Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
Review
Things That Go Bump in the Knight
by Quinn Levandoski
reviewed on PC
Twists on the Familiar
Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon has been released right around two other heavy-hitter first-person fantasy RPGs: the Oblivion remaster and Avowed. In fact, the general premise of Tainted Grail has a lot of similarities to the latter. In both games, a mighty high fantasy empire previously conquered a wilderness-ridden, supernatural land and its native inhabitants, and is now struggling to understand and hold back a mysterious plague killing the population. The question for Tainted Grail (and any fantasy RPG coming out these days) is what's done differently or better here to earn player's time? The genre isn't hurting for entries, and these games are significant time investments, so there's got to be a hook to get people in and some real meat to hold them there.
After the opening cinematic explaining the above narrative background info and a brief character creation menu, the player character wakes up in a prison, where they've apparently been a test subject for a group called the Red Priests. Tainted Grail takes an interesting approach to the stats side of making a character. Instead of sliders or menus, the guard asks the player some questions about what they were doing before getting picked up. It's a cool, immersive way to start the game off, but fret not - the bonuses here are small, and players can take their character in whichever direction they'd like, regardless of their opening choices.
Then, there's a prison break, and things don't hesitate from getting really weird, really fast. In the opening half hour or so, there's magic, zombies, plague monsters, and golems, and that's not the weird part or the narrative hook. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon takes place hundreds of years after the death of the iconic King Arthur, who led his people to escape the Red Death plague, push back the mystic Wyrdness in Avalon, and settle it. However, every time things get rough in Avalon - which they currently are with the return of the Red Death - groups try (and sometimes partially succeed) in resurrecting the Once and Future King. That's great, except that every time this happens, the strange, destructive Wyrdness expands and encroaches, and it may just destroy everything if Arthur Pendragon returns to full life.
However, despite being a relative nobody, the player character finds themselves transported to a land in between life and death where Arthur's soul is slowly reconnecting with his body, using the player as a host as it becomes whole. Does Arthur mean well or ill? Are those trying to destroy Arthur's soul so he can never return doing the right thing? These are questions that form the opening narrative of the game, and I applaud the story for jumping right into the deep in from minute one.
World Building and Minor Hiccups
I usually wouldn't spend so much time framing a game's narrative, but story and worldbuilding are such a focus of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon that it's worth sharing. Even more importantly, these are areas in which the game excels. Though the overall package has some rough edges that aren't terribly unexpected in a "AA" game of this scope, simply taking in the weird, dark, twisted expanse of Arthurian fantasy is worth the price of admission. Moreover, the writing and voice acting are solid, and, as should be the case in any large-scale RPG, the side-quests are often just as well written as the main story and never feel like a chore.
High fantasy settings are the furthest thing from unique among RPGs, but this worldbuilding and mixing of familiar mythology with such an intense type of dark, desolate atmosphere feels fresh enough, and it's all backed by suitably original and gorgeous art direction. It's worth noting that Tainted Grail does spring from the same IP as a board game of the same name and a deck-building video game. However, I haven't played either, and I found this to be an excellent introduction to the setting.
However, that isn't to say the presentation is perfect. While the environments and character designs are great, the raw graphical fidelity is just whelming, and animations aren't always quite up to par. Tainted Grail is far from the only game to struggle in this particular regard, but NPCs often look far too static or aloof during conversations, and I experienced my fair share of bugs. Most notably, colored spikes would repeatedly stretch off of my character model and into my field of vision during gameplay, and there were a few times in which some lines of dialogue wouldn't be voiced mid-conversation. These are distracting, but fortunately, none of them were game-breaking or tangibly affected my ability to play.
Throwing Hands (Or Spells)
Despite first-person melee combat being fairly common in the genre, it's surprisingly hard to get right. Not only does it require a solid mechanical foundation regardless of perspective, but animations and hit boxes are under even more scrutiny with players right up in the action. The game technically has a third-person mode, but it's clearly not the intended main way to play, and every level looks and feels better in the default perspective. Melee weapons have satisfying weight, and the focus on dashing/dodging keeps combat fluid and tense. There’s a parry system that feels overly punishing to time, so I largely ignored it, which never felt like a hindrance.
As one would expect, there are magic and ranged weapons, too, filling out the classic fantasy party member archetypes. Magic in particular feels very strong, but not too strong, and is suitably joined by some visual flourish. My only gripe with the otherwise satisfying combat is that I occasionally had a hard time judging how far away an enemy could hit me with melee. Now and then, though not enough to bother me too much, I'd feel confident that I dodged far enough away from a strike only to take damage anyway.
Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is a bizarre and fascinating blend of classic high-fantasy trappings and Giger-inspired architecture that feels like a living death metal album. From presentation to mechanics, it wears its Elder Scrolls inspiration on its sleeve, but it does enough with its story and artistic direction to stand alone as a compelling package. Some of the glitches are frustrating given how long the game spent in Early Access, but they never elevated beyond annoyances and don't stop this from being an easy game to recommend for fans of the genre.
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8.0
fun score
Pros
Engaging story, beautiful art direction
Cons
Animations are sometimes bland, bugs were distracting, melee is not always visually intuitive.
