Why Aveyond: Rhen's Quest is Amazing
So, I really enjoy the Aveyond PC RPG series, but the first game, Rhen's Quest, will always have a special place in my heart.
Aveyond: Rhen's Quest was the very first game I ever purchased on my own in college. Before then I'd only ever played video games with friends on their consoles (except for Link's Awakening on gameboy, which I owned), and only barely. I wasn't usually very good, but they interested me a great deal. I still remember spending hours on Aveyond the first time around, and having to use the walkthrough much more often than I wanted to, but being absolutely thrilled at the characters and the plot and the humor.
So here are the reasons why I love Aveyond: Rhen's Quest.
1. It inverts a lot of common video game tropes. The most obvious example is in most typical fantasy RPGs, there's usually a male lead (usually the main hero) who wields a sword, and a female lead who uses magic. The female lead is often special in some way, and the male lead comes along to protect her. The male lead is usually idealistic and hot-headed and good-hearted, and the female lead is usually kind and sweet. In Aveyond, the main hero is very obviously Rhen, who is female, wields a sword, and is not at all sweet. She's special in terms of the plot, but there's only one character who comes along specifically to protect her, and he's got a complex (and Rhen keeps telling him she doesn't need it). The male lead is Lars, who is a pure magic user, and is pretty much not at all a typical video game male lead. He's (intentionally) a spoiled snarky brat who frequently gets into fights with Rhen, isn't idealistic at all, and tends to blurt out somewhat rude responses to people they meet.
2. Every female PC is really strong. In most RPGs, the female cast tends to have the special sweet pretty one, the tough exotic one, and the cute giggly one. If you really want to pare it down, Elini is probably the tough exotic one, but she doesn't have the usual sad back-story, but she's the only one I can really match up. Rhen is a survivor who fights with everything she has, and doesn't take people's shit. Elini is a southern woman from an intensely matriarchal society who is looking for a fifth husband and is generally unimpressed by anyone else. Tei'jal is a vampress who actually enjoys eating people and being evil, and takes great joy in tormenting the paladin Galahad. And Mad Marge is a large barmaid who whacks people with sticks.
3. All of the characters are interesting, fun, and not over-idealized. All of them are independent, down-to-earth people, with no tragic back-stories to make you feel bad for them. The women, as mentioned above, are all pretty strong, and none of them are meant to be the perfect heroine. Rhen gets annoyed a lot, Elini is arrogant, Tei'jal is sadistic, and Marge is no-nonsense. None of the men are sparkly pretty boys intended to be the perfect guy. Lars is an ass always, Galahad is ridiculously neurotic, John is a shifty womanizer, and Dameon is smarmy. There's also a lot of character interaction, so you get to know the characters pretty well. If you buy the mansion, you can have the PCs talk to each other, which is great fun and also develops their relationships a bit further.
4. The romance is minimal. There are some mechanics for marriage, and one particular romance plays an important part in the plot, but it's not very romance-heavy. A lot of it is actually played for laughs. It's just super refreshing nowadays to see something where the romantic aspect doesn't take itself so seriously and has a lot of fun.
5. It's really flexible in terms of your PCs. You can actually choose whether you want most of the PCs in your party. I believe it is possible to play the entire game with only Rhen, Lars, and eventually John in your party. You also get some flexibility in terms of who you use and how. For example: there are two spellcasters--Lars and Dameon. Lars is intended to be a fighting caster, so depending on the guild you choose for him he can either be a debuffer or attack caster. Dameon is the healer, and has all the heal/buff/shield spells, along with a couple debuffs. However, since you can refuse Dameon as a party member, the game provides you with the ability to get some healing spells for Lars. As I hated Dameon as a character, even though he was usually in my party, for a lot of situations I could just play Lars and have him dole out occasional heals as needed.
6. The story moves along well. I will admit that the plot is relatively typical fantasy RPG, but the writers keep it moving along and there's a constant stream of snark and humor, and a few surprises along the way. There are also a ton of random side quests, some of which are optional, that you can take, and most of the optional ones tend to end in hilarity. There are also some incredibly creative locations and occurrences. There was an area I'd completely forgotten about after the first time playing it that is just a really original idea.
7. The music is really good. At one point, my roommate actually muted the battle music from her game because she decided Aveyond's was better.
8. The mechanics are relatively easy to get the hang of, and you can be fairly successful even without a lot of gaming ability. As mentioned, I hadn't played much in the way of video games before this game. I've never been amazing at games, and my love of storylines/dislike of grinding (and my occasional lack of gamer sense) causes me to rush into new areas while slightly (or sometimes severely) underleveled. The second time I played this game I skipped the Ice Queen's palace by accident when I was at the appropriate level for it. Instead I went in to the area you were supposed to start after the Ice Palace, and it was really hard but I got through. I got the hang of the system pretty quickly, and I've found it was actually a lot of fun for me to be underleveled, because it makes all of your battles far more intense.
9. Lars. I loved almost all the PCs in this game (except for Dameon) but Lars is always going to be my favorite. Lars is absolutely awesome and hilarious, and I almost feel bad for liking him because he's an ass, but I really don't regret it. Basically Lars is a spoiled brat whose parents own Rhen (who is a slave) very early on in the story. The two of them do not get along, but after fighting back to back for a while they eventually make a truce. Lars improves as a human being over the course of the game, but he never quite stops being snarky and overly frank. He's always kind of an ass, but he ends up being a fairly lovable one. Also, he's just incredibly powerful; if you use him the right way, he tends to be the MVP. I've tried making him a necromancer and an annihilator, and both times he was just kickass. As mentioned, you can give him some healing/buffing capabilities and he ends up being this ridiculously flexible caster.
Side story: Aveyond actually has a mechanic where the main character (Rhen, in this case) cannot be removed from your fighting party. There's another mechanic in Rhen's Quest where experience only counts if the character was in the fighting party and alive at the end of the battle. So for most people, Rhen tends to be the highest level at any given time. However, the first time I played this game, while I was in the first difficult area, I ran out of the item that lets you revive characters and Rhen was killed in battle. I somehow made it back to civilization (through judicious use of potions and Lars's best attack spells), but at that point Lars had been in several battles alone that Rhen couldn't get XP for because she was dead, so Lars ended up about a level ahead of Rhen. Due to my penchant for going places I shouldn't and somehow making it out with at least part of my party intact (which is all you need), and the fact that I almost never took Lars out of my battle party, by the end of the game Lars was still ahead of Rhen's level. It was awesome--it basically meant that if I followed the story based on Rhen's level, Lars could damage things that sorcerers weren't supposed to do much damage to, and his spells were a little more effective. (In one of my later playthroughs I actually intentionally didn't revive Rhen in a few battles just so I could get Lars ahead on the leveling track.)
Aveyond: Rhen's Quest was the very first game I ever purchased on my own in college. Before then I'd only ever played video games with friends on their consoles (except for Link's Awakening on gameboy, which I owned), and only barely. I wasn't usually very good, but they interested me a great deal. I still remember spending hours on Aveyond the first time around, and having to use the walkthrough much more often than I wanted to, but being absolutely thrilled at the characters and the plot and the humor.
So here are the reasons why I love Aveyond: Rhen's Quest.
1. It inverts a lot of common video game tropes. The most obvious example is in most typical fantasy RPGs, there's usually a male lead (usually the main hero) who wields a sword, and a female lead who uses magic. The female lead is often special in some way, and the male lead comes along to protect her. The male lead is usually idealistic and hot-headed and good-hearted, and the female lead is usually kind and sweet. In Aveyond, the main hero is very obviously Rhen, who is female, wields a sword, and is not at all sweet. She's special in terms of the plot, but there's only one character who comes along specifically to protect her, and he's got a complex (and Rhen keeps telling him she doesn't need it). The male lead is Lars, who is a pure magic user, and is pretty much not at all a typical video game male lead. He's (intentionally) a spoiled snarky brat who frequently gets into fights with Rhen, isn't idealistic at all, and tends to blurt out somewhat rude responses to people they meet.
2. Every female PC is really strong. In most RPGs, the female cast tends to have the special sweet pretty one, the tough exotic one, and the cute giggly one. If you really want to pare it down, Elini is probably the tough exotic one, but she doesn't have the usual sad back-story, but she's the only one I can really match up. Rhen is a survivor who fights with everything she has, and doesn't take people's shit. Elini is a southern woman from an intensely matriarchal society who is looking for a fifth husband and is generally unimpressed by anyone else. Tei'jal is a vampress who actually enjoys eating people and being evil, and takes great joy in tormenting the paladin Galahad. And Mad Marge is a large barmaid who whacks people with sticks.
3. All of the characters are interesting, fun, and not over-idealized. All of them are independent, down-to-earth people, with no tragic back-stories to make you feel bad for them. The women, as mentioned above, are all pretty strong, and none of them are meant to be the perfect heroine. Rhen gets annoyed a lot, Elini is arrogant, Tei'jal is sadistic, and Marge is no-nonsense. None of the men are sparkly pretty boys intended to be the perfect guy. Lars is an ass always, Galahad is ridiculously neurotic, John is a shifty womanizer, and Dameon is smarmy. There's also a lot of character interaction, so you get to know the characters pretty well. If you buy the mansion, you can have the PCs talk to each other, which is great fun and also develops their relationships a bit further.
4. The romance is minimal. There are some mechanics for marriage, and one particular romance plays an important part in the plot, but it's not very romance-heavy. A lot of it is actually played for laughs. It's just super refreshing nowadays to see something where the romantic aspect doesn't take itself so seriously and has a lot of fun.
5. It's really flexible in terms of your PCs. You can actually choose whether you want most of the PCs in your party. I believe it is possible to play the entire game with only Rhen, Lars, and eventually John in your party. You also get some flexibility in terms of who you use and how. For example: there are two spellcasters--Lars and Dameon. Lars is intended to be a fighting caster, so depending on the guild you choose for him he can either be a debuffer or attack caster. Dameon is the healer, and has all the heal/buff/shield spells, along with a couple debuffs. However, since you can refuse Dameon as a party member, the game provides you with the ability to get some healing spells for Lars. As I hated Dameon as a character, even though he was usually in my party, for a lot of situations I could just play Lars and have him dole out occasional heals as needed.
6. The story moves along well. I will admit that the plot is relatively typical fantasy RPG, but the writers keep it moving along and there's a constant stream of snark and humor, and a few surprises along the way. There are also a ton of random side quests, some of which are optional, that you can take, and most of the optional ones tend to end in hilarity. There are also some incredibly creative locations and occurrences. There was an area I'd completely forgotten about after the first time playing it that is just a really original idea.
7. The music is really good. At one point, my roommate actually muted the battle music from her game because she decided Aveyond's was better.
8. The mechanics are relatively easy to get the hang of, and you can be fairly successful even without a lot of gaming ability. As mentioned, I hadn't played much in the way of video games before this game. I've never been amazing at games, and my love of storylines/dislike of grinding (and my occasional lack of gamer sense) causes me to rush into new areas while slightly (or sometimes severely) underleveled. The second time I played this game I skipped the Ice Queen's palace by accident when I was at the appropriate level for it. Instead I went in to the area you were supposed to start after the Ice Palace, and it was really hard but I got through. I got the hang of the system pretty quickly, and I've found it was actually a lot of fun for me to be underleveled, because it makes all of your battles far more intense.
9. Lars. I loved almost all the PCs in this game (except for Dameon) but Lars is always going to be my favorite. Lars is absolutely awesome and hilarious, and I almost feel bad for liking him because he's an ass, but I really don't regret it. Basically Lars is a spoiled brat whose parents own Rhen (who is a slave) very early on in the story. The two of them do not get along, but after fighting back to back for a while they eventually make a truce. Lars improves as a human being over the course of the game, but he never quite stops being snarky and overly frank. He's always kind of an ass, but he ends up being a fairly lovable one. Also, he's just incredibly powerful; if you use him the right way, he tends to be the MVP. I've tried making him a necromancer and an annihilator, and both times he was just kickass. As mentioned, you can give him some healing/buffing capabilities and he ends up being this ridiculously flexible caster.
Side story: Aveyond actually has a mechanic where the main character (Rhen, in this case) cannot be removed from your fighting party. There's another mechanic in Rhen's Quest where experience only counts if the character was in the fighting party and alive at the end of the battle. So for most people, Rhen tends to be the highest level at any given time. However, the first time I played this game, while I was in the first difficult area, I ran out of the item that lets you revive characters and Rhen was killed in battle. I somehow made it back to civilization (through judicious use of potions and Lars's best attack spells), but at that point Lars had been in several battles alone that Rhen couldn't get XP for because she was dead, so Lars ended up about a level ahead of Rhen. Due to my penchant for going places I shouldn't and somehow making it out with at least part of my party intact (which is all you need), and the fact that I almost never took Lars out of my battle party, by the end of the game Lars was still ahead of Rhen's level. It was awesome--it basically meant that if I followed the story based on Rhen's level, Lars could damage things that sorcerers weren't supposed to do much damage to, and his spells were a little more effective. (In one of my later playthroughs I actually intentionally didn't revive Rhen in a few battles just so I could get Lars ahead on the leveling track.)