Age of Fear 3: The Legend – Review
Follow Genre: Turn-based strategy
Developer: Leslaw Sliwko
Publisher: Age of Fear
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC

Age of Fear 3: The Legend – Review

Site Score
6.6
Good: Challenging, Diversity in troops, items & builds
Bad: Graphics feel outdated
User Score
7.8
(9 votes)
Click to vote
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 7.8/10 (9 votes cast)

Age of Fear 3: The Legend is a classic turn-based strategy game with RPG elements, inspired by tabletop wargames. The Age of Fear series all feature two campaigns to play through, from the viewpoint of a character of a fantasy race. Age of Fear 3 features a Dryad campaign and a Dwarven campaign, with great storylines which will lead you through several battles.  Age of Fear 3: The Legend is being developed by Leslaw Sliwko, published by Age of Fear, and will be released for PC on September 1, 2017.

Age-of-Fear-3-logo

Story

Age of Fear 3 features two campaigns: a Dryad campaign and a Dwarven campaign. The game introduces you with a story about an evil guy who catches mystical creatures to let them fight in an arena for entertainment. The story is from the viewpoint of the evil guys, while your character is a Dryad, a creature of nature which has been captured, escapes, and fights her way through the lands with the help of a Drider (half spider half dark-elf) who also had been captured to fight in the arena. Along the way you’ll try to save other creatures and solve some problems you have encountered.

Between battles there’s a bit of conversation between the friendly characters, which fleshes out their personalities and the story itself. The battles play out on regions on a world map, so you’ll have an idea about where you are going and how far you’re from the city you escaped from. You’ll be able to make several decisions along the way, whether you’d avoid a battle or go into it, which side in a fight you’ll help out, etc.

Age of Fear 3 - screen 4

Graphics

The graphics are really simple, just like in the previous Age of Fear games. The game looks like it’s from the 90’s: the textures, models and UI are really simple, but straightforward. The stories and character conversations are supported with drawings that look hand drawn, and the world map looks like a typical fantasy story map. The battles are viewed straight from the top, so the units aren’t really detailed. You can view your units in more detail in the pretty extensive unit management interface, which also has a drawn image of each of your troops, plus all the stats, skills and equipment.

There are a large variety of maps, and you can adjust the zoom level if you want to see more details. The units itself are not animated during battle; they just move around, but there is an attack effect which displays when they hit an enemy, or if they get hit. The top-down view simplifies the graphics and it does make the game feel like a miniature wargame set-up, especially since the units aren’t animated. However, it would have been nice to have more of an isometric view and see the units in more detail, like the beautifully detailed wargame figurines, even if they aren’t animated.

The indications of what unit can go where during battles is pretty clear, and the interface is pretty straightforward. Some spells could have a bit more informative tooltip, for example that ‘control nature’ can only control plant-type units, not beasts.

Age of Fear 3 - screen 1

Sound

The game has calm medieval music as background music at the title screen and at the screens in-between battle where you’ll read the story and the character’s conversations. There’s no music during the fights, but there are ambient sounds like singing birds. The units all have several voice lines they use as you command them, and there are of course battle sounds for attacking and hurting units.

Gameplay

This game plays like any other turn-based strategy game. You’ll have a map, many obstacles, and you’ll have to move your units in a smart way to not block each other but still protect your casters from melee attacks by the enemy. There are no squares or hexagonals on the map, but your units have bases which need to be able to move past the base of another unit in order to pass through. Whenever you select a unit, it’s clearly indicated where they can and cannot go.

The story carries this game and all its battles, and it’s fun to follow the story and the journey of the characters over the world map, playing the battles, get more story and conversations, and see how the characters work out their problems.

Age of Fear 3 - screen 5

Your commanding character should always survive or you’ll lose the game. The Dryad (in the first campaign) is pretty squishy and can’t do much in combat except ensnare and charm. The Drider you’re working with is very tough and strong, but certainly needs the help of your other units to win battles.

Unit management is a lot of fun: you can recruit several types of units, level them up individually by granting them abilities, and even give the hero units all kinds of special equipment. You can choose your units’ upgrades yourself as they level up: you can decide to either spend XP immediately and choose what’s already available, or wait for a better, more expensive trait. There are a lot of different units you can recruit, each with their own unique traits. If you lose a unit during battle that doesn’t revive, you’ll just have to recruit an unexperienced new one, so be careful during your fights.

Age of Fear 3 - screen 2

You’ll find gold and equipment on the battlefields, which you can collect during battle by smashing crates and chests. This is more realistic than just get a loot reward screen, but it feels a bit like a waste of time to just run around and smash some chests after your battle has ended. You won’t need to go to shops to use your gold to buy equipment, you can do that straight from the units’ equipment screen, which is where you’ll also find the items you’ve looted after the battles.

You’ll also encounter factions you can side with, or just have different opposing factions fight each other without you interfering, and then just finish off whatever is left to win the battleground. There are a lot of tactics possible because of these many different factions.

Age of Fear 3 - screen 3

Conclusion

The graphics and sound effects of the Age of Fear games are really basic, but the game in itself is well thought out. The story is a bit cliché but interesting nonetheless, and the combat works perfectly fine. Tooltips could be a bit better, and with some actions like trying to equip two-handed weapons, it would be nice if the game would tell you you’ll need to un-equip your shield first, instead of having to figure that out for yourself (while the shield is in another tab). While the graphics and sound design are simple, the gameplay of Age of Fear 3 is really solid. You have many different types of units you can recruit to build your army, and each unit can be configured in numerous different ways. The campaigns are fun, and it’s great to have freedom of choice to influence the storylines.

VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: 7.8/10 (9 votes cast)
VN:F [1.9.22_1171]
Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)
Age of Fear 3: The Legend - Review, 7.8 out of 10 based on 9 ratings
Anmaja


I'm a LARP writer, freelance teacher and everlasting PhD student, and an avid gamer. Nowadays I game mostly on PC, but I love my retro playstation 1 & 2 as well :) I like watching anime, movies and series, and read books & comics whenever I have time!

1 Comment

  1. 3rd-strike.com | Age of Fear 3 released today
    September 1, 2017, 21:55

    […] We were fortunate enough to get our hands on Age of Fear 3 and were able to review it thoroughly. Not sure if Age of fear 3 is a game for you, read our review here. […]

    VA:F [1.9.22_1171]
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