NARRATOR: “For over 400 years, the armies of Kyros the Overlord have swept across the known world.” NARRATOR: “All who stood against them fell before their might.” NARRATOR: “Even the Archons, women and men of immense power, were forced to kneel, chained to the Overlord’s will.” NARRATOR: “Now, Kyros’ final conquest has come to our corner of the world…” …and you are with the invaders. [cry of terror] “Tyranny” is an Obsidian CRPG with a twist. Instead of saving the world from a villain, the villain has basically already won. The final holdout in the world has just been conquered. The Overlord sent in two rival armies to do the job. They did win, but it was messy. To the point where a rebellion broke out shortly after. So Tunon, the Archon of Justice and King Baldwin IV cosplayer, has sent you in to try and settle things out. As a Fatebinder, you’re fantasy Judge Dredd. Your job is, both, to crush dissent and mediate cases according to the Overlord’s law. Which can have a few different interpretations… Or you could outright abuse your power. Things can play out very differently, whether it’s mastering legalese, or being comically evil. So there will be a lot to talk about in that regard. It’s also worth mentioning that “Tyranny” plays A LOT like “Pillars of Eternity”. I haven’t done a video on that one yet, so I’ll try to keep comparisons to a minimum, but, if you have played it, you may see a lot that’s familiar. At least mechanics-wise, because, yeah, “Pillars” does look a lot better graphically. That seems like a good place to start. [*donk*] Unlike a lot of fantasy CRPGs, which are set in a quasi-medieval kind of thing, “Tyranny’s” world is set in early Iron Age. So all the armor and weapons draw more from that ancient period. For the most part… Only the Overlord’s empire has really figured out how to manufacture with iron – the rebelling forces are stuck with bronze. Iron isn’t much harder than bronze, but, if you know what you’re doing, it’s a hell of a lot easier to make, because you only need to find iron, instead of copper and tin. The bad guys aren’t just wearing big black armor because it’s cool – it’s ECONOMICS. There are lots of details like that, and it’s nice to have a game like this set in this period. There are some fantastical locations to explore, which would make any DM happy, and from time to time, you do get some truly striking imagery. Sadly, you don’t get a ton of the really unique stuff, and the game does fall into familiar trappings. You still got your castles and your ruins made by the mysterious Ancient Ones, but the art direction is always well done, so I don’t have much to pick at there. Everything revolving around combat looks great. The animation is fluid, and magic effects especially look good. It’s high-particle chaos, and reinforces that magic is damn scary. It’s like the users are barely controlling it. That’s reinforced by enemy mages exploding sometimes. This is some brutal magic. Definitely worth leaving gore effects on for. [Marv scream] This is some visually satisfying combat. There were a few times when the animation would freak out, but it was only a visual bug – it didn’t interrupt an attack or anything. What I especially like in the game is the 2D art. It’s colorful and stylish, and I almost want to get some prints. I wish it was used more often, and it does lead into one thing I really don’t like about the visuals. In most games like this, if someone is talking, they’ll have, like, a little 2D portrait of their face. If it’s really fancy, there might even be different portraits for different emotions. “Tyranny” has 3D poseable models. The good news is you can implement this for virtually every character pretty easily. The bad news is… it can look silly. BARIK: “And what would that make me? A skeleton? A shadow?” Ai-ya! My friends are dead! Facepalm. It can be distracting enough to pull me out of what’s happening. It’s like I’m watching a rantsona own-zoning some cartoons. Good God, I don’t wanna be thinking about that now… It’s not a huge deal – I just don’t like it. Regular portraits are fine. Everything else, graphically – the lighting, the models, the textures – they’re fine too. The backgrounds are rich, and it’s not the peak of the genre, but it’s a good-looking game. Moving onto the sound, the music also has some classic inspiration to it. There are some undertones that I can only describe as, like, “a dark triumph”. [Tyranny OST - The Tiers] [Tyranny OST - Vendrien's Well] [Tyranny OST - Binder of Fate] This also extends into the combat music. It’s a soundtrack to commit war crimes to, with some sounding straight out of a slasher film. [Tyranny OST - Undying Fatebinder] [Tyranny OST - Stand Together] “Damn thing couldn’t pierce cloth!”
[Tyranny OST - Stand Together] [Tyranny OST - Stand Together] “I’m not built for that sort of violence…”
[Tyranny OST - Stand Together] [Tyranny OST - Stand Together] It’s exactly what I’d want, and I especially do like the main theme. As you’ve also heard, the combat soundscape is good, and you can adjust the amount of voice callouts. Speaking of that: this game has some PRISINE voice acting. When it’s paired with the strong writing moments, everything is elevated. TUNON: “You call yourselves officers of Kyros’ army, but your conduct falls short of my expectations.” TUNON: “The court finds your accounts of Vendrien’s Well lacking – rife with misdirection and fallacy, fouled with baseless accusation.” THE VOICES OF NERAT: “We could have been magnificent together!” TVON: “But instead, you will have your bones fashioned into a scepter, your skin knotted into a belt and your tongue fed to crows.” TVON: “At least crows know the meaning of respect and gratitude!” It’s all solid work. Strong presentation for a CRPG. Which means now I can finally play the game, with character creation. There is a twist to it this time around. Okay, so, the appearance options are pretty limited. That’s kind of a shock, especially after “Pillars of Eternity”. But, whatever – it all kind of looks like “Fortnite” men. That doesn’t matter, because you play the game looking down from a lighthouse. The real big choice is what portrait to use. If you pay $4, you get 20 more. Eh-heh… Open MS Paint and follow the on-screen instructions. Now you can put in whatever you want for free. You’re not getting me this time, Paradox! Well, actually, I already bought this game in a set, so, I was done for. From here, you pick your background, your starting skills – everything you’d expect. Not to mention, you can also pick out a banner and some colors. You might think the only thing that truly matters here is the skills you get – which, yeah, it is significant – but what came as a surprise to me is how important your background is. Depending on your playstyle, this can come up a lot. I’m used to the background meaning a few skill points and maybe 2 or 3 times when it comes up. Instead, background options were semi-regular. So that adds a lot to character-building, but that’s only the start of it. When your stats are done, you then begin a Conquest mode. This is centered around the actions you took and choices you made while invading the region. This can significantly alter the state of the world. Does a town remain free, or controlled by allied forces? Different areas can open or be closed off. Quests, ranging from minor squabbles to major plot threads, can be affected too. If you were a huge prick in the invasion, the locals might not wanna deal with you. On the other side, some of the Overlord’s forces might respect you more for it. The effects of this carry throughout the entire game. It’s a staggering amount of parameters to track. Of course, some choices will matter much more than others. Your choice of where to go in the Conquest does get split up a few times, so you can keep your head down a little bit, until the final decision. Eventually, you’ll cast an Edict on a region. This is Kyros’ WMD, packed in a convenient scroll. This means you’ll be responsible for decimating an entire area. So I can say that, compared to a lot of CRPGs, purely on story reason, this game is highly replayable. Because, sure, a lot of acknowledgment of what you did is just fluff. It’s NICE fluff to have – soft and comfortable – but there are major changes attached to it too. Keep in mind: we’re literally just pre-gaming here. We haven’t even started getting drunk on power. Let me set the stage for the first Act. The Conquest was won a year ago, and now a rebellion has sparked up. Kyros is pissed that the garrison allowed this to happen at all. Kyros has sent you in to read another Edict, and the valley is sealed behind you. There is a catch to this one. If the Overlord’s forces can’t retake the local fortress spire within about a week, everyone will drop dead instantly. That’s a hell of a motivator. Playing through the Conquest, it’s clear why the two armies don’t work well together. The Disfavored are a professional Iron Legion. They are lead by Graven Ashe – an Archon who tried to rebel against the Overlord a century ago. He lost, obviously. But, in return for his surrender, all of his troops were spared. Now they’re with the Overlord, and Graven Ashe can mystically protect them. Their old insignia’s crossed out, and their old name doesn’t matter. They hit the Overlord so hard back then that they’re still trying to make up for it. And, boy, do they… The name of their game is “brutality”. They viciously slaughter their enemies. They only recruit from their homeland, so don’t care about making nice with the locals. It’s not random slaughter – they just have zero tolerance for rule-breaking. They’re all about honor and not committing atrocities, besides… death. We can put them under “lawful evil” on the alignment chart. They don’t revel in brutality – they just use it as a means to end the problem as fast as possible. They’re not a bad pick for dealing with rebels. Then you have the other army. The Scarlet Corus is a mobile mosh pit of your most hated band’s biggest fans. They’re physically unable to stop recruiting, even when it makes no strategic sense. They get these recruits by rolling up in a town and having family fun blood trials. So not only have members killed – they’ve likely killed friends or family members, and can’t really turn their back on that. So, they’re part of the mob now, complete with constant infighting. They don’t want any old serial assaulter – they want OLYMPIC serial assaulters. They can’t act up in Kyros’ lands, but during a Conquest, anything is free game. How do you possibly control an army like that? By having their Archon be The Voices of Nerat – a telepathic, mind-devouring entity, who you will never truly understand. He can see through, or talk to, or possibly possess members of his army. He’s… somehow… keeping it coherent. And, like many chorus instructors, is known to be a little too touchy with the kids. The Scarlet Chorus is a chaotic evil madhouse. These armies need to work together. Great! "A-A-A-H!!" You can break these kinds of games down into two main parts. First, you have your general RPG stuff – talking to people, progressing, exploring the world, and then you have combat. You can have wonderful memories of that first part, and horrible ones of the second. At least, that’s how I remember it. I’ll start with that first part. Speaking generally, the writing is strong. I know what little marketing there was, was all about “Be the bad guy!”, but it is more nuanced than that. A lot of real world evil isn’t pure sadism. It’s more “I want to accomplish this goal”, with zero consideration of others. A company doesn’t use sweatshops and child labor because they like it – it’s just cheaper, and they don’t give a shit about people. The second that automation will be more profitable, they’ll move right over to it. “Tyranny” has an understanding of this. Kyros’ empire isn’t cartoonishly evil. The region you’re invading, called The Tiers, was made up of multiple fighting city states. Some were a matriarchy, some had no laws – it WAS a messy region. Kyros offers to unite the land. There are laws for gender equality. If you’re a loyal citizen, you’re guaranteed not to starve under Kyros. You have a right to live and a right to go to court over squabbles. Naturally, the wording of some of these laws don’t bode well. Citizens only get these protections BECAUSE they’re useful to the state. That’s why The Scarlet Chorus is allowed to go apeshit in warzones. If you’re not part of the club, you have no rights. Playing the game, you will see the idea of Kyros’ peace brought up constantly (which, again, is a right to live, while giving up truly living). So, as a judge, you get a lot of interesting interactions around these laws. YOU: “Your city states fought constantly before. Why go against our peace?” EB: “Well, yeah, we had skirmishes, but the Overlord’s forces are slaughtering us like we’ve never seen before! So fuck you, weird foreigners!” Do you go with the spirit of the letter of the law? What do you do when things become unclear? Laws on forbidden knowledge are tricky to enforce, or even know if you’re breaking. Besides, just because something’s a law, doesn’t mean it’s moral – and that comes up too. Here’s a good example. From time to time, you need to return to Master Tunon in the court. One time, he is in a middle of a case, and lets you judge it in his stead. He wants to see how you do, and it’s against a fellow Fatebinder. He saw two Chorus soldiers assaulting a woman, so he killed them. Unfortunately, she was a local, so she had no rights. From your travels, you know that not everyone supports the rebellion, and just wants to live their life, but legally, everyone here is a combatant, and this Fatebinder is completely in the wrong. He should be declared guilty. Unless you lead him into saying that she was trying to JOIN the Chorus. She was bound to the Overlord, so she should have had the protection. This is circumventing the law, and Tunon knows what you’re doing. As the Archon of Justice, he’s uncomfortable seeing laws bent or circumvented. The Overlord is perfect, so the law must be perfect too. There’s just a big plan that we couldn’t possibly see. There is a lot of judication interactions, and most of them are really interesting. By your actions and schmoozing around, you can build reputation with different factions. You earn Wrath or Favor, and what I like about this, is it’s how the faction sees you. You could cozy up to a faction, when really, you’re just trying to find more evidence of their crimes for Tunon. It explains why you’re given some legal leniency with such huge circumstances. You have a lot of fun options. There are times when things can feel off or too cartooney, but these are in self-contained side stories without much consequence. That’s all well and good, but let’s factor in skills and progression mechanics. The way skills and leveling work in “Tyranny” is more similar to an “Elder Scrolls” game. Instead of waiting for level-up, your skills increase as you use them. This is self-explanatory for something like a lot of the weapon skills, but things get strange. Some skills are shared across the party. Someone pushes something down, everyone gets Athletics. You disarm a trap, another character gets their Subterfuge increased. Each skill will need more Skill XP each time, to get higher. It’s not a linear pattern. Honestly, I’ve NO clue what it is. I didn’t learn fractals playing D&D – I just rolled some dice. Eventually, this leads to a proper level-up. You put a point into a governing attribute, and can pick out a new talent from a tree. This is fine, but the progression itself feels strange. For one, a magic character will level WAY faster than something like a melee build. Hit with big stick, stick number goes up – it’s simple. But it means someone in your party will likely be lapping you. That sucks, because “Tyranny” is a game with level-scaling, including skill checks. With magic, you level the same skills, like your weapon and defense, but also the element skill for the magic you’re using, along with an additional skill for Lore, which just governs all magic. Now is a good time to bring up Lore. I thought “Pillars” was light on support skills, but “Tyranny” is on another level. Parry and Dodge are just two more combat skills. Athletics is good for test of strength or intimidating people. Subterfuge helps you sneak, disarm traps, and be generally clever and sly in conversations. It also helps find hidden items, so pretty good skill. It is a shared party one, so your character doesn’t need to have it too high. Lore does just about everything you need. Lore helps decipher ancient runes and code, it’s knowledge of Kyros’ law and local customs and the history of the world and… everything. This is what Lore is. It’s not always an “I win” button that pops up, but… it pops up A LOT. Apparently, the final confrontation in the game (which I liked a lot and won’t spoil) used to have a bunch of Lore checks in it. So, thankfully, that was removed. Unfortunately, it still got around a lot, which is the nature of having a skill that’s so broad. At one point, a decision was revealed where I went “Oh shit!”, because it was going to be a rough choice. A Lore check made it an inconsequential “Oh, never mind…” It really undercut itself. Well, what about combat? Lore has you covered! Throughout the game you could buy or find magic sigils. You need Lore to learn them, but once you do, you enter the world of spellcrafting. You have 11 schools of magic, and God knows how many enhancements for it. Magic in “Tyranny” is based all around reputation and language. We have an underlying “words are power” theme going on. In fact, having high reputation with a faction can give you new abilities. The same goes for your party members – how much they respect and/or fear you leads into unlocking all kinds of cool combo abilities. It’s a neat system, but has nothing on the depth of spellcrafting. You can change the stats and effects on almost anything you can imagine. Your only limits are the runes you know and your Lore skill. Isn’t that kind of weird? There are 11 magic skills for each school, but only Lore matters for spellcrafting. Maybe I just don’t get magic… Again, it’s a lot of fun to play with. I can blow up villagers with canonically gay fireballs. It’s insanely powerful, but… based off only a single skill. When travelling around, you’ll occasionally get a random encounter, which is kind of like “Oregon Trail” (complete with dysentery sometimes). These frequently have a lot more skill choices than the rest of the game, but these aren’t much of consequence, and are still pretty limited. I think this game needed one of 2 things: either take notes from “Age of Decadence” and have way more skills related to talking, or go all in on the reputation idea. A brand new system, where your powers come from your actions, much like the Archons in the lore. It’s not a terrible system – just easy to break, and feels way too simple for the material. “LET THE BLOOD RAIN FROM THE SKY-Y-Y!!” As for the combat itself, it’s pretty fun! Mechanically, I don’t have too much to complain about. It’s real time with pause (though, it does have enough pause options to make it spiritually a turn-based game). You click to attack, and you could cycle through that, or throw out some abilities. By Shift-clicking, you can queue up attacks. However, no matter your build, you’ll likely end up with a lot of abilities. I’m talking mid-2000’s MMO amount of abilities. I’m not saying it desperately needed macros or anything, but they would have been welcome. The party settings are basic, but they take care of themselves fine. You get used to clicking on people’s feet for the hitbox, no problem. My main two issues are outside of the fights themselves. For one, you’ll mainly be fighting other humans. The different factions do have different styles of fighting, but it does get repetitive. They took a low fantasy approach here, so there are no undead or goblins or creatures or anything like that. I agree that being heavy-handed with that wouldn’t be that fitting for the setting, so the game has only two exceptions. One is a race of werewolf-like feral beast-people. You might not actually fight any, depending on your playthrough, because there are so few of them. The second are The Bane. You will be fighting lots and lots of Bane. “Send them at me in waves!” No! Dear God, please, no more! Bane are just colorful, glowing wisp creatures. They are like fighting Slimes in a JRPG. You don’t get that combat impact seeing them fight, because they’re just… glowing dust bunnies. And you mainly fight them while dungeon-crawling, which… It seems like the game could have gone without this kind of thing. They just keep spawning out of their little windows. Every dungeon boss fight is a big Bane that spawns more Bane. They seem out of place for the setting, and also a waste. There were only two fantasy races, I guess, and this is one of them. It’s generic, but I’d take undead over this any day. They’re, both, boring to fight, and there’s a lot of them. Not a fan. This second is more of a missed opportunity. I would have liked a few one-sided encounters, where you’re basically committing war crimes. Most rebels you fight are well-armed and ready to die. If you could attack civilians, that would probably make more of an impact. There could be interesting genre twists in there. And they do kind of have this already, where you can kill a bunch of beastmen cubs, but, speaking honestly, stomping out a furry village won’t make my heartrate go above “resting”. I slaughtered them like animals. Sort of related, but I think there should have been more opportunities to use power. As in “Guards, seize him!” Fairly early on, you get a base for your party. There are a few of these spires around the world, and they can be upgraded in different ways. You can make new items, research, train, trade – there is a lot to do. What I thought would happen is that people would come to you to mediate their problems. It’s established as something you do as a Fatebinder. Not only that, but “Pillars of Eternity” had housing that had you do exactly that, complete with looking bored on a throne. There is a likely reason for this. “Tyranny” is blatantly unfinished. You might not have all the spires, before the game is basically over. It’s still a 20 hour game, which is pretty long, but short for the genre, I guess. A little longer with the DLC, which I’ll talk about briefly soon, because it does feel weird not to elaborate in detail for a game like this, but I’ll be talking about the story in broad strokes. JC DENTON: “When due process fails us, we really do live in a world of terror.” As I said before, I like the nuance in the writing. The Disfavored are brutal, but still very human. Some Chorus members joined to survive, and are desperate to escape. There’s never a heavy-handed right answer to how things should be. Kyros is fascinating, though you never meet the Overlord. Where the game seemed to be going with that was really interesting. Kyros is so intangible, that no one really knows their gender. Higher-ups say she’s a woman, but they’re not consistent on that. Kyros is Kyros. I’m gonna give you a crash course on some basic political science ideas (and only in the negative connotation – I don’t wanna get into, like, societal cohesion or shit like that). The concept is called “Faces of Power”. I’ll give you an example of each. We’ll use Tunon and villagers. The villagers are working. Tunon comes along and says “Hey, don’t grow carrots!” “If you do, you’ll be in legal trouble, or you’ll get hurt or killed.” This is the Power of the Outcome. “Do this, or else” is blatantly flexing. Everyone knows what’s happening, so let’s try to be more subtle. Villagers are working again. Along comes Tunon. This time he says “You can grow melons or potatoes.” They now have a choice presented they could decide on. Some villagers might really hate melons, so they go all in on potatoes. This is the Power of Agenda. Tunon isn’t even gonna bring up carrots, and instead give people two options. Anyone who wants carrots is now a fringe weirdo. Most people are thinking about the choices presented. Let’s move onto the third face of power. Tunon has influence over media and public education. He won’t bother going to the farm. Villagers learn a lot about other crops from their media. Tunon might even slip in some disinformation about carrots in there. Without direct intervention, no one is growing carrots. This is the Power of Ideology and Subconscious, which is ABSURDLY powerful. Your very inner desires are manipulated. Those are the big accepted three, but there is some debate on the fourth one. It’s almost too big to tackle. Tunon and the villagers both agree that a carrot is a vegetable. You can buy carrots in markets, and you eat them. This is the Power of Paradigm. Neither of them can directly control this – it controls them. It’s a basic idea that everyone agrees with, and has no real need to challenge, because it’s just how it is. Kyros has terrifying powers that they don’t even show up for in person. You disobey them, and suddenly, the air is on fire. Histories being rewritten, Kyros is becoming more and more of a recluse. This is the beginning of a “1984” level dystopia. Kyros is trying to ascend into being Big Brother. Though, this time, there would be an actual person at the head of it. Kyros would be a Paradigm, by essentially being God. Nothing could be named after the Overlord. The Overlord made entire species’ disappear. Good luck fighting that… The implications of what’s happening are being touched on, and it looks like the game is really gonna dive deep into it. Then it turns into a “chosen one” plotline in all but name. You get railroaded into challenging the Overlord. It makes sense for the rebel or anarchist playthroughs that you can do, but if you wanna play a loyalist, it’s out of nowhere. A later patch made it so at the very last second you could scream “I love the Overlord!” into a megaphone, even when all the dialogue up to that point goes completely against it. It is blatantly not done. It’s their best attempt at bridging a clearly bigger story. Did the DLC at least save it? Well, not really… “Tales from The Tiers” adds a bunch of these new travel encounters, new items, a character respec option and New Game+. It’s the kind of thing a more generous publisher might have put out for free, and is hugely overpriced at $7. But it does help the game. “Bastard’s Wound” adds a large new area. There are some fun quests and interesting decisions to make, but the main quest has some convoluted bullshit in it. When I found out what I could do on replay, I was irritated. It also adds some good companion quests, which were strangely absent from the main game. Again, it seems like them trying to restore cut content. Which, again, is nice, but at $15 is HUGELY overpriced once again. Some of the new quests bugged out, and it seem like my game became more prone to crashing. And that was all the DLC for “Tyranny”. I’ve harped on its flaws a lot, but I liked playing this game, and replaying it. The short length makes it easy to do, and it might not be a bad choice for someone’s first CRPG. There is a lot of stuff I think veterans will find interesting, but you’ll probably be left wanting more, like me. “Pillars of Eternity” had fun companions and a lot more content per dollar, but I couldn’t tell you what the final villain wanted, or what he was even named. “Tyranny” is short, but I found it incredibly memorable. “Tyranny” has an intriguing setting with good writing and characters, but is also buggy, has some weird direction, and is blatantly unfinished. It might be an Obsidian classic. Every edition, DLC or no, will be 75% off in the pinned link. For future viewers: DO NOT get the DLC at full price. That’s it for “Tyranny”. More CRPGs to come. MemeFury: “What made you wanna become a youtuber?” I didn’t really want to – I just violently tripped into it. I didn’t think this would be such a regular, big part of my life. I enjoy it though. siegschranz: “Got the vax?” In my state, I’m not even on the list for that yet. I won’t have the option for that for many, many moons, so, looks like I’m still inside… If anything, I’m grateful that I CAN be inside. Tobias Schmick: “What are your thoughts on “Stronghold: Warlords”? It seems to have split the community.” I haven’t played that one yet, but I do want to. I liked “2” okay, but I always had the feeling that they should go back and make another 2D “Stronghold”. For some reason, seeing, like, 3D “Stronghold” gameplay now activates the “mobile game” part of my brain. Which isn’t THEIR fault. I think I just liked how crisp the spritework is, and how well it held up, because 3D stuff, like the early ones – they… they do not age well. Paul Hannah: “Are you planning to do a “Planescape: Torment” video?” Yes, but that one is also a ways off, and will not be the next CRPG. I wanna cover it though! Okay, stay safe out there!
Something about Tyranny has the feeling of a game whose ideas just slightly outreach its budget. I mean narratively. I won't spoil anything but I got the sense that there were a lot of cool things that probably would have happened in the game if not for the fact that they didn't want it to blow up into this enormous project. That's probably smart since the CRPG genre is not king of the world these days.
I absolutely loved this game. It's the only CRPG that I've actually done two playthroughs back-to-back so I could see another one of the branching paths.
The setting and lore were really cool. More of late Bronze Age/early Iron Age setting than the usual generic medieval fantasy world, which was just different enough to pique my interest. I believe this was the game that pioneered the "lore tooltips in the dialogue box" system, so they could actually write a protagonist who speaks as if they already know the basic lore of the world they supposedly grew up in.
It's got enough content to feel meaty but is short enough that it doesn't turn into a slogfest of infinite sidequests (about 25-30 hrs per playthrough, depending mainly on how fast you read, lol). Though it does feel rushed in the third act, there was room for just a little more narrative there.
The character customization was great - it uses a modern Bethesda "free form classes that level skills by using them" system, and the custom spells system is incredible.
I felt like the choices were actually tough - you're not just picking between Lawful Good Paladin and Comically Ruthless Asshole options.
It's a shame that Paradox owns the IP, so Obsidian will probably never get the chance to make a sequel now that they are part of MS.
To me, Tyranny is another obsidian game where no one bought it, yet somehow was more memorable or interesting than their flagship at the time (and despite that the sequel to pillars also sold like shit). I really wish they'd return to this world because as the review stated, the game is unfinished and the story is unfinished. I would LOVE to go into Kyros' actual territory and explore the world post-conquest. If obsidian wanted to they could really make this IP something special. Probably never gonna happen though.
Just completed my second play-though (with the DLC) last month. Love this game. There's just something about the lore, characters, and combat to reading ratio that makes it all amazing.
Really want a sequel.
I don't think Mandalore really got across just how much shit the game lets you do, and how clever it is with its writing. My go to example is the first edict.
Mandalore mentions that the first edict says that after 7 days, everybody in the valley you're in will be killed. But, what a lot of people may have missed, is if you read the edicts actual words, it actually states a specific day of a specific month, but it has no year. So, if before you read the edict, you wait 8 days. Then you will have an entire year to solve the problem in the valley, instead of 7 days.
You don't actually need that much time, but its just one of the many examples of how the game lets you subvert the spirit of the law, for the letter. And yes, Obsidian clearly did plan for this, as the UI itself also acknowledges the new time period.
Tyranny is easily the game I want a sequel to the most.
Tyranny does so many things right. It has actual divergent paths, a unique story and setting, a spellcrafting system unrivaled in its creativity and memorable companions with flair and identity. Combat is about as snappy as its ever been in a CRPG, challenging without being unreasonable. Gearing and loot are direct and useful without being overwhelming and unwieldy.
It's also a rare CRPG that can be finished in a reasonable amount of time.
The one complaint I can get behind is that it ends on an obvious sequel bait, and unfortunately it seems like we'll never get one from Obsidian, which is an absolute shame. I love this game.
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Phenomenal game. A shame we'll probably never get a sequel. At least we're getting more games set in Eora.
I really wanted to play this. Then it came out. I heard nothing about it. Forgot all about it. Think I'll finally give this game a shot.
Sucks to hear it's obviously unfinished though. That's... So Obsidian.