Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon - Magic and Spellcasting
I decided to pursue a magic and spellcasting build in the RPG Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon after the story prologue. During the opening section of the game, the player is presented with a sufficient range of weapons to determine which type suits them best, although you can change at any time during the game. For me, casting spells feels right and is fun. Plus I have fond memories of the magic system in Two Worlds II and Skyrim. So once I started playing through the first zone, I started putting attribute and skill points into the appropriate trees to bolster my spells strengths and frequency. I also chose gear that would bolster those statistics further. The results have been surprising, as magic and spellcasting is not presented in the usual “glass cannon” style you find in some other RPGs. Here it offers robust DPS output and with the right gear and spell combination, a strong degree of survivability.
I decided to pursue a magic and spellcasting build in the RPG Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon after the story prologue. During the opening section of the game, the player is presented with a sufficient range of weapons to determine which type suits them best, although you can change at any time during the game. For me, casting spells feels right and is fun. Plus I have fond memories of the magic system in Two Worlds II and Skyrim. So once I started playing through the first zone, I started putting attribute and skill points into the appropriate trees to bolster my spells strengths and frequency. I also chose gear that would bolster those statistics further. The results have been surprising, as magic and spellcasting is not presented in the usual “glass cannon” style you find in some other RPGs. Here it offers robust DPS output and with the right gear and spell combination, a strong degree of survivability.
Magic in Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon consists of the following. Spells that can be cast which cause damage or drain health. Cubes which are chargeable magical artefacts that enhance existing magic attacks or provide an additional one. Wands that players can use to enhance spellcasting, manage mana and provide defensive options such as parrying and blocking a melee weapon. There are 6 types of spells available in the game. Summoning, healing, projectile, ray, channeled, and area of effect. Players can equip up to 2 spells simultaneously on their loadout and can hotswap between 4 loadouts. There are 55 spells available in the game. Cubes are charge-based equipment that collect energy through actions such as attacking an enemy, spending mana, or spellcasting. Once fully charged a cube can activate its effect. If 2 spells are equipped, instead of a spell and a wand or shield, the player will have to rely on dodging incoming attacks, instead of parrying and blocking.
Most spells can be cast in two different ways. Light cast and heavy cast. Light cast is faster, uses less mana but deals less damage and has no bonus or crit related effects. Heavy cast is more powerful but costlier in terms of mana and takes longer to cast. Their respective use and benefits are situational, depending on which enemies you’re facing and what their respective weakness is. The main resource to cast spells is mana which is the blue bar on the UI, between health (red) and stamina (green). Each time players cast a spell, mana is spent and the blue bar is reduced accordingly. Channelled spells, keep spending mana while they’re being used. Mana regenerates slowly over time, both while in or out of combat. Spirituality is the main stat for spellcasting and magic. Points spent on it increase spell power, mana and its regeneration. The more spirituality players have, the more efficiently they use mana (IE the cost of spellcasting).
To use magic and spellcasting effectively in Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon a player has to manage their use and regeneration of mana. All of which is dependent upon how they spend skill and attribute points and what gear they wear. If done correctly the right armour set, coupled with appropriate skills will regenerate mana upon enemy kills or critical hits. Thus the player should seek a build that uses mana and regenerates it, allowing the player to sustain prolonged attacks. For example the Waning Moon Set is a specialized armour set that provides continuous mana regeneration and is particularly effective when your mana is low. The set effect increases mana regeneration by 1% and boosts this by 50% when your mana is below 25%. The spell Soul Salvage is a spell that when targeted at your active summon (IE an AI companion you have summoned to help you), dismisses them and restores 75% of the mana cost used for the initial summoning, based on their current health.
Some players favour melee combat and the experience of fights being up close and personal. I prefer stealth, ranged attacks and the ability to move quickly, find cover or dodge. Magic and spellcasting is the perfect fit for such a strategy in Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. I am currently in the second zone of the game and have a build that allows me to take on two to three mobs simultaneously. Ranged attacks using lightning and ice projectiles are particularly effective on standard landscape enemies. I tend to use a wand when fighting melee bosses, as I can parry and block, exhausting their stamina. Then as they pause to recuperate, I can hit them hard with a ranged or AoE attack. Or I can summon multiple AI companions if I run low on stamina during a fight and they can act as temporary “meat shields”. All of which makes combat very satisfying, as there are always options depending on the situation.
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon - Initial Thoughts
I first played The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in June 2013. This was over 18 months after the game’s initial release and the base game and DLC were bundled together in a “Legendary” edition. Although a seasoned gamer at the time, familiar with the RPG genre with such titles as Mass Effect and Grand Theft Auto IV, I had not played a game from this franchise before. It only took a few hours of gameplay to realise that this was a special title. The scope of the story, the art design and the size of the world were immediately notable. Tamriel was immersive in a way I had not experienced with other titles. Often simply traversing the terrain and watching the dawn break while the game soundtrack swelled, was sufficient to hold my attention. I instantly picked up on the voice acting of Christopher Plummer and Max Von Sydow. All of which indicated that this was a gaming landmark.
I first played The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in June 2013. This was over 18 months after the game’s initial release and the base game and DLC were bundled together in a “Legendary” edition. Although a seasoned gamer at the time, familiar with the RPG genre with such titles as Mass Effect and Grand Theft Auto IV, I had not played a game from this franchise before. It only took a few hours of gameplay to realise that this was a special title. The scope of the story, the art design and the size of the world were immediately notable. Tamriel was immersive in a way I had not experienced with other titles. Often simply traversing the terrain and watching the dawn break while the game soundtrack swelled, was sufficient to hold my attention. I instantly picked up on the voice acting of Christopher Plummer and Max Von Sydow. All of which indicated that this was a gaming landmark.
I spent 286 hours over the next 18 months playing through the game and its DLC. When I ran out of new content to play in the game, I spent hours experimenting with mods. During that time, I became familiar with the subtleties of the various in-game systems within Skyrim. It was a wrench to leave but eventually new titles lured me away. However, the game left a very strong impression upon me and continues to do so today. For me, it is what I immediately think of when someone mentions a fantasy based action RPG. As such, Skyrim is a hard act to follow. I’ve played other RPG’s since then, many of which have been good. But few have the same emotional impact, with the possible exception of Witcher III: Wild Hunt and Red Dead Redemption 2. However, I recently stumbled upon Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon and the associated buzz around it. Is this game the spiritual successor to Skyrim?
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is an Indie fantasy based action RPG made by Questline and published by Awaken Realms. Played primarily in first person, although there is third person support, this game draws heavily from Bethesda games, especially Skyrim. Set on the island of Avalon, you undertake various quests in a decaying realm that is slowly being assimilated by the “Wyrdness”. You are aided by the spirit of Arthur Pendragon in your journey across three distinct zones. There are abilities and skills to level along with points to spend in skillstrees. Crafting comes in the form of cooking, smithing and alchemy. The game is also awash with loot. All in all, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon at first glance does strike as a shameless clone of Skyrim, yet there are subtle distinctions that give it an identity of its own. The more you play the more these become apparent.
Perhaps the most noticeable is the art design. The game has a striking aesthetic, drawing from both H. R. Giger and the Cthulhu Mythos. The ambient music and sound design are also very good, instantly creating an enigmatic atmosphere. At night when the threat level from the “Wyrdness” increases, the soundscape becomes especially disconcerting. NPCs are also quite engaging, often flying in the face of your expectations. Traditionally, vendors in RPGs are functional or expositional in nature. Here, they can be quite quirky and off beat. While exploring a minor crypt, I discovered an oddly friendly supernatural entity who was quite chatty. I was expecting a fight and instead I got an amusing quest that resulted in a permanent skill increase. So despite appearing generic, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon has subtle differences. This extends not only to the world and NPCs but to in-game systems as well.
An essential aspect of the RPG genre is character progression. In this game, while your overall level increases at quite a sedate pace, default skills grow upon use. Hence when out in the world, whenever you run, jump, sneak, craft, or fight with specific weapons or spells, these skills are levelling. Furthermore, there are no level restrictions imposed by your stats or due to the points you’ve spent in the various skills trees. You get better at crafting by making things and are not excluded due to a recipe level. Initially, when your crafting abilities are low, you may well fail to produce a top tier item but persistence remedies this. As for skills points themselves, they’re quite plentiful and so you can afford to be generous in how you spend them. Assigning one in a new tree can often lead to a useful set of improvements. For example, spending points in Practicality enhances crafting as well as increasing damage to enemy weak spots. It also reduces both stamina and mana costs.
Combat is challenging, once you move on from the story prologue. This is not a game where you stand your ground and key mash. Movement, parrying and blocking are essential for melee combat. If you prefer to use magic then it all comes down to mana management and finding the right combination of spells. You can equip two spells or weapons per weapon slots, of which you have four. You then hot swap between these according to your combat requirements. You can summon multiple AI companions if you like and attempt to rush enemies. For those who favour traditional weapons, swords have weight and as such take a time to swing. Combat is therefore about timing and the more satisfying as a result. Enemies can also vary greatly in power and often you have no idea how strong they are until you attack them. Therefore it pays to be cautious when exploring and is wise not to jump into a fight unnecessarily.
Over the course of future blog posts, I shall be exploring various aspects of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon in more detail. Mainly because this game has taken my fancy. It is doing something familiar but doing it in its own way and not always in a manner you would expect. To use an analogy, if Skyrim is Star Wars then Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is Battle Beyond the Stars. This game is inherently janky, although with each patch the jank is slowly being addressed. It is also very old school because the games it is emulating are themselves old school. But it has a charm and character of its own and I admire the ambition of the developers who are trying to do, with a small team, the same thing that a multimillion dollar mainstream studio has already done. And they’re putting their own stamp on the results. That is a rare quality these days. That and a game that is actually “fun”.