There's one rule to stick to when playing Avowed: Don't constantly compare it to Skyrim. Obsidian's games are in a tough position, constantly being compared to Bethesda's most beloved titles, so it's important to see the game on its own merit -- plus, Skyrim is 14 years old now. Sorry. So it's time to let go, even if it's hard to shake the feeling you're playing a modern take on it many hours into Avowed.
Avowed's combat leaves the Dragonborn in the dust, though. You have two loadouts to switch between during combat with the press of a button, letting you focus on two of the Fighter, Ranger, and Wizard archetypes, rather than just one. That alone makes combat feel so much more dynamic, as you don't have to faff around in menus to switch up your tactics. You'll be bashing a monster's head in with your axe, then seconds later you'll be summoning a thunderstorm out of your grimoire to smite everything else in sight.
The stamina system gives you plenty to think about during combat. Every attack and block drains it, but it regenerates very quickly when you stop performing actions, creating a system that keeps fights fast-paced while still forcing you to constantly consider your tactics. Combine that with the fact that basic actions like sprinting don't cost any stamina, and a very satisfying dodge-dash that does, and it makes every fight a fun encounter with smooth movement and satisfying strikes, even if the weapons don't have as much weight behind them as you'd hope.
Avowed's magic system is one of the best there's been in an action RPG. Normally playing as a wizard sounds fun on paper but boils down to just using the same one or two spells for the entire game. Avowed has a brilliant way to get around this. You can permanently unlock spells via the ability tree and assign them to one of six action slots to bust out during combat -- but you also have grimoires, off-hand weapons that contain four extra spells, with each grimoire housing a unique set.
This means you always have a wide variety of spells at your fingertips, letting you unleash the full magical potential of all the interesting spells in the game. So many games fall into the trap of making their utility spells too much hassle to use compared to straightforward offensive spells, but the easy accessibility of everything in this system means you never have to compromise.
As for the world in which you're doing all this fighting, the Living Lands is a vibrant place to explore, and though it doesn't show its full potential until the later areas, you do feel the drive to just go wandering. If you explore each area, you'll be rewarded with fun little adventures and mini-mysteries.
The world being segmented by region does hinder this feeling, though. This isn't one massive open world, so the initial wonder of exploration soon fizzles out as you realize how limited these maps are. The discoveries you make while exploring are fun, but you rarely get that amazing feeling of cresting a hill, seeing something interesting on the horizon, and setting out on a journey to investigate it.
What's worse is that every region follows the same formula, each having just one main town where you pick up the vast majority of quests. It makes the whole thing a little bland, with all of the regions feeling disconnected, stopping you from fully embracing the world.
It doesn't help that none of the characters or their stories stand out. Avowed's cast of companions have straightforward personalities and no interesting quirks. By the end of a conversation with any of this lot you'll be begging for Dragon Age: The Veilguard's aggressively quirky crew who at least had strong enough personalities to be unlikable.
The main story isn't anything worth shouting about either. A strange new evil force is encroaching on the land and you, the chosen one (called a "Godlike" in this world), must go on a quest to stop it. Just in case that wasn't enough to make you special, you're also the envoy of the emperor himself, meaning basically everyone of any importance you meet has to do what you say. So many characters shower you in reverence and all it does is remove any interesting friction in the narrative, as well as kill the great feeling RPGs can give you of rising from being a nobody to an all-powerful warrior. Not everyone likes the empire, but Avowed's themes of colonialism are all superficial.
There's no fun conflict to invest in when every time you show up in a new town the red carpet is rolled out and whatever authority figure lives there immediately goes along with your plans. The few times people do have an issue with you, every character around them pipes up telling them how amazing you are, and soon enough they're grovelling with apologies too. Even your attempted assassin says they think you're pretty great when you confront them -- it's laughable and completely robs you of a character journey.
Still, those issues with the story and world don't overshadow just how fun the core combat is -- that alone is so much fun that it'll keep you on the hook for ages, even when the writing lets you down. It puts Avowed in a strange position where it fails at being a great RPG on many levels, but is still an excellent gaming experience that we would thoroughly recommend.