Review RPG Codex Review: Tyranny - Kyros Demands Better

[Rev]

I generally value combat very highly. In spite of this, 2 of my favorite RPGs happen to be PST and Arcanum, both of which dropped the ball with regards to combat. But they were so brilliant in other aspects, that they forced me to forgive their serious shortcomings.

Do you think that something similar can be said about Tyranny? Is it THAT good in what it does well? Did it give YOU the "here we have something really special" vibe? Your review overall made me think that it is not THAT level of special, but it is not very clear to me.

No.

 

[Parabalus]

hell bovine It is possible. My main issue though is that you couldn't use those sigils until your Lore was well north of 100, at which point the game was effectively over. I do contend that for the bulk of the game, the sigil magic is weaksauce compared to Lantry's or Eb's skill trees -- and even they're pretty weak.

That is just plain wrong. The companion talents are mostly inferior to properly crafted spells, to the point that they're not worth the frames to cast them.

You get to Act 2 with around 100 Lore, which is enough to immediately start using all expressions upon acquisition. Each area has one "power" sigil, so they actually spaced them out in a balanced way.

hell bovinePut another way: if you get fireballed or earthquaked in Dragon Age: Origins, you bloody well notice it. Not so in Tyranny.

The DA:O comparison only makes sense if you played it on Casual, it's similarly spongey to PoTD Tyranny on Nightmare.

Tyranny combat is basically MMO style dmg spam, it's fun for what it is - don't touch if you are allergic.

Good review :mrpresident:.

 

[Shilandra]

I think one of the biggest failings with the combat is that they didn't go full in with hyping the player.

If combat is going to boil down to waiting for the cooldown of you awsome buttons to be up you should at least have something pretty to look at while your guys are standing around. I mean, you even can find an actual robe called the archon's robe with an "Omnipotent" effect (+10 to all magic) and yet it looks like a slightly more gussied up nobelman's outfit. No glowing, no fire shooting out of your asshole. Nothing.

Maybe they'll have figured out how to add special effects to the players armor when the next game rolls around.

 

[oneself]

Quick, name 3 things unique and interesting about Tyranny's "worldbuilding".

(1) Power dynamics between Kyros, the Archons, and ordinary mooks.
(2) Edicts, their use in warfare, and how that affected the way wars are waged and empires built.
(3) Politics and organisation of ruling an empire when you have immortals with massive magical power at the top, but Bronze Age technology for transport, communication, and most other stuff.

Thanks for taking the time! Edicts are a nice touch, as for the rest unfortunately it seems we have different ideas about interesting power dynamics or about what bronze age technology is

- Spires are a mystery. Both their origins, their power and how they relate to Kyros.

- The power of the Archon or how to become an Archon isn't fully revealed. It seems that people's belief can shape the power of Archons. Graven Ashe didn't start with the ability to protect his followers. Neither did Bleden Mark start with the ability to manipulate shadows. It seems that fear and admiration of individuals literally deify the Archons, grants them supernatural powers.

- History of Magic. A sigil is an invention of an Archon for channeling a particular power. Are they merely adept at utilizing magical power that already exist or creating new powers altogether? It is possible to use a school of magic prior to that Archon's existence? The answer to that question seems to be no, and Archons do create new powers from nothing, which is a very funky foundation from a lore perspective.

- Is Kyros a girl?

 

[Prime Junta]

Most of things that change is that you either fight red guys with blue guys or fight blue guys with red guys.

Or red and blue guys with multicoloured guys, or red, blue, and multicoloured guys all by yourself, also the mix of guys changes depending on your choices in the intro, and you can change direction mid-way.

This is not BioWare choice. You get different quests, dialog, objectives, etc.

As "review" failed to mention: there are only human enemies (95% of time), golem/elemental enemies (4% of time) and wolf-men (1% of time).

So 95% of time you will battle same "2-3 fighter/1-2 archer/ 1-2 mage" groups, who are copy-pasted.

Quoting from the review:

The rote combat is compounded by a lack of variety in enemies. In contrast to Pillars’ enormous bestiary, Tyranny only has three categories of enemies: humans, Beastmen (who fight more or less like humans), and wraith-like Banes. You will face more or less similar groups of tanks/damagers/ranged attackers/casters (when facing humans) and scrubs/bosses (when facing Banes).

 

[duanth123]

but pedants will pedant

Infinitron is our resident O.J. Simpson.

He will tirelessly search for the true reason why posters on a site called "rpg codex" would care about RPGs.

They're pedants, they're autists, grognards, mentally unstable, anything but genuinely interested in precise definitions and understandings of what makes or breaks a good rpg.

 

[GloomFrost]

The rote combat is compounded by a lack of variety in enemies. In contrast to Pillars’ enormous bestiary, Tyranny only has three categories of enemies: humans, Beastmen (who fight more or less like humans), and wraith-like Banes. You will face more or less similar groups of tanks/damagers/ranged attackers/casters (when facing humans) and scrubs/bosses (when facing Banes). Some of the set-pieces – capturing a river crossing, village, or fort – are enjoyable enough, as pushing through a map to capture an objective gives the fights a sense of purpose and direction. Most, however, just have you doing the same thing over and over again. There are a few boss fights, but they are extremely formulaic; you will have to polish off a few waves of minions while avoiding the boss’s nastiest special attacks (helpfully broadcast in a tooltip over the boss), and then whittle away his massive mountain of hit points.

Beastsmen and Banes are like 5% fights max. 95% of fights are same human group with same "party composition", i cant think any game with worst diversity.


Also reply to "Lore/Athletics/Subterfuge" system that available to 1 character at start - you will pass ALL checks easily. All checks in dialogue and in events on map.

Also reply that in this game you cant join Kyros (choices?), and different between 4 paths (disf, chorus, anarch, rebels) is minimal. Same as in Bioware games.

Yeah man I still remember when i made a diplomat/mage without putting any points into physical attributes and still managed to pass every athletics/subterfuge tests. How was that possible?? Even in the DA;O you couldnt use some weapons or pick some dialogue lines if your stats were not high enough. Jesus Obsidian could they fuck up so badly???

 

[Prime Junta]

lol, that's exactly the non-issue you're referring to.

1000 years of difference and complete disregard of what "medieval" means are pretty big issues. I don't see any reason why this phrase couldn't be changed on something like "both games aren't set in overrepresented in fantasy high and late medieval setting and instead preferred completely unexplored earlier time periods." That's probably what reviewer meant in the first place. Or it could be left as it is out of some stupid stubbornness, which could be also seen as a complete ignorance and make it look like everyone involved in writting this slept on history lessons.

Yep, I would've changed it, had it been pointed out to me. Once Bubbles let the cat out of the bag, there was no point.

 

[Darth Roxor]

lol, that's exactly the non-issue you're referring to.

1000 years of difference and complete disregard of what "medieval" means are pretty big issues. I don't see any reason why this phrase couldn't be changed on something like "both games aren't set in overrepresented in fantasy high and late medieval setting and instead preferred completely unexplored earlier time periods." That's probably what reviewer meant in the first place. Or it could be left as it is out of some stupid stubbornness, which could be also seen as a complete ignorance and make it look like everyone involved in writting this slept on history lessons.

Forest, trees. Go do something productive with your time.

 

[oneself]

Yeah man I still remember when i made a diplomat/mage without putting any points into physical attributes and still managed to pass every athletics/subterfuge tests. How was that possible?? Even in the DA;O you couldnt use some weapons or pick some dialogue lines if your stats were not high enough. Jesus Obsidian could they fuck up so badly???

Do you use companions? Because you can use your companion's stats for all out of conversation skill checks.

 

[Azarkon]

Beastsmen and Banes are like 5% fights max. 95% of fights are same human group with same "party composition", i cant think any game with worst diversity.


Also reply to "Lore/Athletics/Subterfuge" system that available to 1 character at start - you will pass ALL checks easily. All checks in dialogue and in events on map.

Also reply that in this game you cant join Kyros (choices?), and different between 4 paths (disf, chorus, anarch, rebels) is minimal. Same as in Bioware games.

I'd say more like 70% 25% 5%, as the dungeons in the game are almost entirely filled up with those spirits and there's no way to avoid them, while you can get through a lot of the humans without fighting them.

 

[Infinitron]

Yep, I would've changed it, had it been pointed out to me. Once Bubbles let the cat out of the bag, there was no point.

FWIW, I suggested the compromise of changing it to the less pedantry-triggering "pre-medieval-themed" which would more clearly allow for a setting that may not be "pre-medieval" per se (even by way of analogy) but is still clearly stylistically or thematically inspired by that period. Would have made that change but then you told me the text was locked, so yeah. But I could still change it.

 

[Prime Junta]

Do you think that something similar can be said about Tyranny? Is it THAT good in what it does well? Did it give YOU the "here we have something really special" vibe? Your review overall made me think that it is not THAT level of special, but it is not very clear to me.

No, I wouldn't rate it as that special. Those were wack through and through; this "only" took a bunch of premises and explored them pretty thoroughly.

It had its moments though. I was quite engrossed when discovering how the Scarlet Chorus actually functions, for example. It was thoroughly thought out and entirely plausible given the premises, as well as being quite original. Where else do you have an army where desertion is treated with a ":shrug: whatever," but which still has an internal logic that allows it to function as a scarily-effective fighting force?

 

[Rev]

Btw, I don't think Tyranny is completely shit but calling its world-building and its writing exceptional is simply wrong, and I'm an Obsidian fan who liked PoE and its expansion.
Writing is fine if you compare it to most other crpg devs, like late-BioWare, Bethesda or inXile who totally suck, but it's definetely not on par with Obsidian's past titles like MotB, KotOR II or even New Vegas, it's also inferior when you compare it to CDP's The Witchers and I would also say Shadowrun: Dragonfall.
Companions are terribly bland, not a single one of them really stand out, making them slightly better than NWN2 OC's ones (which are Obsidian's worst companions probably) and only because at least they're not as cringeworthy as Neeshka, Qara or the gnome companion.
The world has some interesting elements to it, but it's brought down by the fact that it has nothing that remind of the Bronze Age and its inhabitants act and think like 21th century californian hipsters more than real Ancient Ages people on many matters. Besides, it's just terribly stupid to have an evil empire in a pre-medieval society that pushes for equality between genders and races, because the designers couldn't create a coherent world and had to make it totally politically correct bullshit.

Overall, the game is a lot worse than what it could've been if the devs put some more common sense in their work.
Reactivity is good from what I've seen, but beyond that pretty much anything else is disappointing.

 

[Prime Junta]

Yep, I would've changed it, had it been pointed out to me. Once Bubbles let the cat out of the bag, there was no point.

FWIW, I suggested the compromise of changing it to the less pedantry-triggering "pre-medieval-themed" which would allow for a setting that may not be "pre-medieval" per se (even by way of analogy) but is still clearly stylistically or thematically inspired by that period. Would have made that change but then you told me the text was locked, so yeah. But I could still change it.

Nah, let it stand. It is what it is. There are a few other things I would change, but eh. Next time it'd be nice if I got the editorial feedback before it's leaked though.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Next time

i thought you were leaving forever

 

[Aenra]

:Shit:
All your work (and no matter my misgivings, it was a thorough one) went down the shitter when you dared type "makings of a cult"

You need only decide for yourself which is worse.. being unmindful of why this term is wrongly used for recent products/releases (as it sadly is) and as such repeating it, or being capable of comprehending but choosing it regardless; and for a game this mediocre at that.

Your review aside, all i (the third party) care about is that you and others such as yourself somehow find themselves content if not happy with RPGs such as this one. That is all i need to know to gauge what the future holds, RPG 'revival' notwithstanding.

 

[Grinolf]

FWIW, I suggested the compromise of changing it to the less pedantry-triggering "pre-medieval-themed" which would allow for a setting that may not be "pre-medieval" per se (even by way of analogy) but is still clearly stylistically or thematically inspired by that period.

I think you misunderstood the mistake there. Issue, at last for me, isn't that AoD have pseudohistorical futuristic setting, but that it based on Medieval period, specifically Early Middle Ages (also known as Dark ages) instead of very common in fantasy High and Late Middle Ages. So it is still medieval setting, just not the one we are usually see in fantasy games and books.

 

[Prime Junta]

when you dared type "makings of a cult"

You're right, I shouldn't have used that phrase. It's a canned phrase and bad writing. "Will have lasting appeal for players who care about branching story" or something like that would have been sufficient. I should have caught that myself when editing it.

 

[an Administrator]

Prime Junta just put that line to trigger the Codex. He didn't really mean that

 

[Shilandra]

- History of Magic. A sigil is an invention of an Archon for channeling a particular power. Are they merely adept at utilizing magical power that already exist or creating new powers altogether? It is possible to use a school of magic prior to that Archon's existence? The answer to that question seems to be no, and Archons do create new powers from nothing, which is a very funky foundation from a lore perspective.

This is actually answered in game via kyros of all people.

If you take the claim of kyros being seen at the spires 50 years before the conquest seriously and looking at the description from where edicts draw their powers and the differences in the way the player and kyros cast the edicts, combined with the descriptions of what archons are, how they're created and how they relate to magic the answer becomes surprisingly clear.

The answer is yes, you can predict an archon's sigil before its made. Kyros, through some method, predicted the sigils to casts edicts, YOUR sigils, and used them and their power to conquer the tiers.

 

[Azarkon]

The biggest problem with this game is that the combat sucks. This much is absolutely right. Although I will go ahead and disagree with Pillars of Eternity having excellent combat, the fact that this game manages to do even worse, does not speak well to Obsidian's ability to create CRPGs, which as I have argued in the past, are distinguished from choose your own adventure games primarily by the existence of a detailed combat & combat advancement system, drawn from tactical war games, from which came CRPGs in the first place.

The combat advancement system in Tyranny is a complete mess. The review did touch on the biggest problem, but did not emphasize it enough: you have virtually no choice as to how your skills go up. This is because Tyranny uses a learn by doing system, where the more you use a skill, the better it gets. Such a system inevitably take away from player choice, as the skills you use with more frequency aren't necessarily the skills you want to build your character around - and forcing you to use the skills you do want to build your character around will restrict you tactically, thus defeating the very purpose of combat decision making. This is the definition of Sawyer's degenerate gameplay.

But it gets worse. For you see, normally, even though a learn by doing system results in you having little agency in your character development, and a lot of skills you might not want on your character, at the minimum, it doesn't result in your character getting worse. The trouble with Tyranny, however, is that it combines learn by doing with level scaling, such that your level is decided by the overall amount of skills you have, and the enemies get harder when you are higher level. Thus, you can end up with a lot of useless skills - say, six different weapon skills when you use only one weapon - and be wondering why the hell is your character getting worse and worse relative to the enemies, because those six different weapon skills caused your character to get additional levels that the level scaling system then adapts to by saying, 'well obviously, you need harder enemies.'

Sadly, the shit doesn't even end there. Quest experience in Tyranny is divided up between the skills your character has. Thus, learning a new skill at any stage in the game, and especially skills you don't want to use, weakens your character, because it leads to all your primary skills receiving less experience and less development. And the genius of Obsidian is such that talking to your companions can cause you to learn skills that you don't want to use. An example is Verse, who will teach you skills like Dual Wielding and Bows through conversation topics.

I further pity the idiot who, upon gaining access to skill training, then goes around picking up new skills, thinking that it'll make his character better when all it does is ensure his character gets worse.

This game is, in fact, one of the best examples of why Obsidian should never design their own systems again.

 

[Aenra]

You're right, I shouldn't have used that phrase. It's a canned phrase and bad writing. "Will have lasting appeal for players who care about branching story" or something like that would have been sufficient. I should have caught that myself when editing it.

/salute
Ask the Jew if you can change it.

 

[hell bovine]

- History of Magic. A sigil is an invention of an Archon for channeling a particular power. Are they merely adept at utilizing magical power that already exist or creating new powers altogether? It is possible to use a school of magic prior to that Archon's existence? The answer to that question seems to be no, and Archons do create new powers from nothing, which is a very funky foundation from a lore perspective.

This is actually answered in game via kyros of all people.

If you take the claim of kyros being seen at the spires 50 years before the conquest seriously and looking at the description from where edicts draw their powers and the differences in the way the player and kyros cast the edicts, combined with the descriptions of what archons are, how they're created and how they relate to magic the answer becomes surprisingly clear.

The answer is yes, you can predict an archon's sigil before its made. Kyros, through some method, predicted the sigils to casts edicts, YOUR sigils, and used them and their power to conquer the tiers.

I think the shadow assassin guy tells you that. And also that Kyros has those archons, whose powers she/he doesn't want to manifest, killed in infancy.

 

[Infinitron]

But it gets worse. For you see, normally, even though a learn by doing system results in you having little agency in your character development, and a lot of skills you might not want on your character, at the minimum, it doesn't result in your character getting worse. The trouble with Tyranny, however, is that it combines learn by doing with level scaling, such that your level is decided by the overall amount of skills you have. Thus, you can end up with a lot of useless skills - say, six different weapon skills when you use only one weapon - and be wondering why the hell is your character getting worse and worse relative to the enemies, because those six different weapon skills caused your character to get additional levels that the level scaling system then adapts to by saying, 'well obviously, you need harder enemies.'

Sadly, the shit doesn't even end there. Quest experience in Tyranny is divided up between the skills your character has. Thus, learning a new skill at any stage in the game, and especially skills you don't want to use, weakens your character, because it leads to all your primary skills receiving less experience and less development. And the genius of Obsidian is such that talking to your companions can cause you to learn skills that you don't want to use. An example is Verse, who will teach you skills like Dual Wielding and Bows through conversation topics.

This sounds like more of a theoretical issue. It doesn't seem to me that the level scaling algorithm is that aggressive, otherwise people would have noticed this happening and complained about it.