If you're a PC gamer, and you're old like me, then you probably have experienced the glory of something like Age of Empires, Red Alert, or another classical RTS. One of my favourites was Command and Conquer: Generals.
I never played Age of Mythology when it was the new hotness. I don't really know what I was doing when it came out in 2002. I was probably playing shooters, or concentrating on school work or something. Maybe I was still playing Age of Empires 2. Who knows.
Anyway. I'm old and rambling, as I am going to tend to do a lot of in the future, as I age; it will probably become more and more prevalent.
My friend Krystal suggested that we play of Age of Mythology (the Extended edition) - which I happened to own on Steam for some reason. We played a few games vs AI, and I thought nothing of it. Then the Retold edition came out, and she was obsessed. Therefore, I purchased it, with the intention of making our Tuesday night game nights Age of Mythology: Retold, for a while, at least.
It has only been over the last few weeks (while I had time away from work), that I decided to sit down and play the campaign with the intention of finishing it. Oh my goodness, and my many gods to worship, am I glad I did.
There's so much depth in Age of Mythology that it boggles my mind how it was even designed, let alone how to play in the most efficient manner; let alone how to counter x with y; yet at the same time, everything feels nicely balanced.
Some early missions in The Fall of the Trident campaign took me a couple of goes while I got my actions per minute back up to acceptable levels, but once I had, the feeling of unstoppableness once you've got your economy sorted is wonderful.
I can even see where the unique item abilities, and god powers and faith mechanics (that vary depending on the pantheon you are playing) - influenced later generations and genres of games.
It is so much fun finding outposts, taking them over, building an army, and then moving onto teh next one. The animations are smooth, the graphics are charming, and the voice acting is pretty good. I can understand some spoken greek, and it's nice that the greek villagers and military units say things like "Carefully," and "I'll finish it" when you instruct them to do things.
I'm sure it is the same for the other languages in the game, but don't ask me, I'm not a linguist.
The other remarkable thing about the Retold version of Age of Mythology is the fact that the accessibility and game menus have so many things for you to tinker with. From narration in the menus, to in game, to hot keys for literally every conceivable action in the game (and some that serve multiple purposes) - there's so much for me to still learn, even after spending about 40 hours or so in the game. I'm sure the learning curve will in fact be limitless.
This is a game that will overwhelm you with detail and depth, and it is truly an old school PC game, the type of stuff that I grew up playing. In fact, it has also made me enamoured and nostalgic for every single RTS game I've ever played, and while my A-Z of Steam play throughs are indeed shambolic in their order... this means that I will be playing a fair few RTS games to get the "itch" that Age of Mythology has given to me.
I am sure I will also explore RTS games that I've never played before.
Finally, I may break an oath that I said I would never do. I might install another Blizzard game. I might reinstall Starcraft and Starcraft II to see how they will treat me with my new found, nay, rediscovered love of RTS games.
If you've never played Age of Mythollogy and like any form of strategy game... just buy this. Don't think about it. Do it. Waste your life away like I have, and be immersed in something that can only be solved by someone who has more brainpower and the ability to click and fly around a map more than you do.
Get good at RTS instead of Eldern Ring. Expand your mind. I am going to do the same. I'm off to play more of this game, anf finish the last campaign. l