Picked up Immortals of Aveum on sale. My friend recommended it and the combat is fun! But I dislike almost everything else. I intensely dislike the main character and that's souring me to the rest of it. There's a "it's the end of the world" type war going on and while that can be an interesting setting I just can't bring myself to want the protagonist to succeed. Early on in the game you have to go through some kind of trial to be chosen for some elite status that he doesn't deserve. So you go through a fairly basic obstacle course with almost no fights to do and when you're done he's apparently the ONLY one amazing enough to actually finish it out of the group that were making attempts! OH MY GOD HE'S SO AMAZING! I actually alt-f4'd the game right then because I was truly hoping to complete it and be chastised for how long it took, and be told no I don't have what it takes and hey kid, you're pretty fucking arrogant and hard to get along with so we are busting you down to the worst rank we can. That's is what I wanted for this character. And if that had happened and the story revolved around him learning to get along with people and ACTUALLY have to try and prove his worth I would have been so on board. But no, he gets rewarded for being insufferable. I wouldn't wish for the villain to win in this world. But I certainly wouldn't mind this protagonist losing.

But combat is fun when you get to do it. Cutscenes are unskippable and that's not cool. Dialog is inconsequential so you can just bypass it when that comes up, or just pick the "let's get on with it" option.

I would give this game a 4/10 right now. It would be an easy 6 or 7 if I could skip all story, dialog, and tedious platforming. It could also earn higher scores by having characters and a story worth NOT skipping, but let's be reasonable. Just let me skip it pls.

Edit: I literally forgot that this game has a talent tree and crafting. But the crafting was going to cost me half of all the currency I'd collected up to the point I'd found the crafting machine to gain 1% damage or 1% more armour and I just scoffed because like no I am not going to grind that out. The game doesn't feel challenging enough to need any extra damage or defence tbh even on the hardest difficulty.

The talent tree may be bugged for me? But the talents either aren't working, or they work at numbers much less than advertised. Like using a type of ability to kill a mob is supposed to heal me for 10% of my max health. That's a big enough number you should easily see it happen on the health bar. That talent is NOT working for my save. I chose another that increases reload time by 10% but I honestly can't tell the difference before and after. I'd have to record it and count frames to actually tell if the talent works or not. So I stopped bothering with the talent tree because it felt largely, if not entirely, cosmetic. Maybe it's just bugged for me though. I'll get through the game without it if the game is worth getting through though. Little disappointed that there won't be anything I can do to guide the character's progress but c'est la vie.