Demons Age by Bigmoon Studios - turn-based RPG "highly inspired" by Chaos Chronicles

[Lacrymas]

They need talented developers, whether they are indeed talented is another story.

 

[CryptRat]

 

[Harry Easter]

Oh right, there was something. I couldn't even find a review or gameplay - scenes of this game back then. How long has it been since then? Three, four years?

 

[Abu Antar]

I bought this for a tenner. My curiosity got the best of me. I'll report back during the weekend.

Spoiler

 

[Abu Antar]

I promised to try it out. Played maybe an hour or two. Some very late (a few years late), quick impressions:

There's no character creation. Choose from pre-made characters. I think there were four classes. Fighter, cleric, wizard and rogue. I chose the human cleric, which will probably save me a lot of grief later on. I have seen no potions at all.

No loot from defeated enemies, only from chests and barrles/crates. I don't know what to make of it. Armour and weapons seem to be more or less identical. All my current weapons do 1-6 damage, be they one handed or two handed. My short sword and my scimitar have the same crit rate. The wizard has the same AC as the fighter. I don't know how things will be later on, but right now, itemization is terrible. The party has gained a few levels. But forget about allocating attribute points, or choosing spells and feats. It's all auto level up.

Leveling isn't the only "auto". There's absolutely no choices to be made in dialog. It's pure read and skip. What's funny is that the voice acting is passable, even if I don't hear a lot of it, due to me reading faster than the characters speak.

The combat is super slow. This is the definition of not respecting the player's time. It feels like your characters are wading through water. My tactics so far is just to rush the enemy and bash their head in with all characters. There are no attacks of opportunity. Spells are boring and underwhelming. At least they are somewhat helpful. In general, the combat isn't great. It works, but it's not properly balanced. Not having a cleric with you will make this very annoying. There are healing shrines spread around, but do you really have to run back to one after each encounter?

You have a limited amount of charges of your spells per encounter, but they seem to "recharge" for the next one.

I'm undecided on if I will try to beat it or not, but I had to check it out.

If I was the original dev of Chaos Chronicles and its assets, I would be like

 

[dumbuglyorc]

I find it fascinating how after already being purged twice from any online services, they somehow still managed to put out a physical release of this for the PS4 in 2019 without anybody noticing...

I wonder if they changed anything that time.
I think Moonmoon - suddenly Saber Porto - should use necromancy on this corpse now that the pesky Realms Beyond is out of the way again...

Demons Age fucking rules. And I haven't even played it... yet.............

 

[ArchAngel]

I find it fascinating how after already being purged twice from any online services, they somehow still managed to put out a physical release of this for the PS4 in 2019 without anybody noticing...

I wonder if they changed anything that time.
I think Moonmoon - suddenly Saber Porto - should use necromancy on this corpse now that the pesky Realms Beyond is out of the way again...

Demons Age fucking rules. And I haven't even played it... yet.............

It is probably the worst game I have ever tried.

 

[dumbuglyorc]

Oh, lookee here what the orc dragged in...

You can all go jelly on me now

 

[dumbuglyorc]

Spoiler

I think I'll just put my head through the noose and let it all go...

 

[dumbuglyorc]

Fought some froggies and fishies on the beach and in the sewers, and the battles were ridiculously easy. So easy, that when I met my first pair of goblins, I laughed at them, too, and just charged headlong at them thinking my feeble mage was some sort of indestructible melee demigod. Suicidal indeed. Turns out that goblin archers really, really like one shotting Raggedy Andys to death.

Took me several tries to beat them. Or him. First I feared the little motherfucker, and then kept dazzling him while my soldier henchman kept bombarding him with ranged full attacks. My henchman is a level 5 fighter who tagged along to escort me through the sewer. I ran out of dazzle faster than the gobby was corpsed, but at this point he was returning fire with the soldier. Once the archer was dead, the melee goblin and their pet frog were a no brainer to dispatch.

Also, pre-combat maneuvering between enemies for optimal placement when the ruckus starts matters. But one needs to keep an eye open to spot the camouflage froggies. I guess it might be possible to avoid some battles altogether, but since this is a pure combat game, I don't know why anyone would want to.

The soldier currently by my side is a mindless slave. He doesn't mind if I strip him naked so I can sell all his stuff when he goes away. I already replaced his expensive sword and suit of plate armor with a cheap wooden club and dirty clothes, which seem to have the exact same stats! Also, already found +1 dex and str rings, and a robe of +1 int. Seems like some unusually powerful stuff for a level 1 dungeon.

Bows have unlimited arrows. Shooting to an adjacent square gives a penalty, other than that I didn't notice distance affecting chance to hit, but maybe I just never stepped far away enough to see it.

Off-hand weapons are separate from main-hand weapons.

Spoiler

Baby's first spell.

Sure you could have, buddy.

One hobo in rags > squad of armored tools.

Oh, almost forgot to mention, I'm playing this guy:

Spoiler

 

[Barghest]

Nice to see someone actually playing this.

 

[Alienman]

I see you keep your fabulous white hair clean, but not your body so much.

 

[dumbuglyorc]

I see you keep your fabulous white hair clean, but not your body so much.

Absolutely hate head louse, while some of my best friends are body louse

 

[dumbuglyorc]

Another mage added himself to my party. Unlike the soldier this new guy has a name and a personal description.

Spoiler

Killed bunches of goblins more. Walk in the park now. Goblin archers are still able to deal quite a hurt to the mages, but I have blindness spells in my arsenal now which pretty effectively take them off the table. Blindness is permanent, and so is deafness. I wonder if they are literally permanent for the player characters as well. Pretty brutal stuff.

Also came to notice that I can probably never return to a previous level as I keep descending deeper down the dungeon. So, even though the threat level is only mild, each new level at first becomes a frantic search for the healing pool. Once the pool has been located, it’s smooth sailing from there on.

Spoiler

Cool new friends and a cool new hat.

 

[dumbuglyorc]

I cleared the sewers. It was nothing but harmless trash mobs. There was a "boss battle" with a goblin shaman in there, but he merely had time to cast one buff on his friend before he was already dead. The friend was dead, too, before the buff was of any use to him.

The other mage left my party so unexpectedly that he managed to steal from me whatever stuff he was wearing. He wanted to keep hanging in the sewers. I then stripped the soldier of all things value before he could do the same.

Spoiler

Go to Ragg in rags. Lucky you that my backpack was full, or you'd be doing it naked.

Next I'm supposed to meet a princess, because of course every random criminal who washes up on the beaches of Moragon gets an audience with its top brass, after taking a customary dip into the sewers.

 

[Alienman]

Can't believe you treat Henry Rollins with such disdain.

 

[dumbuglyorc]

Can't believe you treat Henry Rollins with such disdain.

I just treat him like a punk.

-

No princess, yet, but I visited an inn and it was a rather charming experience.

Spoiler

Buying stuff is certainly different from any other game. Sell the short sword and buy the axe, get a better weapon and make 40 bucks! Other items besides weapons were more varied, and I bought a bunch of neat stuff, like a cap of +1 int and wis, raising my int to a whopping 22. And some bracers, too, a mage staple.

Spoiler

The writing of the hirable mercenaries is just beautiful!

Erme, dude, that's not very politically correct, is that?

This guy sounds like he could be my friend.

I went with Raza, because maybe she hates rogues, and rogues apparently suck ass in this game. She also has low self-esteem and thus was cheaper.

I wonder why Varzeas had so much more detailed personality than anybody else. Maybe we've not seen the last of him, yet?

 

[Abu Antar]

Have any of your party members turned on you, yet?

How do you like the non-existent item upgrades?

I thought I was one of very few to be stupid enough to go through the whole game.

 

[dumbuglyorc]

Have any of your party members turned on you, yet?

Not yet.

How do you like the non-existent item upgrades?

Enjoying it so far.

I thought I was one of very few to be stupid enough to go through the whole game.

Stupid is in my name, uh, sort of.

 

[dumbuglyorc]

Rethgard, or whatever, is a ghost town.

Spoiler

Because the princess had everybody executed.

It's actually quite atmospheric. There's the sound of wind weeping in the desolate streets, and some Diablo's-Tristram-esque music.

Met Henry again. He was a bit sore from last time, and pretended not to know me.

Spoiler

Goblins were the hot topic among the scarce population.

So it's a new quest. And it's nothing less than "Go back into the sewers and fight more goblin trashmobs."

Spoiler

Screen panning during combat. This may actually be a feature that was added into the game later due to player feedback. And it might not the only such thing I've noticed. Methinks maybe Moonmoon was more invested in this game than people give them credit for.

Leaving spellcasters standing last feels very counterintuitive, but these guys are almost completely harmless.

Edit: Oh, yeah, nearly forgot show you guys this:

Thankfully it didn't affect me, as I was going to save, not load. But that's definitely shit you never want to see in any game.

 

[Abu Antar]

Oh yeah. Happens a lot. I had at least 5 saves rolling, and at every point, at least 2 saves were corrupted.

 

[Cryomancer]

Is the game good? Aka not a low lethaily gear farming/cooldown managing chore? Is wizardry in tgis game good?

 

[Morblot]

Good work playing the game so we don't have to, dumbuglyorc.

 

[dumbuglyorc]

Is the game good? Aka not a low lethaily gear farming/cooldown managing chore? Is wizardry in tgis game good?

Good is a very subjective term. The other guy here, who has played it more than I, hated the game while I'm sort of loving it so far. And I'm a dumb orc with dumb orc tastes, while he is some sort of a refined gentleman. Also, another dude on that other, less prestigious rpg forum went absolutely nanners, hate crusade crazy after trying out this game for only 20 minutes. True story. It literally happened.

At least there is no item farming, and zero cooldowns.

The itemization is definitely campy, it's unlike anything I've seen before, but it actually started to feel less weird once I realized that the inns don't actually *sell* items, they rather *lend* them. You take an item out, you pay a safety deposit fee. When you return the item, you get this fee back in full, but if you can't return an item, because of mercenary death or betrayal, then you lose both your item and your fee. You basically get to own *all* gear you ever come across. There are also items designated "trash" which are just turned into cash and removed from the game.

Now, the total amount of gear available in the whole world is limited, and because of this, it makes certain sense that there are lots of base line items. They are fodder. You wont mind losing them much. But the special weapons that are slightly more powerful? They are very rare. So far, at least. Losing those will smart. I am even tempted by the idea of saving them for tougher battles.

Not sure if this is intentional, but it nonetheless *does* work and it *is* fun. Savescumming would definitely take the edge off the mechanic though, so scummers will never be able to appreciate this.

Oh, and there are no consumable items whatsoever, which is a bummer. Your spells recharge after every battle, and you're expected to heal at pools that are always nearby. During worldmap travel you may have to sleep at an inn, which is somewhat costly.

Lethality is a little all over the place. Potentially almost every fight is dangerous (unless its just frogs, spiders, or other such critters, those fights are snoozes.) Even in trashmobs goblin warriors and archers have a very high accuracy and kill anybody low in constitution in just couple hits. But keeping the key players in check with spells has been easy-peasy, and turn many fights into clean-up detail regardless.

Then again, wander too far out of the safe zone in the world map (which seems to be fully open world right after the Sewer of Trials, btw!) and the random encounters might show you what's what.

Mind you though, that the battles are all very simple. Cramped and level playing fields with mundane enemies and not many options in what you can do.

So far wizardry has been a little lackluster, but absolutely necessary. Bear's Constitution (iirc?) to buff buddies, Fear and Blindness to keep the enemies off their game. Low tier harming spells generally do less damage than physical attacks, but always hit the target. I generally use them to wipe out enemies that are already near death, so that the hitters can move on to their next targets a turn earlier. Higher tier harming spells are a trade-off between doing one decent attack, or making a long lasting buff or debuff, because they share charges. I always go with the (de)buffs. I'm only at level 5 currently though, and have seen only three tiers of spells, so who knows.

All wizards have the exact same spells. They are learned at level ups. I haven't had a cleric in the party, yet, but they have healing and harming spells I can't comment on, and it has been hinted that rangers may also acquire spells at some point.

Enemy casters so far have been utter jokes.

But, I'm not very far into the game yet, as free time is rather scarce, so take everything said so far with a grain of salt. I'll keep coming back as I learn more.

 

[dumbuglyorc]

New monsters had appeared on a floor I had previously cleared. At first I thought it was respawning, which I hate, but it was just one, different mob... Don't know what to make of it.

Spoiler

I met the prince in the sewers...

...and he really just loves hanging down there. Moragonians.

Spoiler

Leveling up and finding out you have new weapon focuses is surprisingly fun, the old staff was then swapped for a club and a crossbow. You don't get to develop your own character, but at least you get to react to the changes.

Sometimes trying to find a good starting position can backfire catastrophically.

Spoiler

Bottlenecking wins the day. The fights may be simple, but I am being entertained through the roof.

Can't actually make that shot because the ally is on the way.

Spoiler

It's an open world out there. No roaming across the wilderness though, travelers keep to the roads.

The worldmap is a bit buggy, as if it couldn't decide whether to be hidden with fog or to be fully revealed.