The Age of Decadence

AoD may not be most artsy, may not have most innovative setting or ruleset among RPG renaissance, but it is absolutely unprecedented when it comes to choice, consequence, player agency and replayability. Each faction offers different storyline and experience and there is a lot of possible endings.

This is a peculiar RPG, but one I liked. It's more like multiple games on top of each other, mostly driven by your initial character choice. My Loremaster Smartius used his big brain and high verbal skills to gain access to a lot of cool places, uncover forgotten machines & read ancient documents. Skill points were abundant, and fights almost absent. Meanwhile, as a Mercenary, combat was common, and very difficult when outnumbered (Crafting and Alchemy helped). Sometimes I had allies, which should have been a permanent thing, because it was much more fun. I know others have already mentioned it, but things really do fall into place when you accept your character's occupation and invest points accordingly. The not-so-good parts: reloading (often) because you failed a conversation skill check; quests becoming unavailable once you leave a city; the way it looks.

Age of Decadence is something of its own. Besides the Thief game itself, this is the only RPG where I genuinely felt like I was roleplaying a thief. It was not just a class that I selected to boost certain characteristics, but essentially an entire campaign flavor wrapped into a single selection that carried on throughout the rest of the game. In other words, this is true roleplaying. With lower budget graphics, no voice acting, and in my particular playthrough, minimal violence, Age of Decadence managed to keep me immersed and hooked to the point that I finished it rather quickly, and that's rare for me these days. The game is not heavy in exploration. In fact, you're oftentimes transported to set locations by the game after certain choices are made in dialogue. Despite typically liking exploration in RPGs, I persisted because of other factors that make this game appealing. You really have to think about how you're going to build your character and what strategies you're going to enact to navigate the world and the situations that you find yourself in. If you appreciate the strategy that goes into carefully building a character and don't mind occasional devastating setbacks, then this is a good game for you. It was made with respect for your intelligence and ability to make decisions in mind, and because of this, it was a highly stimulating experience. Unfortunately, I was completely underwhelmed with my ending. It fell flat entirely and I hope you get a different one. Overall though, this is one of the better RPGs I've played in recent times and I'll likely revisit again in the future.

In a nutshell: If you like a good story and a rich world then this is for you. Gameplaywise there is a brutally difficult turn based combat, witch has the potential to be very frustrating and very satisfying. If you are not into that kind of thing you can avoid it completly. Though I would highly recommend to at least give it a try. The second and more important part of the gamplay is an extensive textadventure and dialog system. You will read a lot in this game and everything is so well written that you won't even notice. The Heart of the Game however is not its gameplay mechanics, it's the world and the story. Those two things blend into each other in the age of decadence as the world evolves in ways that cannot be foreseen by the player who will have to find his own way to deal with the callenges presented to him. The Amount of freedom you have in your choices is huge. I more than once found myself staring at the screen wondering if the game really just allow me to do this. However you always have to get along with the consequences of your actions. So if you mess up you might get thrown out of your guild or even executed for treason. The whole world is as unvorgiving as the games combat system. Age of Decadence has probably the richest and most dense world I have ever experienced in a game. It really gets you immersed and even for players who don't usually do this its well worth to play a second time to see just how different things might have gone. If you did read untill here Age of decadence probably is for you. Have fun playing!

There are a lot of interesting ideas, and one of them is that the same story is being told from different angles, so in one playthrough you're a drifter who witnesses the aftermath of an assassination, another playthrough you're the assassin, and another you're the bodyguard, etc. The combat is pretty good, but a lot of the time it's teetering on the edge from hard and fun to tedious and unfair. The skill checks are out of hand- the system for getting through a campaign is basically trying out a sequence and reloading so that you can upgrade the skills you need. You can skip missions if you dared to upgrade a skill that won't get you through, and eventually end up at the mandatory ending that is the same for everyone, which gives you about four choices, two of them only possible with maxed out skills, and not necessarily skills that have anything to do with your class. But a lot of that has been covered by other reviewers- the real offender that hasn't been mentioned much is the writing. The setting is okay, I would say it's greatest strength is its atmosphere, but a lot of that is pulled directly out of Fallout (with references throughout.) The characters, dialogue, and descriptive writing are bland and juvenile. A lot of swearing and cruelty is used to cover up the lack of creativity. We get it, everyone is awful, that doesn't really replace characterization. Not to mention that there are about 2 or 3 women characters that I can think of: one is a prostitute, one killed all her husbands. Come on. Also, for a world based on ancient Rome, it's pretty ridiculous that almost everyone is white (Feng and a couple "Ordu" characters are the exception.) You can make a bad argument for Northern European fantasy lacking diversity (something that doesn't stop D&D, or most settings) but Ancient Rome was a central hub in the Mediterranean and North African region, so it's just lazy and adds to the bland boring nature of the world presented here.