Sovereign Syndicate - isometric narrative RPG set in steampunk fantasy London

[cyborgboy95]

Another review, this time from pcgamer

 

[Lord_Potato]

These reviews are quite good. Should we start getting carefully optimistic about this one?

 

[Serus]

Since when Codexers care about reviews from the likes of PC Gamer? Is it because is says on their page: "PC Gamer: The global authority on PC games". Must be it. I mean - they are authority and not just any authority but a global one!

 

[mediocrepoet]

These reviews are quite good. Should we start getting carefully optimistic about this one?

No. It's trying to be like DE.

 

[Lord_Potato]

These reviews are quite good. Should we start getting carefully optimistic about this one?

No. It's trying to be like DE.

Stop, you don't need to sell it to me even harder.

 

[lukaszek]

These reviews are quite good. Should we start getting carefully optimistic about this one?

No. It's trying to be like DE.

Stop, you don't need to sell it to me even harder.

dunno, liked disco but absolutely hated demo of this one. Been a while though

 

[Infinitron]

Another review, this time from pcgamer

https://www.pcgamer.com/sovereign-syndicate-review/

SOVEREIGN SYNDICATE REVIEW​

Actually the C in CRPG stands for Cogs, which you put on your top hat.​

While playing as Atticus Daley, an alcoholic illusionist, I went through an opium dream to explore memories of the orphanage where I grew up. As Clara Reed, a courtesan sleuth, I found a famous doctor blindfolded in a bordello and impersonated his "nurse" to learn about his research. Sovereign Syndicate may be a steampunk CRPG, but it's not ballrooms-and-zeppelins steampunk. It's grubby gutter-fantasy, where you're more likely to meet a rat catcher or streetwalker than the Queen of England.

Sovereign Syndicate borrows heavily from Disco Elysium, both in terms of presentation—the scrolling text interrupted by internal voices—and play. Combat's de-emphasized to the point of barely existing, and uses the same rules as any other test of your abilities. It's not exactly the same game, using tarot cards instead of dice and with a setting that's closer to Arcanum or Shadowrun in a top hat, but it's one of the first RPGs to really build on Disco Elysium. Considering how excellent Disco was, inviting that comparison is as bold as combining a frock coat with fingerless gloves.

A Tale of One City​

While the version of Victorian London in Sovereign Syndicate is gritty, it's not reality. Atticus is a minotaur, one section of the East End is a werewolf containment zone, and half the police force seem to be centaurs. The third playable character, Teddy Redgrave, is a dwarf engineer who moonlights as a monster hunter with a steam-powered automaton called Otto as his sidekick.

Having three player-characters lets you see this strange London from different perspectives—even if all of them are on the lower end of the social spectrum. Clara's trying to get together enough money to leave the city, but gets roped into investigating a murderer the papers have dubbed "the Courtesan Killer", while Teddy chases a less-circumspect killer through the sewers, and Atticus tries to hold off the gin bottle so he can find some missing orphans and his long-lost mother.

You play these characters in alternating chapters, and while their orbits overlap, they do their own thing most of the time. There's no character creation, but you do get to personalize this trio of PCs by choosing from four versions of each, with different starting stats and a trait that unlocks different dialogue options. My Atticus may be defined by his wit while yours is dominated by animal instinct, and there's potential replayability in going back with another one.

You personalize them further through play, with choices that embody one of the stats bumping up the relevant bodily humor and eventually boosting its score. Though I chose to give Clara a high starting grace, which represents both physical and social agility, I picked a lot of cleverclogs dialogue that increased her "black bile" bodily humor, slowly making her intellect score go up as I played more like a detective. (Smoking cigarettes had the same result, though at the cost of hope points. More about that later.)

As someone who has never finished a Dragon Age without restarting because I don't like my first character and would actually rather be a mage and have a nicer face, I appreciate having character creation taken out of my hands like this. It sucks to get halfway through a huge RPG and regret a choice you made hours ago when you didn't know the Trickster archetype wouldn't be a fun way to play Wrath of the Righteous and you should probably have angled for the boring old Angel from the start. I know there are people on the internet who think if you don't get to roll up a bespoke PC it's not a real RPG, but if your definition of RPG doesn't include The Witcher 3, Disco Elysium, or Planescape: Torment your definition sucks.

And having three protagonists lets you play a little loose with them, making risky decisions or experimenting with immorality, safe in the knowledge the other two will probably turn out fine. This must be how parents of large families feel.

Parlour Music Elysium​

To make the PCs unique they have different names for their stats, and each of those stats has its own voice. In a direct lift from Disco Elysium, the text scrolling down the right side of the screen is frequently interrupted by the voices of these attributes. When Clara steals a bag of cash her intuition suggests an escape route while her intellect counts the money. When Atticus finds an iron maiden his spryness complains that seeing this enclosed device gives it chills, while his animal instinct roars that the bloody thing's a hoax and was never a real tool of torture. Though the voices aren't quite as distinct as Electrochemistry or Shivers, the technique remains effective.

Another way Sovereign Syndicate resembles Disco Elysium is the absence of a combat system. When any action sequence begins, perhaps a chase or a brawl, it plays out in comic-style art with the consequences of your choices—whether you draw your derringer or try to run away, for example—illustrated by subsequent panels. Confrontations still feel noteworthy, but the absence of full-blown combat mechanics means they don't detract from the flow.

What Sovereign Syndicate doesn't take from Disco Elysium is the regular need to reload when you goof and end up dead in a dumpster. It's much more forgiving. Instead of hit points you have hope points, which I found easy to keep high once I dragged myself out of the early-game gutter. The climax suffered a little thanks to this lack of risk, and thinking positive thoughts whenever I saw some leaves on the ground or the coffin-shaped boxes homeless people sleep in kept my hope buoyed whenever my hope briefly fell. Interestingly, your temperament sometimes determines which options are available, and a no-hope run where I could make more vicious or cynical decisions would be an interesting second playthrough.

Sovereign Syndicate also replaces dice with tarot cards. The Major Arcana represents unlockable character traits, the Devil giving you the brutal trait while the Sun makes you confident, and you draw a numbered card from the Minor Arcana for skill checks. You're still generating a random number but in a way that accentuates the era, when occultism was a semi-respectable drawing-room fad while dice games were considered uncouth.

Though Sovereign Syndicate starts strong, the final chapters don't wrap up as neatly as I'd like. Some NPCs and storylines are written out abruptly, and Teddy ends up feeling like a guy who just happened to be there rather than an equal protagonist. The other two-thirds hit the mark, though. Even as someone with no affection for steampunk as a genre, I got caught up in this particular blend of Victorian London and mythology thanks to how well Sovereign Syndicate evokes a time and place. Hell, I even read the highlighted glossary words to understand all the references to historical characters and Cockney slang.

THE VERDICT
80

SOVEREIGN SYNDICATE
With its emphasis on roleplay rather than combat and borrowings from Disco Elysium, Sovereign Syndicate feels like another step forward for the CRPG.

 

[Tyranicon]

This is finished? I thought it was still in development.

Another way Sovereign Syndicate resembles Disco Elysium is the absence of a combat system. When any action sequence begins, perhaps a chase or a brawl, it plays out in comic-style art with the consequences of your choices—whether you draw your derringer or try to run away, for example—illustrated by subsequent panels. Confrontations still feel noteworthy, but the absence of full-blown combat mechanics means they don't detract from the flow.

Well, that answers my question about combat, I guess.

 

[Raghar]

3 days to go.

 

[fantadomat]

3 days to go.

Just doubled my pay,will give a few bucks to the poor fucks.

 

[mediocrepoet]

This is finished? I thought it was still in development.

Another way Sovereign Syndicate resembles Disco Elysium is the absence of a combat system. When any action sequence begins, perhaps a chase or a brawl, it plays out in comic-style art with the consequences of your choices—whether you draw your derringer or try to run away, for example—illustrated by subsequent panels. Confrontations still feel noteworthy, but the absence of full-blown combat mechanics means they don't detract from the flow.

Well, that answers my question about combat, I guess.

It's amazing how quickly development goes when you make a visual novel with dice rolls.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Yesterday I watched these first impressions:

Mortismal seems to like the game. And he's pretty reliable when it comes to rpgs.

 

[jackofshadows]

And he's pretty reliable when it comes to rpgs.

Re-watch his Starfield review then.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Yesterday I watched these first impressions:

Mortismal seems to like the game. And he's pretty reliable when it comes to rpgs.

He likes pretty much everything and some of his favourite games are Oblivion and Diablo 2.

I like his videos too but don't really use him as a weathervane in reviews.

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

This is finished? I thought it was still in development.

Another way Sovereign Syndicate resembles Disco Elysium is the absence of a combat system. When any action sequence begins, perhaps a chase or a brawl, it plays out in comic-style art with the consequences of your choices—whether you draw your derringer or try to run away, for example—illustrated by subsequent panels. Confrontations still feel noteworthy, but the absence of full-blown combat mechanics means they don't detract from the flow.

Well, that answers my question about combat, I guess.

It's amazing how quickly development goes when you make a visual novel with dice rolls.

The devs also had a pretty huge budget thanks to subsidies and shit

 

[Isaac (Crimson Herring)]

This is finished? I thought it was still in development.

Another way Sovereign Syndicate resembles Disco Elysium is the absence of a combat system. When any action sequence begins, perhaps a chase or a brawl, it plays out in comic-style art with the consequences of your choices—whether you draw your derringer or try to run away, for example—illustrated by subsequent panels. Confrontations still feel noteworthy, but the absence of full-blown combat mechanics means they don't detract from the flow.

Well, that answers my question about combat, I guess.

It's amazing how quickly development goes when you make a visual novel with dice rolls.

The devs also had a pretty huge budget thanks to subsidies and shit

"pretty huge" is relative. We had a budget of about $1M USD, Disco Elysium was $12M USD for Final Cut. Paradox wrote off more than $20M on Lamplighters League so the budget was probably significantly more considering they had a Game Pass deal. Sony revealed budgets for Spiderman 2 and The Last of Us 2 were in excess of $200M USD each. So $1M isn't really much in the grand scheme of modern day game development.

We did the best we could with the resources we had, and people seem to like it. Hopefully some success can help us do a more robust game for the next one.

 

[just]

why dont i get subsidies
i have no problem including trans children and solar panels

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

This is finished? I thought it was still in development.

Another way Sovereign Syndicate resembles Disco Elysium is the absence of a combat system. When any action sequence begins, perhaps a chase or a brawl, it plays out in comic-style art with the consequences of your choices—whether you draw your derringer or try to run away, for example—illustrated by subsequent panels. Confrontations still feel noteworthy, but the absence of full-blown combat mechanics means they don't detract from the flow.

Well, that answers my question about combat, I guess.

It's amazing how quickly development goes when you make a visual novel with dice rolls.

The devs also had a pretty huge budget thanks to subsidies and shit

"pretty huge" is relative. We had a budget of about $1M USD, Disco Elysium was $12M USD for Final Cut. Paradox wrote off more than $20M on Lamplighters League so the budget was probably significantly more considering they had a Game Pass deal. Sony revealed budgets for Spiderman 2 and The Last of Us 2 were in excess of $200M USD each. So $1M isn't really much in the grand scheme of modern day game development.

We did the best we could with the resources we had, and people seem to like it. Hopefully some success can help us do a more robust game for the next one.

Well it's a lot for an indie RPG, was my point. A lot of indie RPGs that show up on this forum have more of a budget in the ballpark of 1k haha.

 

[Tyranicon]

$1M isn't really much in the grand scheme of modern day game development.

$1 million is a huge amount of money.

Modern game development is full of incompetents and excess baggage.

That being said, I'm looking forward to your game. A Disco-like (I guess this is a genre now) lives or dies on the strength of its writing. Hopefully your money was spent on attracting the right talent.

 

[Yosharian]

Yesterday I watched these first impressions:

Mortismal seems to like the game. And he's pretty reliable when it comes to rpgs.

I dunno about reliable, he has some very mainstream / shitty tastes at times

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

Yesterday I watched these first impressions:

Mortismal seems to like the game. And he's pretty reliable when it comes to rpgs.

I dunno about reliable, he has some very mainstream / shitty tastes at times

I think he also recently got a more critical take on starfield as the conversation changed...

 

[Darkwind]

This is finished? I thought it was still in development.

Another way Sovereign Syndicate resembles Disco Elysium is the absence of a combat system. When any action sequence begins, perhaps a chase or a brawl, it plays out in comic-style art with the consequences of your choices—whether you draw your derringer or try to run away, for example—illustrated by subsequent panels. Confrontations still feel noteworthy, but the absence of full-blown combat mechanics means they don't detract from the flow.

Well, that answers my question about combat, I guess.

It's amazing how quickly development goes when you make a visual novel with dice rolls.

I am part StoryFag myself, but NO combat is just not a fucking RPG, I'm sorry. It is a complex adventure game and should be hosted in the Adventure Gaming forum here. It besmirches the pedigree of all cRPGs ever made to put StoryFag shit like Disco Elysium & Sovereign Syndicate in this forum when its quite clear they don't pass the very low bar for "what is an RPG".

That is like the dumbasses saying Halo is an RPG because you "roleplay" the Master Chief. Pac-Man is an RPG because you "roleplay" Pac-Man, and other brainlet takes. By that metric -everything- is an RPG. No offense to the Devs posting here, but call it what it is. A C&C system alone doth not an RPG make.

 

[fantadomat]

 

[OttoQuitmarck]

This is finished? I thought it was still in development.

Another way Sovereign Syndicate resembles Disco Elysium is the absence of a combat system. When any action sequence begins, perhaps a chase or a brawl, it plays out in comic-style art with the consequences of your choices—whether you draw your derringer or try to run away, for example—illustrated by subsequent panels. Confrontations still feel noteworthy, but the absence of full-blown combat mechanics means they don't detract from the flow.

Well, that answers my question about combat, I guess.

It's amazing how quickly development goes when you make a visual novel with dice rolls.

I am part StoryFag myself, but NO combat is just not a fucking RPG, I'm sorry. It is a complex adventure game and should be hosted in the Adventure Gaming forum here. It besmirches the pedigree of all cRPGs ever made to put StoryFag shit like Disco Elysium & Sovereign Syndicate in this forum when its quite clear they don't pass the very low bar for "what is an RPG".

That is like the dumbasses saying Halo is an RPG because you "roleplay" the Master Chief. Pac-Man is an RPG because you "roleplay" Pac-Man, and other brainlet takes. By that metric -everything- is an RPG. No offense to the Devs posting here, but call it what it is. A C&C system alone doth not an RPG make.

CYOA is the new RPG, deal with it.

 

[Harthwain]

These reviews are quite good. Should we start getting carefully optimistic about this one?

I am not optimistic myself:

- It could be personal but the writing style really puts me off, probably on account of it trying to feel Victorian, but this language coupled with verbosity makes it feel very much not on point (I like some stylization in games, but this is too much. I guess I am not British enough to appreciate it.). At the very least the game explains some of the terms instead of leaving you completely in the dark.

- Skill checks are binary, instead of producing different interesting results. A huge letdown.

- I don't like that you can't pick up your skills, instead you're given a pre-determined skillsets to pick from.

- The game's "leveling up" system encourages you to pick specific options over and over. Not a fan.

Overall the game tries to copy Disco, but it feels like a poor imitation. I wouldn't recommend it. I am hoping Esoteric Ebb will be better.

Edit:

I installed the demo of Esoteric Ebb (on Steam). I am right after the intro and it is already HEAPS better in EVERYTHING (character creation, skill checks, Disco feel, etc.). I have a feeling it is going to be gud successor.

These reviews are quite good. Should we start getting carefully optimistic about this one?

No. It's trying to be like DE.

Stop selling false hope.