Tyranny - Standard Edition

I wasnt sure of this game till i finished it, but with act 2 and going anarch route it was so much fun. Obsidian knows how to write story and world building and game with mechanic of making spells and talent tree is really nice. how choices impact world is crazy tbh i love it

Tyranny is not a bad game per se, but I thought the premise is dubious at best. I have nothing against the setting. where an evil overlord rules the known world and you play as an enforcer of his will. But like watching too many episodes of walking dead the setting gets dull and depressing. There is just to little diversity in the world building to get me hooked. The comic-art design isn´t my cup of tea either in a crpg but what put me off the most was the awful level design. While in bg, iwd and pillars you have beautiful hand crafted and designed locations it appears that in tyranny they copy-pasted much of the environment and its items. In one place you fight through a meandering laager of wagons and where enemies behind some barrels 2 feets next to you don´t react until you take some turns through the camp where the line of sight can be established, it´s just bad level design and not very immersive. As a more casual player I found the character progression system confusing and unbalanced compared to pillars. All in all this game is still above average in the genre so I don´t think it deserves less then 3/5 but I didn´t enjoy it as much as I did with its comparable brethren bg and pillars.

I was really excited for a release from Obsidian with yet another Pillars of Eternity engine but found myself left wanting. I'll break this review down for simplicity. The characters were interesting, as to be expected from Obsidian's work. I liked the two faction leaders serving Kyros (everyone's boss), as well as the companions you can add to your party. My gripe is that there is only 4 characters per party which in practice you'll find quite limiting. The variety of 6 characters really makes a difference in pillars of eternity in comparison, I mean you almost *need* a tank and healer so that's literally 50% of your party as opposed to 33% in pillars. The combat I found challenging compared to PoE, took me a while to get used to it. I don't know how anyone can do these games on Path of the Damned, I struggled on Normal and had to use Easy to get past bosses. Pillars was a struggle too but because I had more party members filling various roles, it tended to balance out a bit better. The story was alright, I was kind of disappointed with the ending, I exclaimed "that's it?" when I beat it after 15 hours with a good chunk of side quests completed. The interface seemed weak and didn't take full advantage of the Pillars options we're used to, fast forward has to be hotkey activated and manually controlled if combat breaks out. The writing and environments are great. No complaints. The spell crafting system and weapon crafting is a great idea but I literally ran out of "game to play" before I got anything accomplished from it. If the game was longer I might have appreciated it more. Great idea, wrong game to implement it in. My overall impression was this game felt really "rushed" and unfinished. Not what I expect from Obsidian. I was disappointed in many ways. It had quality, but no quantity. Save your money, buy it on sale. It's like temple of elemental evil is to baldur's gate 2.

I have played many cRPG"s since the days of Baldur's Gate and Fallout. More often than not these are very fun games. Every once in a while an incredibly well designed game comes out and manages to balance all aspects from writing and narrative to gameplay marvelously. This is the case with games that become the measuring stick of a generation, such as Baldur's Gate 2 and Pillars of Eternity. Rarely do we get to experience truly special cRPG's that while imperfect, push the envelop of traditional media and defy our expectations of games and literature, and simply sit at the far end of that measuring stick. This was the case once with Planescape: Torment, a unique game with thoughtful narrative, high quality writing and elaborate RP-mechanics. I suggest we name Tyranny the PS:T of our generation: it has the most unique mythology we've seen in games in years, the writing is excellent, the RP-mechanics are deeply fleshed out, the world truly responds to our choices and actions, and, despite not being a very long game (40ish hours), it manages to deliver a true literary experience rarely found in cRPG's anymore. If you like any of these things, you should most definitely play Tyranny. It is a shame we don't get many games like these anymore but here's hoping Obsidian will be *allowed* (by their new corporate overlords) to release excellent, thoughtful games like these in the future, even if they don't appeal to a wide crowd.

The only game that has impactful decisions. Yes, it still feels like "but it's the story" well the story made me feel bad for doing bad things. 10/10 would commit war crimes again.