Irwin John Finster
Sonny, I Watched the Vault Bein' Built!
Well I finally got some free time to get into this game and let me tell you it is one of the best RPGs ever made - ever. This is exactly how role playing games are supposed to be designed! The amount of nuance in the writing and the depth of interactivity with the game world is staggering in comparison to the offline-MMOs masquerading as "RPGs" being churned out by AAA studios.
Finally we have a game where you can actually fail dialogue! Dialogue isn't simply a list of options where you just click through all of them for no reason. You have to actually think about your dialog choices because they may have immediate or long-term consequences. This is one reason why Planescape Torment is loved so much.
I have not encountered a single MMO fetch quest so far. This game does not waste your time with such lazy things. The writing and dialogue destroys pretty much every other game on so many levels and harkens back to a time when this sort of thing was standard in RPGs.
The combat has been criticized for being random or frustrating but I have to disagree. It seems obvious that the combat wasn't just thrown together - it is incredibly nuanced and everything has a rhyme and reason.
You can, and will, FAIL! You will fail dialogue, you will fail combat. You can try to scheme and make plans to make this game world look the way you want and make the story unfold the way you want. Well too bad - this game's choice/consequence and interactivity will find a way to throw a wrench in your plans, and that is what makes this game so great: you are not the Dragonborn and you sure aren't the female lawyer Sole Survivor who magically turns into a super soldier and takes on entire legions of Raiders in Fallout 4. You are not going to become the High King of every single faction through some boring, dumbed down linear questline. NO sir (or madam)! Not this game! If you play this game like your standard Bethesda or Call of Duty game you will last about 5 minutes. The Age of Decadence is meant to be played seriously - you must carefully choose your battles and dialogue.
This game demands that you treat it as a believable simulation of an actual game world. You actually have to roleplay that you are inside this universe, and as such it doesn't allow you to wantonly go around taking on entire armies by yourself and dominating everything and molding the entire universe to your will. You're not a snowflake in this game.
This game is exactly what the RPG world needed to remind people of what role-playing games actually are. It is essentially the anti-Bethesda game because:
1) You will never see every single quest/storyline in a single playthrough
2) You start the game from multiple vantage points through a different perspective each time, and your decisions change outcomes within each of those different starting backgrounds.
3) Combat is essentially a last resort and is to be avoided if possible
4) Dialogue matters
5) The amount of variety and interactivity is staggering! A single quest has many ways to successfully complete depending on your stats and character - so stats actually matter! A LOT!
6) This game has insane replayability. You will have different experience every time.
7) This game embodies the concept of verisimilitude. You have to play it as though you're part of the game world and you must abide by its rules.
8) CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCE is an immense part of The Age of Decadence. But that doesn't mean you get to choose exactly what happens. The Age of Decadence doesn't care for your "plans" - your choices will set in motion events that you simply cannot predict, and you will have to adapt. And that is what a believable simulation of a fictional universe should do.
9) The interface is actually good. Its aesthetic styling adds to the immersion of the game world - there are no bland UI's in this game.
As of right now, the tutorial is well done and the soundtrack very adequately captures the ambience and atmosphere of this post-apocalyptic, low fantasy universe. If you hate reading then this game is not for you. If you hate RPGs this game is probably not for you. If, however, you think the term "RPG" has been slowly degraded by games like Fallout 4 and Borderlands to mean games with boring, repetitive, procedurally generated MMO fetch quests, shallow characters, and lousy upgrade systems with merely the illusion of dialogue choices - then this is your game.
This game is viewed by many as too hard and too complicated. The fact is, this is what the standard should be for role playing games.
TL;DR - The Age of Decadence is the best game ever made and anyone who says otherwise is wrong! (Okay, well it's at least ONE of the best games ever made). In my opinion, it's absolutely worth the price.
Finally we have a game where you can actually fail dialogue! Dialogue isn't simply a list of options where you just click through all of them for no reason. You have to actually think about your dialog choices because they may have immediate or long-term consequences. This is one reason why Planescape Torment is loved so much.
I have not encountered a single MMO fetch quest so far. This game does not waste your time with such lazy things. The writing and dialogue destroys pretty much every other game on so many levels and harkens back to a time when this sort of thing was standard in RPGs.
The combat has been criticized for being random or frustrating but I have to disagree. It seems obvious that the combat wasn't just thrown together - it is incredibly nuanced and everything has a rhyme and reason.
You can, and will, FAIL! You will fail dialogue, you will fail combat. You can try to scheme and make plans to make this game world look the way you want and make the story unfold the way you want. Well too bad - this game's choice/consequence and interactivity will find a way to throw a wrench in your plans, and that is what makes this game so great: you are not the Dragonborn and you sure aren't the female lawyer Sole Survivor who magically turns into a super soldier and takes on entire legions of Raiders in Fallout 4. You are not going to become the High King of every single faction through some boring, dumbed down linear questline. NO sir (or madam)! Not this game! If you play this game like your standard Bethesda or Call of Duty game you will last about 5 minutes. The Age of Decadence is meant to be played seriously - you must carefully choose your battles and dialogue.
This game demands that you treat it as a believable simulation of an actual game world. You actually have to roleplay that you are inside this universe, and as such it doesn't allow you to wantonly go around taking on entire armies by yourself and dominating everything and molding the entire universe to your will. You're not a snowflake in this game.
This game is exactly what the RPG world needed to remind people of what role-playing games actually are. It is essentially the anti-Bethesda game because:
1) You will never see every single quest/storyline in a single playthrough
2) You start the game from multiple vantage points through a different perspective each time, and your decisions change outcomes within each of those different starting backgrounds.
3) Combat is essentially a last resort and is to be avoided if possible
4) Dialogue matters
5) The amount of variety and interactivity is staggering! A single quest has many ways to successfully complete depending on your stats and character - so stats actually matter! A LOT!
6) This game has insane replayability. You will have different experience every time.
7) This game embodies the concept of verisimilitude. You have to play it as though you're part of the game world and you must abide by its rules.
8) CHOICE AND CONSEQUENCE is an immense part of The Age of Decadence. But that doesn't mean you get to choose exactly what happens. The Age of Decadence doesn't care for your "plans" - your choices will set in motion events that you simply cannot predict, and you will have to adapt. And that is what a believable simulation of a fictional universe should do.
9) The interface is actually good. Its aesthetic styling adds to the immersion of the game world - there are no bland UI's in this game.
As of right now, the tutorial is well done and the soundtrack very adequately captures the ambience and atmosphere of this post-apocalyptic, low fantasy universe. If you hate reading then this game is not for you. If you hate RPGs this game is probably not for you. If, however, you think the term "RPG" has been slowly degraded by games like Fallout 4 and Borderlands to mean games with boring, repetitive, procedurally generated MMO fetch quests, shallow characters, and lousy upgrade systems with merely the illusion of dialogue choices - then this is your game.
This game is viewed by many as too hard and too complicated. The fact is, this is what the standard should be for role playing games.
TL;DR - The Age of Decadence is the best game ever made and anyone who says otherwise is wrong! (Okay, well it's at least ONE of the best games ever made). In my opinion, it's absolutely worth the price.
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