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 don´t know why this game flew under nearly everyones radar. Didn´t hear or see that much in the usual dark review corners of the earth which seems inexplicable to me. Whatever Ultra Ultra tried to achieve with Echo, they suceeded and probably exceeded. All elements that make a great game are there. You are thrusted right into the story with only vague hints about the world and state of existence in this sci-fi setting through the superb narration of the voice-actors Rose Leslie and Nick Boulton. The beginning is a slow roll into one of the most beautiful and at the same time oppressive architectures and level-designs i have encountered in games: the palace. This game oozes atmosphere from beginning to end with a perfect symbiotic sounddesign and music - but not only that, in it has also a really hard gameplay which requires thinking ahead, good reactions and adaptability. Every element fits and clicks into the other and i was taken away. So i call it what i think it is: Masterpiece
