Story

For all fans of beat'em up games, here comes a good one.  The plot is quite simple, and if you are a fan of Final Fantasy VII, you will enjoy it. The game puts you between Final Fantasy VII first and second part. You play as Tifa, and you come to know that another Mako reactor is out there somewhere.  So you, along with Cloud and Barret decide to go to destroy it. You plan to find your way on that strange Mako reactor....

Mainly, there are two places in the game.  The first is the Mako forge where you can enhance your abilities and stats, and save the game. The second place is the labyrinth where you play to get your way out. You can switch from place to place through some teleporters at any time.

Game Play

The game controls are customizable at the first menu on the configuration tab. You can play with your gamepad (highly recommended) or with keyboard and mouse.  The commands are quite simple, and all the combos are easy to get (for the first time I can say this on this kind of games!).  They are very well explained on the readme file and on the game side menu (read the instructions).

Avalanche has a nice balance of hard and not so hard enemies. I feel this is quite important in this kind of game, because you won’t feel like you are a bad player.  You will need a couple of hours kicking some regular soldiers to get enough stats and abilities to kick harder foes (at least I did, and on the instructions they recommend it). The graphics and combos are really nice, so it's not a big deal.  You can also play on multiplayer mode, and by reading the instructions on the ReadMe file, it is quite easy to set it.

Sound and Graphics

The music is quite nice, but repetitive. When you engage in a battle, the music will change to heavy metal, and will change according to the fight. I didn't feel excited very often in the middle of a battle, because of the music.  Anyway, with some patience, you can use the music you want for the battle, and also for the rest of the time (by going into the music folder and replacing the according .ogg file with the one you want but keeping the same name).

The graphics are very well done, especially for a freeware game. The movements are smooth and really cool to the eyes. The backgrounds are well done, but quite monotonous.  You are in a labyrinth... of a reactor plant... (What else would you expect?). The enemies and characters move really smooth and have nice shapes (but please don't expect U$ 200 game graphics).

Installation
This is really nice. You don't need to install anything. When you download it, you will get afolder with everything in it.  You hit on the “rcube” icon and there you go. And if you had enough of this game, just trash the folder, and that’s it!  Make sure you read the instructions after a couple of plays because they have some interesting tips and commands. They are quite simple and with many screenshots.

Overall

Avalanche is a very nice beat'em up, whether you have only a couple of minutes or want to play for a couple of hours. It is a good game and easy to set.  I highly recommend it.