After watching Genesis, been playing plenty of games and watch pro's VOD I would like you to give me 'unbiased' reviews.
Graphic: 4.5/10
It looks like a 10-year-old game tbh, the graphic is almost unbelievably bad when I played beta, and also it's a bit too dark, buildings are not too distinctive as well. Now I guess I get used to this art style but I still hate those ridiculous look arrows, especially arrows shooting from crossbowmen, those firing arrows look like freaking Star Wars laser beams. But I like each civ has unique style and look.
I turn my settings to ultral high/high, still looks bad. The texture of everything is crazy bad that even looks worse than a mobile game.
The reason why I still give graphic 5.5 is that when I watched Aussie's youtube I found the graphic looks much better, maybe his PC can support UHD graphics idk. Also watching games from mobile seems a bit better than on a bigger screen.
Sound: 9.5/10
Each civ has its own theme song, they are also greatly composed. When there are battles that happened during the game the bgm subtly change and love all the noise from army too, Love that the idea about ancient language and the way they speak will change as the age goes up. Very very well done. -0.5 because there are no 14/11 etc.
Gameplay: (9)7.5/10
This one is controversial.
What I like:
I really don't care what you say, I actually love the general gameplay and there are some good corrections from AOE2 and AOE3.
Scout and vision are crucial in the gameplay and you can't just turtle yourself, tc booms and wait for the opponent come forward siege and monetary, and defend with trash/siege/monks etc. The ideas about sacred sites inspired by AOE3 is the one that I love the most, so map control is important and you take huge costs losing map control even in Feduel already. Stealth forrest is a good setting too, like other Moba games that give you more options how to fight.
Every civ is so varied but it's not too complicated like AOE3, so it's like a good combination of AOE3 and AOE2. Like the idea about the influence area as well. Love the idea about the neutral market as well so it won't fall into a trash war in post-imp that I really find extremely boring in AOE2. The reasons that the rate is lower are because of the bugs, hotkeys, and balancing issues.
I also like the countering system in general but they still need to fix a lot of things on this part. Horseman is a bit too weak in general.
Don't like
Lack of micro - lack memorable highlights.
UI: 3/10
This is obvious, I hate they use AOE3 UI rather than AOE2. Very unclear, clickbox is awful. No global q.
Honestly if those devs can solve bugs, UI and different problems I really think AOE4 will be a great game and can attract a lot of RTS players.
Graphic: 4.5/10
It looks like a 10-year-old game tbh, the graphic is almost unbelievably bad when I played beta, and also it's a bit too dark, buildings are not too distinctive as well. Now I guess I get used to this art style but I still hate those ridiculous look arrows, especially arrows shooting from crossbowmen, those firing arrows look like freaking Star Wars laser beams. But I like each civ has unique style and look.
I turn my settings to ultral high/high, still looks bad. The texture of everything is crazy bad that even looks worse than a mobile game.
The reason why I still give graphic 5.5 is that when I watched Aussie's youtube I found the graphic looks much better, maybe his PC can support UHD graphics idk. Also watching games from mobile seems a bit better than on a bigger screen.
Sound: 9.5/10
Each civ has its own theme song, they are also greatly composed. When there are battles that happened during the game the bgm subtly change and love all the noise from army too, Love that the idea about ancient language and the way they speak will change as the age goes up. Very very well done. -0.5 because there are no 14/11 etc.
Gameplay: (9)7.5/10
This one is controversial.
What I like:
I really don't care what you say, I actually love the general gameplay and there are some good corrections from AOE2 and AOE3.
Scout and vision are crucial in the gameplay and you can't just turtle yourself, tc booms and wait for the opponent come forward siege and monetary, and defend with trash/siege/monks etc. The ideas about sacred sites inspired by AOE3 is the one that I love the most, so map control is important and you take huge costs losing map control even in Feduel already. Stealth forrest is a good setting too, like other Moba games that give you more options how to fight.
Every civ is so varied but it's not too complicated like AOE3, so it's like a good combination of AOE3 and AOE2. Like the idea about the influence area as well. Love the idea about the neutral market as well so it won't fall into a trash war in post-imp that I really find extremely boring in AOE2. The reasons that the rate is lower are because of the bugs, hotkeys, and balancing issues.
I also like the countering system in general but they still need to fix a lot of things on this part. Horseman is a bit too weak in general.
Don't like
Lack of micro - lack memorable highlights.
UI: 3/10
This is obvious, I hate they use AOE3 UI rather than AOE2. Very unclear, clickbox is awful. No global q.
Honestly if those devs can solve bugs, UI and different problems I really think AOE4 will be a great game and can attract a lot of RTS players.