Recent reviews by Wasylus

Great Wizardry 7 inspired game. Released in the 2010s. What does it mean? Well Wizardry 7 was and still IS(!) an excellent game but it is very clunky to play partly because of poorly made interface - badly done even for the 90s - and slow and somewhat grindy gameplay. Grimoire inherits those flaws partially. However, under the flaws hides the exploration of a huge world with many interesting puzzles. Overall - it is dungeon crawler/blobber goodness for anyone who likes this (sub)genre of CRPG.. The graphics are a mixed bag. The window that shows the game world is tiny but some of the 2D graphics are really nice. Gameplay mechanics, again are of mixed quality, they certainly take a lot from Wizardry. You shouldn't be detracted by them but they aren't a strong selling point either.

One last thing. A few of the negative reviews seem to be centered on the person of the game's author. I believe it to be unfair and nonsensical. IF aome of the political views of the authort - whatever they might be - would be actively promoted in the game then the critics might have something to stand on. But as far as i can tell, this is not the case, the game afaik is politically neutral. Take that in mind when looking at the % of recomendations.

Repetitive. Few options available for the player in general. Uninteresting items. Campaign mode is only a collection of scenarios, you can carry a single item into following scenario and that's about it.
It isn't a very bad game, there is some fun to be had here but overall it's mediocrity incarnated.

I am on the fence with this one. It's one of those games where "neutral" recommendation is the best answer but not available so i went with negative because i can't in good conscience recommend it - despite some good things about it.
First the positives:
+ It's a "political" themed strategy game where your main area of interest is in internal affairs, not conquest or international politics. This is a "+" in my book because such games are on one side something I enjoy and secondly are very, very few.
This game very strongly reminds me of a late 80s game "Hidden Agenda" - except less deep and more silly than "HA". The biggest difference being that here you have a fictional Middle-Eastern banana republic in 21st century instead of a fictional Central American banana republic in late Cold War era. The similarities are so big (also in some gameplay elements) I wonder if it's only a coincidence. Another title that might have been used as source of ideas is "Crisis in the Kremlin" from early 90s, If those games really served as source of inspiration - that's not a bad thing at all, I believe that taking ideas from forgotten old gems is not done enough in the game industry.
+ It has some climatic elements done well, like the bull***t interview as the intro.

The downsides however, oh my...
- It's shallow. The mechanics are extremely simple to the point of being ridiculously so. The worst offender are probably the "policies". Basically you can change them as you see fit at any time on every turn. No delay, no political cost, no problem in implementation. One day the country has no social policies at all - the next turn it has them on level comparable to Germany or Sweden. And then on the 3rd turn not at all again. Because why not, makes sense, right ?
- The only challenge comes from heavy RNG, Otherwise getting both money and good ratings is easy once you learn how. Which can be "mastered" in one, maximum two games. Some of the major crisis are brutal but which one you get is rng based. Except the last one as i understand it which is always the same.
- Some gameplay elements are completely useless, like the resources which are good to make money but otherwise don't serve a purpose (and not, the laughably weak bonuses to relations with certain groups if you complete some "sets" of resources are useless as ratings are much easier to come by than money is and money can buy ratings via many events and buildings anyway not to mention is essential for fighting the major crisis),
- Too many gameplay choices are simply always the optimal ones. For exemple the special projects - they're only moderately useful and some are mostly added for "fun" it would seem. However one (the hydroelectic power project) is very profitable if done early (and won't fail which is RNG based you can only modify the chance but never to 100%).
- Low replayability value im my opinion. There are some additional starts to unlock and "hard difficulty" but they don't seem to do much, except even worse rng in hard mode.
- And one of the worst things I left for last: interface. Or rather the fact that every single thing your character does is animated. Sure you can skip some/most of the animaions but there are some that I don't think you can, for exemple the talks with an American Ambassador. In general this game looks and plays as if too much effort went into "cinematic looks" instead of on more interesting, challenging, varied and deeper mechanics.
- The whole thing feels like a collage of semi-random elements glued together without much thought, spiced with heavy RNG and mixed with a lot of forcibly "funny" or "cool" elements but not resulting in a coherent gameplay.

Overall:
5/10

It's not a terible game. It's good fun for the first 2 or 3 (short) games. It's still a "political" game even if extremely simple, silly and shallow mechanically and ridden with horrible design decisions like the mentioned animations.
As i said in the beginning, i would give it a "neutral" recommendation if I could. For anyone who like the sub-genre it's worth a try (buy at heavily discounted price). For anyone else my recommendation is: don't bother.

An adaptation of a (relativelyt complex, card-based) boardgame set in napoleonic era. Grand strategy + Napoleonic era + tactical battles (+ turn-based) = very many of things i like a lot in one package. Overall i rate this game positively but if you are not a big fan of the all of the above elements you should consider the several downsides:
- The player can only play as one side (French). Playing as British was planned to be added at later date... in a DLC... that never came to be, In an adaptation of a 2-player boardgame making one side of the conflict playabe via DLC is a questionable business practice in my opinion but that's subjective. However because that DLC never materialised it is objectively a major flaw,
- No multiplayer in any form, Normally I don't mind much but it would be a nice addition.
- Interface is very pretty but not very well thought of, especially selecting armies and splitting/merging them is a bit annoying and feels outdated somehow. It also lacks some of information, for exemple no dice rolls are shown which is weird in a boardgame adaptation. You also can't check certain things that a boardgame player could (number of cards in opponent hand, current pools of available units, possibly more).
- The AI, although not the worst in the world, could use a lot of improvements. It's competent in tactical battles (following a few simple rules that the player will follow as well most of the time) and when concentrating it's armies. However not so much in the strategic layer that includes the use of cards and movement of armies and especially fleets on the map. The two most glaring flaws in my opinion are:
1) inability to manage it's fleets properly, especially once something goes wrong. Example is when the player uses "Storms" card creating a local numerical advantage and then instantly plays another card weakening British navy. The AI will usually chose to remove another squadron from the already weakened fleet decreasing its own odds in the following battle even further. And once the French win the first major naval engagement the AI isn't programmed to regroup it's fleets to face the threat properly. This one is a bit disapointing because naval aspect of the game is extremely simple and imo it should be possible to program a competent AI.
2) the AI will predictably always attempt to bring a major power to war with France when it can, even if at that particular moment it's in the French best interest to defeat an isolated and weak power (and gain several cards in the process), This one is probably really hard to programm as it's where the most intricate part of the game normally lies so no big complaint here, just noticing. I suspect getting a good oponent on strategic level is only possible with a human at the wheel, this aspect of the game is too complex.

Having said all the above, mentioning all the flaws shouldn't detract from the conclusion that I liked the game. It's charming, it's in its own way pretty. It's an adaptation of a really well-thought boardgame. it can even be challenging the first time or two. There is also an "emperor" level of difficulty that can be challenging even longer, the problem I have with the latter is that although most of bonuses to the AI and disadvantages fo the player make sense, there is the 1 card per turn for the AI rule (instead of normal 1 card / 2 turns) that sort of kills the political part of the game. It wouid probably be better if AI had even bigger advantages in other fields (even more units when a major power is reactivated, +2 instead of +1 to all AI commander ratings, etc... instead of the 1 card/turn).

Overall, i liked and enjoyed it despite its flaws:
7/10
Substract a point if napoleonic era is not your thing, Substract another if highly abstract boardgames in general or card-based boardgames are not to your liking.
Add one if the lack of ability to play as British (that was meant for a ^#%@#%! DLC that never came) and the lack of multiplayer don't bother you.

Tactical turn-based combat - best since... uhhh, i can't even remember. Believe it or not, it is simply great, almost perfect mix of depth/challenge at the same time remaining fast to learn the basics and to play. 10/10.

Everything else - 6 or 7/10
Graphics/art is very nice, atmosphere is great, gameplay outside of combat - average. I like how that your mercs die easily and are 100% expendable like in games like X-Com (the original one), etc... On the other hand the options outside of combat are not very fleshed out. There are too few things to "do" on the main map.

Total: 8.5/10 gets "subjectively" adjusted by up, i simply like Battle Brothers very much.
Final score 9/10 - possibly the best game (outside of "true" rogulike genre) i played in years.

My simple "review" of Age of Decadence. Divided in pros and cons. It may contain some half-spoilers so be warned.
In no particular order.

+ Solid writing (obviously relative to other CRPGs, not books)
+ Challenging combat at times
+ Replayability (i only finished it 1 time but from other started games i can say that the game play very differentely depending on your character and choices).
+ Interesting and original gameworld and story for a CRPG (truly original, not as in: "It has dwarves and elves but dwarves don't have beards !"). Weird but mostly logical mix of science-fiction, greco-roman culture, postapocalyptic (think "Canticle for Leibowitz" kind of apocalyptic), a world that illustrates the 3rd Clarke law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
+ A rarely exploited theme: Political struggle described in a semi-realistic way. The player may influence the outcome but himself is not one of the main figures invloved,
+ No clear distinction of good and evil - the grey morality thing that many CRPG try to pull off is actually done well in this one.
+ Indiana Jones vibes (very subjective)
+ Some pretty art (illustrations for some in-game events or items in inventory). On the other hand the engine and 3D assets look often rather bad (see below)

- Graphics (3D technology used and the looks of some of the towns/locations) are rather bad.
- Difficulty curve for combat focused characters is weird: the beginning of the game is by far the most difficult part.
- A few small bugs here and there even after a year of patches.
- It isn't party based: such a waste considering the tactical combat system implemented (a very subjective point).
- Player may feel a bit railroaded in a few places to push the plot which contrasts with the most of the game where you are left the choices.
- Character system where you can add points to your skills on the fly, at any place, any time. The result: game begs your to savescum. Could have been done better imho.
- Most playthroughs (from what i've read, only finished the game once so far) lead you to the same place = The Temple as some of the endings require you to be there. A little disapointing for a game that is supposed to be strongest at doing branching story and real choices and consequences.

Overall i am quite impressed. With the exception of the very beginning of the game that felt a bit underwhelming i had a blast playing it. Despite the flaws (the biggest one would be the technology used, the game simply looks ugly in many places) it is an interesting attempt to make a CRPG that tries something new (a truly branching story) and at the same times tries to make an enjoyable turn based/stats-chek heavy/story heavy game a la early Fallouts, Arcanum, etc...

Final score: 8/10
(This is very high in my book, 5/10 = an average game, not "game worse than Hitler")

+ great artwork, music, narrator, atmosphere - this game oozes atmosphere from every byte, every 0 and 1... as long as you don't spot the design flaws and questionable mechanics.

- really f****d up design. Basiaclly, a game where you cannot lose. It works in some genres (adventure, some builders, etc) but in a game like this one (mix of rpg / roguelike / management / something else ?) this isn't simply a very bad design choice on a very basic level - it is imo unacceptable and kills the game for me.
- mechanics, some are questionable but i think it really comes from the big basic flaw mentioned in the point above. There is no losing, so in consequence the characters are unmemorable and 100% replacable... Similarly: because the game has so much repetition at its core design so dungeons must be extremely simplistic with little interesting features.


Good for the hours before you can spot the major flaws in its mechanics and basic gameplay concept and the game starts to get repetitive. Those early hours are great so you might want to enjoy it anyway.

Verdict: 5/10 = Not recommended

Absolutely amazing game so far, Possibly the best CRPG since early 2000s for me. Will write a better review after a full playtrough.

Good game overall. One of the best "blobbers" released in the last few years.

+ Good combat system for the subgenre.
+ Can be challenging at times (on the higher difficuly level) but not frustrating
+ Stable, runs good (after the latest patch), interface is adequate.

- Somewht poor in party customization options departament. There are too few races/professions.
- The itemization is poor. Mostly diablo-like generic items with one prefix and one suffix.
- The publisher service "thing" that you need to subscribe to and then log each time you play - in this single-player game as if Steam wasn't enough.

My final verdict: Liked it despite its flaws. Score: 7 out of 10.