Jeuxvideo.com is one of the oldest and the biggest french website used by, french, swiss, belgians and most of the french speaking europeans.
they reviewed every age series in the past.
it gave the game 16/20.
But it was harsh on the graphics side : it says " Graphics from another Age"
“You will note it quickly the game AOE IV is not pretty”
" Units have a cartoon aspect which many will not like"
" We should expect more from a 2021 Game"
The gameplay aspect has a relatively good grade but they say units lack personality and various mechanics seem to miss. Not enough mechanics from their perspective.
Overall they were quite positive. Their main concerns (like our’s) are about graphism.
They are mostly happy with just about anything else (from happy to very happy). And contrary to the German magazine who was the first to review the game and absolutely hated the campaigns, they liked the campaigns. I saw a bit of the Norman campaign (a video on Youtube) and I agree on this with the French rather than the Germans. So far. I watched only the description of the first 2 missions. I"ll see the rest playing it with the real thing in my hands.
Yeah for me the game would be almost perfect if 1. the units had real textures and more details. 2 the 100% on hit arrows should not exist, 3. skirmishers.
Hmmm 16 of 20 is not bad at all.
Speaking about the particular case of the game, I think that if its pretty or not, depends in every person and if they like it or not. Its completly subjective.
So I cant be agree when they say that the game isnt pretty because I dont see it in that way.
The game is really pretty and yeah, I was hoping the game to have more realistic graphics but after playing the beta, I ended loving them.
Graphics are not everything in a game and the are lots of modern games that were released recently and they are a totally succesfull despite not having super ultra 4K graphics or something like that lol
It seems that campaign is quite polarizing. People who like the subject of history will probably like it a lot but the ones who doesn’t really care and just want gripping narrative will not.