These days there are more and more indie companies that closely resemble AAA studios, where a lack of principles and broken promises is what makes them stand out, and they don't hesitate to lie to users for years, promising a game with certain features only to change it drastically at launch and try to bring it to all users, even if that means removing features they promised it would have and would never remove.

Age of Barbarian Chronicles is finally released after a six years delay, and given its current state, only the artist seems to have worked hard on it, because it's riddled with bugs. In just the first half hour of gameplay you'll find glitches, flickering, objects that when dropped end up outside the playable area and you can't pick them up again, an AI that makes characters start looking left to right repeatedly at an annoyingly high speed, among many other issues. It doesn't seem like a product that has been worked on for so many years, except for the art, and indeed that's the case: during the development of this game the developer has been busy making countless other games, none of which were finished.
But what stands out most is the amount of censorship they've put into the game, exactly what they promised they wouldn't do.

What does the good developer say about the censorship introduced?
"I have never said that I will remove erotic content from the game, however, those present are unsuitable for the story mode I am developing."
"The Sword & Sorcery genre is inherently erotic, but it shouldn't become too cheap, or it loses its allure and turns into something else. The right balance is crucial!"

It turns out that after more than nine years, when they submitted the game for validation on Epic and Steam they ran into problems with the game's content and suddenly their mindset changed. Now, seeing our barbarian's genitals is obscene and out of place, so under his loincloth he'll wear fine cotton underwear so it doesn't chafe him and so he doesn't catch a chill in his balls. That's important.

Of course, they've complied with Epic's policy for the release and despite numerous delays on Steam trying to pass validation without being classified as an adult game, they didn't succeed.
But don't worry. This is what the good developer says about the Epic and Steam versions:
"Yes, the two versions are identical, except that on Steam, they've listed it as an adult game, which is something we're working on."

They're working to remove the adult tag, so we can expect more censorship.

I haven't followed the game on Patreon, but I've watched gameplay and played the first part of the game, up until Yanah has a dream where her daughter appears, and not only have they removed the nudity, a single cutscene has countless cuts compared to the original. It's shameful.

With this new puritanical mindset from Crian Soft, it turns out that Patreon users have an exclusive patch for ARENA Age of Barbarian that removes the censorship from the final cutscenes... a game that's an achievement to finish due to the endless crashes, and instead of patching it they spend time on that. It seems their morality and principles are very selective and change a lot depending on the jingle of coins.
Will they later release an exclusive Patreon patch that removes the censorship? The jingle of coins will tell.

With no principles or keeping their word and an endless stream of lies, Crian Soft brings us the most shameful game in the series, where only the artist is worthy of the title.

Janky. Needs a lot of polishing. The voice acting and cutscenes are underwhelming, the inventory management is uncomfortable, and playing on a gamepad feels awkward (for example, you can't even exit the pause menu without swinging your sword).

- There’s only one button for picking up, selecting, and using items, which often results in accidentally using items or activating abilities.

- The controls are overall bad for pseudo-3D / multi-lane combat.

- Not even 15 minutes in, and the game already crashed before the catacomb boss.

- No checkpoints?

Oh, and the nudity is only partial, so we need a PP patch (if not on Steam, then post it somewhere else, please and thank you).

EDIT: After some consideration, I asked for a refund and got my money back. The game is in a painfully obvious unfinished, barely playable state, so at this point it's basically a matter of self-respect not to pay for such a product.

And yes, the dev has been getting money from Patreon supporters for years, but ultimately under-delivered, and now the whole situation resembles a typical case of false advertising.

I hope Crian Soft gets a redemption arc at some point in the future, but as of the date of this review, things are rough. Way too rough for me to consider giving them any more money, that's for sure.

I've been a Patreon supporter for a while now and played some of the builds, so I had an idea of what I was getting into.
I like this game, jank and all, much like I enjoy the first game and Arena. But ultimately, with Crian Soft's genuine, unironic love for the specific barbarian b-movie niche, I'm precisely the target audience for this franchise.