YMMV / Age of Mythology

• Americans Hate Tingle: When he was first revealed, some Chinese players disliked the unflattering depiction of Huang Di, the mythological progenitor of the Chinese civilization and people, from Tale of the Dragon.
• Awesome Music: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Broken Base: Both official expansions are hit with this by the fandom. The Atlanteans are disliked because they aren't a civilization which existed in real world history, are just an extension of the Greeks (with some Roman and Mesoamerican elements thrown in to make them unique), having some gameplay mechanics which are divisive (in particular the automatic queue production and the Titan myth unit which got an option in the Extended Edition to be disabled) and in general are considered overpowered. Granted the Chinese avoid some of these complaints but also raise others (read below about more details), mostly the bad production value, almost unconnected (and badly written) plot compared with the base game, poor balancing (e.g. the human soldier units are too weak and the Vermillion bird is overpowered) and very half-baked state of the expansion's release with plenty of glitches. Regardless which of the 2 added civillizations and expansions you prefer they both come with a tradeoff, however people tend to regard the Atlanteans as better since they were made by the original developers.
• Complete Monster: Gargarensis, from Fall of the Trident (the campaign), is an evil Cyclops. Upon learning of his relationship with Poseidon, he intends to become immortal. Scheming to release the Titan Kronos, Gargarensis is well aware that releasing him will bring about the end of the world, but doesn't care. When the hero Arkantos disrupts his excavation in Greece, he threatens to kill his son, and upon arriving in Egypt, threatens to kill his dragon Kemsyt when the latter was defeated. Forced to flee Egypt, Gargarensis makes it clear to Kemsyt that he will only keep him alive as long as he is still useful. When he is trapped in the Norselands, Gargarensis forces Kemsyt into a perfect illusion of himself— guaranteeing Kemsyt's death— to buy himself more time. After taking over Atlantis, Gargarensis uses the powers of the gods to murder women and children to taunt his adversary, and upon his final defeat screams that he was promised a victory. Ambitious, arrogant, and selfish, Gargarensis shows that he will do anything to become immortal, even if it means the end of the world itself.
• Cult Classic: AoM was a success both commercially and with the critics, but got overshadowed by other strategy games and faded into obscurity. Even as of 2020, new maps, mods and campaigns are still regularly being made for it, with no sign of stopping anytime soon. The game likely has its unique setting, gameplay mechanics, and graphics (which aged surprisingly well for such an old game) to thank for it. It also had an HD re-release on Steam in 2014 which still receives updates and patches from the dev team. Both Titans and Extended Edition have a fairly sizeable competitive scene, riding the tide from Age of Empires II's resurgence in popularity.
• Demonic Spiders: Fire giants are huge, tough ranged brutes who deal obscene amounts of damage at range and are decent against buildings too. They aren't that bad in random map, as their cost means they are only used in small numbers in the endgame and they can't take much damage,but in the campaign (especially "The Dwarven Forge" scenario) they come in huge numbers with a meatshield of Mountain Giants to protect them.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Ajax, without a doubt. Half of the funniest and most badass lines in the game come directly from his mouth, and his Blood Knight tendencies are always a treat to see.
• Fanon Discontinuity: The Tale of the Dragon expansion pack was widely disliked by fans and critics alike on launch since it had a plethora of issues like glitches, unbalanced gameplay, a boring cliche plot which is barely connected to the original story, low quality production value (such as an Egyptian temple appearing in one mission despite it being set in China) and others which made it feel more like a cheap Game Mod rather than an official expansion in the eyes of many fans (to wit, the previous two games have at least a cinematic feel in cutscenes, with the in-game models having their own animations tailored to it, sometimes mixed with the in-game animations). The fact that it wasn't developed by the original creators Ensemble Studios did not help and some fans still refuse to acknowledge its existence. Overtime patches that improved graphics and glitch fixes helped warm up fans to the expansion, though many are still unimpressed with the new campaign and often get the expansion just so they can play as the Chinese.
• Franchise Original Sin: The Tale of the Dragon Expansion faced criticism for how unbalanced the Chinese were, but many old fans were quick to remark how the game was never really balanced to begin with (especially after The Titans expansion).
• Game-Breaker: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Genius Bonus: If you look closely at the campaign maps, you'd notice that Atlantis and New Atlantis in the expansion are the Philippine islands of Mindanao and Basilan respectively.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • Militia. They're weak human infantry who spawn whenever you destroy a building from a Poseidon player. Naturally, later on in the campaign most of the Greek enemies are Poseidon, and you frequently have to chew through dozens of buildings to win a level.
  • In a bizarre different way, Isis Monuments, which prevent the use of God Powers in their vicinity unless they are destroyed. You'll have to deal with a lot of them during the egyptian campaign, despite the enemy majorly consisting of Set worshippers.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • While worshiping Osiris, if you research New Kingdom and use Son of Osiris on the second Pharaoh, the game thinks the Pharaoh died and he will resurrect, which means you can have two pharaohs and the Son of Osiris!
  • For some bizarre reason you can garrison a single archer unit inside Amanra. This was originally considered just a strange quirk, until a speedrunner figured out how to use it to their advantage.
  • As The Spiffing Brit discovers, a Poseidon player can set a lure near the enemy, get it attacked and have it repaired afterwards. The reason behind this is that the game is unable to calculate the resources needed to repair a free structure which causes the counter to glitch out and give you over 2 million in every resource, effectively giving you the means to access all the late-game stuff way, way ahead of your opponents.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Before entering Nieflheim, Ajax tells Chiron to go first. "If you don't fall screaming to your death, we'll follow you." At the end of the stage Chiron sacrifices himself so the rest of the group can run away from the horde of giants after them.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In The Titans expansion, Kronos is depicted as a giant Magma Man, in contrast to his traditional depiction as an old man with a sickle. A decade later, Wrath of the Titans did the same with its version of Kronos.
  • Carole Ruggier voiced Athena in the campaign cutscenes. Later she voiced the same character in several of the God of War entries.
• Narm: The first third of The Titans campaign does not get off to a good start due to the rather questionable vocal performances of the new actors, and even a returning one in the case of Krios. It can be very jarring coming straight from the excellent voice work in the original Fall of the Trident campaign. Luckily Arkantos, Amanra and Ajax appear later to ease some of the pain.
• Narm Charm: The voice acting in all the campaigns wouldn't be out of place in an old sword-and-sandal B-movie, as such many fans find it a treat to listen to.
• Obvious Beta: The Tale of the Dragon DLC release features numerous irritating and conspicuous bugs, many of which can still be found in the game even after various patches. Examples include:
  • The Chinese gods being bugged out even after a fresh install, rendering it impossible to select them in random matches or advance to the next age if you play the campaign.
  • If you skip the opening cutscene in "Trapped", the campaign's fourth mission, all town centers on the map are destroyed, resulting in an instant loss.
  • Destroying enemy temples will sometimes result in them switching to the Egyptian temple model for their crumbling animation.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: One big problem with choosing Atlas was that he didn't have access to the Omniscience technology (incredibly expensive, but allows you to see everything your enemies see), instead getting the much, much lamer Eyes of Atlas (improves line of sight of all units). A later patch and now he has access to both technologies.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Occasionally the campaign will have you stall until you can create some super-powerful unit or buff, or wait until help arrives to beat the enemy in the current scenario (e.g., "I Hope This Works", "Light Sleeper", "All Is Not Lost", "A Place In My Dreams", "Cerberus", and "Rampage"), and a common challenge is to beat the level without them.
• The Scrappy: Pangu the Chinese Titan was poorly received by people unfamiliar with Chinese mythology, mostly due to its unpolished design. The fact that he reuses the Atlantean titan's animation doesn't help.
• Special Effects Failure: Quite a few of the Tale of the Dragon models are poorly done, especially the myth units. Even the cinematics for the campaign is bare bones and mostly relied on Greek/Atlantis tilesets to replicate Chinese architecture. That said, some fans actually like them for this very fact, feeling it makes the expansion feel more like it came from the game's original release.
  • The original chinese tutorial was made poorly with the cinematic editor, as the units take a lot of time to kill each other, as if it was an actual gameplay example. It was patched later, thankfuly.
• Strawman Has a Point: When Ajax declares that he want to cut off Kastor's head for his crimes, Amanra defends him saying that he may be tricked or maybe misguided. We are supposed to side with her in the argument, but regardless if Kastor is tricked or not, he still ordered his men to carry out a full-scale raid across whole continents, causing the deaths of hundreds of men including both Ajax and Amanra's just because two Greek scouts attack him first for repairing a temple to the Titan. If Ajax does not order his death all because he is the son of his close friend, such actions would have been treated as a crime by all the people who have been hurt by the attack. Moreover, Amanra doesn't even show concern that her own Egyptian Empire has been crippled as a result of the attack making her argument that he is "not as he seems" unbelievable. Although the fact that Arkantos, who by that point has become a friggin GOD, told her may explain why she defends Kastor.
• That One Boss: Ymir the Norse titan from the Titans campaign. You have to stop him from destroying the villages on his way to your base, but this is difficult because he can easily kill your soldiers, and he sends enemies to attack your base frequently throughout the mission which makes it frustrating to split troops to stop Ymir and defending your base. Folstag can freeze him temporarily with his breath, but even so, Ymir makes the mission quite challenging.
• That One Level: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.

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