Review RPG Codex Review: The Age of Decadence

[<3sRichardSimmons]

No one is ever talking about you Iren.

 

[Reject_666_6]

 

[Zeriel]

o7

 

[Sceptic]

I see people still come to the Codex to bitch about reviews being too detailed and still don't read the reviews in question before bitching about them, nothing new under the sun.

Anyway this review is the first thing I read about the game since trying the demo a looooong time ago that has almost-convinced me I should give the game another chance. Good job Roxor. I also have to salute 2 specific comments made in this thread, not necessarily related to the game:

Because if something was done right at least once already, then it means that it can and should be repeated. I don't care if the last time it was done right was 2, 5, 10 or 30 years ago, if your game does something wrong even though another one has shown that it is possible to do it right at some point in time, then you deserve detention

Are you also going to tell me that spells in Realms of Arkania 1 that had no functionalities were a good feature?

Riding skill NEVER FORGET

 

[Darth Roxor]

Pretty sure all the cool fancy tech comes directly from visits to the Gods' Dimension, Agathoth (aka The Artificer) or the Magi who learned from him. Schizo-tech makes sense when all the fancy tech comes from such unreliable sources. The library of Zamedi has a lot of stuff that is clearly modern science mixed with weirdo occultism, or at least that's what it looks like.

The thing is, it was the magi that constructed all this shit following Nyarlathotep's cosmic manuals, so odds are they'd have to be smart enough to try and reverse engineer or find some different applications for it. But the Zamedi library is by far the biggest red flag here because it shows that they did understand what this shit was all about. Some of those old "mantras" are also pretty bizarre, like the one at Inferiae with all the talks of ions and whatever. Also - they can set up laser fences and brew nukes but arm their automatons and sentient robots with shitty swords? Wtf

Like... ancient Rome?

Ancient Rome did not include India, Babylon, Islamic Arabs or Persia, and "trade relations" do not lead to building up ziggurats with persian bas reliefs and egyptian imagery.

Also Aegir. Seriously. Aegir.

 

[Lurker King]

Also - they can set up laser fences and brew nukes but arm their automatons and sentient robots with shitty swords? Wtf

You are right. The remaining technology should be more sophisticated. It looks like they don’t implement constructs with guns because they did not implement guns.

Ancient Rome did not include India, Babylon, Islamic Arabs or Persia, and "trade relations" do not lead to building up ziggurats with persian bas reliefs and egyptian imagery.

With that I disagree. All this historical criticisms makes no sense because VD made clear early on that the game was inspired by the fall of the Roman Empire, but was pseudo-historic. He didn’t want to feel constricted by the many restrictions of real history. A cRPG with 100% historical fidelity would be awesome though, but that it’s easier said than done.

 

[Stompa]

Yet we have Scythian daggers and Phrygian helmets, what's up with that

 

[RK47]

 

[EG]

Does sound like him.

 

[Irenaeus II]

 

[Lurker King]

Yet we have Scythian daggers and Phrygian helmets, what's up with that

It's a pseudo-historic setting. He can use information from past events, mix them whatever he wants, insert new things, etc.

 

[MRY]

Ancient Rome did not include India, Babylon, Islamic Arabs or Persia, and "trade relations" do not lead to building up ziggurats with persian bas reliefs and egyptian imagery.

Initially, I thought this was a strong criticism, but now I'm wondering whether it might not be. Rome definitely had a "problem" with foreign religious influence: the Bacchantes, the whole Egyptian phase:

The spread of Egyptian opinions in Rome was so rapid under Augustus that it was felt to be of political importance, and it alarmed that prudent Emperor. The Romans by no means equalled the Greeks in their indifference to all religions and their toleration of all. Augustus made a law that no Egyptian ceremony should be allowed within either the city or the suburbs of Rome. But his law was without much effect, as at the same time Virgil, the court poet, was teaching the Egyptian millennium, or the resurrection of the dead when the thousand years are ended, and borrowing visions of the infernal regions from the Egyptian funereal papyri. Tiberius repeated the same law; but so little did it check the inroad of Egyptian superstition, that when the secular games were celebrated in Rome under the Emperor Claudius, the fabulous Egyptian bird, the phoenix, was said to have arrived there. Nero openly patronised Apollonius of Tyrana, who, under the guidance of the Egyptian priests, and by the direct appointment of the Egyptian sacred tree, professed himself a teacher from heaven. Vespasian was so far pleased with the Egyptians that, when in Alexandria, he undertook, with their approval, to work miracles. His son, Domitian, wholly gave way to public opinion, and built in Rome a temple to Serapis, and another to Isis. Holy, water was then brought from the Nile, for the use of the votaries in the temple of Isis in the Campus Martius; and a college of priests was maintained there with a splendour worthy of the Roman capital. The wealthy Romans wore upon their fingers gems engraved with the head of Hor-pi-krot, or Horus the child, called by them Harpocrates.
The Museums of Europe contain many statues of the Egyptian gods made about this time by Roman artists, or perhaps by Greek artists in Rome, such as Jupiter-Serapis, Diana-Triformis, and Harpocrates. The Emperor Hadrian made his favourite Antinous into an Egyptian god; and Commodus had his head shaved as a priest of Isis, that he might more properly carry an Anubis-staff in the sacred processions in honour of the goddess. These circumstances are surely evidence enough of the readiness with which Rome under the Emperors shaped its Paganism after the Egyptian model, and prepare us to see without surprise that it looked to the same source for its views of Christianity. They prepare us for the remark of Origen, that all the neighbouring nations borrowed their religious rites and ceremonies from Egypt.

There was that meteoric stone they brought back during Hannibal's invasions, and in the East, there was a strong cult of Mithras, etc. Obviously Rome brought obelisks and pyramids back from Egypt. And then there's Christianity. . . . That's just off the top of my head.

Anyway, it's true that there was no way the level of architectural influence in reality that there is in AOD, but then, AOD posits a world in which Rome was attacked by the Aztecs. It seems to me that that might shift the Overton window such that previously "foreign seeming" culture might now seem extremely familiar by contrast.

 

[Diggfinger]

So "...you can overthrow lords and even nuke a city...". This game is a blatant 'Fallout' 3 rip-off!!!

 

[GreyViper]

What I want to know, is did he finish the game at least seven times?

 

[Irenaeus II]

What I want to know, is did he finish the game at least seven times?

Did you even read the review?

While I haven’t gone through the game the proverbial seven times, I think it’s certainly possible (if extreme), and the four playthroughs I did never really got boring.

 

[GreyViper]

Did you even read the review?

While I haven’t gone through the game the proverbial seven times, I think it’s certainly possible (if extreme), and the four playthroughs I did never really got boring.

In my defense I did, but guess I overlooked that part.

 

[Lexxx20]

In my current thief game I just looked at it and said "nah, gonna get some more SP and come back here. I like living". Imagine my surprise when after some quests, I look at my journal and it says the monastery was pillaged. Wait, what?! When? Who told me that? How do I even know? Then I go there and I see it pillaged. How?

I think that was a satire on usual RPG routine of "stuck somewhere? better level up a bit and return later!" Guess what? You can't cause you can miss the oppotunity to do it again. I kinda liked it. I like how this game takes advantage of your (bad) RPG habits and makes you suffer for it.

Same with the delivery quest in slums, you know what I'm talking about. You expect it to be the same FedEx quest like the 1000s you already did in other RPGs. Nope, it actually is not.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Yeah, that one had an amusing questline.

 

[Commissar Draco]

I think that was a satire on usual RPG routine of "stuck somewhere? better level up a bit and return later!" Guess what? You can't cause you can miss the oppotunity to do it again. I kinda liked it. I like how this game takes advantage of your (bad) RPG habits and makes you suffer for it.

Same with the delivery quest in slums, you know what I'm talking about. You expect it to be the same FedEx quest like the 1000s you already did in other RPGs. Nope, it actually is not.

Its good routine and replaced with whining ''Why I can't complete every quest and kill every monster at level one?!'' in modern days... This is why we have level scaling and balanced games now too. If the game was fully build like this it would be unplayable btw without heavy amount of SP and save scumming which is real bad routine but largely unavoidable with tight number of SP offered and VD L1beral and arbitrary sometimes choice of skills used in quests. Game is still 10/10 Goty! for starved RPers though no doubt but it could be always better.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Delivery quest in the Slums?

Talk to the young man near the entrance to the slums district. He may have a package for you to deliver.

 

[Commissar Draco]

Talk to the young man near the entrance to the slums district. He may have a package for you to deliver.

Spoiler

which is trap followed by another trap Miltiades would be proud of.

 

[TigerKnee]

I think that was a satire on usual RPG routine of "stuck somewhere? better level up a bit and return later!" Guess what? You can't cause you can miss the oppotunity to do it again. I kinda liked it. I like how this game takes advantage of your (bad) RPG habits and makes you suffer for it.

The whole passage of time thing is really inconsistent though.

This quest is a huge "gotcha" moment for you the first time you trigger it but on future playthroughs you can basically preserve them in stasis forever by not going to to the monastery until you're ready to tackle it (and it's a completely optional part of the game too so it won't "wall" you off from doing other things)

 

[t]

The whole passage of time thing is really inconsistent though.

I tend to agree, but don't see a way around it.

The whole: you can't go back to Teron without triggering stuff but you can easily go back to the bandit camp just an hour from Teron. Same thing with Ganezzar, once you go there, you trigger a lot of stuff, but you can teleport between Saross, Zamedi and the Monastery as much as you want without anything happening.

 

[Lurker King]

I like how this game takes advantage of your (bad) RPG habits and makes you suffer for it.

Great point! I can’t think of a better way to sum up one of the main causes of butthurt associated with AoD, which is also one of its main virtues.

 

[Lurker King]

VD L1beral and arbitrary sometimes choice of skills used in quests. Game is still 10/10 Goty! for starved RPers though no doubt but it could be always better.

It’s only arbitrary if you assume that the game world should be design in a way that makes every skill useful and allows you to know in advance in which skills you can invest SPs. The problem is that this implies a game world that it is too childish and artificial to be believable, like most cRPGs do. There is no way around this.