The verb “ Agony” can mean certain things. For example; a display or outburst of intense mental or emotional excitement, an extreme and generally prolonged pain or an intense physical or mental suffering. What the game “Agony” is referring to, is quite subjective but for me, however, it was definitely an intense mental suffering and not in a good way….
A lot of good horror games have come out over the recent years. Beginning with the “Resident Evil” series over to the “Amnesia” games and ending with an interesting project called “Outlast”. A lot of other horror games have also been released but previous games were the ones I remember mostly due to the fact that I’ve had a great experience playing these games. You might ask why people would even want to play these games? Well, I probably could give you the same answer that I give when people ask me the same question about horror movies… It’s all about the exciting suspense building up the adrenaline and eventually ending in a certain climax. Eventually, most of these horror genre games or even movies have the tendency to disappoint and only a few manage to capture the viewer’s attention. Unfortunately, “Agony” isn’t one of these happy few. Agony just didn’t deliver in my opinion.
“Agony just didn’t deliver in my opinion.”
Let’s talk about the setting for a moment. Agony’s setting is basically “survive hell to get redemption”. You start off as a wandering soul with no memories whatsoever. As a soul, you possess a martyr and get up on your feet, hoping to get some orientation in the middle of hell. A lot of martyrs around you scream out in pain to seek redemption and there’s only one name that’s constantly drawing attention, the Red Goddess. This Goddess can help to regain your memories and eventually save your soul. You make it your quest to search for this divine being but you’ll have to keep in mind that you’re in hell and surrounded by horrifying creatures, corrupted souls, and demons. Will you get out? Will you regain your memories? It depends on how an experienced “ escape artist” you really are. There’s only one way to survive this hell hole: keep your head down and move forward.
As a player, there aren’t a lot of backstories to go around with, even the cinematic beginning couldn’t help me to figure out what I’m actually doing down there. Of course, this is the whole plot of “Agony”, regaining your memories and get some knowledge on how and why…. Normally a game would give you some breadcrumbs along the way and the story will get clearer with each breadcrumb you find but “Agony” isn’t built like this. The game’s story has been scattered in hundreds of pieces around the darkest place in the universe and if you find some missing pieces, that’s great but if you cross the finish line of one of the chapters empty-handed, that’s also “okay”, I guess…
“The game did manage to create this interesting vibe…”
As you’re playing, you’ll quickly notice that the game won’t be a walk in the park and I’m not talking about the “horror” aspect but just because of the way the game’s build up. “Agony” creates this chaotic place that some people will like and some won’t. Whilst I was playing, it did feel like I was playing in a movie of Guillermo del Toro. The game did manage to create this interesting vibe that could easily fit into Guillermo’s head and that’s the main reason I kept playing but other than that, the game felt weak on a lot of moments.
For example, the first minute I possessed a martyr, it felt clunky as hell. There aren’t a lot of options to configure your controller’s settings and that’s a shame. The camera felt so slow and it just didn’t feel right, it felt unintuitive. Maybe this choice was a developer’s choice to make you more vulnerable and that’s okay but even the jumping in this game felt like you were stuck in a swamp. Another example is the “possessing” feature within the game. The game tells you that there isn’t a real death anymore because you’re actually at world’s end, however, you do have the ability to take over weaker beings than yourself. Even though the mechanic is very easy, it didn’t feel fluent as it should be. I felt like the mechanic was a downgraded version of the throw mechanic in the Pokémon Go app.
As a spirit, you first have to look for a weaker being before you can even access this “ability”. This is shown by a “green” cloud above the being’s head. From the moment you activate your ability, a link between your mind and the being’s mind has been set. Now the game doesn’t really explain this ability’s presentation (except for its controls) and I had to figure it out myself to understand this feature. How I see it: You have to match your mind (presented by a circle) with the other, as good as you can and as long as you can. Because the spirit link can be broken and you’ll have to start over this “taking over” process. Be careful, some beings can’t be possessed and you have to make sure, the being’s head is visible. These heads can come visibly if you take away the being’s bag that’s placed over his/ her head when you’re possessing another martyr because demons can only kill other martyrs. Weird that the Demons of Hell are into this SM kind of lifestyle.
“The game’s base mechanic is all about searching “keys” and unlocking doors to continue.”
The basic mechanics of Agony are quite simple. The game’s a horror survival game, so you’ll have to survive the demons as best you can by hiding your puny body under a pile of other bodies and holding your breath. You’ll walk around and demons will scout the area for flesh to kill. These demons will instantly kill you, so you’ll have to figure out their “scouting” paths and always keep your eyes open because they’ll run to you if they hear you’re near. Some of these demons can be possessed, which is a great feature but just like “your normal body” the movement of these creature doesn’t feel fluent. It constantly feels like you’re running around in hell with your heels on your feet. Of course, some of these succubi like creatures have hoofs for feet, so it can make sense but as a player, it wasn’t amusing to walk around with these movement settings. These demons have a way to kill their prey and these “attacks” can become useful to open doors or to defend yourself from other demons, once you possess the body. The more you use the demon’s power, the weaker your spirit bond will become and if it reaches a critical low, you’ll lose control over the demon. Normally, you could say that you won’t be able to die with these mechanics but there’s another mechanic that’ll keep you on your toes. The moment you’re in your spirit form, you’ll be able to fly around in search of your next body but you’ll have to be careful not to be eaten by these spirit eaters. Also, if your spirit’s stamina depletes, you’ll die and you’ll be teleported to the nearest safe points.
These safe points have to be unlocked by the player and I’m very thankful that the developers developed such a safe point but they also made these with a little twist. The moment you unlock this safe point, you’re bound to that safe point for a limited amount of time. After your death, you can only respawn three times at the latest unlocked “safe point”, if these respawns run out, you’re transported to the “safe point” that you’ve unlocked before the latest one. You then have to reconnect with this “safe point” in order for you to use them.
“The only thing that managed to set the mood right, were the sound effects.”
The game’s base mechanic is all about searching “keys” and unlocking doors to continue. Some paths are straightforward but leave enough room to wander around in search for secret objects that’ll unlock “extra content” in the main menu or “notes” that’ll help you paint the picture of the life in hell. These “keys” can come in different forms, for example, hearts, paintings, and sigils. Paintings are “mental keys” that mostly alter a certain part of your path. Hearts need to be found and placed in the right basket to trigger a portal or even a boss monster. Sigils are spread out closely around a certain door. You’ll have to find a sigil, memorize it (this happens automatically) and then draw this mark on the door in order for it to open. This searching hunt seems fairly easy, but there will be always someone lurking in the dark to take you down. A lot of these search quest use “alternate visions of the same area” that’ll spawn the same object on different places within this area. Boss fights can also happen to reveal alternate paths to a certain goal or they can reveal “forbidden fruit”. This “forbidden fruit” can be used to upgrade your skills that can be found in a very limited “skill tree”. I don’t really think that these “skill points” matter a lot since these skill points are very hard to find.
One of the major let downs of this game was the graphics. I can’t tell you how much this disappointed me. The first trailer and demo of the game looked amazing and it got myself hyped but the moment I’ve booted up the game, it quickly became apparent that the engine on which this game is built, had some flaws. There are constant frame drops during the game and even the PlayStation 4 system can’t even keep up with the engine’s texture implementation system. Textures are constantly loading during your walkthrough and there are even moments where the textures are teared up. Some areas have a flicker and even the lighting effects are off. There’s also a bit of lag. All of these technical aspects help to build the game and help to set the mood, but due to these technical issues, the game quickly loses its touch. I also think that these technical difficulties are only present in the PS4 built because all of the gameplay videos of Agony on the PC I watched, look gorgeous and seem to run perfectly. This was a major letdown that influenced my whole experience with this game. Hopefully, they come up with a decent fix to improve the game’s performance and stability.
The only thing that managed to set the mood right, were the sound effects. There’s constantly something going on in the background and the voiced of all those people in Agony, help to build up some of the game’s suspense. The voice acting is okay but there seems to be a small issue with the lip syncing. The game also suffers from bugs, especially the demons. Some demons will remain stuck in the wall, disappear and instantly reappear. Some of the skins of the demons, look awful as well. I really don’t know what happened with this build. This build has become a lot worse than the previous demi build. It seems like the game has been downgraded a lot, to even make the game run on the PlayStation 4.
Conclusion:
Agony was a letdown, especially because of the fact that the trailer of a few months back looked so good. The game I played these last few days doesn’t feel like a “completed” project. The game feels stiff and unstable. This really felt like I was playing a beta version of what’s to come. Hopefully, the PC version is a lot more enjoyable than the console version. The PS4 version just feels like a downgraded version of the PC version. The setting of the game felt “off” due to the technical difficulties of the game and the simplistic repetitive search for keys. Even though the game is set out to be a horror type of game, it didn’t build the suspense or adrenaline rush that I wanted.
