So I am an old-school gamer who cut his teeth on these types of games in the '90s. For me, my enjoyment of these games depends on two things: 1) My ability to roleplay my character by making decisions that follow a character's headcanon and backstory. 2) A deep, challenging RPG combat and leveling system that rewards strategic thinking. Tyranny has both of these in spades. While I loved the party system and mechanics in Pillars of Eternity, that game had almost no "role-playing." But Tyranny? Oh man, you can play an upstanding paragon of goodness fighting for social justice, a pragmatic seeker of law & order who is willing to compromise his morals and cross the line, a complete psychotic madman, and anything in between. Amazingly, the dialogue system in this game is so deep that there always seems to be a choice that reflects your chosen backstory. In most other RPGs today, you are lucky to get a single "good," "bad," and "neutral" response, but this game is so well-written that it never feels like you are shoe-horned into those responses. And the writing... Tyranny has an amazing world full of incredibly interesting characters and organizations. The only other RPGs with characters this interesting are arguably those from Bioware. And the story itself, while "short" compared to the bloated playtimes of other RPGs like Pillars of Eternity, FEELS long. Your character can arc over the course of the story (that seeker of law and order may themselves turn into tyrants), and you actually feel the progression of starting as a lowly servant of Kyros who turns into a force of nature all by themselves. When you start the game, you feel like you are walking among gods, but by the end of the story, you feel like you ARE a god. Lastly, the combat mechanics and RPG progression in this game are excellent. I had an amazing time playing through this on the hardest difficulty. Some of the fights were crazy and took many tries, but I did it! All in all, highly recommended. *****
The reviews here seem pretty polarizing, but coming from a long-time PC RPGer who played both Fallout 1 and 2 on release in the 90s, this game hits the nostalgia button HARD. I'm about halfway through the game and thoroughly enjoying it. PROS - Open world, explore-in-whatever-order gameplay that feels like Fallout 1 and 2. - Writing is very detailed, lots of atmosphere, game is filled with dark humor and some great characters (Scotchmo, the shotgun-wielding Lord of the Hobos! "These aren't my pants! These aren't my pants! I sh*t in these pants.") - Isometric turn-based combat is straight from Fallout. Lots of different weapons. The party-based combat feels a bit like Icewind Dale. - Many different ways to tackle quests using different skills, so multiple playthroughs will feel different. - Different factions you can "side" with to complete quest areas. CONS - Bugs. Save often. You never know when you'll need to reload after some kind of game-breaking bug. - Lack of polish. Certain things that you expect to work... don't. (e.g. Clicking somewhere on the map doesn't move your viewpoint to that portion of the map. So anytime you want your party to move across a large play area, you need to pan across the entire thing and find the exit point). - Too much running across play-fields you have already finished. - Your four rangers don't have much personality compared to the other NPCs. - Save scumming. The random number generator resets with every try, so you can Quick Load your game and open every chest, win every encounter that isn't "0% Impossible." - Too many locked, trapped chests and boxes everywhere. Gets repetitive. See save scumming. Overall, if you can ignore the cons, which I was able to do, you'll find a lot to enjoy in this game. I don't know if it's worth $40, but it was worth every cent of the $15 I Kickstarted it with back in 2012.
