Agony

Fortunately, the exquisiteness of such a raw and visceral infernal representation overshadows all the technical and game design problems. But when the gameplay becomes so insistent that it manages to break the horrible enchantment, it's trouble.

Agony is a game of insane contrasts, both fascinating and embarrassing. Therefore I still don’t know whether its developers are geniuses or amateurs and although I believe it deserves a relatively high score, I actually cannot recommend it unconditionally. [08/2018, p.84]

Agony is a good horror/stealth game, for sure the best representation of Hell ever seen in a game. Although if the visual impact is amazing, many of the mechanics don't work as they should, making the game at times too frustrating or difficult to explore.

If you are predisposed toward the infernal if you enjoy the gory and the journey this game might be for you. If you are looking for solid gameplay and perpetual darkness is an issue, then you will see more devils than this vast hell can hold.

Agony is a game I really wanted to love and visually, the game looks rather impressive, even some of the early gameplay moments feel well crafted and fresh, yet, as a whole, Agony just doesn’t hold up against other games of the genre — at best, Agony feels like a lovechild between Red Barrel’s Outlast series and id Software’s 2016 Doom reboot, and at its worst, Agony feels like a game that probably needed a few more months in the crucible before inviting us all to join it down in Hell.

At the end of the day, though, Agony exists with too much dissonance to be a completely enjoyable game. For as much as I liked the visual and audio designs, and they really are pretty great, the actual gameplay is just too frustrating and dull too much of the time. I think there’s a place for games that place style over substance, but Agony doesn’t quite stick the landing.

With a hint of art, this is a borderline horror trip through hell, with boring tasks and technical problems.

Agony is a survival horror adventure game with disturbing and grotesque visuals that sadly doesn´t match the high expectations we had on it. Most of the game mechanics are too frustrating, clunky and repetitive, but it also gives us freedom of exploration and shows a good level design. A game for the true hardcore fans of horror games.

A really great idea for a horror game, but it simply fails to deliver. Boring gameplay, bad voice acting and a lot more.

Agony is the best video game representation of Hell ever created, but it's the only thing the game has got going for itself. With its lack of gameplay direction, poorly explained mechanics and bad pacing, playing Agony can be a hellish experience, and not for the reasons the development team intended.

It is dark, gritty, scary, explicit and daring. But it also is buggy, unbalanced, sometimes outright unfair and technically not as sound as it good have been.

Despite the cuts, plenty of controversial stuff did make it into the game – for example, there’s a sinner who uses a baby like a mop. But here’s the thing: while unquestionably disgusting, it’s not scary. And coupled with lackluster gameplay mechanics, Agony quickly becomes a chore. [Issue#231, p.64]

Many problems while descending into hell: The horror-adventure ist neither technically nor gameplay-wise well-engineered.

I can't recommend this game as the payout of eye candy isn't worth the time you have to put in slogging through hell behind the eyes of a depressingly slow husk of a dead man.

Agony is an ambitious game; it sought to give gamers an experience that they had never had before, which it does somewhat deliver, and I have to credit its developers for even the attempt. But this final product just doesn’t feel finished; this is more like an Early Access game – full of promise and great ideas but just lacking in content, polish and attention to detail.

The vision of hell introduced in Agony rivals the excellent final level of Painkiller. Unfortunately the game set in this wonderfully warped world isn't very interesting. For each upside there's at least one serious shortcoming. This controversial and ambitious game turned out to be dull and rather boring.

A truly inspired and horrific depiction of Hell, attempting to prop up a mechanically nonexistent survival/horror early prototype for a game. Even the toughest of pentacle carving black metal fans will have a hard time pretending that they actually enjoyed and ‘got’ Agony.

Agony does not quite reach the expectations we had for it. However, its ambiance and portrait of hell are quite disturbing.

Firstborn perversions and morbid game design get boring quickly and the player is left only with his own pain caused by the bad game. So at least there lives Agony up to its name. [Issue#287]

The agony can shock and literally enjoys gore and perversion. Underneath the peel of disgust and obscenity, it does not cover anything else than doctrinal playability, bad design decisions, bugs and boredom. You do not want to pay for such a form of suffering.

Undercooked in all the key places, Agony is just a 10 hour trip through increasingly edgy content that isn't actually fun to play.

Agony tries very hard to depict a sadistic and nightmarish hell and provoke the senses. In the end it fails, due to repetitive environments, excruciating stealth sections and a lack of any material worthy of provocation. Even if the censored material depicted truly intense scenes it would most probably still not be enough to overcome the numerous technical and gameplay issues.

While its bold and detailed environments depict Hell in the most nightmarish ways possible, even the fantastically obscene sights and creepy sounds become mundane and dull by the end of its series of repetitious mazes, unimaginative item hunts, and weak stealth gameplay.

Character development mechanics do almost nothing.

Agony lives up to its name in the most dreadful way possible. The gory shock tactics try too hard to impress, and are ultimately a moot point given just how effective the game’s brokenness is at dispelling any palpable fear or awe I might have had and replacing it with aggravation.

A game for succubi, but not for humans.

Although Agony offers a vivid, grotesque, and very disturbing glimpse into the bowels of Hell, it doesn't offer much in the way of polished, coherent gameplay.

As its name suggests, playing this at times is painful, void of fun, and a chore that could've been avoided had a lot more care been put into it.

Agony clearly deserves its name. The gameplay mechanics are chaotic, at best, the AI is plain dumb, the level-design is muddled, the scenario is boring… Well, there’s nothing to save here.

In a way, the experience you'll have with the game matches its name perfectly, so unless you're desperate for a masochistic experience, Agony gets a hard pass.

I entered Agony’s Gates of Hell with a slack-jawed gasp. It is such a disappointment to have to have left it with a shrug.

The only people who should consider Agony are people that want a truly hardcore, even at the expense of enjoyment, survival horror game that will put your patience to the test. Or, someone that really wants to experience a truly horrifying take on hell that we’ve never seen before, complete with actual torture. That’s the only value I can eek out of Agony, and that’s a damned shame.

Agony is a survival horror title that serves as a bold interpretation of biblical hell, crushed by a monolith of technical problems and unpolished design.