Agony’s announcement had many fans of the survival horror genre excited. Agony offered incredible environments depicting hell as a gory and corpse-littered setting so gruesome that the likes of it had never before been seen in a video game. While the grotesque and disturbing nature of the game attracted a lot of hype, the quality of the game’s gameplay had only been seen through a demo, until now. Reportedly, what we received was a repetitive and poorly designed mess littered with mundane tasks.
Players play as a tormented soul in hell with no memories of his past. With you ability to control and possess people and simple minded demons, you must survive extreme conditions and escape hell by meeting the mystical Red Goddess. As mentioned before, Agony’s main attraction is its uniquely disturbing and over the top gory setting, where mutilated bodies are the most common decoration, and promising almost uncensored carnage. The core gameplay is made up of avoiding demons through stealth, solving puzzles and wandering the environment, and possessing other bodies and demons in order to complete tasks that you could not complete yourself.
The Bad
First let's examine the complains. Buckle up, because there are a lot of them. Steam’s reviews currently had the game at “Mixed,” which is never a good sign, and review outlets have for the most part agreed that the game is bad, especially for its $30 price tag.
Players complain that the blood-soaked atmosphere was not enough to keep them interested. Users reported that after the initial shock and admiration for the game’s gross art and hellish atmosphere, they became numb to all the carnage Agony had to offer, and were forced to pay attention to the painfully dull and uninventive gameplay.
- Some players reported numerous glitches and a broken physics engine that sends them falling off of ledges.
- Confusing and poor level design.
- The game’s AI is funky, and they often get stuck on things or have trouble detecting your character even if you are out of stealth.
- The story and characters lack depth, with players finding themselves not caring about either the main character or the “story” whatsoever.
- Possessing the demons is surprisingly boring.
- The music is okay at best. Voice acting is also awful.
- Mechanics such as the destiny lines mechanic and your soul possessing another body after death is funky and often glitchy.
- The game is very short, taking less that 5 hours if played well.
- For a game reliant on its appearance, the graphics are not the best. Some animations look clunky, and textures are often underwhelming.
- Some players compared Agony to a walking simulator. Simply not fun, and filled with boring puzzles.
The Good
I’d like to end on a positive note, but there is not much positive said about this game. Most positive reviews simply point to the following points:
- Cool and grotesque enemy designs.
- Amazing and gross atmosphere and setting.
- Less focus on jump scares and more general creepiness.
All in all, players who waited for this game are frustrated that the demo seemed better than the game itself. Some players are angry that the developers toned the game down a bit, which they did to avoid an AO rating (which would mean no platform would sell their game). Even “toned down,” the game is absolutely disturbing. If that’s all you want, then feel free to give this game a try. Just don’t expect much else.
