Stories: The Path of Destinies

This is a fantastic game and I love it. It definitely has the potential to be a 5* game for me. A brilliant fusion of the isomorphic hack and slash of Bastion and the choosing your own adventure style novel. I love the characters, art style, story, and narration. The combat is fast and satisfying, and death isn't the inconvenience it used to be, letting you jump back in within seconds to try a different approach. The narration is witty. I don't think there was anything that was laugh out loud, but it's consistently entertaining. The whole selling point of the game, the branching story, really does give other "choices have consequences" games a run for their money. Picking your path can have drastic, and hilarious, implications. Each story path takes about an hour, and there are 24 endings on the cards. If you want to see them all, you'll get a lot of play time, while not having to put a lot of time into any single session. Maps are large with multiple paths, so each run through the same map doesn't feel as repetitive. And you keep all your progress when the story resets, so no time is wasted. So my first complaint. If you play a few story paths at once you will hear some dialogue repeated a lot. I want to be able to skip the path descriptions. I'm going to be having dreams about temples rising out of the desert or saving an old friend. And while we're at it, I know the game is keeping track of my swords being fully upgraded, so an ore reward for completing a path is kind of a waste of time. Speaking of the swords, you'd think they'd be important, but so far they're just there for the combat powers and as keys. Completely divorced from story, which is a shame. Speaking of which, having to switch to the sword to open the door, then switch back for combat is annoying. I'd much prefer just being allowed to open the door if you possess the sword. Overall I love the game, but the style lends itself to small inconveniences becoming way bigger, which put me off.

If it wasnt for Totalbiscuits review this game would have just gone the way of the forgetfullness. Now complains on the title and marketing aside, the game is a nice little well crafted and entertaining action rpg. The upgradable abilities and repeatable nature of the core mechanic allow for a smooth progression helping overcome the enemies. Some irritation regarding npc charging from outside the fixed field of view and recuiring split-second decisions that not always are triggered when the last weapon animation hasnt finished its cycle. Some framerate slowdowns even on high-end machines. Upgrading the main weapons allow for new paths and shortcuts. The same weapons used in combat have magic abilities that consume alot of magic, magic that is better saved to heal afterwards since the health drops in smashed objects is too random. Health is not replenished when starting the next chapter. Small bug found near the end the observatory level with enviroment not correctly rendering near the shooting flame balls puzzle. Recommend buying it on sale for around 9 bucks as it relatively short, unless you try to unlock all endings on the card deck.

I wasn't expecting much of the game. But it has a fun combat system, funny commentary and a great story. Thanks for this wonderful work.

Why didn't I played that one sooner. I always felt the artstyle was somehow not my taste but it totally is. It is an great artstyle. The way the story is told is just funny, the narrator never lost his welcome and the game is really short, well a playtrough is short, a playtrough in the sense that you played one story, but there are manies to tell. Now that is awesome if you work since you don't have time to play another big game besides the 5 you are playing right now, I know when you are young you play 60 games it once but you don't have the time anymore and this game totally fills up the shorter moments of boredome with a ton of fun.

Really well made game, here. Replayability-value is very high by design, and you really have to respect this developer's decision to not include micro-transactions (seems like most games do now...ugh). As mentioned in previous reviews: the narrator brings this story (stories?), to life in a very enjoyable manner. And as far as gameplay, they did a really good job balancing the rpg aspects. Feels a little like Diablo III in some senses, but the battle system and enemy spawns do not feel too much like a grind. After you've leveled up a few main attributes, this game really opens up upon multiple play-throughs. I actually just started playing yesterday (Monday) evening; now here it is 6am EST and I've just finished my 5th (possibly 6th) play through and I'm ready for 7-25 more times. Really good work here, guys!