Siege of Avalon: Anthology

I went into Siege of Avalon: Anthology expecting a clunky relic and came out three chapters later genuinely invested in whether Sir Roth survives the next assault. That emotional pull is the game's whole argument for existing in 2024, and it mostly works - provided you clear a few very steep onboarding hurdles first. The setup is a siege-locked medieval fantasy world called Eurale, where the Sha'ahoul nomads under the warlord Mithras have cornered the last alliance fortress at Avalon. You arrive by boat, ostensibly hunting for your war-hero brother Corvus, and almost immediately get conscripted into everything from supply-line skirmishes to political intrigue that reaches the citadel's highest command. Originally released as six downloadable chapters back in 2000, the Anthology packages all of them together and SNEG has done the quiet but vital work of making it run on modern Windows with widescreen support. Graphics and mechanics are otherwise preserved as-is, warts included. The class system is more interesting than it first looks. You pick Fighter, Scout, or Magician at the start, but class restrictions are mild - a Fighter can stack spell proficiency, a Mage can pick up a greatsword if that is your idea of chaos. What your class choice actually does is gate specific questlines: a Fighter can earn training from a spectral holy knight, while a Scout gets a path toward the Rangers. Character progression runs on training points earned through quests and combat, spent at trainers rather than auto-distributed on level-up, which means hoarding points early is genuinely the smart play. The layered armor system is a quiet standout - you can stack multiple pieces of clothing and armor on a paper-doll grid, each slot changing your character's visible appearance and stats, and with hundreds of weapons and armor pieces in the world there is room for real kit customization. The inventory itself is a grid-puzzle, items taking up irregular shapes, which adds an unexpectedly satisfying Tetris-adjacent layer to loot management. Now for the honest accounting of where this game hurts you. Combat is real-time but requires you to manually activate combat mode (spacebar), and the game offers zero in-game indication that this mechanic exists. Plenty of players have spent baffled hours clicking enemies while doing pitiful damage, not realizing they were essentially punching in the dark. Party member AI is also genuinely embarrassing - companions will walk into walls, trigger enemy groups you were sneaking past, and occasionally get two-shot by enemy mages regardless of the resistances you have carefully stacked. Loading screens fire between every small zone section, which becomes numbing fast. Bugs from the original release persist: party buffs drop on area transitions, certain inventory slots misbehave, and enemy spawns in a few areas loop infinitely. These are the flaws SNEG flagged as intentionally preserved, not oversights. You are buying a restoration, not a remake. Where the game earns its goodwill is the writing. Every NPC in Avalon has unique dialogue lines and updates their conversation after each chapter's events, which means talking to everyone is not just encouraged but mechanically rewarded - some quest progressions are completely opaque without it. The main character keeps three separate journals, one illustrated, where they interpret unfolding events in their own voice. In-world books and scrolls fill in Eurale's political backstory with the density of an Elder Scrolls title. Choices made in Chapter 1 can close off quests in later chapters. That cross-chapter reactivity, modest by modern standards but genuine, is exactly what makes the story feel like it has weight. Steam players have landed around 87% positive on the game, which tracks: this is a niche that knows what it is buying. Bring patience, read the community FAQ before session one, and accept that the combat was never the point. Monika, Scout Team