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Let's just get this out of the way: Tainted Grail does not put its best foot forward. Facial animations are really, really bad - lips barely move with the kind of dead-eyed stare you can find at your local comedy club - and there's some weird visual bugs. For a game based on Arthurian legend, you know, English or Celtic at most, the soundtrack also loves using... Wardruna?
All of this is to say, by the time you're looking at a very fancy (and expensive) cutscene with Giger-esque architecture, you might be wondering what it's all for. I'm glad I stuck it out, but be aware you're going to need more than the two hour refund window to see if the whole thing starts to click.
So rather than the usual spiel, let's instead go through what kind of game The Fall of Avalon is and, more importantly, what it is not.
First of all, whoever started the whole "indie Skyrim" thing has done the game a massive disservice. Of course, we're living in the time where anything with a stamina bar is a Souls-like and the concept of jumping didn't exist before Mario, but if you're coming into this expecting the next big AAA open world RPG, you're going to be disappointed.
This is a small, albeit ambitious, AA title from a Polish studio that doesn't have anywhere near the level of resources like Bethesda, Ubisoft or Obsidian to crank out the latest big budget slop with every turn of the moon. And that's okay. If anything, it's because of these rough edges that I admire it more.
If you're at all familiar with the RPG genre - and I'm talking actual RPGs here, not just anything with a skill tree or "number go up" - you'll know it's a genre rarely famed for its combat. Gothic had its notoriously clunky control scheme, Morrowind tried to have its cake and eat it with both dice rolls and player input to calculate hits and while classic isometric titles aged pretty well, it's more a means to an end.
This comes back to the tolerance thing from earlier. If you want a slick action game, you're not going to find it here. If you want the kind of razor-precise dance of a FromSoft boss, you're not going to find it here. If I had to liken the combat to anything, it'd probably be The Witcher 2 as you flail around with little feedback.
Even if the combat was spectacular though, you'll see how bad the AI is and how easy it is to cheese. It's fine. It exists. With skill growth over time, you'll get used to it.
Speaking of The Witcher 2, the world feels a lot closer to Slavic than Celtic or medieval Britain. As mentioned already, this is further confused by the use of Wardruna and Nordic folk of all things in a fantasy land that's full of clashing tones and design, but if combat was passable at best, where Tainted Grail really shines in its exploration.
The world of Avalon is beautiful. It's no visual powerhouse, I played on Ultra settings with only the occasional issue, but the one thing that really drew me in was just getting out into the world. It's here where the classic influences really start to kick in. There's no need for 1000 planets or x kilometres to stick on the box. Something the devs nailed was the feeling of dungeon diving, running into bandits, the kind of grass roots flow state that open worlds dream of. It helps the lighting doesn't look too bad either.
Sure, towns aren't full of life and most quests are fairly straightforward, but it's just fun to explore. It's awesome. Of course, a huge part of that is the loot. Slight tangent, but I have to give the devs a big shoutout for their restraint. There's no blue, purple, gold tiered rubbish or, worse, premium currency, Tainted Grail does something that I thought RPGs had forgotten: loot actually matters. Crazy, right? You don't get ten copies of the same sword in one location, unique artefacts are exactly that so when you come across something good, it means something again.
Be aware that stat requirements play a heavy role and unless you take the potion to respec, you're pretty much locked into one archetype for the whole game. You can't wear different gear on a whim. That's not a criticism, by the way, if anything that's something RPGs need more of. Not everything needs to be available to everyone to all times.
I can't believe I'm writing this, but the crafting system is... actually useful. This must be the only time I've ever talked about something that's typically added to tick a box, but cooking in particular is useful as the main source of healing in the game unless you want to bother with alchemy. Regardless, it's another example of intentional design instead of mechanical bloat like other games.
Back to talking about the role-playing side of things though, we have the story. I'll be honest, I stopped paying attention pretty quickly and skipped through dialogue. One thing the game does really well is choices, something the devs could've just as easily skipped over, but I do appreciate how faction allegiances have meaningful weight here and most quests come with multiple outcomes. The narrative is fine, maybe you'll love it, but the writing team did a good job overall rather than just throwing in a million "go here, kill this" filler.
Another thing I appreciate is the ability to complete or stumble on quests out of order. This is yet another thing that's grown all-too rare in RPGs as lazy quest design means following each breadcrumb in the exact order the game wants it to, but Tainted Grail allows for you to find critical items, locations, everything... dialogue will even check for it in the background. For what is (comparatively) a little extra work, it adds so much to the quality of life and being more enjoyable to play overall.
I can't speak for how Tainted Grail compares at 1.0 to the Early Access versions, but it's in a pretty good state. Framerate drops do happen from time to time and in terms of bugs, I haven't come across any softlocks yet or quests breaking. The game was clearly made on a budget that the open world genre isn't typically used to and, for better or worse, that's going to lose a lot of people. Probably my biggest criticism in this area, (the animations really aren't that big of a deal), is sound design.
Footsteps are barely audible, and although this is kind of hard to describe, a lot of times things are too quiet and there's not enough "layers" to the environment. An easy example is impact sounds: there's no splash coming in or out of water, a lot of combat there's no hit effects at all, fall damage is like being hit by a pillow. Voice acting is all over the place, both in quality and mixing, with combat barks repeated too quickly. Occasionally you'll run into dialogue that's unvoiced, which is jarring without subtitles on.
To list off some criticisms quickly, weapon collision feels off. Not on enemies per se, but bouncing off objects that shouldn't have it, such as rope on a gallows. Another example of some anachronistic design decisions, why do undead drinking healing potions? The campfire that can be placed (almost) anywhere at anytime is also one of those "tick a box" additions that doesn't really mean anything. Removing it entirely would be to the game's benefit, forcing players to choose and work for rests.
These aren't deal-breakers, but again, it goes to show the kind of budget and game you're getting into here. With any luck, some of the rough edges will be fixed up in future updates, if they haven't already.
This is a janky game and, if you're okay with that, you're going to have a great time. Point is, I have a lot of respect for games like these, punching well above their weight. At the end of the day, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon gets a lot more right than it does wrong and in an industry where both AAA and indie developers are taking fewer risks, that deserves serious props. Recommended.