Age of Decadence Reviews

[Blaine]

Hey, I've been addicted to $25 beef loin roasts lately. Every copy of AoD I buy (and I've bought several for various friends, despite my lack of participation in the Codex AoD thread, which has led people to believe I've ignored AoD and only play Underrail) could be a delicious $25 beef loin roast instead.

I will say that my first moments playing AoD as an assassin were magic. The game shifts you to your first mark's room at the inn like a choose-your-own-adventure book; the lurking and traveling are abstracted. Immediately, you're met with a nicely set stage and a little bit of very basic C&C.

Then combat begins, and you and the bodyguard (most likely) essentially whack each other back and forth, back and forth, like Punch & Judy dolls or Rock'em Sock'em Robots, until one of you finally runs out of hit points. Not the most brilliant or nuanced combat system I've ever seen, but it's certainly... well, it's... uh, it's turn-based!

 

[t]

Hey, I've been addicted to $25 beef loin roasts lately. Every copy of AoD I buy (and I've bought several for various friends, despite my lack of participation in the Codex AoD thread, which has led people to believe I've ignored AoD and only play Underrail) could be a delicious $25 beef loin roast instead.

I will say that my first moments playing AoD as an assassin were magic. The game shifts you to your first mark's room at the inn like a choose-your-own-adventure book; the lurking and traveling are abstracted. Immediately, you're met with a nicely set stage and a little bit of very basic C&C.

Then combat begins, and you and the bodyguard (most likely) essentially whack each other back and forth, back and forth, like Punch & Judy dolls or Rock'em Sock'em Robots, until one of you finally runs out of hit points. Not the most brilliant or nuanced combat system I've ever seen, but it's certainly... well, it's... uh, it's turn-based!

Crank it up to x2 or even x4 with console commands and you'll breeze through. Also learn what each attack does, on which stats it depends, why would you use any of them.

 

[Eyestabber]

Or better yet, have high critical strike + dexterity and instakill that guy, like all the cool assassin players do.

Actually fighting the bodyguard, huh. Preposterous!

 

[Pey]

On Polish sites Age of Decadence has way less reviews than Underrail even though it's over 2 months older than Underrail. Only one bigger site reviewed it (not the biggest, not even close, I'm talking about gram.pl), in URs case the biggest one reviewed it + at least two ones as big (if not bigger) as gram.pl. I guess it has something to do with Fallout name being dropped more than once.

Really? Another thing I've noticed is that Underrail has been getting a lot more youtube publicity than Age of Decadence in the past weeks (it was like two orders of magnitude more according to steamspy), but I guess that was just a temporary spike for the release. It's already slowing down.

Now I feel bad for mocking your attempts to push AoD to UR players. Sorry man, I shouldn't have done that to a fellow cultist.

PS. Vince and Styg should start selling The Incline Bundle at some point.

I already requested a code for Underrail but they didn't got back to me yet

epeli Styg Blaine

There. Problem solved.

What, are you expecting me or Blaine to buy Underrail for reviewers? Anyways, Pey should have a key waiting.

Already received it, thanks :D

 

[Eyestabber]

On Polish sites Age of Decadence has way less reviews than Underrail even though it's over 2 months older than Underrail. Only one bigger site reviewed it (not the biggest, not even close, I'm talking about gram.pl), in URs case the biggest one reviewed it + at least two ones as big (if not bigger) as gram.pl. I guess it has something to do with Fallout name being dropped more than once.

Really? Another thing I've noticed is that Underrail has been getting a lot more youtube publicity than Age of Decadence in the past weeks (it was like two orders of magnitude more according to steamspy), but I guess that was just a temporary spike for the release. It's already slowing down.

Now I feel bad for mocking your attempts to push AoD to UR players. Sorry man, I shouldn't have done that to a fellow cultist.

PS. Vince and Styg should start selling The Incline Bundle at some point.

I already requested a code for Underrail but they didn't got back to me yet

epeli Styg Blaine

There. Problem solved.

What, are you expecting me or Blaine to buy Underrail for reviewers? Anyways, Pey should have a key waiting.

Already received it, thanks :D

Right. Just remember to tell your reviewer that hybrids aren't "useless" at all. Here is a hybrid defeating the final boss without much trouble:



And here is a hybrid that pretty much makes Agatoth his bitch:

 

[Johannes]

On Polish sites Age of Decadence has way less reviews than Underrail even though it's over 2 months older than Underrail. Only one bigger site reviewed it (not the biggest, not even close, I'm talking about gram.pl), in URs case the biggest one reviewed it + at least two ones as big (if not bigger) as gram.pl. I guess it has something to do with Fallout name being dropped more than once.

Really? Another thing I've noticed is that Underrail has been getting a lot more youtube publicity than Age of Decadence in the past weeks (it was like two orders of magnitude more according to steamspy), but I guess that was just a temporary spike for the release. It's already slowing down.

Now I feel bad for mocking your attempts to push AoD to UR players. Sorry man, I shouldn't have done that to a fellow cultist.

PS. Vince and Styg should start selling The Incline Bundle at some point.

I already requested a code for Underrail but they didn't got back to me yet

epeli Styg Blaine

There. Problem solved.

What, are you expecting me or Blaine to buy Underrail for reviewers? Anyways, Pey should have a key waiting.

Already received it, thanks :D

Right. Just remember to tell your reviewer that hybrids aren't "useless" at all. Here is a hybrid defeating the final boss without much trouble:



And here is a hybrid that pretty much makes Agatoth his bitch:

That's cool and all but not really relevant to a review. When you know every quest in the game by heart of course figuring that shit out is easy, or knowing just one questline is enough basically. But that doesn't interest someone who contemplates whether or not to try the game, the experience of a first playthrough is more important at that point. Then if he likes it he can do dozen more, but he doesn't need a review at that point anymore to tell him about it.

 

[hivemind]

"First playthrough" is a term loaded with prejudices based on conventions of other RPGs that AoD strongly distances from.
As a game AoD is only experienced through multiple character runs and so a "first playthrough" the way most people think about(aka their first character) is not a playthrough at all.

If I have a game where I see 8/10 things on my first character then the experience of a "first playthrough" is relevant but in a game where you see 2/10 things it's not at all.

 

[Irenaeus III]

"First playthrough" in AoD should mean something like the first time you finish both a talker AND a combat playthrough. Come on, it takes only about 100 deaths and 10 restarts.

 

[Goral]

New Greek review: http://www.gameover.gr/reviews/item/32846-the-age-of-decadence-review (9/10)

 

[Eyestabber]

New Greek review: http://www.gameover.gr/reviews/item/32846-the-age-of-decadence-review (9/10)

Clicked the link and...

turns out the Greek review is actually written in...greek.



who would've thunk?

 

[Trashos]

New Greek review: http://www.gameover.gr/reviews/item/32846-the-age-of-decadence-review (9/10)

The reviewer (apparently a Fallout fan) loved AoD. He also knows about the history of the game's development.

I 'll try to overview the pros and cons he mentions, but the review is well-written and passionate (in the best of ways) and I won't do justice. If the reviewer is around, hopefully he will forgive me if I am not 100% accurate on what he tried to convey.

Strengths:
- Amazing interaction with the world.
- Incredible work with the different factions.
- Main stats can't be improved after character creation, leading to very different playthroughs and true role-playing.
- A lot of hard work on the well-written dialogues.
- Hard, original, satisfying combat with a lot of variety between different builds.
- "The richest and truest rp experience of the last 15 years"

Gripes:
- Graphics mediocre even for 2004. He pushes his audience to look past the graphics (if they don't like them) because the game has so much to offer.
- Feels that maybe the hybrid builds should work out better. Kind of open on this.
- It would be nice to have more side quests.
- A little bit of voicing over might improve the experience.
- A couple of bugs here and there, nothing major.

 

[Goral]

A little bit of voicing over might improve the experience.

Add to this John Goodman as Strabos.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

New Greek review: http://www.gameover.gr/reviews/item/32846-the-age-of-decadence-review (9/10)

Clicked the link and...

turns out the Greek review is actually written in...greek.



who would've thunk?

Strangely appropriate

Inb4 review in latin

 

[Whisper]

http://www.gameindustry.com/reviews/game-review/fun-and-frustration-with-age-of-decadence/
2.5/5

Tutorial combat is unfair and impossible to win

It’s also important to note a couple things about the combat in Age of Decadence. It’s brutal, almost to the point of being unfair. There are literally several set piece fights given to players in the tutorial section of the game that are impossible to win. Yes, I would say impossible for that one, and yes, in the tutorial. You can abandon those quests and try to come back to them later, but the message the game is sending is that combat shouldn’t really be used in most cases. Again, unlike most RPGs where your character is basically better than the NPCs, here, combat will get you killed more often than not. Especially if you are not a purely combat-oriented character, getting into a fight, almost any fight, is going to spell your doom. You’ve been warned.

Again, unlike most RPGs where your character is basically better than the NPCs, here, combat will get you killed more often than not.

I think i got new signature.

 

[Eyestabber]

Going back to Johannes post that I forgot to reply: the hybrid question IS relevant. AoD features questlines that were intentionally designed around hybrid builds. The most glaring example being Kingmaker -> First Sword. You need a fighting character to do the unavoidable fights (like IG1, Daratan Tower etc) AND this character must be very persuasive to be able to convince Carrinas to help Meru. So when a review says "hybrids are useless" the logical implication is that the First Sword storyline is somehow "broken". Except it isn't.

EDIT: but YEAH, I agree that compared to the bullshit other reviewers wrote the hybrid thing seems like something minor and inconsequential. I just wish we could have higher standards for reviewers

 

[darthaegis]

http://www.pcgamer.com/playing-an-rpg-without-combat/
Sorta kinda a review of AoD.

 

[likaq]

it's still a bit rough and unpolished

Compared to what?
It's more polished than any AAA crpg released in the last 10 years, faggot.

Calling AoD unpolished but giving a free pass beth and bioware games is great sing of being retarded faggy human trash.

 

[Goral]

He also said:

Of my dagger ability, the game bluntly states that I should "put it down before you poke an eye out." (Wouldn't poking someone's eye out be an extremely effective use of a dagger? I suppose it depends whose eye.)

Retard detected but I'm glad that AoD gets more coverage because as things stand now it's been barely mentioned anywhere.

 

[Declinator]

it's still a bit rough and unpolished

Compared to what?
It's more polished than any AAA crpg released in the last 10 years, faggot.

Calling AoD unpolished but giving a free pass beth and bioware games is great sing of being retarded faggy human trash.

We got a review copy of Skyrim the day the game was officially finished, but it's curiously buggy. Among a lot of minor problems such as issues reassigning controls, there's glitchy character behaviour that can break quests, and AI flipouts that can turn a whole town against you. And the interface isn't well adapted to PC: it sometimes ignores the position of your cursor in menus. There's an update due as soon as the game's out, but there's a hell of a lot to patch here. Next time, maybe don't commit to a specific release day just because it has a lot of elevens in it?

Free pass indeed.

 

[likaq]

And yet score 94/100 .
Any indie game as buggy as skyrim would be destroyed and given max 8/10, but skyrim? game is buggy as fuck? 94/100

if this is not a free pass, i don't know what is.

 

[ghostdog]

Has JC's review been mentioned? Pretty favorable.

 

[Lurker King]

Elhoim, you need do a interview with Matt on behalf of Iron Tower. Honor demands it.

 

[t]

Elhoim, you need do a interview with Matt on behalf of Iron Tower. Honor demands it.

And also why not Vault Dweller ?

 

[valcik]

AoD rated 8.5/10 on Slovak site sector.sk - http://www.sector.sk/recenzia/30869/the-age-of-decadence.htm
„AoD is a beautiful interactive book, demanding focus and a lot of decisions on player's part.”

Pros and cons shortly:

+ addictive and intricate combat system
+ he praises the possibility of pacifist run
+ story; writing with great emphasis on details
+ excellent music and sounds

- technical aspects as loading times, graphics, and memory management (sic)

 

[Ismaul]

Elhoim, you need do a interview with Matt on behalf of Iron Tower. Honor demands it.

And also why not Vault Dweller ?

His face can never be remembered.