Age of decadence [Review of the game]

Agree, the real holiday has been going on in the yard of isometric RPG recently. Divinity: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny And many others, not so loud, projects, calmly pay off and are popular in Steam and other digital distribution services. And on the way after all Divinity: Original Sin 2, Pillars of Eternity 2 And, perhaps, something else, which the author of these lines is not aware of. And there was a period, When I started and abandoned this review when the name of the game surpassed more and more often, which, as many claimed, were unfairly forgotten. Age of Decadence. Many people praised her, not embarrassed by loud words, many said that she bypasses even the classics of this genre according to some parameters. But is it worth it, despite the above, your acquaintance? I will try to answer in this review.

What the game meets us.

Your acquaintance begins with a warning about the severity of the game and proposals to undergo training. In it you can get acquainted with various types of weapons, create a satisfactory combat build, and in general will get used to combat mechanics. After you decide that you are ready, you choose your name, gender and background, distribute stats and skills and go to the game. Setting Age of Decadence – A kind of medieval, semi -fantasy apocalypse. After the war with certain demons, the empire of people fell apart and three noble houses remained from influential forces and the remnants of the Imperial Guard, behind the scenes of commerceum and forty thieves are trying to manipulate the situation in their favor, and the feeding sticks are one of the figures in all this large -scale chess party. And in such a world you appear.
Almost immediately, one dignity of the game is striking – interesting ENT. One of the most interesting classes during the passage will be a collection of mosaics to restore the true picture of the reasons for the war and the appearance of the pre -war world. Awaken by an archaeologist or detective, you will be interested in local entries with interest, study ancient devices, noting entertaining for yourself
details.

After passing each stage, you are told in a text format about the consequences of your actions in the location, where this stage, in fact, occurred. First on a larger scale, then less, talking about changes in the life of individual characters and sometimes praising you with light humor for the dexterity of extended affairs.

But gradually, as you pass, the game will show you its unpleasant wrong side.
The first thing you should know about Age of Decadence – This is that she is short. That is, even if you devote your own to the study completely-it will still be felt short, and if you go only along the main line, you will probably go through the game somewhere in 10-15 minutes. Or even less. And this is not a joke. But in fact, the game is designed for multiple back. Thanks to your chosen background or fractions, you will see and influence the same events from different angles. But the problem is different. Most likely, you will not be able to go through the game in one entry. And even if you pass (as a genius of intuition or an expert on isometric RPG), you will probably get the wrong ending that you would like to get. Because this game is actually not so much hardcore as it was inept in its mechanics and the presentation of situations.

Meet – this is the place in which the main gameplay of this game will take place.

Wagging – will not be. For the most part, in the moments with conventional answers there is a “correct” choice that will advance you further along the line, and there is a “wrong” that will shut up a branch or with the consequences of which you stupidly cannot cope. However, most of the game dialogs rest against the skills system, so you can always be sure that when walking around the skill, you are moving forward. But this is the problem. You can not always know what skills will be used in the subsequent dialogue/action branch, and even if you guessed it correctly, you do not know how much they should be pumped. Therefore, gameplay inevitably turns into incessant Sev Loads and a stressful distribution of skills after these in the struggle for a greater disclosure. But even so you still risk stumbling on the barrier in the form of a lack of glasses of any main stat. And then, be kind, start first, because the opportunity to increase one Parameter on One a unit of everything one For the whole game. And even then only in a certain branch, which from the first passage is unlikely to open. And all this despite the fact that sometimes these same parameters and stats are used extremely strange. Sometimes intelligence testing goes when it would be more appropriate to check "Knowledge". And the physique affects, including … disgust ..

… And here 21 Casino review it will be demonstrated how correctly you understand the logic of the developers.

The combat system also does not save the situation. It would seem that it should not aggravate it, because it is a classic step -by -step muzzle with action points, options for their use with various weapons and percentage of hit. But in the entry we were not in vain warned that in the world Age of Decadence battles are an unfavorable way to get out of this situation. Because the balance of the system is not corny. In the game, you can pump possession of each type of weapons and protection (the list of which you can see at one of the screenshots above), each of which has distinctive features, in addition to damage. A certain “chip”, activating with a certain probability, which depends on the level of skill of ownership of this weapon/protection method. For example, swords can cause bleeding, spears – pushing the impact of an approaching enemy, knocked down the crossbows, when evasion there is a probability of a counterattack, etc.D. Problems begin with the interaction of a certain type of attacks and protection. More precisely, long -range guns with evasion/blocking. The crossbow most often demonstrates this problem. From the point of view of common sense, dodging a bolt released – the idea is extremely risky and therefore, it would seem, the answer is obvious – to download the block. But it wasn’t there. Bolt can still knock you down in most cases. The shield can reduce the damage taken by you (and sometimes completely extinguish it completely), but in most cases, if the “chip” should work, it will work, unless, of course, the arrow has missed the arrow. And if you were shot down, then there is little armor will save, even from the worst weapons. Therefore, paradoxically, in this case, evasion remains the best development option, maybe at higher levels of pumping the block is much more effective, but you still need to live. Not to mention the fact that the game encourages pumping exclusively one of the two protection methods provided.
By the way, speaking that it encourages the game, one cannot help but mention additional devices: networks, bombs, poisons and liquid fire. Their presence in your arsenal is largely solved by the result of the battles. The fire alone will block the paths of your opponents, forcing them to run along an uncomfortable route, spending precious glasses.

But here not without incidents. You think that the dude is in fire, every move is very painful? No, what are you, he. in order.

But all this is not the main problem of the game. But she is, oddly enough, open world. He just doesn’t need it. As much as a hairdryer does not need a bald person. The structure of the world, locations, the level of their liveliness, methods and the appearance of interacting with them – all this makes deeply rudimentary a whole layer of gameplay. You have not been given many opportunities. You think that since the table there is a “theft” skill, you can go rob passers -by? Well, what are you! Only within the framework of the dialogue. And what to take from the extras? She, as a rule, stands … does not move … And you can’t talk to her … Oh, you decided to check at home and grab something from other people’s chests? By no means. In each location, not every building can be entered, and if it is possible, then nothing can be taken from there. Again, everything should remain within the framework of dialogs. Can travel on a global map freely? No, all territories are opened in most cases through the passage of one or another dialogue branch, in all the rest – through the presence of certain records in a certain place (it is impractical to allocate a whole window for this, so everything costs the skill with a pop -up text). But you, within the same location, can go from one place to another and at some point, approaching a certain zone or person, the screen is darkened and now you are again in the usual framework of the dialog box. Do not worry, the developers took into account the fact that meaningless running around can get bored, therefore, if you have a branch of dialogs, you will not need to go beyond it, you will simply immediately move on to a new conversation, to a new place, after pressing the last replica, as in a text quest … Yes … a quest with some design, global cards and a map of the cities themselves, and even combat inserts, and even combat inserts, and even combat inserts and evenElements of pumping. And involuntarily the question arises why Iron Tower Studios Instead of a bad RPG, they did not make an interesting text quest? After all, the foundation in the form of it is visible inexpressibly clear. Indeed, in many locations there were no battles, which means they did not require implementation, so human resources could be directed to the decision of the jambs and shortcomings. After all, there are also gamed-designed misconduct, which, with such “corridors”, sometimes are simply amazing. However, the answer suggests itself – you will lure a few with a text quest, and in the yard of isometric RPG, you see, a real holiday has been going on recently. I will not be too categorically insisting on this interpretation and, most likely, no conscious “but do not care, we’ll just call it RPG, we will not have a few open locations and pay off”, but how, damn it, the developers were ironic and bright, and there is no way to prescribe the world, and there is no life – there is no life.

Empty world with empty people.

* * *
What to say in the end? Speaking roughly, then Age of Decadence – This is a text quest, disguised as RPG, speaking loud words before the start of the game and risks leaving a feeling of dissatisfaction even (or “especially”) after many passages. But at the same time, one cannot deny the fact that, regardless of all of the above, the game was to their liking. And perhaps this can be understood. The combat system of stars from the sky is not enough, but at the same time it cannot be said that it frankly harms the gaming process. To study the ENT is quite interesting and he is served from different sides. And from this, in turn, high reiglabia follows. Simply, if you decide to touch this game, remember – there will not be a “rophala” and especially partners (which usually serve as a tool for revealing the player’s character), as in Tyranny or Pillars of Eternity. There will be no study, as in the first Fallout-ah, there will be no restrained freedom of interaction, as in Divinity: Original Sin, There will be no many things for which they love the RPG genre. It will be just a text quest with battles, the management of skills and a bunch of “corridors”, in which for some reason it will sometimes have to run through open and sparsely populated locations. No more, but no less.

The best comments

Weighed diversified look? Consumer market analysis? Sober comprehensive assessment? A competent recommendation? PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF, Don MayTO Mi Laf, pliz.
I fall asleep, so I will finish (or maybe I’ll adjust something) tomorrow (more precisely today). I look forward to how friendly Nyarlathotep will cling to me the snout of arguments and convince me of my complete incompetence: 3

And I was lucky, I was previously preserved and translated an additional stratum for endurance, which was enough for me 🙂
And in this he is the same unheatable force, set the stats correctly, rode correctly and forward through the dialogs up to the end. But the problem is that everything rests not on your attentiveness or in what other skill. And in the ability to correctly replace your Persian. Moreover, this management follows only one logic – the logic of the developer. For me personally, in good RPG there are always several ways to achieve the goal, and here you have chosen a rail-so you either go along it, or your makhina engine explodes, due to improper calibration of the load, or you jump off the rail and go on foot until an unsatisfactory ending.

Well, if you answer the question, then the second Follych is immediately recalled, there you personally have personally your ingenuity in any difficult situation, thanks to which you can sometimes turn out well, both in battle and in dialogs. Although if you thought a shit -bold thoughtlessly, of course nothing will save you, but in almost any RPG + specifically in Folych, everything is intuitively clear. Well, more understandable than in Age of Decadence and much more flexible, in principle.

Since you will correct spelling and stylistic roughnesses tomorrow, I won’t pay attention to it, but for the content and the phenomenon itself – plus: Z

I am pleased that at least blogs drew attention and put a metaphorical checkmark on the “debt” sheet of Stopheim. I remember how many issues of the indicator, people in the comments asked, begged, demanded, and even indignant. But you can’t switch everything *In fact, as you swear, just a certain. L. Selects games on the principle of “this is a zheamplane gunpoint for half an hour with supposedly deep meaning – in the top;This is a great game from the point of view of gameplay, but it did not make it makmillene – nafig ”, which is sad: (*

and many others, not so loud(,) Projects, calmly pay off and are popular in Steam and other digital distribution services. And on the way after all more(,) Divinity: Original Sin 2, Pillars of Eternity 2 And, perhaps, something else, which the author of these lines is not aware of.

Many people praised her, not embarrassed by loud words, many said that she was by Some Parameters bypasses even the classics of this genre.

Your acquaintance It begins All from warning about the severity of the game and suggestionsoscillations Get training. In it you can get acquainted with various types of weapons, You can create a satisfactory combat build, and in general will get used to combat mechanics.

The first thing you should know about Age of Decadence – game This is what she shortI. That is even If devote its passage to the study – it will still be felt short, and if you go only along the main line(,) You will probably go the game(,) somewhere(,) in 10-15 minutes.

But in fact, the game is designed for multiple back(.) BLagodar chosen by you one or another background or fractions, which you choose, You will see and influence the same events from different angles.

However Most dialogs Games rests on the skills system, so you can always be sure that when walking the skill – you are moving forward.

Therefore, the gameplay inevitably turns into ongoing sai-lies and the intense distribution of skills after these(,) in the struggle for a greater disclosure of Laura.

Most likely, a comma is not needed, but in this case you have to somehow reformulate the offer -_-

But even so(,) You still risk stumbling on the barrier in the form of a lack of glasses at any main stat.

It would seem(,) She should not aggravate him, because it is a classic step -by -step muzzle with action glasses, options for their use with different weapons and percentage of hit. But In the introduction It was not for nothing that we were warned that in the world Age of Decadence battles are unfavorable way exitA from folded situations.

In the game you can pump ownership of each type of weapons and protection (the list of which you can see on one of the screenshots above), each of which(,) There are distinctive features, in addition to damage.

Problems begin with interaction a certain type of attack and protection. More precisely, long -range guns with evasion/blocking.

From the point of view of common sense, dodging the produced bolt – the idea is extremely risky and therefore, it would seem(,) The answer is obvious – to download the block.

But in most cases, if the “chip” should work, it will work if, Certainly, The shooter in principle did not miss.

Not to mention the fact that the game encourages pumping exclusively one of two provided protection methods.

By the way, speaking that it encourages the game, one cannot help but mention additional devices (:) networks, bombs, poisons and liquid fire.

(highlighting a whole window for this is inappropriate, so here everything is aboutWalking checking the skill and pop -up)

But you, within the same location, can go from one place to another and at some point, approaching a certain zone or person, the screen is darkened and here you are again in the usual framework of the dialog box.

Do not worry, the developers took into account the fact that meaningless running around can be bored, so(,) If you have a branch of dialogs – you will not need to go beyond it

You will just immediately move on to a new conversation, to a new place(,) After pressing the last replica, as in a text quest… dA.

However, the answer begs for itself – You will lure a few with a text quest, and in the yard of isometric RPG, you see, a real holiday has been going on recently.

But so, damn it, ironic And Fair The fact that the developers were able to register the world, but to give his life is not.

The combat system of stars from the sky is not enough, but at the same time it cannot be said that it was frankly harmful Game process.

Everything, “Bag Liszt” + “Patch laptop” is over. If you had claims in addition to these, or they appeared on this correction, I will love to listen and fix it with pleasure that I can. I’ll be back, somewhere by 14:00 Moscow time.

Already) thanks! In space rangers, IMHO, the best integration of text quests. And because of the same game I fell in love with them, maybe I would like here. But having read the review, I realized that not everything is so rosy here, so somehow then. The same pilars still do not go to the end. And in tyranny I liked the introduction, but the game itself did not go, but maybe I will also return. And then maybe I’ll think about this game)

So the tick has been put twice twice
In 2015
And in 2016
However, even if you look at the headlines, it becomes clear that they looked at the game a little from the predictable angle. Therefore, if where I put a checkmark, then on a sheet of necessary criticism, because, damn it, people really forgot what was the charm of the genre or simply perceived it somehow differently?
In fact, I think here is the matter again how the game positions itself, because both the reviewer uses the same arguments for praise: the game is harsh, there are a lot of roles and there are a lot of things in general. But, as for me, the game is harsh not because of the reflection of the clash with reality, but because of the stupid management, and many roles and many opportunities are actually a bunch of corridors, not in every of which there is an alternative to go to check the other skill. If it would be in a text quest, then I would have closed it anyway, because all the same dull management, but the game at least did not bury it on the fact that it could not realize. And here … in short, I am waiting for those who are not indifferent to this project, they suddenly have an obvious argument in the reserve that will change my opinion 🙂 for I have passed the game 7 times, 4 different branches (which is probably not enough for such a game) and I would be interested to know this hypothetical argument.

Unfortunately, I have no much experience in this area, I played in text quests only in the same raiders 🙂 But they clearly showed me that such a genre can be much more interesting than it seems at first glance and, in which case, it should not be underestimated.

Personally, I in RPG love almost everything that is written in the absent at the end of the review. So thank you, I will remove her from my wishes. : 3

Honestly, it is quite unusual for me to be so categorical to something, but for almost a year I have passed since the creation of a draft of this review and in my free time I sometimes returned to the mental analysis of this game again (especially when I saw the next praise of my eye :)). And in principle, I can understand why people liked it, but at the same time I could not understand how such fans of RPG could forgive the game for the absence of all that RPG love. One of the reasons for my initial uncertainty was in the assumption that I did not know the classic stupidly and therefore such revelations are not available to me. I joined the classics. The first was DND to the brain of Neverwinter Nights bones, which I once abandoned due to the felling affairs and which I went to the second passage to half and then because of sometimes openly Promovsky inserts. Then there was a second Folych, to which I have some complaints, but who really showed himself well. Then there was Planescape Torment, which I also did not show out due to a lack of time, but it is also damn good, atmosphere, and the flying skull Mort is generally Napalmovaya fire, the best companion, which I only met in RPG. And against the background of each classic, Age of Decadence is faded more and more. I still cannot understand how people can compare them at all. Therefore, I really wait for Nyarlathotep, since he is a fan of this game and expect new revelations from him and there may be some of the amendments regarding the same crossbow of vs of evasion and block.
I’m probably a rather strange person. The best RPG is Gothic 3 for me and I believe that all RPG should seek what this game has been striving for, but alas, it has not reached it to the end, although it had enough for me to take places in my heart. But I sat more than once and thought about Age of Decadence and I think that even though it could have been dispensed with in places and softer, in general in this review I wrote something quite close to the truth.

Well, in short, without going into praises and in deep meanings, I was very sympathetic (I know there is no such word :)) a clear goal, freedom in the path of its achievement, both in a figurative sense and in the route, a sense of own actions and the desire to perform them and an excellent point for the trilogy. That is, the game gave me the feeling of the path traveled and, and on the current way. And now each RPG should seek this as for me 🙂

I have more or less an idea of ​​the game, And interest woke up, contrary to your conclusion At the end of the review.

This, by the way, is very happy. The review is needed for familiarization, and not for the promotion of a consensus, so I tried to judge sensibly, although it turned out quite one -sided not me like that – such a game!. The conclusion does not say to score on the game or water it with sewage. He says that she is not what he positions herself.

Even I stalled a little on this moment, trying to understand – this is just a comparison or there is hidden subtexts here

Well, this new, young author described a fairly good review, I liked it, and I hope it will continue)
But seriously, thanks for the detailed analysis, I somehow suspected that something was wrong with this game, so I postponed my acquaintance very well. And now I won’t take it at all, perhaps, according to the description, not at all mine.