There is already a great review of Agemonia by Chris here where he talks about the game mechanics and how his son and him enjoyed playing through the campaign and how much they enjoyed the experience - I can’t improve on that review so I’m not going to try to. So you might ask, what is the point of this second opinion, and it’s a fair question.
My review or opinion on this game stems from a relative newcomer to RPG type games, I have played Gloomhaven and DnD and found the former to be a bit one-dimensional and after 5 or so missions it left us feeling like, we have another 60 missions like this to go through….yikes. It felt a bit daunting and like an uphill adventure rather than an enjoyable balance of what I think a tabletop RPG should feel like - and Agemonia absolutely strikes that balance.
Die hard “Gloomers” might say Agemonia is a bit light on combat - but then again Gloomhaven is a tactical combat game based around scenarios with some back story and lore thrown in, Agemonia has combat of course, but the characters and the storylines are pushed much more to the forefront and that suits us far better.
Don’t get me wrong its not Tolstoy, but each character comes with a dedicated character story book that gives each character a story arc and some extra things to do when you level up and the action abilities scale as you progress to more advanced, but more challenging to use scenario abilities based on your character specialism. Take my four armed lizard for example, able to wield a bow and a large axe in combat at the same time but isn’t good in water (?!) and not very magical. Very agile but not particularly wilful, and this matters when you’re in a partnership with other characters as you need a balance of skills to be able to efficiently complete scenarios.
This all adds to the variety and potential replayability given the range and customisation of the characters. Ultimately the extent of the replayability will depend on your appetite for replaying scenarios - after 30 or so, will you want to replay the campaign with different characters - will you remember in 12 months time where the statue was buried in scenario 7? You might, given the range of characters, expansions included, be inclined to give it another go and I think it would be worth it - its impossible to exhaust all outcomes and possibilities in your first playthrough and you will no doubt forget how important actually saving a Togrel really was…and this time actually save it!
The scenarios are easy to manage - for the most part, driven from a scenario book easily referenced during each scenario, there are some quirks and foibles to work through like the effects of the environment, hindrance, obstruction, carrying capacity, trigger points etc and the individual deck has some cards that sometimes double as map cards - which is by the way, genius game design. Other decks are used to handle initiative and timing and there are more purchasable items and potions and scrolls than you can shake a stick at - fill your boots in the city steps in between your scenarios, another neat element. By no means ground-breaking but interesting nonetheless - it gives you an opportunity to level up, increase your skills or work down the docks for a bit of coin, or take your chances in an arena combat focussed scenario. Road and city events add the usual intermezzo and usually result in building further alliances or a losing some!
As we are about halfway through the campaigns its not clear yet what vital significance building influence with different factions will have but we are happy to choose our options as we see fit.
I think one of the things I love about games like these is the creative imagination - the ideas, the writing, the inter connectivity, the characters and the sheer effort of will it must have taken to get something like this to our tables - we’re so glad they did. It is one of those games I would definitely describe as a true gaming experience - you live it and invest your time in it so it has to tick lots of boxes for you to keep coming back to it. Working together, assessing situations, making choices, stand or fall Agemonia has a really great balance to bring all those things together - risk versus reward - push your luck, roll the dice, influence your companions, die trying…its all there!
The fail forward mechanism means your progress can go unchecked if you mess up or don’t quite hit the requirements which will grate with some but a lot of these scenarios aren’t repeatable in the same way that a pure combat scenario would be. The rewards do scale on how well you succeed or fail - a minor gripe is that some rewards for different player counts are a bit skewed towards higher player counts - in one scenarios we recovered 5 items and the baseline reward target was 8, with two characters 8 was just impossible. It’s a small matter.
Is there a better table top RPG style game out there - well there are plenty to choose from - Arydia, Too Many Bones, Elder Scrolls (Botse), Gloom/FrostHaven and the upcoming Lands of Evershade just hitting preview channels to name but a few, so where does Agemonia sit amongst these?
I think it can hold its own amongst any of them - the issue with some of the others is a lot of focus on one dominating element - Gloomhaven is dominated by combat, Arydia by the scale of the open world experience, Elder Scrolls is tied to its IP and world and is hugely focussed on character creation and development and has dozens of missions…Agemonia for me strikes the right balance across all of those criteria and isn’t overly focussed on any single one. Some might say that it’s a bit light in the loafers to be called a true RPG but that’s exactly the reason we love it - it has the right balance between character, story, lore, combat and luck and interplay / co-operation.
Go ahead and start your journey
You might like
- Easily picked up, tutorials and in game management intuitive
- Scenario creativity and revelations make it fun but challenging
- Customisable characters, lots to choose from
- Does lots of things really well
You might not like
- Replayability as with any campaign based adventure limited
- Might be viewed as a bit light for die hard RPG players
Scores
- Artwork - 4/5
- Complexity - 4/5
- Replayability - 3/5
- Interaction - 5/5
- Compenent quality - 4/5
Overall Score 90%
