Age of Fear 3: The Legend

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An excellent old-school strategy, the graphics are certainly not impressive, but there are a lot of interesting mechanics in the game, which makes the gameplay interesting.
7/10

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i bought this game and its dlc for $20 on sale. it was not worth the money.
it feels like a dlc for a game being sold stand alone and feature incomplete. you only get 2 factions (except for multiplayer) even though it is fun at times it is not a complete game. they are calling it a sequel when in any other game it would be called a faction pack. they are updating all of their "games" rather then making 1 feature(and faction) complete game and then add dlc to that. as is it is 6 gigs for 2 races and every game is another 6 gigs for 2 races and at no point can you play any race from another "game" and each one is charging a full game's price(as of writing the second game is 24.99 base price) it is not worth 2$55 even as a dlc let alone a "full game". if all of their games were combined into 1 single game it might be worth $45 then adding paid dlc later on. as for right now it is not worth the money per "game"

I bought this game during a sale and sat on it for way longer than I should have. What can I say, the graphics and presentation sort of put it the "I'll get to it when I get to it" pile. Well, I finally got to it and I had a great time! 🏆 And funnily enough, the game has only gotten better with age. 👨‍🍳🤏

That's because the excellent developers "backport" innovations from others in the series to their games, so you get to enjoy the latest and greatest when you play. They really are great -- and response and friendly on the forums, too. 🤗

Anyone who likes turn-based army games (FF tactics, Age of Wonders, Ogre Battle, etc.) will enjoy Age of Fear. You get to run an army, upgrade your troops, try lots of different units and tactics, and have a guided campaign (or two) to keep you going. The design is generous with options and allows for a wide range of difficulties. Pick it up, support good devs, and have some fun... and no need to rush, the game will be great whenever you get around to it. 👴💯

Fantastic RPG, fantastic series! A+++ for me as far as tactical RPGs go. Play the whole series, lose yourself in the countless hours of pure enjoyment. Hope this helps! Much love. <3

Excellent third installment in the series, adding the fifth and sixth campaigns, with the dryads and the dwarves respectively.

I played the campaign with the dwarves, and it was good. The tone was off-kilter and mirthful. You meet (and beat) half a dozen characters from the other campaigns, inflict random carnage, reconquer your ancestral fortress, and slay crafty baddies. The dwarves have strong infantry, good medium-ranged archers, and weak mages. The game gives you an archmage to compensate. At the end you get a strong medium-range cannon.

Of the two DLC's, the one with the werewolves is the better one. It gives you a powerful melee hero to play around with.

The hardest difficulty felt right. The enemies put up a little but of a fight, and you have to reply entire fights if you make mistakes.

Hope to see a master edition some day, with an engine rewrite in something other than Java, and with all the campaigns in one place.

Great series - thank you to the devs!

I might not have bothered with a review since I need to be either incredibly impressed or massively wound up by a game to do it, but some dwarves asked me to.

I'm not kidding. I finished the first expansion (which was dirt cheap, short, well made and pretty fun overall) and then my little dwarfy soldiers had a conversation where they talked about how reviews help indie games and asked me to post one. Normally this would really annoy me, but considering how much time I've put into the completely free 'Age of Fear: The Free World' and the fact it genuinely made me laugh I'll go along with the beardy little gits and pen this. I'll do the usual and write sections about the different bits of the game that jump out at me, but I will say that you can stop reading, go download the absolutely free 'Age of Fear: The Free World', play that and decide if you'll like this game based on your experience there. It's free, which I might have mentioned already, has everything but a main story arc and is constantly being updated, which is crazy. Free game, yet still gets big updates? Yeah. Anyways, back to AoF 3.

First thing, the Dev. He might not actually sleep. He might genuinely be some sort of game making artificial intelligence. I found a bug and reported it on the steam forums. Not only did I get an email with an apology, once I send back the save with the bug it was fixed in less than 24 hours via a hotfix. Name one big publisher who would do any of that. Go ahead, I'll wait. (I wont wait, you wont be able to name any.)

Second thing. Graphics. I wont say retro, because they don't have that godawful fake pixelated thing going on, and you can tell what you are looking at easily enough but if you are the sort of person who cares about it, they do look like they could have come from a game from about 15 years ago. I don't consider it a bad thing, it's a nice, clean art style, but then again there are people who send threatening emails to developers if any texture in a game is less than 4 gig in size so your mileage may vary here.

The combat is really nicely done, which considering it's such a big part of the game it should be. It's easy to get the hang of, doesn't take too long and also isn't over in a couple of turns either - it hits that sweet spot where it becomes very easy to convince yourself you have time for one more battle before you need to go back to dealing with real life.

The factions in the game are all really well done, I'll say that. I've been playing as the Dwarves (and I've played as undead, humans and greenskins in Age of Fear: Open World) and they all play differently, something that's tricky to do without making any be useless. Humans are as usual, the generic faction, the greenskins have a lot of weak troops backed up by some monstrous elites and heroes, the dwarves are slow, heavily armoured very tanky, the undead are a relentless tide of slain enemies getting back up again and so on.


TL:DR - It's good, buy it if you like old school squad management type games.

AGE OF FEAR: THE LEGEND + THE ELEMENTALIST

The third game of this turn based, RPG, strategy series with two further campaigns and factions: forest folk and the stubborn dwarves.
The forest folk campaign is pretty good, with a lot of funny moments because one of your heroes is a Dryad, a nature-lover character, while the other is a Drider, an evil unit full of violence. The story is related in a very interesting way: the bad guy reading letters reporting the events. Second best story, just behind Chaos campaign in AOF2.
As it’s usual in this series, the campaign will give you different choices and paths, and your decisions will make either good or evil to win. The units of the factions are unique, (Okey, they are Ents), but most of them are innovative and I had never seen them before.
The Elementalist expansions gives it, yet, another twist, because the loot from that missions can be carried to the main story… won’t make any spoiler, just a hint: Elementals.
The dwarf campaign is very straight forward, just as the dwarves themselves. The good thing is that they were not put as the heroes of most games, but like violent, drunkard and unfriendly beings what is nice for the change.
The game is ready for a replay as different decisions have different outcomes and the open world has its own stories and secrets.
Another bright thing is that the game is always under changes, adding more locations, rebalancing units, items… and things like faction base will soon be a reality, which will make the game even better.

Very good games and I played for 60+ hours now in this series. ThoughI have some feelings and suggestions:

First I go with some defaults and potential improvement in my opinion.

1. Difference race is not very well balanced.

1.1 Death power is too OP in general because the catapult of death is the only accessible one to capture, and super OP and can be resurrected. In late game you can even set up a catapult legion. Also. a legion of Lich is also OP because they can resurrect each other. No mentioning wights can be the solution to almost all hard fights. Basically a legion made up of death hydra, catapult and lich is way powerful than any combination in other races: high aoe damage with morale decrease for all, all-resurrect-able and not influenced by morale. Even units as dark knights which would be quite popular units in other races but it is off the top 3 OP list in Death units.
I don't mind if it is too OP (XD), but it makes other races less attractive (especially you can get three death hydra for free in all campaign in AOF 2 and 3). And another factor that death are so attractive is that they usually move very fast which make the battle much more flexible.

1.2 Orc is kind of the weakest race in the beginning for the poor 1hp goblins with their short attacking range. And it looks like a joke when goblin-bomb is available to be recruit (yes I literally laughed out when I saw them). Most basic units are still functional when their level is high enough in late game. But a bomber is literally a waste of my precious exp and money. Also green-skins are basically not parable with most races (even for necromancers and dark knights which is kind of funny) makes it more difficult.

1.3 Dwarves are super boring to play compare with other races and the reason is simple: their advantage is not enough compare with their low speed. This kind of game is usually slow and the slow move of those dwarves always makes me disband the whole team and get other races instead to reduce the time spent on a campaign. Maybe increase the damage for a balance. Same thing happens on Ents. yeah they are powerful walls but I barely use them because it slows the whole fight.

2. The exp system is not clearly described even some of it can be guessed. If I want to train an unit what should be my concern? For units like monks they are healers and how can they get exp since they don't have any aggressive skills?

3. This is more like a suggestion. It looks like the only function for the wings of creatures is to increase their volume to block others ( : P ) my wyverns always block each other with their giant "wings"(so as chimeras). It would be nice if those creatures can really "fly through" units and obstacles (or maybe I play too much Heroes of Might and Magic?)


Then I got some ideas about further improvement.

1. Compared with such well developed game system, story elements is a little bit weak . The stories are still good for entertainment but it can also provide more. This kind of strategic games can combine with literature elements which is an advantage that many fast-food video games today can't have. In the past such games often can develop a huge world system. The alternative story branches can be enriched as well. In the game the choices usually doesn't make much difference.
Indeed that sounds like a lot of work. Would it be cool if players can edit their own campaign and story? (I don't mind to pay for it as a separate game editor engine)

2. Could the morale system get changed as the effect of morale is based on the units showing up in the battle instead of in the team? It is always fun to collect different creatures but the morale becomes a big limitation. Also nagas and gargoyles are not allowed to capture is kind of sad (yeah I know this is not Pokemon but still)

3. After the units reach maximum level, would it be good if the extra exp can be converted into HP or other attributes in a relatively low rate? Then different units in same kind are not all the same in late game.

4. Some hidden evolve tree and perk trees can be added. Some creatures are not commonly seen, such as genies, snakes, wyvern, rats and bees ( I still haven't seen wild snakes yet except the ones summoned out of witch pot). It feels more fun if some unique units can be developed which is not accessible through normal way. Evolving pigs and chickens also sounds very interesting because they are very rare.

Anyway these are just my own opinions. This is a really good game and I haven't seen such games for a long time. Well done

And it is really sweet that you guys always prepare the advertising videos with real-person acting LOL

---{Graphics}---
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☑ Paint.exe

---{Gameplay}---
☐ Very good
☑ Good
☐ It‘s just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Starring at walls is better
☐ Just don‘t

---{Audio}---
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ Earrape

---{Audience}---
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Human

---{PC Requirements}---
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boiiiiii
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

---{Difficulity}---
☐ Just press ‚A‘
☐ Easy
☐ Significant brain usage
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

---{Grind}---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isnt necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You‘ll need a second live for grinding

---{Story}---
☐ Story?
☐ Text or Audio floating around
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovley
☐ It‘ll replace your life

---{Game Time}---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

---{Price}---
☐ It’s free!
☑ Worth the price
☑ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

---{Bugs}---
☐ Never heard of
☑ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

I have played the game for 15 hours and experienced at least 10 occasions where the game has locked up. Every time the freeze occured during a battle loading scene. This probalem may be related to my 5 year old computer, but regardless, I'm moving on.

Really enjoy this game !...Don't know if the updates are automatic but Ill keep searching. M only problem so far is every other battle or 2 the game gremlins out and you can see the code instead of the game. Im running windows 7 pro and maybe that's the problem, just hate 10. I will be getting all new content as it comes though. Just fun to play!!...(side note ) cant get the giant strength to work

I can't explain it. This game looks awful at first glance. Don't let that fool you. Sure, it looks like something a programmer would use as placeholder art, but it grows on you. And let's face it, if you didn't immediately put this game on your ignore list, you are like me, and don't worry much about that stuff. And for good reason! The combat is surprisingly in depth. The RPG system of leveling up your heroes and units are far superior to many AAA games out there. The campaign is quite open ended with multiple endings. It's truly fantastic. A very surprising gem. Buy this game. Now. Do it. Support indie devs like this one.

Very well excuited series of turn based TRPG's with pixel based movement. To be honest I was really put off by the series promotional art, and delayed buying this for a very long time, but found a much nicer game under the hood than I was expecting.

Bascially you have a set of heros who can equip gear, and a set of generic troops who can't, but everyone has extensive exp development options, you put together a crew and rampage around the world in a series of fixed campaign missions which are either optional or required to advance the story line. Dead units stay dead so be careful. Somewhat like fire emblem with better combat and worse writing/character development.

Developing your band is fun, unit varity makes for alot of potential approaches, there's a very high cap on total unit size, but it can feel restrictive because you have so many guys you could potentially develop to try out. Low on the production values too, so don't expect a beautiful game. I feel like the dev is constantly doing retroactive updates to the older titles so all three play pretty similarly, the main difference being which army you are taking through the campaign.

The writing could use some polish, your also more or less fixed in your personality type based on the campaign so be ready to plan some villinious scum in this series.

What a great game, and a great series. This is exactly the kind of turn based Tactical RPG that lovers of the genre should consider a must-have. It plays like a short D&D campaign complete with levelling up and equipment upgrades. I found this filled the void after Darkest Dungeon and Battle Brothers. Great job Dev's!

I'm going to give a thumbs up, but I do have some minor complaints. As such, I'm going to just list the negatives followed by a statement on why the thumbs up.

1. Price is too high for the game. I understand 'supporting indie developers' but the price here is just not jusitified for the content. Unfortunately, its a give and take type of relationship here, but I feel like they are taking more than they are giving.

2. Compared with previous titles, I found the story bland. Not that the earlier titles had some amazing story, but they were good stories. I simply do not enjoy someone 'telling my story'. I know it seems silly, but it takes away from the game for me. In a game so close to a D&D session and gives me that fix, it takes away from my 'character' if I can not 'forge my own' story. That my story is set in stone. This is a personal preference and I realize that this isn't going to affect many others.

3. No real customization yet on the 3rd game. At this point I was hoping maybe to have some sort of way to equip troops or customize their looks or something. The map addition to the 2nd and 3rd game is great, but in a lot of ways when putting out a 3rd game there needs to be a jump somewhere so it doesn't feel like an expansion. The 3rd game feels like an expansion I paid more for than the original.

4. No attack of oppurtunity. I saw a comment complain about this before, and your way of dealing with it is backstabbing, but really its not an effective way of dealing with things. Perhaps there is another way, but I'm not sure what. I feel like this gives me an exploit in a lot of battles that made things too easy, and it really needs a rework.

5. Cheap boss tactics. I won't say the fight, but there is a fight where you are forced to use a catapult without too much of a clear indicator you should. I actually turned the game off and never played again after because a certain boss killed my 'hero' in one hit from full health. After all the work I did to clear up the map, it feels like a cheap way to force me to lose units for no reason.

Anyway, there are other small petty reasons I can list, but as you can see each of these reason for the most part are very specific to people like me, and since I may not have enjoyed the 3rd game so much, I do feel like others will enjoy the game. There are many things to enjoy too - turn based thought filled battles, troop management, RPG leveling and gearing up, a grand story to fill your desire for a D&D campaign, ect ect. Don't be fooled, these games for a turn based D&D fan are a hidden gem that needs to be bought. I'm willing to answer any and all questions about the game also to make sure I didn't scare anyone away.

I've only played a few turn-based strategy games, but after finishing the Age of Fear trilogy I intend to play a lot more – including any future Age of Fear games that should emerge. The tabletop-style maps are not fundamentally all that different from the grid-based battlefields of Fire Emblem and XCOM, but I personally got a warm fuzzy sensation from painstakingly positioning my troops where I thought they would be most effective – plus, the lack of a clearly-defined grid makes human error a more distinct possibility, as there were times when an enemy was able to charge through a gap in my formation that I'd thought I'd sealed up. The fact that most movement can only be conducted in a straight line also forces the player to plan ahead, lest reinforcements end up trapped behind the allies they are trying to save – something which gives added value to units with the segmented move skill, who can dodge around front-ranks troops to engage the mages and archers who usually hide near the rear.

Although most battles will eventually devolve into a massed melee at some point or other, the band of beer-swilling dwarves plays quite differently from the army uniting the disparate forces of nature. The Dwarves have tough infantry and ale that heals them at the expense of dulling their skills for a few turns, whilst the Forces of Nature have diverse options including cannon-fodder plants that can regrow if they are slain in battle, sturdy ents, mushroom-people archers, a drider whose quick attacks can be devastating if he is properly equipped, and a huge spiky bear. In the aftermath, the player is taken to a menu where they can recruit new troops, teach veterans new skills, equip or sell items that have been found or stolen in battle, and purchase other pieces of equipment. The capacity to customise your main heroes is quite extensive, and even your lowlier soldiers can carry a couple of potions, allowing for a wider range of tactical possibilities than even the previous two games provided.

The visuals are simple but effective; different units are easily recognisable, and although the animations are pretty basic they get the job done. The tabletop-gaming aesthetic serves a useful function, too: in, say, a Dwarf-versus-Dwarf battle, your troops will have different coloured bases from your enemies, so you can distinguish between them at a glance. Age of Fear might not be a treat for the eyes, but it's no eyesore either – I'd much rather have functional graphics that work reliably than a glitch-ridden mess, and I'm glad AoF has the former.

The two campaigns each took me around sixteen hours to complete, approximately twice as long as the average campaign in AoF1 or AoF2; the occasional plot-based decision, varying difficulties, hidden secrets and achievements all offer a player excuses for replaying them, if you're that way inclined. The Dwarf campaign wasn't much to write home about, consisting mostly of short angry people being rude to other people and then fighting them (the story of my life…), but the tale of the Dryad and the Drider had more of a narrative arc to it, plus a trio of heroes whose bantering made up for the fact that many of their troops were literally vegetables.

OVERALL
If pressed, I would confess that this was my least favourite of the Age of Fear games. Maybe this is the result of me playing all three games back-to-back in the span of a few months, giving me a case of Turn-Based Tactical Fatigue; maybe it was because AoF3 was undergoing a transitional period in the weeks I played it, as the developers grafted open-world elements onto the campaign in a fashion that gave the game a work-in-progress feel to it – but there was a certain je ne sais quoi about playing the two campaigns in this game that left me a little less enamoured than my experience of the previous games. Nevertheless, I did play them, and I did like them. The core gameplay remains the same, so it's unlikely to win over anyone who disliked the previous games, but the ambition and dedication on display by the developers – introducing new characters and factions with each game, and releasing free patches and upgrades at what seems to be a rate of more than once a week – should be applauded, especially in these times when the monetization of video-games is a much-debated issue. All in all, the AoF blend of turn-based tactics and role-play gaming mechanics has produced another good game, and I look forwards to seeing where the series goes next.

I'm a big fan of this series and AOF3 did not disappoint. The mechanics will be familiar to anyone who's played the previous games, but it's solid and enjoyable. It's not grand strategy but an uncomplicated, small scale battle system that often stacks the odds against you, but doesn't feel cheap and provides a lot of satisfying payoffs.

The game has two campaigns and both have the charm that again will not surprise fans of the series. There is a lot of well written banter between characters. The first campaign has you commanding a Druid, her Spider Elf companion and a Witch, with an army made up of forest creatures. The second is a Dwarven campaign.

Definitely recommend people jump onto this entire series. It deserves a lot more attention

Solid gridless turn-based battle system with lots of units. Clearly the strong point of the game!

Character progression, equipment, recruiting, reserves...Many strategic elements to manage your progression.
AoF3 already offers two long campaigns but more is coming with many side missions.
The difficulty levels allow from an almost casual game to an hardcore bloody struggle for survivor!

The top down view used during battles is not the prettiest out there but the eye candy is replaced by usability, the many battlefileds are clear and all the info you need is always a click away.

Steam Workshop and the in game Editor provide the tools to create campaigns, modifying units or simply adding content to existing campaigns.

The AoF series is expanding by the day (the dev updating the three games regularly, fine tuning balance, adding content and expanding the world map). I will update my review as the new mechanics and feature come in play.

The AoF Bundle really is a good deal for any turn-based lover, regardless of the level of challenge you seek, be prepared for a different take on turn-based battles!

Great game! Really enjoying the depth of the RPG elements involved here. I'm currently playing the Nature side quest campaign. The story is acutally pretty good, and the way you get to build yor squad is nice also, get to add alot of toons quickly and get them leveled quickly to be ableto compete as the story moves along which is cool. Theres planty of items potions and the like also (and there acutally useable b4 you need to upgrade them again) Also you get 2 hero's not just 1 whick i think is just awsome. Overall the gameso far has alot of depth to it and yes i do recommend this title and subsequent titles also, Good game here. My 2 cents

I feel bad not recommending this game. It's not careless or disrespectful of the audience. There's a lot of value with 2 branching campaigns. Unit variety is nice, upgrade options for units (who stay with you mission to mission) is varied and interesting. The story itself is not well written but it is original as are the characters.

It's an indie game with basic production value, no animation and fairly bad art. But that's not why I'm not recommending it, I've played long enough to not care, especially for a turn based strategy game.

The reason I'm not recommending it is because the turn based strategy part is awfully shallow. I'm used to certain basic things - zones of control, modifiers for range and cover, line of sight, fog of war, penalties for being surrounded, etc. etc. This has none of them. On top of that units move slowly and just can't get around each other (and can't move again after moving even a tiny bit). During most fights you'll just shuffle your back units around ineffectually, trying to move them past other units with massive bases that you can't get through.

Maybe some people would like the design decisions that went behind this game. You can read the full review just in case. I did not enjoy the game and found it to be a long, boring slog.