Agony Reviews
Agony proves that setting is only one component needed to make an excellent horror game.
Some say money is the root of all evil. Madmind Studio appears to be one such video game developer that reached too high when creating Agony. This extremely graphic and sexual game set out to shock players the day its initial Kickstarter campaign launched. The most shocking thing is how dull Agony is.
Agony is a mess, both in the gameplay and the presentation. Boring game with a high level of meaningless cruelty.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Agony is one of the biggest disappointments this year. Its excellent atmosphere is butchered by frustrating and repetitive gameplay and an abysmal technical performance
Inconsistent enemy A.I., a bad story, and lackluster environments come together to create a grueling slog of a game
Unfortunately, Agony stumbles off the starting block and, despite a valiant later effort, is never able to make up lost ground. In this case, a poor first impression irreparably mars the experience, despite measurable improvement in many of the fundamental design principles as the game wears on. The art and audio is striking, but the project may have benefited immensely from less ambition, and the hope is that, should Madmind have a second chance, it will create a more focused and cohesive title. Agony is not great, but it is far from the irredeemable abomination the media has painted it as.
Undercooked in all the key places, Agony is just a 10 hour trip through increasingly edgy content that isn't actually fun to play.
We've seen plenty of stalker horror games in the past (Amnesia being perhaps the best example), but a combination of bugs and absolutely dismal guidance from the game makes this one a very painful grind to work through, filled with trial and error deaths and far too few checkpoints for this kind of gameplay.
Agony has a solid foundation, but Madmind fails to build on it in any meaningful ways. Some gorgeous visuals are bogged down by poor game design and tasteless sexual content.
Agony's vision of Hell is breathtaking but its tedious gameplay and plethora of bugs hold it back.
Bellow its subversive appearance, Agony is just a mediocre title. It fails to capture the very essence of a successful survival horror game : an experience that combine a terrifying setting and interesting gameplay mechanics.
Review in French | Read full review
Agony is a sea of bugs and a complete disappointment in almost everything - from plot and levels structure to characters and controls.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Agony is, true to its name and intentions, a hellish experience. My excitement for the game was quickly quashed behind bugs, crashes and unbalanced gameplay, failing to live up to the potential of the game's core ideas and outstanding visual design. I hope that I can travel back to Hell following some substantial patching but, as things stand, Agony is torture in all the wrong ways.
Agony proves that, like beauty, horror can be only skin deep. With gratuitous amounts of violence and masochistic overtones, this blood-soaked adventure is not for the faint of heart. But 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.
Stay the Hell away.
Appropriately named for all of the worst reasons...
Agony is much more disturbing than horror, some bizarre design choices don't combine well and the majority of players will struggle to find anything of mentionable quality to warrant a purchase. If you just want f***** up, disturbing scenes, then it maybe worth a look, but if you're after any form of entertaining gameplay, you'd be far better looking elsewhere.
Agony is a mediocre survival horror: the dull gameplay and many controversial game design choices are the two responsibles of an unexpected result.
Review in Italian | Read full review
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.
Review in Polish | Read full review
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