The game is very nice. It has some great visuals and an absolutely awesome setting. Basically you're a minion of an 'evil overlord' figure who is about to finish his conquest of the continent to tighten his (hers?) iron grip on the land. This is a very welcome break from the regular heroes' journey who saves the world (from an ancient evil that just woke up). Unfortunately, the engrossing setting and being witness to two evil armies' infighting (what a refreshing story!) isn't enough. Tyranny comes up short. It is short on: - Characters: you compose your team out of just a handful of NPCs. In my playthrough I didn't recruit one and never met another; that means I had 4 characters to choose 3 from. They aren't also that interesting, lack personal quests and at least 2 of them have very limited equipment. - Challenge: The combat is very easy and fast to reach "win more" scenario in which you don't even need to pay attention to skills usage since your team cannot die and/or loose. - Playtime: I played quite inefficiently and loaded a lot and still finished the game in 20 hours. Act III is an insult. It's basically an epilogue that happens moments after a great story point. This coupled with certain symbols in your 'base' makes you feel cheated out of half of the game. - Features: Since this game is so short you don't get to use everything in it. You feel it the most right at the end when you unlock a supposedly major feature and using it just ends the game. - Satisfaction: The story ends right when it starts to be really interesting and right after the plot confronts you with some major questions about why your character can do what he/she can do, why he/she was allowed to do those things by the (kind of omnipotent) Evil Overlord. It's really frustrating. - Replayability: it's hard to make yourself play through this game again knowing that it will conclude so abruptly as if there was another half of this game that just wasn't released. Wait until it's cheaper.
Disclaimer: I didn't play the DLC this edition has. Dragon Age: Origins is arguably one of the last great titles by BioWare before they started to under-deliver. A superb entry in the relatively uncommon gritty high fantasy setting it puts you in the shoes of quite generic "chosen one" template and sets you on a quest to gather forces to face Great Evil That Has Awoken. The plot isn't that complicated. But the great thing about DA:O is that despite it's flaws like mediocre plot or abysmal class balance (at least in base game) it still is a classic entry in the genre and the closest thing to BG spritual successor up until Pillars of Eternity took over. DAO achieves it's greatness not with exceptional plot or mechanics, but by wonderful, deep lore, setting and characters. It is - I dare say - best incarnation of BioWare character archetypes roster, far from goofy "harem anime" groups that followed. It also does other things right; DAO approach to magic is disturbingly inspired, we see dwarven kingdom in the peak of political struggle, the battles with few actual dragons are rewarding. One of the highlights of DAO are it's multiple tutorials - based on your race and background you'll embrace your fate as the Grey Warden in different ways, each one unique and getting closure somewhere in the main plot. The art-style (tarnished in the sequels) is deliciously semi-realistic. It's refreshingly un-flashy, with toned-down magic and melee animations delivering heavy, crude blows; The characters get covered in blood while fighting all kinds of foes, from spiders to DA variation of Tolkien's orks. Graphically there's only one thing that always irked me - unnaturally huge arms on most models. Unfortunately, Dragon Age: Origins sequels didn't live up to this great game's legacy. I - personally - didn't finish DA2 in my first attempt (forced myself through it later), and never finished the third one. But DAO stands on it's own - if you haven't done it already, play it NOW.
Darkest Dungeon is a game best described as "Diablo meets Human Resources Manager". Indeed, the heroes you're managing are just resources, weapons in human form. You shouldn't attach to any particular hero and I think that classifying DD as a role-playing game is a bit misleading. In the core of the game you systematically pick a team of 4 heroes and explore dungeons with them, hoping to get resources out of it - gold and 'heirlooms' that push you toward the ultimate goal - assaulting the great evil in the titular Darkest Dungeon. In short you put resources in (maintenance cost of your heroes and supplies) and get dosh out and spend the surplus on improving your 'prime' heroes, rince repeat. It almost never gets boring, and seeing your party being able to clear more and more dangerous missions and managing 14 different hero classes (each with a unique skill set) and picking right stat-boosting 'trinkets' - all of it is simply wild fun. The game offers several boss fights that force you to think of the optimal skills to take them down, so even the fact that most of said bosses appear 3 times each (1 time per dungeon difficulty level) doesn't take the fun away. The combat system is simple yet satisfying and involves picking a skill set for each of your 4 heroes, placing them in a row (each skill can be used on specified slot set and has it's fixed set of targets as well) and then fighting off enemies in initiative order. Animations during combat are simple, but they manage to create a feeling of powerful blows and spells being delivered (and recieved). Aesthetically Darkest Dungeon has a unique style which I would describe as Diablo-meets-Lovecraft-meets-great Flash games. It's a one-of-a-kind cartoony fantasy horror, which has a value of it's own. The creatures range from standard, a bit uninspired skeletons to Carpenters-Thing-like abominations and the deeper you dwell the more twisted the foes become. DD is not perfect, but you won't regret a penny spent.
