The world suffered a mortal blow a long time ago, it’s just taking a long time to die. 
The isometric, old school RPG the Age of Decadence never holds you hand, apart from the opening sentence which says ‘this game doesn’t hold your hand, just to let you know’. It’s brutal, and can seem unfair. The combat is realistic; in most RPGs that I’ve played, you are Hero McGiantBeardMan, who wields a giant enchanted battlemaceaxehammer of the twenty-seven Gods and kills everything in his path.
In the Age of Decadence, you are a regular Joe who is lucky to be alive; the world is harsh to everyone and everybody, especially those who weren’t born into the last of the noble houses. In AoD, you can take on probably one guy if you aren’t good at fighting, and that’s relying on the fact that the other guy doesn’t know how to fight either.
You are no hero, that’s for sure – in fact, being nice, just like the original Fallouts, is just going to make things tougher for you. Take pity on the poor man who wants to guide you around the slums? Get stabbed by a bunch of hobos and thieves in a back alley.
The world is incredibly unique; a post-apocalyptic Roman Empire with low magic that might as well be real: the entire world is so well written and so plausible that it all just seems to mesh together perfectly; it has the best use of lore and multiple playthroughs I’ve ever seen: to get the entire story of how the world collapsed, play through the game multiple times and explore all the different paths. It’s absolutely brilliant.
The game isn’t easy; I’ve said that already, but I have to emphasise that. You need to have the right skills to get past certain missions, so building your character correctly is important; you need to always have one avenue out, so you have to spread your skills well, without focusing too much on one, and without spreading them out too much either.
Saving, by the way, is advised.
Sometimes the game can get quite frustrating: one particular fight had me practically gnashing my teeth in frustration. But, when I thought about it; my character wasn’t the greatest. Sure, he’d put most of his skills into combat. But those points into Alchemy? They weren’t going to help him against the opponent he was fighting. So he died. Over and over again, until my stubborn side finally relented and thought, okay, I’m going to start again to kill this bastard.
And I did, and I killed the bastard, and it was a great feeling, to finally put the spear through the chest of the guy that had killed me so many times.
This game isn’t for everyone. But for those who like their RPGs hard, and, like E.Y.E, no hand-holding: this is a game for you. It has a superb soundtrack, an even better story and lore behind the world, and a great atmosphere. It might be hard, but it is the Age of Decadence, after all.
Play the free demo on Steam here.