The Age of Decadence

Old school rpg with good worldbuilding taking place in a believable universe. Multiple distinct starting backgrounds for player character that provide good replayability. Combat is mediocre but it doesn't have to be a huge path of your playthrough as the game lets you play a PC who is not a murderhobo. Overall Age of Decadence is an excellent example of a quality indie RPG.

Amazing, the difficulty is very difficult, but man is it rewarding to progress.
I spend about 45 hours on the game with vivid memories, I might even reinstall and do another run through now that I am thinking about it

Feels really good to conquer a problem that you couldn't before.

For example, I go into a house with a couple thieves that stole a 100 coins from me. I initiate a fight them, but it turns out there is a third thief that traps me in the house in a 1v3 situation. The thieves surround me, and I die. I go to the blacksmith and exchange my bronze armor for iron armor. I do a couple other side quests and increase my body count. Once again, I enter the house with the three thieves. I move so that all 3 thieves are in front of me. 2 of the thieves switch to range attacks, while 1 attacks me at melee range. I easily block all the range attacks and kill the melee enemy in a few turns. 1 thief down. One of the ranged thieves runs out of arrows and pulls out a sword to attack me. He dodges most of my attacks and procs bleed damage on most of his hits. I aim for his legs. He can no longer dodge me. 2 thieves down. The last ranged thief is unarmored and misses most of her attacks. 3 thieves down. I recover my 100 coins and loot their bodies for all they are worth.

tldr 10 Maadoran slum super ganks out of 10

This is an excellent rpg if you take the time to understand the systems with which the game operates. Otherwise it is an insufferable shit show where if you try to rush through, you get your guts rearranged by some random gangsters hiding in an alleyway every other loading screen. Patience is the key to figuring this game out.

A few tips:
- Don't waste stat points in charisma, its useless most of the time.
- save often, especially before making any sort of choice.
- you don't have to spend your skill points all at once.If you fail an important check, reload and invest points into the skill to pass.
- if you plan to kill people, invest in 1 weapon skill, and either dodge or block but not both. ALWAYS LEVEL THE DEFENSIVE SKILL YOU CHOOSE MORE OFTEN THAN ATTACK, it will make gank fights less painful.
- if you're a fighter, invest in the crafting skill and learn how crafting works. Good gear makes a significant difference.

I like it. It's got it's faults but there is plenty of good things that over shadow them. Give it a go for yourself. I highly recommend looking up a Guide.

After 2 months and 100% - absolutely amazing. The setting is incredibly gripping and the faction campaigns are well worth multiple playthroughs. I was completely hooked the moment I realized the game is complex enough as to have both a way to finish the game without a single fight or kill, as well as room for a headhunting spacemarine run.

A worthwhile gem that merits your attention. Incredible character build customisation and engrossing combat in a fascinating world. Highly recommended!

This game is a RPG in it's purest form. Nothing but character ability determines the consequences of your decisions. Learning how to build the character and exactly how & when to distribute your skill points feels very rewarding. I only regret waiting to play this game for as long as I did.

Can be unforgiving - trial and error needed but the greatest and most playable story ever told. 6 years and nearly 600 hours later I still love this world. Makes me sad that games of this kind won’t be made again in the future

One of my favourite RPG.
A feeling of playing a classic gem everytime.

A fabulous game for fully applying build optimization, hidden nooks well worth the dedicated build it takes to explore them and a lore that's brilliantly delivered. This game is merciless and challenging, but makes each success satisfying and immersive.

Awesome RPG

Игра в своём роде уникальная. Сюжет - гениальный. Главная задача игры - воспользоваться моментом политической нестабильности, чтобы урвать себе как можно больше денег и власти, при этом не умерев. Действия игры происходят в стране, всё ешё находящейся в упадке после великой войны, произошедшей несколько сотен лет назад, в которой большая часть населения умерла, технический прогресс откатился, и большая часть местности стала еле пригодной для обитания. В игре есть большая вариативность, на каждый квест есть по нескольку вариантов решения, возможность выбрать которые зависит от характеристик игрока. Есть 7 фракций, что каждая пытается у остальных вырвать власть и деньги тем или иным способом. Внутри сюжета каждой фракции есть множество разветвлений сюжета и можно в разные моменты предать свою фракцию и примкнуть к другой, получив в замен ненависть своей изначальной фракции, что может быть фатальной, если ты не воин-убийца, так что надо с этим быть осторожным. Основных два способа решения всех происшествий в игре два: бой или разговор. Если ты будешь играть за боевого персонажа, то можно заработать много денег, грабя и убивая людей, но только ты скорее всего будешь как просто исполнитель чужих приказов и планов, не способный повлиять на важные политичесские решения. Если же играть за разговорного персонажа, то можно ловко манипулировать людьми, без боя разводя их на деньги и информацию, влиять на важных политических фигур, но при этом нужно следить за своими словами, потому что если тебе не получится кого-то убедить, то он с тобой начнёт драться, а ты не воин, тебя в армию по проблемам здоровья не взяли, тебе драться нельзя, и по этому тебя убьют. Самые умные могут попробывать совмещать умение разговаривать с умением драться, но тебе очков прокачки не хватит всё подряд нормально прокачать, из-за чего нужно точно распланировать как каждое очко когда и во что вставлять, что можно сделать только если ты уже все проверки наперёд сдаешь, так что это вариант для бывалых (ну либо можно по гайду игру проходить).
Боёвка в игре прикольная. Есть множество видов оружия и вариантов ударов, а так же различные зелья, бомбы и сетки, что в разные моменты полезны. То правда в том, что тактика для почти каждого боя одна и та же, так что ты в начале игры себе выбираешь из массы вариантов какой-то один, прокачиваешься в него и играешь только через него.
Для разговоров есть множество различных навыков и они все в разные моменты полезны. Знать, какой и когда нужен будет - наперёд нельзя, так что, если решил играть через разговоры, то стоит выбрать 3-4 навыка как основные и прокачивать их поровну, а остальные не трогать, ибо тогда можешь не успеть основной поднять до того пока понадобиться. Либо можно пытаться как можно больше проверок пройти, путём того чтобы копить очки и прокачиваться только тогда, когда ты проверку провалишь. А ещё можно сразу по гайду качаться, там вот прям максимум тогда всего достигнешь.
Есть множество концовок, что зависят от выбранной фракции и действий по ходу игры. Мир интересный. первосажы интересные. Узнавать историю событий минувших дней, результат которых отражается в текушее время - очень увлекательно.
Если вы не боитесь графики, чтения букв и прохождения методом проб, ошибок и перезагрузок, то вы сможите погрузится в невероятную историю этой игры.
И в конце можно либо убить либо не убить либо стать рабом пришельца из другого мира, что жажадет всех поработить, но их вообще двое и можно убить одного для другого, но лушее вообще обоих ибо они людей едят ну это вообще что такое.
Хорошая игра, в общем.

Really liked this one. Most people who gave it a bad review should've read the "Read before buying" section they put up.

is good game posting a review to help the devs

amazing

Still unbeaten to this day for replay ability. You can play the story for 5-10 different angles and discover some minor or major piece of the story every time. A masterpiece.

One of my favorites

A modern classic for players who enjoy serious RPGs and aren't afraid of brutal, challenging combat.

Definitely shows its age, but if you like old school rpgs this is for you.

Had a blast, loved the story and combat, even through the seemingly BS fights. Game changes a lot and one character can't do it all (well.. i couldn't at least) but i enjoyed playing different characters and tackling challenges differently.

I don't like how mutually exclusive everything in this game is, which, to be fair, they disclosed quite well- so that's on me.
You'd have to do multiple play throughs just to see less than half of the content in this game.

But, all that aside, I do like the game- and I do like the developer.

Really really enjoy this game!

The various narrative endings are very fun. And the lore is great.

Brutal, unforgiving, and absolutely brilliant. The world-building is top-tier, and the amount of choice you have is great. Every decision actually matters. It can kick your teeth in, but if you push through, it’s an incredibly rewarding experience.

Beautiful.

Peak RPG.

This is a niche game that scratches the itches of fans of old Isometric Fallout and Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale. If you like grimdark post-apocalyptic settings AND fantasy worlds, this game does both engagingly. In some games, you skip the dialogue and flavor text as fast as humanly possible, in others, you look for and read every tidbit; this game does the latter often. If you were already curious about this game, it doesn't disappoint.

yes

Amazing game, wish we had more old-school hidden gems like is

Really fun game with a lot of depth in worldbuilding. The graphics are nothing to write home about, but at some points this game can be outright beautiful! I completed my first run with the loremaster and I'd say that I had fun uncovering all of the knowledge that's hidden within the old worlds. If you plan to go for a "Peacemaker" loremaster prioritize Lore, Streetwise and Persuasion skills. Keep in mind that you won't be able to build a perfect character that is always going to be able to do everything, and that's what makes it more realistic, you are not the chosen one, you are just a man getting involved in some matters that are out of your realm of understanding.

The game seems like a great storytelling tool as well, describing a characters path. This is achieved by implementing non linearity in a way that makes sense (you can go wherever, whenever pretty much). However, on occasion it can have weird consequences (being locked out of certain locations just because of visiting some others, although this happened only once to me). I praise it for the reactivity as well - when something was done that seemed significant to the plot most of the time it had consequences in one way or another. Some of the characters are memorable and funny.

The entire game I only had to do one combat encounter which wasn't even necessary, so it can actually be finished as a pacifist.

Overall, a very fun game that seems like it holds a ton of replayability.

What I like about age of decadence is that it really makes you think before doing something, it isn't forgiving, you can't just destroy everything on left and right, when you play this game, you'll truly understand meaning of words “best fight is the fight which never happened” and of course, the most important is variety, everything you do has it's impact, so you really have to think twice, before doing something, also the setting itself, unlike many other rpgs it's not traditional medieval fantasy European setting but rather more ancient Roman-Egyptian, all of these makes this game really unique 10/10

Unfortunately I don't feel like I can recommend this game.
I mean, the game has some very interesting and fun ideas, but the execution, not so much.
It is a very, very punishing game in lots of ways, like some dialogue choices where multiple skills are tested: even if you nail a test, but the other goes bad, then you're dead. We also never have enough skill points to be good in many skills, so the game forces us to specialize in either combat skills or social skill, despite the existing mixed "classes", like the assassin, who should be able to be relatively competent both in combat and civil skills, but we always lack the skill points to do so.
Many of the skill checks just outright kill your character if you fail them, as there are no different degrees of succes (as far as I know), you either succeed or fail.
What I mean is a game should be enjoyable without the player having to know all events and story beforehand so they can make a specific build to pass specific skill checks and succeed.
There is also the problem of loading screens: they are quite slow, despite me having an SSD. And as I died a lot, I had to see many loading screens.
Maybe I just didn't enjoy the game much because I started with the assassin class, a mixed class.
I know the game is supposed to be punishing and gritty, but there is a mugger at every corner, and they can just rob and/or kill you and we can do nothing about it. And sometimes when we can, and do, something about it, we are just f***ed in another different way, anyways.

If you wanna have a taste of learned helplessness, then this game for you. There are just too many fatal and otherwise harmful and unavoidable events and you can do almost nothing about it. So count yourself lucky if someone robs all your money but doesn't also kill you.
It has quite a few good ideas, though, so if a sequel is polished a bit more and made a bit less punishing for mixed classes that would be a great improvement

This game is quite fun in it's own unique way. It's difficult, but that enables it to be enjoyable.

What do I mean by that? Well, the game can be beaten in around 10-12 hours, but what's different about AOD is that there's dozens of different choices you can make and characters you can build that take you into different branches throughout it's run time.

In a way, the game almost plays like a hardcore choose your own adventure. It lends itself to experimentation and multiple playthroughs. You might die a lot, but the more you play and mess around with different story paths and builds, the more you'll discover how to beat fights that you aren't meant to win, and the more you'll learn how to ultimately survive this bleak and desolate adventure Iron Tower has created.

The graphics may be dated, but truthfully they didn't bother me. The type of person most likely to play this game, I believe, likely grew up with much older RPGs and won't be bothered by the mediocre 3d visuals.

By default I truly despise games where you move by clicking where you want to go. But this game has too much text lol, sorry, I'd rather read a book.

I absolutely adore this game. I love the setting. I love the old school 'you fucked around and found out' of this game. What a great game. I wish there was more or a sequel in this universe.

:)

I started off as a humble grifter, after blowing up multiple ancient wonders and starting a few civil wars I found myself the chosen of an old god. And everyone lived happily ever after!

Hard game would like to see a second one in the making
But would also like some quality of life to the game .

Awesome game, can be pretty hard. Ever replay can be really different. The setting is amazing. Do wish there was more to this game, it is a world that could have been more developed. If it had twice as much content I feel like it would a lot more well known.

W

Very text heavy which is a strength on account of the games superb writing. Combat is harsh and unforgiving but not impossible. The difficulty of combat paired with well written dialogue kept me immersed in the world and led me to respect the enemy and use my head a bit more. Play the demo before you buy and play the tutorial if you do get the game. Loved this game and cannot recommend it more for those who love RPGs of yore.

Let me start off by saying this: This game is going to beat the sh*t out of you.

No, I'm serious. When you start off in the early game AoD will NOT hold back with regards to just walking up to you, beating you senseless and leaving you lying in a pool of your own blood.
Now if that lovely opener hasn't scared you off then allow me to describe why it's still fun.

Whilst the combat is very vicious, if you specialize your character properly and don't throw skills everywhere, you will ultimately be fine. In the early game you'll suffer because your skills are low and your gear is poor, but as you get better gear and with it better skills, this changes. After a bit of smart stat allocation you will be slaughtering enemies left right and centre, but only if you're smart. One very important thing this game teaches you early on is you absolutely need to use every tool at your disposal. This includes the environment; if you see a piece of furniture/architecture you think you may be able to use to bottleneck enemies, you probably can. You should. In fact I'll remove the illusion of choice from this description: you have to if you want to win large fights by yourself.

However, this only applies for combat. Admittedly I haven't tried any social/stealth builds yet, but that's the beauty of it. Combat is only one approach you can take in this game; there are many others all of which are perfectly viable and fair on the player. Each of the "backgrounds" allow for a variety of different playstyles, but it is important to note that these are not necessarily classes. They can be used to aid in the development of a potential build, but they're more a combination of early-game quests and stat/reputation boosts. Some backgrounds don't buff reputation whatsoever, allowing you to start fresh with all the various groups out there. In fact, you can go through the entire game without joining ANY factions, if you so choose!

My personal recommendation is to start off simple with a mercenary, since that gives the most easy-to-understand start off questline. Other classes need more "spread out" builds in terms of stat allocation, which is not advisable unless you've figured out the ins and outs of AoD.

If all this sounds a tad intimidating, I recommend checking out these guides which helped me a ton when I was starting off:
. A Beginner's Guide to Age of Decadence: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=531086530

. Becoming a Mercenary Gigachad in the Age of Decadence: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2224975838

. The Ultimate Mercenary Guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2085903250

. Melee Hybrid Starting Character (Suitable for all Guilds): https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=831931321


I'll end this by saying I usually dislike top-down RPGs, but this game is certainly bringing me onboard. Even if it is crushingly difficult at points.

Great game, crazy time sink. Start the game at 9pm hoping to sleep by midnight? All the death and re-runs (like the anime re-zero) will time machine you to next morning.
Game is hella hard and I had to read a guide to finish a playthrough (with countless deaths save/load still.)
It's kind of like Pathfinder but way more hardcore.

Great!

I understand why people like it but if you want to play this blind and not be punished for it over an over again I do not recomend it. Save scmming is a staple of this game from what I have had and from what I seen others say as well. Which is not a good thing. Play the demo first and the decide if you want it.

Absolutely.

Really grim and immersive game. Hard, but very emotionaly rewarding when you grow. Even top leveled charachter is vulnerable, and it feels really good. Mature game with an outdated graphics, which requires some time to dive into.
If you are seasoned gamer and love a real challenge - try it.

The difficulty of this game is vastly overblown, it is not something periously difficult, you just have to use your brain from time to time, load alot (death is very common) and save often so you dont lose 1 hour of progress due to a dumb decision, so basically have patience and save and you will hopefully be able to enjoy the game.

Now for the game itself, the story is quite good, not the greatest but definitely insteresting and captivating, characters are well-made and the same goes for dialogue.

Combat just feels heavily similar to classic fallouts and is not the hardest thing but you will struggle if you dont put some thought in your build and it can be quite slow at times but it's not bad.

Now for the bad things, loading times are atrociously long (it's really bad) and there is a costant lights flickering bug that has not been fixed to this day.

Overall it's a 7/10 that could be a 8/10 without the atrociously long loading times and also without the blinding lights flickering.

Dialogues are really bad. You are presented with choices of which you have no idea where they came from or what they mean in the settings because there is barely any introduction. And, they immediately snowball into murder because everybody wants to murder everybody.

A silly game at best.

This game is not for the faint of heart. It is a CRPG precursor to the brutality of the dark souls type of game. As much a mini strategy game as a RPG it's quite well done and engaging. It has good dialogue and writing.