jdinatale
Cipher
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2013
- Messages
- 422
The player starts in a small town in a post-apocalyptic world, except the world before was closer to the Roman Empire than the Information Age. The mythos is that gods fought it out, leading to the destruction of both the Empire and their enemies. However, it quickly becomes clear that there were some steampunk stuff involved.
Anyway, the player generally seeks to gain the trust of one of the major powers in the region to further their own ambitions. But the great thing is that there is no mandatory path. The player could help any of the factions or none at all. Seek either riches or understanding of what really transpired. Or they could do all of that and try to become more powerful than anyone else.
There are 3 Noble Houses vying for power, 4 other factions trying to either just survive or supplant the Houses as the Major Power on the region, as well as a few not-so-minor characters and groups that could change the fate of both the player and the other factions in a number of ways.
In AoD you only command a single character. The combat is absolutely brutal. Death is always permanent (short of a reload, obviously). I've died more times than I've been victorious and it never gets easier.
The combat is Isometric and Turn Based, so it may not be your cup of tea. Also, the graphics are pretty bad (they were made on Torque). But if you can get past all those problems you are rewarded with one of the most in-depth combat systems of the past years (for cRPGs, anyway).
Every choice matters, both inside and outside of combat. It's not always worth it to pursue combat though, mostly because there is a very high chance it will end up with you dead, but thankfully you can avoid pretty much any confrontation. Learning which fights to pick and which ones to stay away from is crucial and mastering all the tools that are available to you is the only way of staying alive if you decide to kill your way out of most situations.
On some playthroughs you may manage to carve your way through an entire battalion of highly trained, highly experienced Imperial Soldiers. On others you can consider yourself lucky for surviving the last Arena match against a single opponent.
The most interesting part is that the hardest fights are less reliant on your skills than on your tactics and opponents. Your combat prowess may rival the gods, but you can still die just as easily as any schmuck if you are surrounded by a dozen thugs and cutthroats.
Anyway, the player generally seeks to gain the trust of one of the major powers in the region to further their own ambitions. But the great thing is that there is no mandatory path. The player could help any of the factions or none at all. Seek either riches or understanding of what really transpired. Or they could do all of that and try to become more powerful than anyone else.
There are 3 Noble Houses vying for power, 4 other factions trying to either just survive or supplant the Houses as the Major Power on the region, as well as a few not-so-minor characters and groups that could change the fate of both the player and the other factions in a number of ways.
In AoD you only command a single character. The combat is absolutely brutal. Death is always permanent (short of a reload, obviously). I've died more times than I've been victorious and it never gets easier.
The combat is Isometric and Turn Based, so it may not be your cup of tea. Also, the graphics are pretty bad (they were made on Torque). But if you can get past all those problems you are rewarded with one of the most in-depth combat systems of the past years (for cRPGs, anyway).
Every choice matters, both inside and outside of combat. It's not always worth it to pursue combat though, mostly because there is a very high chance it will end up with you dead, but thankfully you can avoid pretty much any confrontation. Learning which fights to pick and which ones to stay away from is crucial and mastering all the tools that are available to you is the only way of staying alive if you decide to kill your way out of most situations.
On some playthroughs you may manage to carve your way through an entire battalion of highly trained, highly experienced Imperial Soldiers. On others you can consider yourself lucky for surviving the last Arena match against a single opponent.
The most interesting part is that the hardest fights are less reliant on your skills than on your tactics and opponents. Your combat prowess may rival the gods, but you can still die just as easily as any schmuck if you are surrounded by a dozen thugs and cutthroats.
