Avowed is a very good, very targeted game. By which I mean it does the things it wants to really, really well and mostly ignores everything else.

There's a ton of exploration in the game and you're consistently rewarded for doing so. Most of the time that amounts to money and extra crafting mats, but it can be unique items, weapons, or armor. Combat is fast and fluid and generally a lot of fun, though sticking with a pure melee build will be relatively boring - I'd encourage dipping into the Ranger or Mage trees to pick up situational abilities. The story is interesting and I like it, and you have a fair amount of choice and impact. Mostly, it's just very streamlined and that's a great thing.

Example: They want you out questing and exploring, so there's no crime system. Outside of few NPCs (taking from a beggar's bowl will get you yelled at), you can take whatever you want and the consequences will be more around trying to make you feel like an ass than anything that impacts the story or mechanics.

I finished the game in ~50 hours with near 100% completion on normal difficulty. A week later I went back and started with another character, and I'm having a real blast with a different build and different narrative loyalties. Definitely worth the purchase.

A lot of fun, with some rough edges.

The game isn't terribly clear on how to initially advance, and you can get into some bad situations like being in a pitch-black night without the ability to make any light at all. But it's FUN. And the game encourages the most interesting part of Survival games, which is the early part where you don't have a lot of infrastructure and actually have to try to survive.

The game will basically restart your map every once in a while. You take missions, that take anywhere from a few hours to a month and your world will persist exactly that long. You NEED to evacuate before the mission's over or you suffer permadeath. And you can research some things inbetween missions and have a limited ability to take some items with you.

Basically? They want you to keep doing the early building/survival portion of these games a lot. If you like that part of the genre, you'll love this. If you prefer to build a huge base and then coast, this isn't from you.

I love this game. It looks old but plays wonderfully, espeecially once you being unlocking most of your traversal powers. The action is tight (though largely uncomplicated unless you play on the harder difficulties), but the real standout is the music. Falcom always makes fantastic soundtracks, and while this one has a couple of misses it also has some really fantastic music: Some is very atmospheric, and some is just heart-pumpingly active to get your monster slaying going.

Lovely game, and can't recommend it enough, or the previous game in the series.

The game is just damn fun.

It has some huge launch issues at the moment - so many players that evidently they can't scale, and the servers keep ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up. And when that happens, you can't play. But let me go over a few things:

Loot and itemization is pretty good before you hit endgame. Can't say more because I haven't gotten that far. But the game itself plays VERY differently depending on which class you are. For some classes you play like a pretty normal cover shooter. For other classes it's about staying close to enemies and out of cover. For still other classes it's about staying in range and staying mobile. Basically, the game is a cover shooter that encourages you to move, break cover through its various mechanics and it works really well.

Voice acting is mostly good with a few clunkers. The worst area of the game is unfortunately the first "ruined war zone" quest hub, but it gets continually better and more interesting after that visually and story wise.

Tons of fun with friends.

This game is an utterly bizarre and really excellent game. You can break it pretty easily by focusing on side-jobs and then buying yourself the best equipment, but it remains stupidly run and pretty great.

Also, I will never forget the time an Otaku "Used stupid internet logic" to enrage one of my characters, and he yelled back "You ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!" Just. Perfect.