Age of Darkness: Final Stand Review (T4GVN)
So Close to Greatness
This is hard to downvote because there is some enjoyment to be had here, and it could be a great game, but it is riddled with annoying mechanics that hinder you from having fun. Mind you, there is a difference between difficult and annoying. Unfortunately this game is both. As I dived in time and time again to try to enjoy this game, I constantly found myself feeling frustrated by these annoyances and always on the cusp of having fun, but never quite getting the enjoyment that could be there.
Build Diversity, or Lack Thereof
A quick glance at the forums will show this game is "solved," in that there is a rigid build order that will win the game. However, you cannot deviate much from this winning formula. This results in build diversity being non-existent, aside from choices like which hero you play. This is unfortunate because there are some fun things to play around with, but ultimately players are dissuaded from experimentation, and the game seems eager to punish sub-optimal gameplay.
The Excuse of "Difficulty"
Though I understand this game is attempting to be difficult, I believe it is overly leaning into this niche as an excuse and a crutch. Many of the factors that make this game difficult are annoyances and lack of quality of life. One example, the economy of the game relies on you completely clearing the map and sticking a building in every nook and cranny you can find. This is tedious, repetitive, and ironically becomes somewhat mindless as you learn the winning formula. A much better approach would be less but more impactful decisions. This would allow for more flexibility in gameplay, less tedium, and let the player engage with the more enjoyable aspects of gameplay, like...
Combat
A game like this must have enjoyable combat, and to an extent, this does. Unfortunately this aspect of the game also suffers from our the frustrations I previously discussed. The armor mechanic is a great example of this. At a glance, its a very intelligent system! A seperate health bar with a significant auto attack damage reduction until broken- this is brilliant! However, once this bar is broken, it cannot be regenerated until standing beside certain buildings. When only dealing with your hero, or a few units this is fine- until you have dozens and dozens of units all with their own individual armor bars. Systems like these are needlessly frustrating and diminish the player experience. This is yet another example of the game being so painfully close to greatness, but tripping over itself getting caught in the minutiae.
Combat in general requires a lot of micro-mechanic attention lest you lose your units quickly. Mortars that cause an unshakeable debuff(until standing near fire), exploders who walk up to your units before exploding, and more. Using the exploding enemies as an example, most games deal with exploding enemies by allowing them to be taken out from range, if you are paying attention. Bafflingly in this game, exploders have an absurd amount of armor and generally cannot be ranged down, instead, you must manually move your melee units out of the way. This is not difficult. This is annoying.
Lastly, lets talk about...
Heroes, and Power Fantasy
The addition of heroes is a breath of fresh air. Heroes give players a central focus point and meaningful progression via leveling up. Sadly, this is yet another system that falls short of the fun it could deliver. It makes sense to begin the game weaker, and become much stronger as you level up, but heroes are not strong enough.
Even a level 10 Edwin can only do so much in the face of impending hordes of enemies. This is understandable, however, Edwin is a freaking knight with a flaming greatsword. He should be able to slice and dice his way through hordes and hordes of enemies, especially after you've put the hard work of leveling him up all game. The same could be said of all heroes. A max level hero should feel like a one-man army. Players enjoy feeling the progression of all their work pay off and feeling truly powerful. A reward, which is sorely missing here. This leads us to my conclusion...
Stop Being so Afraid of Giving Players Power
Build diversity, hero fantasy, even the reduction of tedium: most of these can be solved by greatly increasing player power across the board. I understand that you are attempting to make a hard game, and that's wonderful. But this is not the way. Focus primarily on making your game fun. Many games are fun and difficult at the same time, not to say there is no enjoyment in the game currently, but to make this game truly great.
Let us break out of the formulaic build and experiment and try different strategies. If something isn't strong, buff it! Let us enjoy the fantasy of slaying hundreds of veil monsters standing alone with our flaming greatsword in hand. Remove the tedium of micro-building every square inch of land. Remove the tedium of manually doing every single tiny thing. Give us freedom to enjoy the game you've spent countless hours creating.
What you have here is so close to being wonderful. Please consider my feedback. I hope to see this game become great, as it should be.