Tyranny - Standard Edition

The first chapter opens with an intriguing premise and many delightfully difficult choices. The first few hours definitely managed to hook me where e.g. Pillars of Eternity didn't. The mid-game continues similarly and proves that the major choices matter: there are many alternate quest lines and character arcs you will definitely not see in a single playthrough. A few mid-game quest stages feel like tedious filler, but overall the first three quarters of the game are still very interesting. This is also where most of the character development happens. The dialogue is strong throughout, and the faction and character allegiance system does a great job of adding weight to even minor decisions. The final bits feel, unfortunately, very rushed. Some important mysteries built up throughout the game are not properly resolved, and some events and NPC decisions in the last chapter seem a little arbitrary. It really feels like they ran out of budget towards the end. Still, the ending is reasonably satisfying. Combat: I played on the second hardest difficulty and the combat got a bit stale towards the middle. Despite the great number of weapons, upgrades and abilities, they feel for the most part too weak to matter, except for a few overpowered healing skills you can get fairly early on. Combat is mostly about keeping your buffs and heals going, and using abilities as they come off of cooldown. Positioning, tactics, most spells and even character builds matter little, unfortunately. BG2, for instance, does this much better even if it's chaotic and random at times. Overall, well worth playing, even if it starts to fall apart a little towards the end.

Often, I find RPGs to be too sprawling or too shallow with a lot of filler. So, while this game may be shorter than many of the modern RPGs, it does a lot of things very well and improves on the mechanics developed during PoE. While it may not be for everyone I found this game incredibly fun and engaging and a for sure pickup for the price point.

amazing game. perfect graphics and an amazing sound track. they should make a second one.

The game starts out great, well paced, makes you feel powerful, like the choices you make matter. But towards the ending, it seems like they had a deadline to meet, and they just cooked up a half-arsed nonsensical ending, making all your previous choices irrelevant, and the time that you spend playing this game seem entirely wasted.

Game was very enjoyable, story kept me engaged and I enjoyed it toward the end. If you are an old school RPG person who like games like baldur's gate then this game will be right alley. I'm honestly not sure why this game got such negative reviews