L'agonia è la mia
TLDR: I'm a real sucker for dark and otherworldly immersive settings, and Agony is probably the one of the best games I've played at delivering that. But in every other way it's a discarded crack pipe filled with human shit.
Full review: I feel I have to defend Agony a bit, because I did get a non-zero amount of enjoyment out of it. I love the visuals in this game; it's pure, straight up Revelations-tier fucked up Christian hell. There are a few times here and there where it crosses the line into trying too hard to be edgy (any time there are fetuses on screen, for example), but for the most part I was absolutely sold on the intricately detailed and beautifully realised setting; it's probably my favourite depiction of Hell in a video game, and not for lack of competition. The music and sound design are decent too, and do lend the overall game some depth of atmosphere. The creature design is mostly decent too (although giving lots of the demons jiggling human titties was... a decision). It's not on the level of something like Scorn in the aesthetic department but, to me, it's not too far removed from that level.
Everything else though... well. If not for the aesthetics, this would easily be the worst game I'd ever played. I would comment on the story but I have no idea what it was because the writing is next-level abysmal, and not at all helped by some truly abominable VA. This confusion and unclearness trickles down throughout the gameplay itself as well; I never had any idea what my in-game goal was at any time (beyond something as granular as 'get to the bottom of the pit') or why I was doing it. When I turned my brain off and just started saying 'ok' to the game's directions, this became much easier to play. Even then, though, I frequently had no clue where I was actually supposed to go to proceed; the game has an inbuilt 'point to the next objective' button but A: this has limited uses (although you can opt to make it infinite in the options) and B: it almost never works in any of the more confusing areas where you'd actually need it.
I never had any clue what was going on with any of the 'puzzles' either; the sigil puzzles, for example, just consisted of me brute forcing them by trying every pattern I'd seen on the whole level, and I'm not even sure that that isn't the intended strategy. Agony also has a tendency of putting invisible kill planes and teleport planes (i.e. 'cross this and instantly return to the area origin' planes) in random places, sometimes just randomly in the path being given to you by the objective-finding spell. More than once I worked out the way I needed to go was behind a teleport plane, spent 10-15 minutes frantically looking round the area for any other way to proceed, found nothing but then discovered that something I had done in that time had caused the barrier to de-spawn for some reason and the game hadn't thought it'd be a good idea to let me know.
The controls are sloppy and stiff and don't at all mix with the irregular-but-regular-enough-to-be-annoying first-person platforming sections. It runs like absolute ass in some of the more detailed regions and it's pretty buggy to boot; the camera loves clipping through things in soul mode, and I managed to softlock myself out of bounds at least twice. And in some areas they even manage to undo the good work they've done on aesthetics by layering ugly and distracting filters over the whole screen and messing it all up.
So yeah, I guess the word I'd use to describe Agony at the end of the day would be 'nightmare'. It's an absolute nightmare of a game, in ways both intended and unintended. It's definitely a bad game overall don't get me wrong, the sheer brokenness here is inexcusable, but I really don't think it deserves the magnitude of scorn it has had poured upon it, and I'm willing to give it some decent extra marks for pulling off (visually at least) such a haunting and infernal setting.
Full review: I feel I have to defend Agony a bit, because I did get a non-zero amount of enjoyment out of it. I love the visuals in this game; it's pure, straight up Revelations-tier fucked up Christian hell. There are a few times here and there where it crosses the line into trying too hard to be edgy (any time there are fetuses on screen, for example), but for the most part I was absolutely sold on the intricately detailed and beautifully realised setting; it's probably my favourite depiction of Hell in a video game, and not for lack of competition. The music and sound design are decent too, and do lend the overall game some depth of atmosphere. The creature design is mostly decent too (although giving lots of the demons jiggling human titties was... a decision). It's not on the level of something like Scorn in the aesthetic department but, to me, it's not too far removed from that level.
Everything else though... well. If not for the aesthetics, this would easily be the worst game I'd ever played. I would comment on the story but I have no idea what it was because the writing is next-level abysmal, and not at all helped by some truly abominable VA. This confusion and unclearness trickles down throughout the gameplay itself as well; I never had any idea what my in-game goal was at any time (beyond something as granular as 'get to the bottom of the pit') or why I was doing it. When I turned my brain off and just started saying 'ok' to the game's directions, this became much easier to play. Even then, though, I frequently had no clue where I was actually supposed to go to proceed; the game has an inbuilt 'point to the next objective' button but A: this has limited uses (although you can opt to make it infinite in the options) and B: it almost never works in any of the more confusing areas where you'd actually need it.
I never had any clue what was going on with any of the 'puzzles' either; the sigil puzzles, for example, just consisted of me brute forcing them by trying every pattern I'd seen on the whole level, and I'm not even sure that that isn't the intended strategy. Agony also has a tendency of putting invisible kill planes and teleport planes (i.e. 'cross this and instantly return to the area origin' planes) in random places, sometimes just randomly in the path being given to you by the objective-finding spell. More than once I worked out the way I needed to go was behind a teleport plane, spent 10-15 minutes frantically looking round the area for any other way to proceed, found nothing but then discovered that something I had done in that time had caused the barrier to de-spawn for some reason and the game hadn't thought it'd be a good idea to let me know.
The controls are sloppy and stiff and don't at all mix with the irregular-but-regular-enough-to-be-annoying first-person platforming sections. It runs like absolute ass in some of the more detailed regions and it's pretty buggy to boot; the camera loves clipping through things in soul mode, and I managed to softlock myself out of bounds at least twice. And in some areas they even manage to undo the good work they've done on aesthetics by layering ugly and distracting filters over the whole screen and messing it all up.
So yeah, I guess the word I'd use to describe Agony at the end of the day would be 'nightmare'. It's an absolute nightmare of a game, in ways both intended and unintended. It's definitely a bad game overall don't get me wrong, the sheer brokenness here is inexcusable, but I really don't think it deserves the magnitude of scorn it has had poured upon it, and I'm willing to give it some decent extra marks for pulling off (visually at least) such a haunting and infernal setting.
The exception for this was so high since I saw it in 2018, that now that I have this game. I'm just going to say one small thing, is shit.
This review contains spoilers
its been a while but I think at one point the solution to a puzzle is kick a pregnant NPC lying on the ground and it made me lol same with the guy making walls by using babies as cement, the game had terrible puzzles and ended in a boss fight. And you play Nimrod, whose story only is somewhat interesting at the end of SNL dante's inferno.
Instead of giving money to this game, go buy chocolate from Lidl, you will be more satisfied. It's not even worth 1€, too bad. The game is full of bugs. I get stuck everywhere, something happens, I start the episode again because of the bug. Especially when I die, the game threw me at the beginning of part 2, which is where I started the game about an hour ago. I don't understand, if this game was dark souls, I wouldn't say anything, at least I'll go and fight the enemy for 1 more hour, I'll have fun, but I will struggle with bugs again for 1 hour in this fucking game, I will walk through hell, I will run away from three or five shitty devils, etc. I really had a lot of fun you fuckers. Let me spit on your game.
"What if a vagina had teeth wouldn't that be fucked up?" The dev team thought then they made a game where everything has teeth.
The game itself is similar to other games that play out a narrative with you walking between points, pick up a key here to open this door there, you know?
This game ran poorly for me, further pushing me to drop this despite how much I tweaked the settings/layout of the game window, to the point where it would only run if at lowest res possible which was 800x600 and in windowed mode, so the game's wet and sinewy visuals were impossible to parse.
I had reviewed a game called Kane and Lynch 2 and had commended it on it's mission to attack the player's senses, but this game does a similar schtick with it's body horror imagery, but it fails where Kane and Lynch 2 succeeded because Agony is just not affected by your inputs at all.
You just walk where it tells you to walk, pick up what it tells you to pick up, and the story itself is very tepid, the little I experienced. Kane and Lynch 2 had gameplay problems for sure, stiff movement, sometimes cover was a suggestion, but you felt like your character inputs impacted the world, because IT DID! Kane and Lynch left mayhem and fiery debris and dead bodies in their wake and this game just...leaves more gross depictions of Hell and demons.
This game gave me nothing to work with, nothing to parse, it's design only carried it so far for me before I realized I don't have any affect or input on this world, and I dropped it.
Not recommended. A tepid slog that banked off of controversy for it's depiction of hell and having everything made out of vaginas with teeth.
The game itself is similar to other games that play out a narrative with you walking between points, pick up a key here to open this door there, you know?
This game ran poorly for me, further pushing me to drop this despite how much I tweaked the settings/layout of the game window, to the point where it would only run if at lowest res possible which was 800x600 and in windowed mode, so the game's wet and sinewy visuals were impossible to parse.
I had reviewed a game called Kane and Lynch 2 and had commended it on it's mission to attack the player's senses, but this game does a similar schtick with it's body horror imagery, but it fails where Kane and Lynch 2 succeeded because Agony is just not affected by your inputs at all.
You just walk where it tells you to walk, pick up what it tells you to pick up, and the story itself is very tepid, the little I experienced. Kane and Lynch 2 had gameplay problems for sure, stiff movement, sometimes cover was a suggestion, but you felt like your character inputs impacted the world, because IT DID! Kane and Lynch left mayhem and fiery debris and dead bodies in their wake and this game just...leaves more gross depictions of Hell and demons.
This game gave me nothing to work with, nothing to parse, it's design only carried it so far for me before I realized I don't have any affect or input on this world, and I dropped it.
Not recommended. A tepid slog that banked off of controversy for it's depiction of hell and having everything made out of vaginas with teeth.
Esto será entre una review y una experiencia personal con este juego, en primer lugar quiero decir que los comentarios dicen que es malísimo, y sí, lo es, no lo juegues, la gente que pagó más de $40 dólares por el juego y su DLC tiene todo el derecho de darle media estrella, afortunadamente a mí me costó medio dólar en ofertas de xbox. Con este punto a favor, continuaré:
Después de semanas terminé este juego. A pesar de ser “corto”, lo terminé en tanto tiempo debido a dos cosas, la primera fue que me pareció eterno, aunque son 4 niveles, son mapas prácticamente laberínticos de buscar coleccionables y avanzar por el infierno. ¿Qué es el infierno? Miren que yo no soy de esas personas a las que les gusta la censura, me gusta que los juegos se atrevan a probar nuevas cosas, si quieren meter gore, orgías y fetos muertos adelante, pero cuando me ofreces más de 500 habitaciones donde en todas hay cadáveres, visceras, ojos y bocas sobre paredes de sangre, mujeres desnudas, demonios con pechos, bolas de carne humana, hombres partidos por la mitad, orgías, crucifixiones y demás, sin un argumento lo suficientemente fuerte, algo está mal. No es mostrar por una razón, sólo mostrar por mostrar, deja de ser terror y se convierte en asco, sí, entiendo que para causar impacto psicológico los desnudos y las muertes en las peores condiciones de crueldad son necesarias (incluso en el cine lo son) entiendo que se quiera representar el infierno, pero para lograrlo necesitas crear un argumento y narrativa lo suficientemente fuerte detrás (cosa de la cual este juego carece), a esto añadiré la segunda razón, el juego es críptico, omitiendo que tienes que ver más de 100 muertos por sala, los controles aun hoy están un poco mal optimizados, el juego tiene unos cuantos bugs, pero nada demasiado importante como para frenarte, el problema es que las habitaciones son tan repetitivas y el juego te dice tan poco, que termina siendo un laberinto donde si quieres hacer misiones “secundarias” como algunos jefes, o buscar trofeos, no sabes si estás yendo por la misión principal, y en ocasiones terminas omitiendo muchos por esto; al igual hay muchas salas que aunque las encuentras, acceder parece imposible. Completarse este juego al 100% es una agonía, me parece incluso una pérdida de tiempo, como leí en un comentario: la mejor parte del juego es cuando lo terminas y dejas de jugar.
Sí a pesar de esto, quieres jugarlo, probablemente sea el morbo que existió detrás del juego, como mencioné, lo compré en oferta, cuando me quedé trabado en un nivel y busqué en Google, me enteré de toda la polémica detrás del juego. ¿Polémica innecesaria? Sí, parece que fue lo único que le dio vida al juego.
Vayamos a la trama, no es mala pero está pésimamente ejecutada. (Puede haber spoilers)
Llegas al infierno y no te dicen nada, sólo sabes que tienes que buscar a la diosa roja mientras llegan flashbacks del pasado, después de más de medio videojuego te dicen tu nombre: Nimrod. Estos son los únicos dos puntos claves que importan.
Aparentemente Nimrod era un rey poderoso, que, por lo que se da a entender, hace un pacto con algún demonio, para ser el rey eterno de la tierra, a cambio hace sacrificios, las personas sacrificadas lo siguen por el trayecto, mientras él intenta llegar desde las puertas del infierno a la Torre de Babel donde la diosa roja lo manda, ahí libera a un demonio (la bestia del apocalipsis) y la diosa roja lo lleva a la tierra como lo prometió, pero cuando llega, el apocalipsis había llegado a la Tierra y él estaba condenado al infierno de nuevo. Básicamente, una historia que nos muestra que, si haces un pacto con un demonio, sea cual sea tu estrategia, tu alma estará condenada para siempre. Esto lo muestran otros finales (de los 7 que tiene), en uno te quedas en el infierno construyendo un muro eterno de ladrillos y bebés muertos, condenado al mismo trabajo toda la eternidad (para este final tienes que quedarte 5 minutos en una cámara de “hongo” sin moverte), en otro final, dónde encuentras a 4 ángeles caídos, ellos te llevarán al cielo, pero mientras te llevan, la diosa roja te dice que, aunque tu cuerpo esté en el cielo, tu alma ya le pertenece. Lo mismo con el final de baphomet, donde él se lleva tu alma.
El argumento y los lugares están llenos de descripciones de mitología Cristiana, un infierno e Dante, y aunque el argumento se escuche interesante, sobre todo para alguien con cierto conocimiento de demonología, el juego lo ejecuta de forma pobre.
Existe el DLC que es el modo sucubus, de momento no lo he hecho, pero si alguien que leyese esta review le gustaría saber de qué va, si lo comenta; intentaré jugarlo y traerles mi experiencia.
Mi nota es únicamente por el precio, pero si hubiese comprado este juego cuando salió (aunado a la cantidad de bugs que fueron parchando y que ya no tiene actualmente), no tendría más de una estrella.
Experiencia diferente, pero no por ello valiosa.
Después de semanas terminé este juego. A pesar de ser “corto”, lo terminé en tanto tiempo debido a dos cosas, la primera fue que me pareció eterno, aunque son 4 niveles, son mapas prácticamente laberínticos de buscar coleccionables y avanzar por el infierno. ¿Qué es el infierno? Miren que yo no soy de esas personas a las que les gusta la censura, me gusta que los juegos se atrevan a probar nuevas cosas, si quieren meter gore, orgías y fetos muertos adelante, pero cuando me ofreces más de 500 habitaciones donde en todas hay cadáveres, visceras, ojos y bocas sobre paredes de sangre, mujeres desnudas, demonios con pechos, bolas de carne humana, hombres partidos por la mitad, orgías, crucifixiones y demás, sin un argumento lo suficientemente fuerte, algo está mal. No es mostrar por una razón, sólo mostrar por mostrar, deja de ser terror y se convierte en asco, sí, entiendo que para causar impacto psicológico los desnudos y las muertes en las peores condiciones de crueldad son necesarias (incluso en el cine lo son) entiendo que se quiera representar el infierno, pero para lograrlo necesitas crear un argumento y narrativa lo suficientemente fuerte detrás (cosa de la cual este juego carece), a esto añadiré la segunda razón, el juego es críptico, omitiendo que tienes que ver más de 100 muertos por sala, los controles aun hoy están un poco mal optimizados, el juego tiene unos cuantos bugs, pero nada demasiado importante como para frenarte, el problema es que las habitaciones son tan repetitivas y el juego te dice tan poco, que termina siendo un laberinto donde si quieres hacer misiones “secundarias” como algunos jefes, o buscar trofeos, no sabes si estás yendo por la misión principal, y en ocasiones terminas omitiendo muchos por esto; al igual hay muchas salas que aunque las encuentras, acceder parece imposible. Completarse este juego al 100% es una agonía, me parece incluso una pérdida de tiempo, como leí en un comentario: la mejor parte del juego es cuando lo terminas y dejas de jugar.
Sí a pesar de esto, quieres jugarlo, probablemente sea el morbo que existió detrás del juego, como mencioné, lo compré en oferta, cuando me quedé trabado en un nivel y busqué en Google, me enteré de toda la polémica detrás del juego. ¿Polémica innecesaria? Sí, parece que fue lo único que le dio vida al juego.
Vayamos a la trama, no es mala pero está pésimamente ejecutada. (Puede haber spoilers)
Llegas al infierno y no te dicen nada, sólo sabes que tienes que buscar a la diosa roja mientras llegan flashbacks del pasado, después de más de medio videojuego te dicen tu nombre: Nimrod. Estos son los únicos dos puntos claves que importan.
Aparentemente Nimrod era un rey poderoso, que, por lo que se da a entender, hace un pacto con algún demonio, para ser el rey eterno de la tierra, a cambio hace sacrificios, las personas sacrificadas lo siguen por el trayecto, mientras él intenta llegar desde las puertas del infierno a la Torre de Babel donde la diosa roja lo manda, ahí libera a un demonio (la bestia del apocalipsis) y la diosa roja lo lleva a la tierra como lo prometió, pero cuando llega, el apocalipsis había llegado a la Tierra y él estaba condenado al infierno de nuevo. Básicamente, una historia que nos muestra que, si haces un pacto con un demonio, sea cual sea tu estrategia, tu alma estará condenada para siempre. Esto lo muestran otros finales (de los 7 que tiene), en uno te quedas en el infierno construyendo un muro eterno de ladrillos y bebés muertos, condenado al mismo trabajo toda la eternidad (para este final tienes que quedarte 5 minutos en una cámara de “hongo” sin moverte), en otro final, dónde encuentras a 4 ángeles caídos, ellos te llevarán al cielo, pero mientras te llevan, la diosa roja te dice que, aunque tu cuerpo esté en el cielo, tu alma ya le pertenece. Lo mismo con el final de baphomet, donde él se lleva tu alma.
El argumento y los lugares están llenos de descripciones de mitología Cristiana, un infierno e Dante, y aunque el argumento se escuche interesante, sobre todo para alguien con cierto conocimiento de demonología, el juego lo ejecuta de forma pobre.
Existe el DLC que es el modo sucubus, de momento no lo he hecho, pero si alguien que leyese esta review le gustaría saber de qué va, si lo comenta; intentaré jugarlo y traerles mi experiencia.
Mi nota es únicamente por el precio, pero si hubiese comprado este juego cuando salió (aunado a la cantidad de bugs que fueron parchando y que ya no tiene actualmente), no tendría más de una estrella.
Experiencia diferente, pero no por ello valiosa.
1 star because I like how hell looks in this game. That's it.
They should've made this a walking sim or something like that, it would've been three times better.
They should've made this a walking sim or something like that, it would've been three times better.
It's nowhere near as bad as people claim, it's certainly not a masterpiece either and is very buggy and repetitive, but I still thought it was interesting for what it was.
This is not a game that is going to be for everyone, it is edgy and artsy at the same time and it can definitely come off as kinda pretentious, especially seeing as how the story is primarily based on notes you have to read and also whether the player knows their Judeo-Christian lore and is actually familiar with the bible.
However the world design and art style alone are worth it for me because it is the best representation of Hell I've ever seen in a game.
This is not a game that is going to be for everyone, it is edgy and artsy at the same time and it can definitely come off as kinda pretentious, especially seeing as how the story is primarily based on notes you have to read and also whether the player knows their Judeo-Christian lore and is actually familiar with the bible.
However the world design and art style alone are worth it for me because it is the best representation of Hell I've ever seen in a game.
Prometio mucho , ofrecio poco
Pep's Season of Spooks - Game 12
Fuck me, this really is as shitty as everyone says.
Madmind Studio were so busy trying to come up with extreme, edgy, sadistic ideas for their vision of Hell that they clearly either forgot or didn't care about making a decent game.
Yes, all the graphic violence and nudity (turned up to 11 in the Unrated version) is probably pretty shocking for players who aren't used to horror... for the first 10 minutes. Then all you're left with is a horribly dull, buggy walking-sim with the occasional stealth sequence to add frustration to the boredom.
The few hours I spent playing Agony pretty much comprised of:
- getting stuck on the environment
- wondering what the fuck in the environment was causing me to take damage
- looking away from the poorly animated scenes of sex, r@pe and torture (of which there are only around 5 reused constantly throughout the game)
- cursing the horrible checkpoint system as an enemy bugs out and teleports to me, instakilling me
I've seen some people defending Agony by praising the visuals, and I genuinely have no idea what they're talking about. To me the environments were so ugly (not in the intended way), and the awfully-animated cutscenes had a habit of glitching and going blurry.
After checking Steam I saw that Madmind have clearly taken advantage of Agony's reputation since they've released Succubus since (even though this game has a "Succubus Mode"?), which I can only assume was made for anyone who didn't jerk off enough to this game. They also have another three games coming up. Please don't buy any of them. Their entire MO is simply shock value and not actually making good games.
If you have to, just play Scorn instead.
Scary Rating dogshit/10 - Overall Rating dogshit/10
Fuck me, this really is as shitty as everyone says.
Madmind Studio were so busy trying to come up with extreme, edgy, sadistic ideas for their vision of Hell that they clearly either forgot or didn't care about making a decent game.
Yes, all the graphic violence and nudity (turned up to 11 in the Unrated version) is probably pretty shocking for players who aren't used to horror... for the first 10 minutes. Then all you're left with is a horribly dull, buggy walking-sim with the occasional stealth sequence to add frustration to the boredom.
The few hours I spent playing Agony pretty much comprised of:
- getting stuck on the environment
- wondering what the fuck in the environment was causing me to take damage
- looking away from the poorly animated scenes of sex, r@pe and torture (of which there are only around 5 reused constantly throughout the game)
- cursing the horrible checkpoint system as an enemy bugs out and teleports to me, instakilling me
I've seen some people defending Agony by praising the visuals, and I genuinely have no idea what they're talking about. To me the environments were so ugly (not in the intended way), and the awfully-animated cutscenes had a habit of glitching and going blurry.
After checking Steam I saw that Madmind have clearly taken advantage of Agony's reputation since they've released Succubus since (even though this game has a "Succubus Mode"?), which I can only assume was made for anyone who didn't jerk off enough to this game. They also have another three games coming up. Please don't buy any of them. Their entire MO is simply shock value and not actually making good games.
If you have to, just play Scorn instead.
Scary Rating dogshit/10 - Overall Rating dogshit/10
No
The title says it all, this game is pure AGONY. It is conceptually good, but the execution was so poorly made it makes the experience unbearable. I hope Succubus is better.
I got stuck and had no clue how to progress and also what was this game
Faz jus ao nome KKKKKKKKK
The devs get an A+ for making Hell in this game look great in most aspects, but the rest of the game is erroneous in regards to story, character model depictions (specifically human models) and bad voice acting.
The agony of having a big spiky thing sliding up yer bum until the end of the universe isn't as bad as the agony of playing Agony for fifteen minutes.
Don't play Agony.
Don't play Agony.
from the TWISTED minds at "Madmind Studio" comes a true turd of shit. Totally dysfunctional, tedious, loathsome in its every misguided design choice. Definitely made by someone with the same edgelordy sixth grade boy mentality as Doom, but by that kid's weirder, grosser rotten.com/suicidegirls obsessed peer with none of the good natured doofiness and a self-serious misanthropic streak that, when juxtaposed with this totally laughable vision of horror, falls completely flat on its face. Skairie lesbianic crunkcore demonesses with corset piercings gyrating on phlegmy cavern protuberances and doing cock and ball torture on poorly edited poser models with softbody physics modifiers flopping their sad little weewees to and fro. completely visually incoherent and devoid of any semblance of a successful horror atmosphere; Every vile environment looks like a bunch of morgellons fibers emanating from a giant petrified dookie. A highlight was the looping animation of the mopey mutilated hell denizen nonchalantly grinding up deformed fetuses and using them as paste for placing cobblestones in a makeshift wall--less a solemn visage of UNSPEAKABLE degredation and horror and moreso just like... legitimately hysterical slapstick? Agony is a completely busted conceptually pathetic mess! needless to say i cant wait for Succubus!