite reached you. The barriers throw the entire region into chaos as now the people of Avernum have to deal with both an Empire invasion as well as having key cities and regions cut off. As the tides of war began to turn, mysterious barriers began to appear in Avernum, breaking up key regions and separating both Empire troops and Avernum soldiers.
However, the Avernite advantage was short-lived as the Empire began to make headway into the underground region. As the introductory cutscenes state, at first the people of Avernum are able to successfully hold back Empire troops due to sheer will and knowledge of the region (combined with the hubris of the Empire troops). The assassination leads to an invasion of Avernum by Empire troops. In Crystal Souls, the game assumes that you are act successful in that endeavor, and the assassination has caused quite an uproar on the surface world. One such objective was to assassinate Emperor Hawthorne, the leader of the Empire that was responsible for sending you to Avernum in the first place. After being exiled to the underground land of Avernum in the first game, players were given a huge world to explore with plenty of quests but also a few end-game objectives. While it’s certainly not necessary to enjoy Crystal Souls, a bit of background from Escape of the Pit is helpful in appreciating what this sequel brings to the table. I thought the transition to iPad worked quite well in my previous review, so I have little in the way of complaints with the way Crystal Souls is handled. Before we get to that point, however, it’s worth mentioning to interested players that the gameplay, from character selection to attributes and traits to the touch-based controls themselves, are identical to Escape from the Pit. Rather, the big draw (and to be honest, the primary draw of games of this caliber) is in the tale, so I’ll focus primarily on the story itself, how it changes compared to Escape from the Pit, and whether the tale is worth the price admission. Gameplay elements rarely change from title to title in the Avernum series. Simply put, it’s a great game for both and old new RPG fans and offers a classic experience that is rarely seen in today’s modern RPGs. The Avernum (and before, Exile) gameplay system has always been highly tuned and Crystal Souls uses the same upgraded system as showcased in Escape from the Pit. A basic leveling and customization system provides players with some flexibility in terms of character development, and there are plenty of weapons and armor (both magical and otherwise) to buy and find. It’s a big win for RPG fans, as Avernum 2 continues the excellent tradition of old-school RPG goodness with a new adventure deep underground.įor folks that haven’t had the pleasure of playing a Spiderweb RPG, Crystal Souls is an old-school open-world turn-based RPG with plenty of NPCs, a sprawling world to explore and a wealth of optional content that prepare players for the high level objectives that seem impossible at the onset.
Thankfully, all that has been resolved and Jeff Vogel’s group has rereleased the second game in the Avernum series on iPad. Released and taken off the market within a day, issues with iOS 8.3 threatened not only its release but also the release of future titles. In addition to dedicating a whole segment to Avernum: Escape from the Pit ($9.99)on Episode 2, we’ve also spoke at length to the recent drama regarding Avernum 2: Crystal Souls ($9.99). If you’ve been following along on our RPG Reload Podcasts, you’ll know that we have a soft spot for Spiderweb Software’s excellent old-school RPGs.