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A 2020 Review - The Age of Decadence (PC, 2015)
The Age of Decadence review (PC) The Age of Decadence is an RPG in the true sense of the word. Or three words. It’s a genre that we commonly associate with action RPGs these days – with franchises like The Witcher, The Elder Scrolls and Final Fantasy all featuring their own blend of combat. A review of The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victims of Our Own Success, by Ross Douthat. But decadence is not. “I’m just saying that if this were the age in which some major.
Score: 4/10
Mediocrity Score: Mediocre at Best.
The Age of Decadence is a strangely unbalanced turn-based CRPG. It rather uniquely takes combat out from being the main focus and pits the player into a scenario where you can take different approaches. Touted for being a game where 'choices matter', the game somehow feels so linear - locking the player into a path chosen early on. Choices in the game will keep you on your toes, that is until you realize the pattern of don't trust anyone, ever. My advice before buying is - play the demo first.
Mediocrity Score: Mediocre at Best.
The Age of Decadence is a strangely unbalanced turn-based CRPG. It rather uniquely takes combat out from being the main focus and pits the player into a scenario where you can take different approaches. Touted for being a game where 'choices matter', the game somehow feels so linear - locking the player into a path chosen early on. Choices in the game will keep you on your toes, that is until you realize the pattern of don't trust anyone, ever. My advice before buying is - play the demo first.
Tags: The few words that come to mind are: mediocre, unbalanced, dialogue-heavy, cheap.
![Age Age](http://www.slugmag.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/aodscreenshot3.jpg)
Avg. Time to beat: 21 hours
Quickest Speedrun: 2 minutes, 57 seconds
Quickest Speedrun: 2 minutes, 57 seconds
Quick Take: Play the demo first. If there is anything you should do before buying, it is to play the demo. This game is both very difficult and very easy. Rather unique in its approach, within The Age of Decadence you can 100% avoid all combat in the game by taking a more charismatic-stacked approach in your character build. What they don't mention is how incredibly simple the game becomes when you go for this non-combat route. It turns into a dialogue-heavy, point-and-click game where if you make the wrong choice you likely will be thrown into a combat situation where you will surely, and cheaply, die. Go with the combat route, and you are faced with a stacked-against-you RNG-based combat which is difficult to the point of coming off as both brutal and cheap. The one thing both routes have in common is the smoke-and-mirrors masking the cheap game-ending situations it constantly throws your way. In complete fairness reading reviews, watching let's plays, playing the demo, or even the reading developer's own disclaimers - potential players have been warned that 'there is a good chance that you won’t like it, precisely because we took too many liberties with the established design'. I can't help but feel like this is akin to being told 'Here's the really over-cooked steak you ordered. There is a good chance you won't like it, but since this is all intentional - we've taken an extra heavy-handed approach with its blackened design.' Yet here I am, disappointed that I paid for a really over-cooked steak that has an impressive char-broiled aesthetic.
Pros:
- Has an honest demo.
- Multiple routes may be taken to beat the game.
- Incredibly funny and useful skill/ability descriptions. More games should take inspiration from this.
- Some hilarious ways to find yourself dying, made out as a fool, or being separated from your money.
- Budget-friendly in cost and in required/recommended system specs.
- NPCs are hilariously evil, greedy, untrustworthy, and always out to get you.
- Has an honest demo.
- Multiple routes may be taken to beat the game.
- Incredibly funny and useful skill/ability descriptions. More games should take inspiration from this.
- Some hilarious ways to find yourself dying, made out as a fool, or being separated from your money.
- Budget-friendly in cost and in required/recommended system specs.
- NPCs are hilariously evil, greedy, untrustworthy, and always out to get you.
Cons:
- A lot of cheap situations made to make you fail while masquerading as being a 'choices matter' feature.
- RNG in combat is grossly stacked against the player, and always in favor of the NPC combatants.
- The non-combat path becomes a trivial point-and-click game that leads to instadeath anytime you find yourself having clicked the wrong dialogue choice and end-up in combat.
- Boring story with a boring end-conclusion. Dialogue becomes a chore.
- The most important choice you will pick are your attribute points at the start of the game. Once you set yourself on that path, there is no deviating from it. You are locked in and cannot improve your stats in the game.
- Lacking equipment options to suit your character with. I felt it was far too shallow.
- A lot of cheap situations made to make you fail while masquerading as being a 'choices matter' feature.
- RNG in combat is grossly stacked against the player, and always in favor of the NPC combatants.
- The non-combat path becomes a trivial point-and-click game that leads to instadeath anytime you find yourself having clicked the wrong dialogue choice and end-up in combat.
- Boring story with a boring end-conclusion. Dialogue becomes a chore.
- The most important choice you will pick are your attribute points at the start of the game. Once you set yourself on that path, there is no deviating from it. You are locked in and cannot improve your stats in the game.
- Lacking equipment options to suit your character with. I felt it was far too shallow.
Concept: Throwback to the days of the classic-RPG. A bit experimental in its choice to take the focus away from combat and places it on the decisions and paths you take within a brutally corrupt and greedy society. Strongly driven by narrative with a big emphasis on dialogue (over 600,000 words of dialogue alone). Name of the game is, survive or die. Expect the unexpected. Unless you're not expecting to die. You're gonna die.
Graphics: Nothing award-winning for sure. Still seems dated for 2015-standards, and even more so for 2020. Keep your expectations reasonable, and it will be fine. Good enough so as not to detract from the gameplay.
Sound: I'll hand it to the audio/sound team - they did a stellar job. Great music and sounds are very fitting. Unfortunately for the rest of the game, for me, this might be its strongest aspect. No voice-acting though.
Gameplay: Narrative-driven gameplay where your choice can either get you killed, your pockets emptied, or if you're lucky - you'll come out on top as champion. Classic, turn-based RPG elements push you to become a character of your own. The variety of skills and abilities adds to the enjoyment of seeing your character progress throughout the game. Become a master-manipulator or a bag-man for one of the many houses of power. Your choices will never be quite as black or white as you'd first think.
Entertainment: The best parts of the game for me was letting my guard down only to be tricked again by another shady commoner within one of the towns. The game did have many enjoyable moments, mostly in the form of laughs at the sticky situations I'd incidentally put my character into. The frustration of too much dialogue mixed, or on the other hand the frustration of one-sided combat, far too often soiled the good times that I found elsewhere in the game. I had a hard time finding a point where I felt the game was balanced. It was either too easy or too hard. Call me Goldilocks.
Replayability: At a minimum, this game has enough variety in your character-build options to have two playthroughs. One combat-oriented, and one non-combat oriented. There are some more granular choices or even skills that could push some of the bigger fans to further runs through the game.
Cheats??: Yup! To be honest, this is one of the few games where I did not find additional entertainment value in them. Feel free to try them out for yourself and be the judge.
- Add skill points
- dlgaddskillpoints(x)
- Change stat points (Can place a - before x to lower the stat by that number. Replace y with one of the following: str dex con per int cha)
- dlgChangeStat(y,x)
- Change a specific skill (Can place a - before x to lower the skill by that number. Replace y with the skill name)
- dlgChangeSkill(y,x)
- Add Gold
- dlgChangeMoney(x)
- Set Full HP
- CheatHP()
- Add item via Item IDs
- dlgAddItem(x,#)
- Complete lists of IDs can be found via Google or DuckDuckGo
- Add skill points
- dlgaddskillpoints(x)
- Change stat points (Can place a - before x to lower the stat by that number. Replace y with one of the following: str dex con per int cha)
- dlgChangeStat(y,x)
- Change a specific skill (Can place a - before x to lower the skill by that number. Replace y with the skill name)
- dlgChangeSkill(y,x)
- Add Gold
- dlgChangeMoney(x)
- Set Full HP
- CheatHP()
- Add item via Item IDs
- dlgAddItem(x,#)
- Complete lists of IDs can be found via Google or DuckDuckGo
---Full Review Below---
I get concerned when a game is overall and recently rated as very positive, but the first several reviews in the 'most helpful' category are overtly negative. To me, this immediately means it's a more divisive, polarizing game - typically on a 'love or hate' scale.
I'll give big props to the devs for making a free demo, strongly recommending people trying before buying, as well as provide much insight and caution to the difficulty of combat. After-all, combat tends to be a major selling point for many games - RPGs included. With all of the existing warnings and disclaimers, no one should be surprised by the difficulty. You've been warned by practically everyone.
What they don't mention is how incredibly simple the game becomes when you go for the non-combat character build. It really becomes a point-and-click game with a really, really heavy amount of dialogue and lore. It's trivial. Which isn't a bad thing necessarily, it just gets a bit too drab for my liking. Becomes an interactive book - which again, isn't an insult just a distinction.
This game is highly acclaimed for its wide variety of choices and how they affect the game greatly. I disagree. If you choose a combat-based build, you can't deviate without near-guaranteed failure. Vice-versa with non-combat/civil builds, getting into combat is a sure way to die. This forces you to make far more linear choices and sets you on a path that will corner you into only being able to succeed in a few ways. It's certainly realistic, but not something I'd tout as being non-linear and that 'choices matter'. They only matter in the immediate sense of fail or succeed, die or survive. It would appear your choices made an impact, while somewhat true - most of this is decided at the very start of the game; attribute point distribution.
I finished the game in a single evening [8 hours with breaks, maybe??]. Which seems...very fast. So I looked into speed runs, and without gross exploits - it can be beaten in under 5 minutes. Technically - no combat is even required from what I can tell, which again is not an inherently bad thing, just an unusual one. I did find the game rather...boring overall. I found myself dragging my feet to continue playing through to the end.
$15 USD is a good, reasonable asking price for the game. If a sale put's it at 50-75% off, then all the better. Great budget recommended system specs and even better minimum. If you've got an older, or perhaps simply not as high-performance of a computer, this game would be a great fit and all the more worth the price. That being said, I don't know that I can put much more than maybe 10 hours into the game. Sure - there's some replay value but the same NPC conversations and quests get dull rather quickly. It's simply not something I'd generally recommend. Only with asterisks. Which brings me to my rating and recommendations:
I can't broadly recommend The Age of Decadence. Only for certain people.
For me, a 4/10. Strangely unbalanced. It does some things really right, and some things really wrong. I preferred the non-combat, more dialogue-driven paths - but that required a lot of reading of a rather...mediocre story. I did like how dishonest and untrustworthy almost the entire NPC base is. Kept me on my toes... until I realized the pattern of don't trust anyone.
I'd recommend the game to people who:
-Loved the demo.
-Love hardcore combat.
-Love point-and-click games and are willing to stick to non-combat builds.
-Have a budget or low-performance system, but are itching for a different RPG.
-Getting it with a significant discount
-Loved the demo.
-Love hardcore combat.
-Love point-and-click games and are willing to stick to non-combat builds.
-Have a budget or low-performance system, but are itching for a different RPG.
-Getting it with a significant discount
Everyone else, probably don't bother. There are much better RPG titles out there more worthy of your time and money.
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Thanks for reading!
Positive points- - Has an honest demo.
- - Multiple routes may be taken to beat the game.
- - Incredibly funny and useful skill/ability descriptions. More games should take inspiration from this.
- - Some hilarious ways to find yourself dying, made out as a fool, or being separated from your money.
- - Budget-friendly in cost and in required/recommended system specs.
- - NPCs are hilariously evil, greedy, untrustworthy, and always out to get you.
- - A lot of cheap situations made to make you fail while masquerading as being a 'choices matter' feature.
- - RNG in combat is grossly stacked against the player, and always in favor of the NPC combatants.
- - The non-combat path becomes a trivial point-and-click game that leads to instadeath anytime you find yourself having clicked the wrong dialogue choice and end-up in combat.
- - Boring story with a boring end-conclusion. Dialogue becomes a chore.
- - The most important choice you will pick are your attribute points at the start of the game. Once you set yourself on that path, there is no deviating from it. You are locked in and cannot improve your stats in the game.
- - Lacking equipment options to suit your character with. I felt it was far too shallow.
The year 2015 was a good one for RPG games. Witcher 3 set a new modern standard for the genre. Divinity: Original Sin made a successful attempt to combine modern technology and classic ideas. And Age of Decadence went full old-school, with turn-based combat, pages of supplementary text, and spartan interface.So, if you dare to play AoD, there will be no quest markers – all important info will be in the dialogs and notes. You’ll have to read everything and memorize, think when choosing dialog options, and be extra careful during the fights. And if you make a mistake – you will die. Developers honestly warn players – this game doesn’t play like a generic RPG.
You are about to die and we saluteyou!The combat is full of intricacies. Every weapon has several types of attack, from swift blows most sure to hit, up to aimed strikes that can cripple your opponent. And weapons themselves are divided into eight types.
Five of melee weapons – daggers, swords, hammers, axes, and spears. Plus ranged – bows, crossbows, and throwing weapons.You have 11 skills total – 8 for each weapon, plus block, dodge, and critical strike.
To actually hurt the enemy you need to have decent skill at least in one of weapon, and defense technique will help you to avoid damage yourself. So choose wisely, as the amount of points is very limited. Tactical options are enhanced byvarious special items. Alchemy potions can boost your stats. Netsentangle the enemy for a turn. Bombs and “liquid fire” deal agreat deal of damage.Don’t forget about the armor.
Sometypes easily absorb damage at the cost of mobility. Others grant morebalanced protection, also being penalty-free. There is no “bestchoice”, all depend on the particular situation and opponent type.Even helmet, that protects only your head, isn’t necessarysometimes and just obstructs your vision.Just be aware that everything above is applied to your opponents as well as you. Your enemies have all the abilities you have, and there is no way for your character to increase hit points and become an invincible killing machine.
So, unless you have an edge in skill (or a few bombs in the pocket) think twice before stepping on the battlefield. When in RomeAnd it’s not just the combat that is hardcore, where even a fight with common thugs is a risky business. If you use social skills, don’t expect generic RPG results either. Managed to persuade some guy to leave the city with over the top charisma? This guy can easily change his mind and later pop up accusing you of making death threats, thus ruining your reputation. Yeah, so much for “peaceful” solutions.Though the same applies to your character as well. You can lie about successfully finishing the quest and actually get full reward for it if a quest-giver simply hasn’t learned about your deception in time.
For the character with high critical stat and a dagger in the inventory, killing is a totally legit dialog option. And someone with poor combat skills can always (well, most of the time) walk away from the battle.And speaking of reputation, there are actually.
Seven factions have their own measurement of how useful (or harmful) your actions were to them. And in addition, there are six “general” types – body count, combat, loyalty, peacemaker, prestige, and word of honor.“Combat” rep is a tricky one sinceit doesn’t count if you won a fight or not, but if you survivedsome encounter despite impossible odds.
Other rep types, however, areself-explanatory and you can easily guess, what they are needed for.There are also several types of Experience points – general, combat and civil. Instead of leveling up, you directly “buy” improvement of your combat (or civil) skills with them. In addition, some characters can “train” you by improving specific skills – 11 for combat (including various weapon types) and 12 civil, from lockpicking and crafting to etiquette and lore. Do as Romans doI’m not going to go into detailsabout craft, with five(!) types of metal and alchemy.
It’s allexplained in the reference (called by F1 key). And it’s just one ofthe possible lines of character skills development.You can start from eight differentbackgrounds – from tough mercenary to a sly merchant. And each willput you in a different position at the beginning. Mercenary, forexample, starts as a bodyguard, almost instantly failing to protectthe target against an assassin. While as a merchant you will be theone who orders the assassination (nothing sinister or evil, justbusiness).
Or you can actually be the assassin herself. Or himself –picking male or female characters differs only in some clothesoptions.However, after a few quests, allstories will merge into one plot filled with adventures, politicalintrigue, and artifacts of great power. And in the end, yourcharacter will uncover more secrets about the Empire of the past thanhe bargained for. I’m not going to spoil much, as just one look atSteam screenshots will show you certain “artifacts” telling a lotabout the now decadent world.Still, all goals can be achieved in different, sometimes unconventional ways.
At times the game feels more like an adventure game, as obtaining important items and using the right answers in dialogs can be equally important as developing correct stats. For some characters, turn-based fights can be mostly optional, while others can become legendary gladiators, who slew many over the course of the game. Though not without some reloading on your part.Overall Age of Decadence is a great “old school” experience. Similar to classic games, like Arcanum, except instead of Arcanum’s steampunk-fantasy world of AoD resembles the remnants Roman Empire. Beating the story definitely demands much attention, studying and calculations, as the game doesn’t give a player everything on a silver platter.
But in return, it offers you a unique world, complex story, and all the challenges and moral dilemmas you can get. THE GOOD:. Hardcore turn-based combat with outcome dependent both on tactics and character development.
A harsh world where no trick is too immoral for survival. Style and atmosphere totally support gameplay in plunging you into the game’s gritty decadent world. Solid writing, with interesting characters, deep plot and dark humor. Many types of characters allow great replayability.
Good tutorial.THE BAD:. Some decisions are really try-and-die. As you can’t predict the outcome without reloading or guide. That includes various skill-checks. Budget graphics and no voice acting.
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