Review RPG Codex Review: Tyranny - Kyros Demands Better

[Shilandra]

Really, tell me more about the old days

Technically didn't planescape end on a cliffhanger depending on an what you did at the end?

I mean, I, personally, and still waiting for the fall-from-grace searches batoor for TNO dlc. Its been a while but they're still working on the revival of Ravel dlc which is understandable.

 

[Fenix]

Btw I found myself thinking about strange thing I've found out about Tranny.
First, let's pretend I'm kind of barbarian (I'm Russain after all) who have no idea about self-evident things.
So I have have found that in that marvelous roleplaying game you can kill a toddler. And it's not like you need to show the wonders of ingenuity to be ble to do this, more likely to avoid it.
But in the same time you just CAN'T slap the ass of any and every strong wymen there, can't command them - to the foot, bitch, or something like that.

So please tell me what doest it all means from various points of view.

 

[Axie]

Was browsing this glorious platform of yours and stumbled on this gem:

I have to admit, Inquisitor taught ma a lot. It did teach me how to approach criticism and to avoid being preoccupied by superficial meaningless stuff. So what that your game has feature X, Y, Z? So what it has lots of content, loads of text, dozens of spells, great lore, when they all together simply aren't put right - they aren't *fun*.

That's why recently I've been very critical of Obsidian. To my mind they suffer from the same malady as the developers of Inquisitor, only that maybe they are more experienced, and somehow use duct-tape better than the Czech studio.

Apt. And it's from 2012.

 

[Shilandra]

Btw I found myself thinking about strange thing I've found out about Tranny.
First, let's pretend I'm kind of barbarian (I'm Russain after all) who have no idea about self-evident things.
So I have have found that in that marvelous roleplaying game you can kill a toddler. And it's not like you need to show the wonders of ingenuity to be ble to do this, more likely to avoid it.
But in the same time you just CAN'T slap the ass of any and every strong wymen there, can't command them - to the foot, bitch, or something like that.

So please tell me what doest it all means from various points of view.

You can kill them for mouthing off to you. In fact I think you can kill most every female leader in the game in anarchist route (only one i haven't really tried yet.)

Though, im not getting where this criticism of the game being to full of "strunk" female characters is coming from. Yeah there are alot of women in positions of power but they never came off as the strong female that dont need no man stereotype meme. Most of them dont disparage men, none that I know of go on about the "unique" burdens of being a leader while female, none throw the fact that they're women in your face constantly and, like I said, if you dont like them you can kill them unless you've sided with them. Then again [Betray Alliance] can always fix that problem.

 

[Fenix]

Not kill - slap her ass.
Why I can kill todler but can't dosimple thing?

 

[thesheeep]

Killing a toddler isn't sexist.

Another reason is that it is a rather American thing.
Violence to absurd levels is not a problem. But show a nipple and those guys go crazy.

 

[Shilandra]

Not kill - slap her ass.
Why I can kill todler but can't dosimple thing?

I guess because they have swords pointed at you?

Killing a toddler isn't sexist.

Another reason is that it is a rather American thing.
Violence to absurd levels is not a problem. But show a nipple and those guys go crazy.

I dont think thats it either. most games, even mature games, kinda just pretend that sex doesn't exist but its kinda all over this game. They talk about fucking and rape and prostitution and sexual slavery alot. More than I thought they were going to do. I honestly didn't expect a single mention of rape to be in the game even though its a game about evil winning.

Sex aversion doesn't seem to be the reason for no ass slapping.

 

[Bonerbill]

Not kill - slap her ass.
Why I can kill todler but can't dosimple thing?

The main characters in current Obsidian games are extremely asexual. It's like other than going into a brothel, they have no interest in sex.

Having no romances is fine, but it suckswhen my character can't proposition for sex when it makes sense.

 

[Prime Junta]

The main characters in current Obsidian games are extremely asexual. It's like other than going into brothel, they have no interest in sex.

Barik did say that he's tried like hell to get his weenie out of his armour in order to get off but can't which is frustrating.

Verse rhapsodises about brothels she knows about and describes banging her Scarlet Chorus squadmates.

Kills-in-Shadow is extremely open about who she wants to rut or mate with (rut with Eb, mate with PC). She proposes playing kill-fuck-marry at one point.

I don't remember Eb talking about sex much, and Lantry's probably over it, not a dirty old man in any case. I'll give you Sirin though, she does say that Voices of Nerat wants to fuck her but she's not going to give it up, and isn't into Kills-in-Shadow's kill-fuck-marry game.

 

[Bonerbill]

Barik did say that he's tried like hell to get his weenie out of his armour in order to get off but can't which is frustrating.

Verse rhapsodises about brothels she knows about and describes banging her Scarlet Chorus squadmates.

Kills-in-Shadow is extremely open about who she wants to rut or mate with (rut with Eb, mate with PC). She proposes playing kill-fuck-marry at one point.

I don't remember Eb talking about sex much, and Lantry's probably over it, not a dirty old man in any case. I'll give you Sirin though, she does say that Voices of Nerat wants to fuck her but she's not going to give it up, and isn't into Kills-in-Shadow's kill-fuck-marry game.

I was mostly talking about the main player character, but that's my fault for being vague. Eb herself does flirt with a few NPCS, and KiS always want to rut. In PoE, Hiravias wanted to hump everything that moves. But I digress. I got a bit triggered when my main character didn't get a chance to play "rut, mate, slaughter" with the other NPCs. It's like they don't want the main character to say anything sexual.

 

[Prime Junta]

It's like they don't want the main character to say anything sexual.

Ah. A promancer.

 

[Leshy]

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

In a way yes. It's not major, but a spoiler nonetheless. I mean, you will experience the whole story differently, if you already know the ending will be inconclusive.

 

[Shadenuat]

It's like they don't want the main character to say anything sexual.

Ah. A promancer.

It's a fight you can't win unless you're CD Projekt

 

[Infinitron]

They did keep comparing the game's main character to Judge Dredd...

 

[hell bovine]

Question. After a few playthroughs I noticed that the bane's connection to gravelight is never really expounded upon.

The Bane and the Oldwalls in general were left mysterious. Either the writers don't know themselves or they left it intentionally vague. The Oldwall dungeons are so utterly generic that it suggests the former; if they did have something in mind I would've expected to find some hints there.

That's a shame. It looked like they were trying to set up something interesting with gravelight.

Back on the topic of magic in Tyranny. Someone on redit posted all the info about the edicts that you can get from drug tripping with Lantry. (I only got the storm one, should've waited before trying drugs, oh well.) Seems like your character absorbed some of the edicts magic after proclaiming and resolving them. Considering that the spires acts as magical amplifiers, I wonder if that's how it works. That disfavored entry, though.

 

[Bonerbill]

Ah. A promancer.

When did sex = romance? Because I'm sure you can have the former without the latter.

 

[Killzig]

Kyros has absolutely no reason to go against you, you're just a pawn in the overlords plan and at no point can you do anything different than what the overlord wants you to do. It's telling that you don't get the mission to kill everyone else, no you are given the order to make them join you or kill them. You become powerful because you unlocked a spire and because you have become the main power in the tiers, both things which the overlord directly ordered you to do.

tl;dr you're butthurt because an evil overlord stabbed you in the back.

I can relate to that.

someone probably already brought this up since i'm coming back to this thread several days / pages later. but wasn't the whole point that kyros' campaign across the land complete so heshe (they really embraced the whole 'tranny' thing) was cleaning house on the spare archons and setting up a convenient foil as to keep the empire united in a perpetual state of war.

ps - is that really a cliffhanger? that you've been installed as a rival to kyros? what's left to resolve in the story that pride comes before the fall and Kyros underestimated you / you become the new overlord and the cycle begins anew? It all seems pretty resolved.

 

[Fenix]

Killing a toddler isn't sexist.

But why killing a toddler is appropriate why butt slap is not?

 

[hell bovine]

Kyros has absolutely no reason to go against you, you're just a pawn in the overlords plan and at no point can you do anything different than what the overlord wants you to do. It's telling that you don't get the mission to kill everyone else, no you are given the order to make them join you or kill them. You become powerful because you unlocked a spire and because you have become the main power in the tiers, both things which the overlord directly ordered you to do.

tl;dr you're butthurt because an evil overlord stabbed you in the back.

I can relate to that.

someone probably already brought this up since i'm coming back to this thread several days / pages later. but wasn't the whole point that kyros' campaign across the land complete so heshe (they really embraced the whole 'tranny' thing) was cleaning house on the spare archons and setting up a convenient foil as to keep the empire united in a perpetual state of war.

ps - is that really a cliffhanger? that you've been installed as a rival to kyros? what's left to resolve in the story that pride comes before the fall and Kyros underestimated you / you become the new overlord and the cycle begins anew? It all seems pretty resolved.

That would be actually a very interesting plot twist. If Kyros' power works like the archons & edicts, then keeping the archons against each other and the empire in a state of conflict might be a way of growing in power. I think it's Eb (or was it Lantry?) who tells you then the longer an edict is active, the stronger the effects become, as if the magic gained a life on its own, and that this increase in power might come from the people's fears (of said edict - and indirectly the overlord).

(whether the devs were actually going for that is questionable, considering the rather abrupt ending that doesn't answer any of the questions regarding the edicts & spires )

 

[hell bovine]

Killing a toddler isn't sexist.

But why killing a toddler is appropriate why butt slap is not?

Because it's the amrican way of life. People go into histrionics over a nipple slip during a stage show, but toddlers getting killed (or killing someone) with guns? Doesn't get as much reaction.

 

[Xzylvador]

When did sex = romance? Because I'm sure you can have the former without the latter.

 

[Togukawa]

It's not said at all that Kyros underestimated you. The game itself says that Kyros is perfectly aware that you're an Archon very early on and that she planned for you to unlock the spire and become edict capable. What's unresolved is why. Cleaning house could have been accomplished equally well by not ordering the player to capture the spire, but some other building or town. Or just immediately rescinding Kyros' peace from the start, instead of doing it after you finally get the hang of your powers. Permanent conflict was exactly the state at the beginning of the game, so if that was the goal nothing needed to be done at all. If Kyros underestimated you and wanted to get rid of you, she'd order you to kill the other Archons. Instead, making your own private Archon army is equally fine by her.

We are told that Kyros is some brilliant overlord that has planned everything that happened to you and to the very end that makes sense, culminating in a test of your edict abilities by very openly sending a conventional army against you, instead of just killing you by edict like she killed the Archon of stone.
I was expecting some shadow of mordor esque twist, that you were groomed to become the new overlord, in order for the big bad to take over your body. But instead of finding out what the evil brilliant plan in which you were a pawn for all this time was, the credits just roll.

 

[Tigranes]

Kyros may not have anticipated that anyone could unlock the Spires - because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense anyway, and looks suspiciously like OMG PC SNOWFLAKE HAS SPECIAL CHOSEN POWERS / SNOWFLAKE WAS IN THE RIGHT PLACE. Unless I missed some key lore, there's no real explanation on the relationship between Edicts and Spires, what exactly allows the unlocking of the first Spire, etc. The Edicts are a really cool and relatively original piece of lore in the setting, especially their conditional and legalistic aspect, so it's a pity they end up dime a dozen by the end.

 

[Togukawa]

Kyros clearly does anticipate it, since she cleverly keeps people away from them by forbidding all acces to the paths leading to the spires and suppresses any connection between her and the spires. There's a story in the game of a very faithful follower who mentiones that he saw Kyros near the oldwall/spire and who is promptly executed for it.
Contrast that with the fact that Kyros tells you to go to a spire, and to generate a huge magic event there. Kyros knew perfectly well what was going to happen. In fact, in the Myothis letter, the game says as much: "Kyros edict of execution was setup for SOMEONE to claim Ascension Hall... to think that Kyros did not know what would happen would be a massive underestimation of the Overlords long view."

So you know that Kyros is linked to the spires, wants to keep that connection secret, and wants to keep everyone that is not you away from the spires, without alerting anyone they are important. It's therefore highly likely that Kyros' edict powers come from the spires, especially since you learn that large amounts of different people have used the spires before you, so Kyros is not unique at all. It's extremely unlikely that Kyros would send you to a spire and not anticipate what would happen. It's at least very heavily hinted that Edicts are very strongly linked to the spires. I use edict in the sense of uberpowerful spell, not in the sense of their legalistic aspect. You can try to formulate a written Edict too, but you fail, which leads to the remark that clearly Kyros is more advanced in using Edicts than you.

 

[Tigranes]

Yes, there's one dialogue that talks about that, but if the Spires always give the power to summon Edicts, and your Edicts are already powerful enough to be a threat to Kyros (the ending slides make this clear), then it isn't particularly smart to basically encourage you to take them all.

Now, Kyros clearly wanted the Peace to end and for the Archons to fight it out, since it was clear to everyone the two armies could not continue working together for long. And at least after you took the Hall, or maybe before, Kyros counted you among them, such that even if you buttfuck the other two archons Kyros is pretty OK with this. The question is whether Kyros also expected and blessed your ability to learn to cast Edicts - which can't really be parsed out because it's never really explained in a logically coherent way. Can anybody claim the Spires and earn powers as you have? The game sometimes hints that no, you must be SPESHUL SNOWFLAKE, but doesn't even bother to explain it and nobody really asks the question. What is an Edict, and why would the ability to cast Edicts be linked to the Spires? Who knows? Why do you learn Edicts by cancelling them? Who knows? Once you try and fail to write an Edict, there is speculation that Kyros might also have acquired Edict powers through Spires and that over time you learn enough to dissociate your voice, but then is it your casting two Kyros edicts that gives you the power to subsequently learn Edicts? The game talks about how most people die within a few years of casting/cancelling Edicts, so is it simply that there's SO MUCH MAGIC and everyone dies but you are special STRONK and you can handle it?

(Actually, this is probably close to the mark, since there's a lot of talk about how there are people born with the power to grow into Archon-level greatness. The really interesting bit in this part of the lore is how renown and legend become self-fulfilling prophecies, turning those spoken about into ever more powerful and monstrous beings - it's a pity this aspect wasn't played up more often, and instead you just gather macguffins like it's NWN1 and all you ever experience is the power fantasy of GROW STRONK.)

As long as you have Kyros' Edicts as the only special macguffin in the game, you have a very nice, compact, interesting political situation set up where the motivation of all parties makes sense. Once the Spires come into it and all the "cuz ur special" stuff through the back door, I think there's a lot of muddying going on.