The Age of Decadence

Ola, Voy a resumir. Me gusta el rol de la vieja escuela, pero tambien el moderno, el RPG es mi género. Me he pasado el juego ya 2 veces, una como guerrero cabeza hueca (sin lore), y otra como mercader (full lore). Ahora me lo voy a pasar como asesino/ladron. Os recomiendo escoger una clase y ver que os ofrece, el juego tiene tantas ramificaciones que, aunque el mapa sea el mismo, la historia es bastante diversa. Muy guapo.

Amazing story and huge replayability!!

PROS *Fun and challenging RPG in the same vein as classic Fallout games. *Lots of replayability; each background gives you a different perspective on the main quests. I'd say it is worth playing as other classes just to see how each character deals with the same situation. *Simple, but fun and useful, crafting and alchemy systems. *Interesting world-building. CONS *Some fights feel very unfair or luck-based. One of my characters had 9 dodge (around 115) and light armor, which made late-game fights devolve into save-scumming until I managed to dodge attacks. [spoiler]The fight when the 40 Thieves leader invites you in Basil's questline was only doable with my dodge character when I dodged the first bola thrown at me. I always died when I got hit, and always won the fight when I didn't. It feels a bit jarring since there isn't really a strategy against bolas other than to dodge or power through it. [/spoiler] *Charisma-based characters are very fun, but also very reductive. You need some absurd stat requirements to pass certain checks, which sometimes turns the game into a "hold your skill points until you need to dump them into the required skill" experience. *Be aware to ALWAYS save. It is very easy to softlock yourself out of situations because, a lot of times, loading a save is not the same as reaching the situation organically. Save after every fight and every choice you make, in case you "mess up" and need to go back. [spoiler]For example, loading one of the demon fights lets the demon escape instead of giving you another shot. I had to go through the tower again to be able to fight him again. Another example: when fighting Hermon, if you kill him and then go to the palace district, you can actually interact with the vendors and buy the mechanical eye. If you leave the area and try to return (because you went to heal yourself, for example), you'll get permanently ambushed because of your low 40 Thieves reputation. [/spoiler] OVERALL A very nice game. It can have its frustrating moments, but it is also very rewarding, and it's tempting to see the next quest and piece of lore. It has its flaws, but I'd say its qualities outweigh them.

Good rpg, but a little glitchy when loading the tutorial.

yeah this game sorta sucks as an rpg. to do anything you need the EXACT stat number or higher to do literally anything. its very unfun which is unfortunate because the story and setting seem very interesting. The combat is not bad, but as i said if you dont want to get in combat but you are lacking the required stat you are forced into combat more in half the encounters you have.

To balance out my negative review of Colony Ship, I'm giving Age of Decadence it's rightful due. It's a fun game with a fresh story and a unique twist on the usual Roman fantasy settings. Dark writing, painful combat (but where your stats are rightfully rewarded), a neat crafting system, and several branching paths that intersect in clever ways. I really hope it gets an ambitious sequel.

Can't believe I forgot to review this on Steam. Though the game advertises itself as being much different from any other RPG, I honestly found it most similar to…Shadowrun, specifically Shadowrun Returns/Dragonfall/Hong Kong. See, in Shadowrun, you can either fight your way through the game (as in Baldur’s Gate or most other RPGS), *or* talk your way through it and evade fights that way. If your intelligence is high, you can outwit most opponents so they won’t want to fight, and if your charisma is high, you can bluff your way out of most fights. That’s kind of how it is in Age of Decadence, where putting points into charisma and intelligence (and their related subfields) will allow you to just talk your way through the game without fighting at all. That was pretty fun, and it’s equally fun in this game, enough so that I could overlook the relatively poor graphics (which are forgivable, as this is an indie game made by a handful of people who wouldn’t have nearly the resources to make something that looks like Bloodborne). Less forgivable is the game’s awful combat. The devs advertised it as being really hard, unlike other RPGs, and more “realistic” than games where you can just take on armies of mooks by yourself. In this game, even the best hand to hand fighters can only take on one or two enemies at most, and even then that’s a risky proposition. Sounds good and realistic, except…the combat system gets most of that “realistic difficulty” from the utterly tried and uncreative method of RNG dickery. The combat isn’t much different from Fire Emblem, as you control characters on a panel-organized battlefield, but it’s more similar to XCOM, as both moving and attacking require AP. You also have a choice between different attacks–“fast” ones that have a high chance to hit but low damage, regular ones with no characteristics, power attacks with hi damage and low hit chance, and some other ones (head strikes, hand strikes, leg strikes) that trade accuracy and power for inflicting debuffs on your enemy like reducing his dodge or hit chance. Whatever you choose, you’ll essentially be unable to do any damage to anything unless you have 10 strength (the maximum), unable to do anything unless you have 10 dexterity (the maximum, which gives you maximum AP), and unable and unable to hit anything unless you have 10 perception (which influences only accuracy in combat, otherwise it determines how well you pass certain non-combat related tests, which strikes me as a baffling decision–why would this be related to “perception” rather than dexterity?), but even if you have those the RNG, or random number generator, is ridiculously annoying. For instance, I started a new character as a mercenary with nearly maxed out Strength, Dexterity, and Perception (and a minimum of the two remaining characteristics, Intelligence and Charisma, naturally), and the very first fight took like 10 minutes because my guy missed nearly all of his attacks, no matter how high his hit percent was. Regular attacks missed 4 out of 5 times with a hit chance of 65%, fast missed 3 out of 5 times (I only made 2 out of 5 hits) with a hit chance of about 75%. Now, I know the devs will say I just got (un)lucky, but that’s the thing–combat in Age of Decadence revolves around just pumping your stats into combat and hoping the RNG likes you, not any real thought or challenge. Later on you can get some useful battle items like alchemic bombs or boosts to hit and damage, but that just turns combat into “use buffs or damage items and then hope the RNG likes you a little better.” Despite the dev’s pretensions of imitating the strategic combat of XCOM (which also had its share of RNG silliness), there’s almost no strategic component to combat–aside from choosing your attacks and using (some) items, there are no special abilities (OK, because this is a “low fantasy” setting where magic doesn’t show up until the end), and no terrain effects (as in other games like Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics, or XCOM’s cover system), which is far less understandable. Thus, there’s absolutely no other strategy than standing there and trading blows (only selecting which attacks you want to use) in a one on one fight, or, if facing multiple opponents, get yourself inbetween some boxes or something so only one or two of them can attack you. Despite these flaws, my overall opinion of the game is still pretty positive, because what it gets right, it gets really right. The writing and dialogue are fantastic, as is the plot progression. The game definitely lives up to its promises of non-linearity, there are a bunch of different factions and a bunch of ways you can either help them or foil them, ranging from bluffing your way through everything with high charisma or bribing your way through the game with a high trading skill. There are also a bunch of different endings reflecting this, which I love, tho alas, no ending cinematics (again, no budget). And it’s all set in a very engaging world. Essentially, it’s a very early “medieval”–the fantasy equivalent of the Roman Empire has fallen, but only a couple of centuries ago, and we still see “praetors” and “legionnaires” dressed up in Roman style armor dominating the place. However, that former “Roman Empire” fell because, according to old manuscripts, foreign invaders called the Qantari invaded and summoned demons, which the old Empire could only defeat by summoning gods of their own, and even when they won, their lands were devastated and civilization had ended. For most of the game, it’s left very ambiguous as to whether or not things actually happened like that, since there’s no magic and no evidence of supernatural beings, and many think the “Qantari” and their demons were just excuses concocted to explain away famine or disease or other more mundane causes of collapse. Only at the end do we learn there’s something to the old legends, and even in that case, the legends didn’t say the whole story. I thought that was really cool and something I hadn’t seen a lot of before. So I’m still happy I bought this game, all things considered.