Tyranny review

Criticism

The writing overall is pretty good and there are some clever dialogue, although it can be a bit heavy on exposure at times. A lot of effort has been put into creating the world and the backstory, and the important characters have defined personalities and some interesting interactions.

I’d like to know when it has become standard procedure for RPGs to start with a male and female support character hating each other, even if there is a lot more nuance in their relationship than what is seen in most versions. of this dynamic.

On the other hand, there are some places where the game bothers you a bit and some decisions seem to overwrite everything you’ve done up to that point. The end of Act 1 provides an excellent example of both. The player must choose one of Kyros’s generals to lead the attack and whoever does not support decides to start a civil war over it.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done up to that point or which general you like best – someone has to rebel to keep the story moving, and there’s nothing the player can do to stop it.

In addition to the annoyance, when called upon to defend your decision, the dialogue choices give you no real option to do so. This doesn’t completely ruin the narrative, but it hurts it – and the story is really the only thing Tyranny has to offer.

Fight

Although Tyranny is an old-school RPG that tries to summon characters of the caliber of the original Fallout, the stat-based real-time combat with pause reminds me more of Dragon Age: Origins. The problem is, as much as I love DA: O, his fight isn’t really that much fun to play.

Tyranny also has a lot less in the way of monster variety than Dragon Age. The enemies in this game are of three types: humans, who are the majority by a significant margin; the werewolf-like Beastmen; and the ghost of Bane. But each encounter with a particular breed feels like the previous one. The controls are functional enough that I never found myself dreading the next encounter, but I wasn’t exactly chewing on either.

There are some mechanics I like, such as capturing and customizing Spiers, which act as bases and fast travel points where the player can purchase upgrades and chat with party members. The player will also periodically receive missives from characters in another location who have multiple response choices.

I would have liked to have been able to send a message of my own initiative, for example to deliver a mission. But, as it is, the mechanics add a fun twist. Both systems work well, but neither is part of the core gameplay and the missives in particular seem more of a gimmick than something meaningful.