Dungeons of Avalon II: Summary and Rating

Date Ended: 26 January 2020

Total Hours: 29

Difficulty: Average (3/5)

Final Rating: (to come later)

Ranking at time of posting: (to come later)
        

Summary: 

Dungeons of Avalon II plays exactly like is predecessor: a multi-leveled dungeon crawler that looks like Dungeon Master but plays more like something of the Wizardry lineage. In a vague quest to investigate the evil that has taken over the city of Isla, a six-character party (drawn from a variety of common class types) explores nine 32 x 32 dungeon levels, contending with fixed encounters, spinners, locked doors, teleporters, switches, pressure plates, and other staples of RPG dungeon navigation. For a diskmag game, Dungeons of Avalon II is slick, with commercial-quality combat and a unique graphical style. But it goes on too long, past its level caps, and the tightly-controlled, linear nature of exploration leaves plenty of occasions for “walking dead” scenarios.

****

Well, Hakan Akbiyik did it to me twice in a row. I found Dungeons of Avalon unwinnable because of its final combat (which failed to trigger the endgame even when I cheated). I couldn’t even make it that far in Dungeons of Avalon II. Here, the problem was the extremely linear nature of gameplay. Although the game has 9 32 x 32 levels, at any given time, “forward” is narrowed down to one or two sections of those levels. Everywhere else, you’re waiting for a key to open a door or another “kill magic” scroll, or an item that someone wants. Just as one area closes off, you hopefully find the item necessary to open another.

Well, I ran out of items. There’s a web site called “Exploring the Dungeons of Avalon” that seeks to disassemble the two games. In consultation with the site, I see that the three problems I face are:

1. There are fewer Keys #2 than there are doors that require Key 2. I still have one to open and I used up the others.

2. I still have a magic barrier that’s blocking my progress, but I’ve run out of “Kill Magic” scrolls. The web site says there are more scrolls than barriers, but I must have messed something up somewhere. I’ve looted all the chests that supposedly have them.

3. My party can’t open a door in the Tower of Roa that’s supposed to be opened by picking it, despite my thief having the highest level. This is the most important of the three. The other two items are only keeping me from getting to some high-level equipment, but this damned door is blocking progress to the final levels. (And no, there’s no spell backup to lockpicking.)

            

        

I’m not blaming the game, yet. It’s possible that I just accidentally discarded something I was supposed to keep, and that I’m misinterpreting the disassembly page. But trying again will take at least a dozen hours of going over the same territory, with no guarantees, so I’m not going to do it right now. Plus, I’m hoping the anonymous author of the “Exploring” page gets in touch and helps me out.

In case that doesn’t happen and you’re really itching to know how it ends, I’ve already received messages that Lord Roa, the putative “mayor” of Isla, is actually the son of the Dark Lord from the first game, and everything seemed to be channeling towards a final confrontation with him that would mirror the original game. I even found an “anti-aura” spell scroll to cancel his spell immunity. If I was successful at the final combat, I would have gotten the gratitude of the king and 20,000 gold pieces.
             

I gave the original game 31 points on the GIMLET, but I’ll rate this one without checking the individual scores or logic on the first one:

         

• 2 points for the game world. There’s a bare-bones framing story, but that’s about it. The game doesn’t even really justify it being set in a dungeon when the backstory deals with a city and the subtitle references an island.

• 4 points for character creation and development. There’s some good stuff in the selection of character types and some tough choices to make about the classes. Character development is steady and rewarding, until you hit the unforgivably low level cap well before the end of the game.

            

           

• 1 point for NPC interaction. I think I’m being a bit generous. The few NPCs in the game are more like “encounters” in which someone happens to speak.