Review RPG Codex Review: Tyranny - Kyros Demands Better

[Roguey]

I am convinced that they wanted to go 4-member party with potentially simpler combat for PoE2, but now?

Josh wouldn't do this, he thinks sequels shouldn't abandon their fanbase to chase those who hated the first.

 

[Morality Games]

I am convinced that they wanted to go 4-member party with potentially simpler combat for PoE2, but now?

Josh wouldn't do this, he thinks sequels shouldn't abandon their fanbase to chase those who hated the first.

Josh isn't the boss of everyone.

 

[Roguey]

Josh isn't the boss of everyone.

He's the Design Director of Obsidian Entertainment and the project director of Pillars of Eternity 2.

 

[Morality Games]

Josh isn't the boss of everyone.

He's the Design Director of Obsidian Entertainment and the project director of Pillars of Eternity 2.

He would still have to make it 4 person if the Obsidian owners told him to.

 

[Roguey]

He would still have to make it 4 person if the Obsidian owners told him to.

Seems unlikely they'd second guess and micromanage his decisions like that. They haven't done so in the past.

 

[Prime Junta]

because you tie up the budget for multiple years

No way Tyranny took more than a year and a half to make, tops. I'd say more like a year. Compound interest isn't a factor here.

 

[l3loodAngel]

You'll notice that there are zero good RTSs in which the player is required to fuck with the camera. There are zero good RTSs in which eye candy dominates the screen to the point where you can't see what's going on. There are zero good RTSs where units or abilities feel slow/laggy/unwieldy, unless that's the intentional design for that unit or ability. Anyone looking to make an RTwP RPG should try to license Blizzard's RTS engine because modders in their basements can make better combat-focused RPGs with WC3 and SC2 than RPG devs pouring millions into their engines.

Amen. Wc3 combat is increadibly fluent, it just fucking flows. Not sure about sc2 though. Also creative asembly has a good rts engine (total war warhammer).

 

[Infinitron]

because you tie up the budget for multiple years

No way Tyranny took more than a year and a half to make, tops. I'd say more like a year. Compound interest isn't a factor here.

We know that Tyranny has been in development since the beginning of 2014. However, it is unclear for how much of that time it had a full-sized, full-time team.

 

[Leshy]

The game ends on a cliffhanger

Really? You had to write this in a review of a story heavy game? Some sort of spoiler alert would be nice

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Well, its hardly a conclusive ending but not exactly a nailbiting 'cliffhanger' either, if you ask me.

 

[MurkyShadow]

I have come to the point of a kind of, I don't know, just taking notice. There's no
disappointment, no expectation. I don't think Obsidian is a able to come up with
something I might care about anymore. If they ever had. inXile is closing in to
this point. I'm more looking forward to the original Bard's Tale I-III remake,
now, if that should ever see the light of the day, than hollow promises of
incline by those two companies. Even if one day I open up the codex, and
against all odds, one of them is heralded to have released 'the great old-school rpg',
I can't be arsed anymore. Guess all this glittering hatred is cooling down to
tiredness. But then again, maybe I'm just not throwing enough hard liquor
at the winter depression (of the soul) ?

 

[Goral]

In case you don't know - discussion moved here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/where-my-bubbles-gone.112302/

 

[set]

inXile? I hope they've learned a lot since Wasteland 2. Tyranny is currently more playable for me than that thing.

 

[Infinitron]

In case you don't know - discussion moved here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/where-my-bubbles-gone.112302/

Uh, no, these two threads are about separate things. Are you trying to instigate a rebellion against me or something?

 

[Cadmus]

I've finally read this propaganda piece.
The problem is that I don't trust Prime Mental with his assessment of the game so I got very little out of it. He says the story and quest branching is amazing and then goes on to mention some fucking faction reputations that have always sucked in every game so I don't know. I suspect there will be some branching but if the game's writing is so fucking bad like in PoE (doesn't seem to be mentioned in this propaganda piece) then I doubt I'd even understand something just branched off from something cuz I wouldn't be reading the fucking walls of text of lore dumps. I also suspect these will be ever-present as the author of this propaganda piece goes on and on about the amazing world-building. This can only mean one thing - insufferable, dry lore dumps. LIKE THIS FUCKING REVIEW.

I little wit never killed anybody, you know?

Secondly, I can't trust Prime Cumface's assessment of this game because he praises PoE's boring-ass character system and mentions the game fails to live up to it which left me scratching my head.

I only learned that there's a low-budget CYOA which might indeed look nice, there's cooldowns which will probably suck shit and that it's boring.
How's the itemization? You know, because it was shit in PoE.
How's the writing? Because it was shit in PoE.

What is the KKK on this game? I suspect it will be "boring". Gonna try it when I'm done with normal games and this costs 5 cents.

Thanks for nothing.

 

[Infinitron]

I mentioned the KKK in the OP.

Good point on the itemization, though. Some people have mentioned it positively, but largely it's gone under the radar. Prime Junta?

 

[Cadmus]

I'm now starting to read this thread and it looks like I should have read it before posting anything as my questions seem to have already been answered within.

 

[Prime Junta]

Good point on the itemization, though. Some people have mentioned it positively, but largely it's gone under the radar.

Ehhh, it's hard to say much about it because the combat mechanics in general are so broken.

There are a lot of unique items. You can upgrade them. Many of them have special abilities. Trouble is, these special abilities are just as interchangeable and boring as any of the other abilities. I don't even remember exactly which item had which ability, but some of them included stuff like a small-AoE petrify attack, except that petrify only paralyses the targets for a few seconds. Or there was another one that let you swap places with a party member, which is basically yet another interchangeable escape ability. Some others gave unspecified buffs to some of your talents, but TBH I didn't even notice any difference.

So in sum: yeah, lots of uniques, some of them have unique stories, and many of them could actually be quite good given better mechanical underpinnings. But as it is, nothing to shout about.

 

[Haplo]

Lots of artifacts with powerful (scale with "renown") large radius aoes. Usable once per rest...
Plus magic items have various special properties, commonly weapons have various effects on crit.

 

[Tigranes]

The itemisation is kind of.... you know how POE had a clear progression of regular items, but people complained crafting made loot irrelevant and there weren't enough unique special items, which they added later on? So Tyranny has quite a lot of unique special items, but the regular equipment table is even more boring and flat, while crafting is sequestered to a specific set of special item recipes you find and make (many of which are similarly pointlessly flat, while a few are uniques).

Basically you go for hours seeing swords that look different but are all built on the same stat templates (do you want a little more DPS or a little more AP), and then you find a slightly upgraded version of those templates, before you finally find a unique which probably means having a special ability tied to it. There are also some items with single unique properties, like prone on crit.

 

[Grauken]

The game ends on a cliffhanger

Really? You had to write this in a review of a story heavy game? Some sort of spoiler alert would be nice

Wait, the mere knowledge of a cliffhanger ending is already a spoiler? What's next, getting spoiled by knowing that there's an evil overlord

 

[Sneaky Seal]

Nice review, totally agree.
For me the good way to describe Tyranny is rather wide in scope but shallow in execution. Hopefully the sequel will deliver on those less developed areas.

 

[Abu Antar]

A possible sequel should add more areas, more enemy variety, more music. Rethink how the combat system works. More fleshed out companions and don't let me know everything about them after 20 minutes. The regular items were boring, unique ones were different enough. I'm disappointed they removed traps from the game. Not the ones you encounter, but the oners you can lay out like in Pillars and other games.

What needs to get fixed even more than the repetitive combat is the UI. Combat log and map in the same place is not okay. The spell/ability bar was a joke.

Everything hat wasn't related to combat, I didn't have a problem with. The game isn't my GOTY, but I still found it to be good in all aspects but combat, despite some edgy writing here and there. Well and that the writing was more fitting for a modern day era rpg. It sometimes felt like these people lived in the now and not in a bronze age inspired world.

 

[GloomFrost]

The game ends on a cliffhanger

Really? You had to write this in a review of a story heavy game? Some sort of spoiler alert would be nice

Wait, the mere knowledge of a cliffhanger ending is already a spoiler? What's next, getting spoiled by knowing that there's an evil overlord

Well once upon a time there were games without "cliffhangers" and "they will explain it in the DLC/sequel" they told a complete, finished story. I know its hard to believe nowadays.

 

[Grauken]

Really, tell me more about the old days