Tyranny - Standard Edition

This game is an impossibly rare combination of isometric eye-candy, good story, morally difficult decisions, interesting companions, voice acting and more. I absolutely recommend it to any fan of good old games like Baldur's Gate, especially to chaotic good players (enjoy dealing with dark-side zealots and lunatics). For the mage types, you will be able to create and later improve your own spells depending on discovered knowledge and character stats, which I found quite nice. Most Items can be upgraded, and you can research and craft new items as well. I loved the pop-up lore system, that allows for fluid conversations (references that the character would get, but the player wouldn't, are explained by hoovering the mouse on certain names). Also nice is the experience system: you use a staff with frost damage and you get frost proficiency, you climb a wall and you get athletics, you train some skill at a trainer and you get XP. I would have preferred more dungeons, but you can't have everything... For those concerned about the "short game" reviews, my playthrough was 42 h (occasionally skipping a dialog line or two)

Obsidian and Paradox have crafted a gem of a world and built in some deep, interesting lore. The character dialogue is also interesting. Sure, your standard fantasy tropes are here, but they are done very well. It is definitely worth, at least, one play through. Where the game loses stars is in its combat, AI, and inventory management systems. The combat is limited and gets pretty repetitive. The AI has poor tracking and gets stuck often. The UI could use some work and it can be difficult to keep track of weapons and items in the late game. These issues were beyond frustrating and had me considering quitting. I might have quit, if not for wanting to see how the story developed. Finally, it is a short game, which did not bother me as I do not have decades to invest in CRPGs anymore, but your preferences may vary. I hope Paradox continues the franchise. Review note: Copy obtained through other service.

I was dubious, but took the plunge and do not regret it. General: Very few games have drawn me in and given me such levels of choice. This game kept me playing for hours without even considering doing anything else. Worth the money. Graphics: This game is of the same quality as Pillars of Eternity, or Tides of Numeria in graphical terms. No excessive ray-tracing or unneeded frivolities concerning SSAO or anything of that nature. It runs extremely well on my mini-pc at full resolution and 4x AA etc. No problems at all. Sound: Voice acting is used sparingly, but is of superb quality and always interesting to hear. Congrats to the atmospheric sound choices and often overlooked combat sounds. No complaints at all. Story: The character creation, and introductory background choices is extremely good. You are offered a series of events to participate in that shape your experience in game. The choices are text-based decisions and the results of your options are shown, impacting your faction relations and sculpting your history before play. You can choose quick-play to skip this, but I was very entertained and interested in choosing my own brand of character, which wasn't forced into the narrow band of Good vs Evil. Instead, your decisions are related to real-life situations which I was delighted with. You are a somewhat blank slate and this was very well crafted. I shan't say more to avoid ruining the story itself. Gameplay: Top-down, RPG with space-bar pause mechanic. Spell creation through selecting runes which you gather throughout the game, posessing both melee spells, ranged and arc of effect etc. Combat is tried and true with a tutorial that doesn't treat you like a child and is simply a series of situation-appropriate text boxes you can skip if so desired. Misc: I was running this in linux using wine and had 0 issues which is always nice to see. Hope to see more games like this.

I had pretty low expectations when I bought Tyranny, especially after reading about the potentially short game-play experience. Despite all of that, I was pleasantly surprised. I finished the game after 40+ hours and I loved it. I've always been a fan of classic RPGs like Neverwinter Nights but I never got the sense of power and responsibility that you get when playing as the Fatebinder in Tyranny. Choices actually change the story and you're actually inclined to replaying it especially because there's a New Game + mode that allows you to keep you character and continue increasing in power and levels. One other thing I liked was the flexibility it gives you. There are no classes in Tyranny. You can go full wizard, warrior or anything in between. Spells are customizable based on your lore attribute and you can wear and/or wield all armors and weapons in the game. After I finished it, I bought Pillars of Eternity. It's also worth mentioning that I played the game on Linux and it ran beautifully.

I really love these CRPGS, and I'm a big fan of Obsidian. This game was no disappointment! It's very satisfying, a lot of fun, and really engaging. Awesome story, and being the bad guy isn't going to cause you problems in this game. It deserves 5 stars because it's an expertly made game, but I'm only giving it 4 because it gave you so much to build on... then it all ended before actually building anything. I was really sad when it was over. It felt like Act 1 of a game that should have 3 parts. - It is short game. The problem is, it's really easy to miss things you can do. I thought I could come back to places and finish later - nope. Get it right the first time, or miss out. - I found myself out of money to keep upgrading things by the end, and there were no more bad guys to go level up on. You really have to be careful to level up well, because you don't get many levels. I beat the game at level 13. - There were so many interesting things to build.... and no money, resources, and time to build them all. You really can't "complete" all the things you want to do in this game in one playthrough. You'd have to play again and take a different path to experience it all. And I'm going to play it again and take a different path because it's that good. - The ending was good for the end of a chapter, but for the end of the game? I really wanted more. It was like ordering a ribeye steak, craving the whole 12 oz thing, and then being given a 4 oz tenderloin instead. Really enjoyable. Amazing! Love every bite! But I wanted the 12 oz ribeye. The reality is that Pillars of Eternity is the 12 oz Ribeye I wanted... except I enjoyed playing Tyranny a lot more. The problem is that the ending felt like it came too soon and too easily. My choices did affect the ending, which was satisfying, but I got the ending of an ultra powerful character without feeling powerful yet.