Recent reviews by DefinitelyNotJim

Overall the game was great fun, finished the main campaign with around 20~ hours and spent another 15 playing around with the building, exploring and trying to find everything. I played with 2-3 friends but it was more of a we are in the same world and would occasionally help each other, rather than we are an adventuring party.

TL:DR Great game, although a few cons, none of them ruined my experience and the game is worth every penny.

Pros:
+ Runescape: I have played rs since 2004 and having a new IP in the lore is great. I loved getting my staff of light, abyssal whip, granite maul, etc. I also really enjoyed the little references scattered through-out, even mention of Bob's Brilliant Axes.
+ The combat was pretty fun, nothing new. If you have played games like Fate, Enshrouded, Outward, Valheim, then you have played Dragonwilds (at least the core).
+ The building was phenomenal, I didn't really do much building until after I had completed the main quest, but once I did I made an entire village with various shops, a hero's tower, the arena and a prison. I was surprised with how much I enjoyed the experience, considering I don't really like building in most games.
+ The music was surprisingly good for me. I ended up turning off my playlist and just vibing to it for a while.
+ The biomes were beautiful and unique and I enjoyed the diversity of each (except one, which I will mention later)
+ The utility, I really liked the way the game handled utility with various food buffs, potions and spells. This goes hand in hand with runescape, but I reminisce of gather pots/prayers/summons for various content.
+/- Velgar constantly attacking me really generated some loathing and hatred. It has been a while since I truly wanted to kill something in a game. Now this is a catch 22, because it will be listed as a con, but I AFTER the fact, I look on to it and I kind of liked the annoyance. Sitting around the base, minding my business and the BBEG comes and messes with me. Not many games do this and I thought it was unique and it made me care about the quest much more than, hey this dude is bad kill him.

Cons
- Velgar to continue, although I really enjoyed his meddling the combination of the poison going through structures (man made and generated) and the frequency of the attacks really chapped my buns. I can honestly say that Velgar has left an impression on me and I will be in the nursing home still talking about this A**hole, this definitely generated a core memory and it is anger 100%. Good news though, once you progress far enough in the quest, it seems he stops attacking. But yeah, eff you Velgar.
- Raids/hunts, so kinda like velgar, I like to be kept on my toes and having to deal with these types of situations. My issue is for one, they happen far to often it feels, little to no rewards for doing it, it feels more like a punishment for being afk then a fun engaging mechanic. One time I was hunted, killed them, teleported and immediately hunted again. Not a major deal because it is easy enough to deal with, but I don't feel rewarded for doing this, and some of the hunts early on can be tough. Going into the tier 4 zone and being hunted with only bronze gear, shew... or having to go to the bathroom and afk in your base just to have a raid or hunt destroy half of it in 30 secs. Maybe if I could set up defense to deal with destroying my base (a future feature but until then this is a con).
-Lighting in the tier 4 zone is atrocious. I get the zone is suppose to have a vibe of "even the biome wants you dead", but way to dark for me. I maxed out my brightness and kept up the fire spirit and still couldn't see. Aesthetically, its cool to be in total darkness and a flash of lightning lights up the screen and you see you are in the middle of a herd of wolves and garou. Gameplay wise, it is a chore.
-Some of the tuning feels off, spells like tempest shield just completely negates so much of the danger of situations. To get this spell so early and for it to body pretty much any form of damage is silly. I like the parry system, risk/reward for a skill based action. Tempest shield is the opposite, all reward, no risk and the reward is major.
-Magic combat felt terrible compared to melee and range. I would give this a break because the skill isn't "implemented" but neither is range and it felt really good and strong. With the staff of light and tier 4 magic gear I think it would take 2.5-3 rotations to kill a single mob with air spells, compared to 2 arrows or a single melee combo. There were situations that magic felt ... ok, but never good.
- The progession of materials and items felt... off. I would find recipes in a tier 2 zone that required tier 3 or 4 mats. Outside of the masterwork items, I went nuts trying to find it thinking if I found the recipe here, then the items should be here. Some of the items are also not intuitive to find, for example swamp weed and anima infused bark. Swamp weed is in the swamp duh, but I searched for 30 minutes and found 2. Took me a while to find any significant amount, for something that is used in armor and weapons, that was a bit of a pain (just do the dragonkin vault in the swamp, best way I found to find it) and the anima infused bark, I completely overlooked until much later in the game, there was no real indication on how to find it and I just so happened see a tree I thought looked cool and found that it was lying on the ground there.
- Optimization isn't great, I dislike that the visual settings are decoupled and that I can't turn things like bloom and shadows off without editing the engine.ini.

Summary
All in all, the pros outweighed the cons massively. I had a lot of fun and the cons were more of minor nuisances, instead of game breaking deterrents.

I have been playing Age since I was a kid and have loved every minute of it. I was really disheartened when the series ended and often found myself going back and playing AoE2, AoM and AoE3. When I heard of this game I was hyped, but worried on how AoE would progress after AoE3. I have to say this meets every one of my expectations as a long time fan and I think it may be one of the best yet. Twenty hours down, many more to come!

Played it's predecessor and really enjoyed it so I decided to pick it up and try it. I have really enjoyed it so far. I love the new factions and have enjoyed the campaign. It is a niche genre, however if you like RTS games I would highly recommend giving this title a try.

I love this game. Have been playing it for about a week and have put in around 100 hours. So first thing first, this is not the game for you if you get mad about dying. You die ALOT! Players will kill, animals will kill you, you die of starvation you will die from about everything that is generated. You will start gathering your mats to make a dwelling and some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ is going to kill you and take it all, however that is the point of a survival game. To learn how to survive. There is so much risk in this game you have to adapt. If you are looking for a game to just jump into and shoot everyone on sight this game isn't for you. If you are looking for a game that you have to claw your way to the top while enduring attacks from enemies and counterattacking, building a base and breaching others. Then you will enjoy this game. I feel like it is a good mix of Minecraft meets Resident Evil meets Call of Duty. You start with a rock and build your empire. Sometimes it seems like the world is collasping around you and everyone is just using you as the proverbial toliet paper of the world, however once you set up and start to climb there is no better feeling. So in conclusion, I think this is an amazing game for anyone that desires a SURVIVAL game due to the rags to riches build up and the high risk system. ENJOY and let the odds be ever in your favor.