This is the first 4x Strategy game that I have played that doesn't feel like a Civ clone with some minor tweaks. It has its own unique identity and distinctive playstyle. I can see myself playing this long-term alongside Civ, unlike all the other games in the genre I have tried. I really love the strategy and uniqueness of the game, but the little things like the UI and late-game performance can be annoying. The main issue that plagues this game is clunky UI. It's not very mouse-friendly. It can be hard to tell where to click to select a unit especially if they are on a city or dungeon. Many icons are just too big and get in the way. The names of cities sometimes sit far below the city causing me to click on nothing when I intended to click on the city to view its stats. It feels like it was designed for console first and little effort was put into the M&K experience. Even just adding a simplified 2D view would do wonders for this game in terms of legibility. Another flaw that sticks out is that I don't feel like I can zoom out large enough when dealing with my troops across multiple fronts. When you zoom out too far the view converts into a noninteractable overview map. I am guessing this is also a limitation caused by this feeling like a console-first port of the game. Its a pain constantly trying to find where my troops are on the map. I have to constantly tab into my hero menu to find the army I am looking for. This is not a great solution as you can have heroless armies doing their own thing as well and those can be a pain to locate without spamming through the next action button. The performance in the late game can also be a little rough. I am running a Ryzen 3900x and RTX 2080, yet I still get noticeable frame drops where the game feels like it is running at 15fps. Civ with much larger maps only slows down from me when I end my turn. AOW4's slowdowns are intermittent and more annoying due to the clunky UI making clicks less precise.
This game is an absolute blast to play. It is as if the text based Reigns series had a child with the Legend of Zelda. It has the mechanics of Zelda and the shenanigans and character of a game like Reigns. Exploring this world and discovering new endings, items, skins, and secret passages is a real treat. Often times I find myself purposefully killing my poor hero just to unlock the next unique and witty ending. As of right now I have sunk about 15 hours into the game myself and have only discovered about 55 of the 100 endings. Some of the endings can be more of a pain to traverse to, so its nice that the devs have added different quick travel portals that spawn in after certain hidden endings. I have let 2 of my friends test the game and by the end of their play session both of them were determined to get the game and continue their progress. It is also facinating to watch and see how everyone plays this game differently and unlocks different endings first. Overall, the game has witty character and a ton of fun, but not excessive, pop culture references which is the back bone of this game. The game's personallity is the true factor that keeps me going. Pros: -Has controller support, and polished mechanics -you can kill the developers of the game -great for low spec machines and laptops -its ONLY $8 for 20+ hours of gameplay -your actions affect the map and can have consequences Cons: -The devs sent me to a parallel universe where shotguns dont exist...
