The Age of Decadence

This MF* game gives you an easy and early achievement (out of 109 total), for a whooping 0% achievement count that will just mess-up your overall completion score, and then becomes utterly complicated and boring, and just wants to make you quit! WAAAY too much reading. And WAAAY to much guessing...Like how the f* do you get into Feng's house, whom you need to talk to and who conviently opened-up his front door for you when you arrived...but you still can't figure-out how to get in the darn house??! Forget about "adventure" or "story rich". This is a "point-and-click" and "puzzle" game...and one of the worse of them unfortunately. Unless I maybe ran into a bug? But that doesn't make it any better, doesn't it?! ...And I haven't even got into the horrendous 'combat' part, which many reviewers described well enough already here. Overall rating: Decadent!

操作很老辐射，背景很老辐射，通关条件也很老辐射，机巧精炼的一部。没有可招募同伴，没有升级系统，建卡后全程属性固定，只有随着完成任务与开地图所奖励的技能点增长，不同出身对应不同开场任务，可以说开卡时的决策就决定了本周目的画风走向。 一周目博学者，非战斗路线——也真的全程没进战。此游作战部分难度极高假使没规划好一旦开战必死无疑。PC巧舌如簧、诡计多端，小到街头坑蒙拐骗，大到军前步步为营简直苏秦再世！知识就是力量.jpg 尤其是，新手村学徒在向领主进献（推销）的路上被守卫长拦在宫殿门口，被打发去做侦查敌营的累活，潜入后却因成功帮助敌方鉴定仪器、启动仪式，显露才干，于是意外受到对方引荐与赏识，一步登天似的改换门庭，而后委以重任（本来迟疑过要不还是自由人，但想了想这世道朝不保夕、机不可失，PC为了接近更多知识与秘密有自己的路……或许也能从这个细节看出两方阵营治军、政策的差别。各方组织门下成员也有不同的任务线，可以想见每周目故事发展的路数会是多么不同。文本写得很细节场景很有跑团味。。玩家全程截屏学习rp技巧。喜欢在市场那段和农夫关于耕作的对话，点了炼金的话还能给对方改善土壤酸碱度的方案。 智力拉满可以额外吃很多技能点。感知无论战斗还是非战斗路线都建议点高。许多选项如果属性或技能数值不达标都不会显示。注意，[b]学识和世俗务必提高[/b]【建议博学者开卡学识至少3（反例如我就有个圆球没拿到，大后期才发现拿不到了无法解锁隐藏结局了……血的教训】！优先度远大于说服。制作也用的比较多。其他的没那么重要。过不了的技能检定有时亦可靠日益增长的声望达成目的。比方说，撬不开的锁可以凭借权位派人开门，敲不到的诈、做不成的买卖都可以仗势欺人。废土危机四伏，一着不慎就会遭了别人的骗，而PC也经常可以背刺别人。剧情的话多说容易剧透坏了惊喜（也有造物、人、神关系的讨论，虽然不多）。总之推荐。

This game is an absolute gem but definitely not for everyone. Besides it feeling like 90's RPGs it's very difficult (especially the combat) and not beginner friendly. The game is set in a roman inspired, "post apocalyptic" world with only a few surviving communities, scarce resources and lost knowledge and technology. The game's combat is incredibly difficult and relies heavily on RNG (hit and dodge chances) but the choices both in character and on the character sheet have a huge impact on the story and locations you can visit. It's incredible how diverse the experience can be depending on your character's background, build and choices. My first character was an assassin, completely uninterested in investigating the old world and wholly focused on surviving the new world. With a build centered around combat, I was constantly engaged in combat and if RNG was nice to me I could wipe the floor with most enemies. The story took a path of intrigue, betrayal and conflict between the two "kingdoms". The second character had a completely different story. He was a loremaster centered on attaining knowledge of the old world. I avoided all the combat I could since I would just get ♥♥♥♥ on and the path this character's story took was about discovering lost knowledge and technology and ended up with him [spoiler] flying around a UFO and becoming a god. [/spoiler] This is the story diversity most RPGs dream about having. This game here is true to the "roleplaying" part of RPG and choices in this game are not just flavor text but take the story down entirely different paths and really encourage replaying the game with different characters. All in all, it feels "old" and is really hard but the world, story and choices more than make up for it. Great game and absolutely worth the price of 14€.

The most limiting gameplay and character build choices of any RPG I've ever played. The devs say this is "realistic", but that's nonsense. If you want to be good at talking, you need to be terrible at literally everything else. If you want to be good at fighting, then you have to be socially retarded and dumb as a rock. This is extremely unrealistic. This is not how humans work. Calling this "realism" just makes me think that the devs have never met a human in their lives.

Really good writing.

Great RPG in a unique setting with lots of branching quests and zero filler content. I'd recommend first playing a combat focused character with maybe one or two civil skills then later branching out and trying hybrid characters after getting a feel for the game. It's not particularly long but dense with all sorts of variations on outcomes and you'll find yourself reloading just to see what happens when you go down a certain path. I haven't had any technical issues with Torque engine (other than some helper text mousing over attack types drifting when reloading saves) but anyone having problems might consider using DXVK to play this.

Best CRPG since Fallout 2, Arcanum and Planescape.

Even after having played this years ago now I still think about this game on occasion its just that good.

I respect Iron Tower sticking to their ideas, I almost still recommend it but that would be weird considering the negative tone of my review. If I played this about 10 years ago when it released, my opinion might be different but right now, especially after playing their latest game, Colony Ship, it make this game's flaws more obvious. First of all, the engine is dated, (re)loading is slow even on a SSD and I doubt it's hardware related. It's a problem when in the 3 hours I played I probably reloaded at least 30 times if not more. There is a weird lighting glitch that turn the screen into a rave if you put it above low, constantly flashing quickly forever. Other settings are fine on high. Also as far as I could tell, saw no option for this, you always need to double click to run, one click mean walking slower. The game is hard, it's meant to be. The problem, something they fixed in Colony Ship, is that you can easily soft lock yourself into a situation you can't win. It's what happened on my first game, I went with a speech character but I somehow picked an option in the main quest that force you into combat later. I expected this option to end the quest safely but no, it was to make combat easier, still impossible on a character not build for combat, you still die in one turn or two. I did other quests before continuing this one so going back before that choice pretty much meant starting a new game. The main stats are also important and you can't upgrade them, at least using experience, maybe there are special methods later in the game. So even if you invest in, let's say the sword skills, your low strength and dexterity mean you'll always have a low ap and low damage. The game is balanced extremely hard. I tried putting some spare points in sword and dodge but it changed nothing at all, at best I could beat one enemy before dying. I spent a good 1 hour trying the different combat encounter to see if one could be possible and no, they don't go easy on you in the beginning. Maybe I'll start again with a combat character to see if the combat way can be fun and not infuriating hard. I was spoiled by Colony Ship, I was able to play that game completely with speech and some stealth, no combat at all in the main quest, very few optional combat encounters with no other solutions and I think I had 4 sidequests I skipped that would force combat.

One of the most imaginative RPG settings I've seen in a game, Age of Decadence relies on you accepting that you can failstate yourself but understand where you can improve the next time you play. The side content felt satisfying and expanded the world, the level of branching paths and detail is insane, and there is good character writing and interesting factions. I do recommend it but acknowledge you need patience to understand combat and that how easy it can be softlock yourself. Take hard saves.