The Age of Decadence

first off, this game could be a great game. it has diverse stats, skills, and character backgrounds, I always love character backgrounds. if you pick a mercenary, for example you are going to have not only a better fighter who is worse at diplomacy but a character that starts in a different place and will be treated differently than, say, a Loremaster. the backstory is great, Fallen fictional Roman-like Empire. but here is the ugly, and I won't go into the bad, because the ugly is the bad the presentation is boring the dialogue, while good, is presented in a horribly fonted text that is way too small for peopple with less than steller vision to read and if you aren't going to have speaking at least make the dialogue big enough to read, I love reading as much as anyone, but c'mon! when you talk to someone you go from the "play" screen to a big boring brown void with some little tiny text printed on it in a draft type font. pathetic! I don't need voice overs, I am as much into reading as the next non-lazy willng to use his brain type person! but this is pathetic! I can't read this news print, the font is boring, it is much too small and the screen continnually and tediously switches from play screen to diagloue screen. boring! at least put a picture and a bigger prettier font! I'm not reading this for an hour! the controls they are AWEFUL camera(both modes) wonky no toggle switch yoiu must do the switch in "options" very stupid and backward character control, you must repeatedly click on the ground to get further than the edge of the screen. makers need to put a continual walk via holding the right mouse buttion I mean, even Utlima VII did that. c'mon! thanks for the carpel tunnel syndrome guys! I could love this game but cannot get into it becasue of horrible font, and abysmal controls. you got a great game, why not use some common sense and make it presentable! I feel like I am reading the New York Times and being bored, not living the Roman times!

First this game is HARD, so if you like games where people are taking you by the hand, avoid it at all costs ^_^ That sentence alone will help you understand why there are some negative reviews. My review on the contrary will be highly positive ! Why ? Because that's a game where you need to think every actions, that's a game where you need to optimize your Build, to optimize your path, to optimize everything in order to stay alive ! Every skills you'll use will bring you even more skill points, so you need to optimize your experience investment, in order to get the most experience out of your skills. Let's say you have 4 doors and 4 chests behind these doors in an area, invest enough in the lock-picking skill, with all these locked doors and chests, you'll win enough to reimburse your investment. Trust me, that's a good way to think in this game, and so it will imply a lof of quick / load save to test the best ways to invest your experience. The Battles are tough, some are even VERY DIFFICULT ! But trust me once again... Once you understand the mechanics, you'll prevail in every battles ! And when it's possible, just avoid some battles to come back to them later. By the end of the game you'll be able to wreak havoc and even kill the 3 strongest foes of the game (not naming them to avoid spoilers). I've spoke about this game in my TOP 6 RPG you never heard of on my website, because this RPG is worth all the advertising it can get ! It's really a little jewel and i highly recommend the Spin-Off Dungeon Rats in Murderous Psychopath of course ! I also created a little guide on this Spin-Off ! Enjoy this series of games, it will be worth your time and money ! Thumbs Up !

An excellent cRPG, right up there on my list of favourite RPG's. It has an interesting and compelling setting that I found to be really neat, being set in a post-apocalyptic Roman-esque empire, with knowledge of technology and magic largely esoteric by the time of the story. The game has many branching paths, with quite a few of them being mutually exclusive even from the background you pick at character creation. Instead of stifling choice however, this serves to make choices more meaningful and mastery of the game rests on knowledge supreme. Combat is absolutely unforgiving at first, but easy to master once you figure it out- yet non-combat paths will find it worthwhile to exclude themselves from many combat situations. A few endings can be completed without any combat whatsoever, or very little in others. The Imperial Guard questline, however- that is heavily combat orientated, and hybrid playthroughs are the least forgiving of all and best served by prior knowledge through experience. One thing that I've seen a lot of players complain about is railroading- rather, because they wanted to achieve a certain outcome in a situation earlier, whether a skill check in dialogue or combat stats to overcome a difficult fight, they found themselves without enough points to get some very specialised outcomes later. It is not Skyrim or Mass Effect, in which you can become a master of all trades either through unlimited skill acquisition or a party to cover all bases, and in which decisions decide a little fluff at the end and perhaps a different reward. It is you versus the world, and there is a consequence for every little thing about your character. Managing to tick all of the flags for the "Burn It" achievement on Steam was extremely difficult- and rewarding, and it was easily my favourite ending, despite being a horrible situation. tl;dr Don't buy it if you're looking for an action RPG. If you want a cRPG with a good (abundance of) story, buy it.

I picked this up along with dungeon rats when they were on sale for 80% off. Even at that price, I'm thinking I got a raw deal. The UI doesn't scale enough if you are using a 4k monitor. I'm playing on a 32 inch 4k monitor and even with 125% font scaling, there are still many things that are difficult to read. For a text driven game, this is a major flaw. What is the killer of this game though, is the combat. It's poorly done and you get almost no actions, 2 to 3 swings to the computer's 5 to 6 swings. Coupled with the computer outnumbering you in almost every fight 2 to 1, it makes it essentially unplayable. I understand "hardcore" games, but there needs to be some level of reasonable expectation that you can actually win early fights to progress. Also, in the early game, many townspeople want you to pay 50 to 150 imperials to bribe them, but you get 1-3 imperials for selling a dropped piece of loot. Within 15 minutes of playing, you are out of money and can't really progress. You can't fight to gain money, since you get slaughtered most of the time. This game might be worth picking up if you had $2-3 dollars you want to waste instead of buying a scratch off ticket, but there are many other games with much better design that are worthy of your money. I only gave it two starts because the graphics are decent. Without that, it's a strong one star at best.

great setting, great writing, good combat and can be addictive if you're into powergaming