Tyranny + Bastard's Wound Expansion Thread

[Kem0sabe]

John Walker... Nothing coming out of that fuckwit surprises me anymore.

 

[J_C]

soo uhh is it a flop?

Look at who wrote that article.

Oh, and it’s worth making clear, while the game looks like Pillars, and in lots of ways plays like it, the games’ stories and lore don’t overlap. It took me forever to realise this, I admit, as I kept trying to draw associations that aren’t there. I am silly.

What a fucking tool!

 

[Notorious]

Played and completed it in 22ish hours. The game is average... some notes:
- I played on hard, the game is easier than PoE and it becomes less difficult the more you progress.
- Abilities are boring (Taunt, Wide slash, Shield Bash zzzz), Spells are still lackluster. (Feels like you're throwing pebbles at them)
- Companions are completely uninteresting, easily the worst of all the major isometric Real Time RPGs (Well those who had ones)
- Story is the best part because I genuinely didn't know what was going to happen next. It ends rather abruptly though (Making 2/5 of your stronghold pretty useless because you will receive the expansions late in the game)
- There are a lot of choices but mostly fake, only changing which faction occupies areas and which factions you have to fight. Some choices are difficult to achieve, sometimes even nonsensical like

Spoiler

I tried joining the Rebels at the start. You have to let all the major rebel leaders go with your loyalist companions complaining but not abandoning you. It goes so far that the tank companion who is fanatically loyal to his faction, joins you fighting his own people on a whim while still complaining about your betrayal. He should have attacked or at least abandoned you but because there is no tank replacement for him he has to be forced on you. Your superior doesn't care that you joined the rebels either...

- I liked that it generally avoided dungeons (Those who were there are terrible though)

With no RPG in sight this was a neat distraction but not remarkable in any way. Sales seem to go terrible though so this will probably the last one unless it was dirt cheap to make.

 

[Owlish]

This game sucks. Not going to finish it. It does have some cool concepts, I was interested in the Dredd biting, but overall it was dog shit. Tin-eared dialogue, for sure written by tumblards, boring unfun combat mechanics, just dreadful.

Thankfully, this time I didn't buy it ;-)

 

[Reapa]

it's obvious the ones who played the game to the end (for whatever reason i cannot begin to fathom) are the ones disappointed by it while the others were paid to write some generic crap like "I won’t touch much on the story, but Tyranny’s is a fantastic tale whose decisions are entirely up to you as the Fatebinder" and "Overall Tyranny provides a fantastic RPG experience with solid mechanics and an interesting choice filled story that should keep players engaged throughout. Everything about the game oozes quality and while it has taken a lot from Pillars of Eternity and feels very similar, it offers a unique story that certainly sets it apart." These people obviously didn't even touch the game long enough to find something to criticize.

Edit: some idiot moved this commentary from the tyranny megathread to this one. my quotes were from here:

Spoiler

^Our review will not take that long.

Tyranny Reviews

While it will take three hours for the game to unlock, the first reviews for Obsidian Entertainment's Tyranny are out. The title has garnered a few positive reviews so far, though they do suggest the reception will overall be more mixed than with Pillars of Eternity.

PC Gamer found the ending abrupt and its combat dumbed down, 75/100.

That abrupt end is conflicting and frustrating. On one hand, I'm excited by the prospect of a sequel and the implications that it has for my character. On the other, the ending feels so abrupt and unsatisfying—relieving none of that pent up emotion or tension I had. It sets the stage for a final battle, but then slams the door shut on the story and slips a half-hearted summary of what happens next under it and the credits roll.

It's hard not to let an ending like that color my impressions of Tyranny. At the same time, my second playthrough has reminded me what a memorable journey it was before everything deflated in service of setting the stage for a sequel. Tyranny has fantastic ideas and its worldbuilding is unparalleled, but botches the execution, preventing it from all coming together to form a modern classic. When the story isn't pushing you to make specific decisions or bombarding you with repetitive combat, it feels like it could have rivalled the likes of Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment. It's still worth playing, but Tyranny falls far short of the excellent standard set by Pillars of Eternity.

MMORPG finds next to no flaw, on the other hand, 9/10.

I won’t touch much on the story, but Tyranny’s is a fantastic tale whose decisions are entirely up to you as the Fatebinder. Without giving specifics, I really started to feel the pressure of being the hand of an evil Tyrant when I was tasked with choosing between killing a baby because of its lineage, who also happened to be my ally’s grandchild, or trying to subvert Kyros’ law and drawing unwanted attention towards my rise in power. It’s a very heavy game, and what may seem like a simple choice at first can have truly far reaching consequences as you go on.

Tyranny is a game that must be played by any RPG fan. Some may knock its “old school” approach and style, but that’s about the only complaint that could be levied against such a wonderfully unique and deep RPG. It does everything Pillars of Eternity tried to do and it does so better. Consider Tyranny highly recommended and one of the best RPGs of the year.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun didn't finish the game but has a review-in-progress, with some very mixed thoughts. An excerpt:

Muddled? I am. There’s so much going on here, but I never really feel like I’ve got a proper grip on it. It feels like a puddle the size of the Atlantic – this vast concept, but too gossamer to sink in deep. Huge stories, but minor roles in them. Exquisite detail, but all going by too fast. And yet, pretty good with it. Just not as good as what’s come before.

GameWatcher, 9.0/10.

Overall Tyranny provides a fantastic RPG experience with solid mechanics and an interesting choice filled story that should keep players engaged throughout. Everything about the game oozes quality and while it has taken a lot from Pillars of Eternity and feels very similar, it offers a unique story that certainly sets it apart.

It’s nice to have a game where the setting isn’t about stopping the evil but instead working within the confines of that evil. Doing good deeds overtly will get you killed, using the system to your benefit is key. The game gives players a choice of who they want to be within an evil overlord’s regime and the execution of that by itself, is impressive.

GamingOnLinux, scoreless.

That said, my biggest nitpick is how the game wrapped up. It felt relatively abrupt, given the rather huge developments in the game world. Often in fiction a lot of specifics about developments will be left to the imagination of the reader so that one can fill in the blanks with what they like. This is a balancing act and one that in my full playthrough I felt was askew. Don’t get me wrong – I thoroughly enjoyed my adventure, the choices I made, and the reasons why I was making them. But even greater issues and questions that seemed to pop up in the relative background to your immediate actions, around halfway through the game, never got much closure. I fully expected a few more hours of gameplay after I did a few dramatic things in order to resolve an incoming crisis. The fact that things ended with a relative whimper may have been due to all my previous choices. However, I’m more than open to playing through the game again in hopes to see if the endings vary dramatically.

If not, the game at least sets itself up nicely for a sequel. And that’s a good thing! Despite my issues with some of the storytelling and systems, Tyranny gets a solid endorsement from me. It’s good to not have to follow a set path and it’s even better to be able to have such wildly different experiences than your friends. I certainly look forward to talking more to Liam after he gets to the ending. In the meanwhile, I’ll be starting a new game, leisurely seeing how things play out differently this time around.

GameRant, 4.5/5.

In short, this is Game of Thrones, not Lord of the Rings. Being noble is all well and good in a standard fantasy story, but Tyranny makes sure that being smart is key. This is truly where Tyranny‘s quality really shines, steering the player off the path of a perfect avatar of incorruptible will.

Of course, the game is not perfect, and some may find the odd all-or-nothing decision regarding forces to recruit jarring, or the locations within the world itself a little too devoid of scope to be a truly immersive experience. However, it’s in the large concepts, and in its gentle manipulation of the player’s trained responses, that Tyranny finds its purpose. A must-have for fans of the genre, and a worthwhile title for those after a truly different experience.

PCGamesN, 8/10.

I have to wonder if Tyranny was meant to be much larger. There’s certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that this is the case: the dearth of enemy diversity, the uneven pacing, the jarring final act, and then there’s a crafting and research system that barely has any time to develop – it feels like a lot of cuts were made. It’s especially disappointing in a game that is often genuinely exceptional.

Despite this disappointment, I can’t help but be impressed with what Tyranny does get right. Though I’ve mentioned Knights of the Old Republic II and Planescape: Torment, there isn’t really another RPG like Obsidian’s latest. It’s incredibly bold, and if you go down the darker path, often sickening. When it’s at its best – pretty much the entirety of the fantastic and thankfully quite meaty second act – it more than holds its own against the greatest PC RPGs.

 

[Lilura]

These people obviously didn't even touch the game long enough to find something to criticize.

Old news. "Professional" gaming journos are the same now as they were 20 years ago. Go and read a magazine from the early 90s, they were a fucking disgrace and couldn't write for shit, just like now. Difference is, now they aren't the only ones who get to publish their twaddle.

 

[rezaf]

Sales seem to go terrible though so this will probably the last one unless it was dirt cheap to make.

As I wrote in my "review post", the game is decline in almost every way from PoE, which wasn't awesome in EVERY way to begin with.
Aiming for 25 hours is extremely low in this type of game, and ... well, production values in mind, I feel the game just isn't worth paying full price for.
For a tenner or two at most, sure, but more?

Of course, you can get the game for such price from potatoland...

Old news. "Professional" gaming journos are the same now as they were 20 years ago. Go and read a magazine from the early 90s. They were a disgrace. Difference is, now they aren't the only ones who get to publish their twaddle.

OT, but I feel the real issue is that "reviewing" a game is always a highly subjective affair. Trying to objectively score parts of a game like graphics or sound are nonsense as both can be irrelevant in the greater context, and it's arguable whether or not things like bugs or pricing should play a role or how big this role ought to be. So all that really remains is: "Did I like this?"

And the people who replied to this 20 years ago were mostly part of the back then fairly small peer group of gaming nerds, whilst now, things are much more mainstream and you get many more reviews from people easily impressed by shiny/shallow things. These are the same people that go watch Transformers 7 and come out saying: This was AWESOME!

$0.02 and all.

 

[J_C]

Sales seem to go terrible though

And you base this on...?

 

[Efe]

Did Obsidian's B team make a better game than their PoE?
What has changed from PoE which felt so dull to Tyranny which felt fun?

 

[axedice]

Less trash, more C&C, better companions overall.

Also main path is evil and that's kinda new.

 

[Notorious]

Sales seem to go terrible though

And you base this on...?

... the fact that Tyranny can barley stay in the steam top 10 in the first week of it's release and competes at the moment with games like GTA V at full price and the highly unpopular Football Manager. Seems like it's struggeling but maybe I'm wrong and this sells hundreds of thousands of copies.

 

[J_C]

Sales seem to go terrible though

And you base this on...?

... the fact that Tyranny can barley stay in the steam top 10 in the first week of it's release and competes at the moment with games like GTA V at full price and the highly unpopular Football Manager. Seems like it's struggeling but maybe I'm wrong and this sells hundreds of thousands of copies.

It sold around 80K in the first 5 days, plus the GOG copies, it could be around 90K at least. They are also No.8 in the Steam Top Sellers at the moment with games like Watch Dogs 2 and Dishonored 2 on the list. For a small budget cRPG, I think they are not panicing.

 

[jaydee2k]

Sales seem to go terrible though

And you base this on...?

... the fact that Tyranny can barley stay in the steam top 10 in the first week of it's release and competes at the moment with games like GTA V at full price and the highly unpopular Football Manager. Seems like it's struggeling but maybe I'm wrong and this sells hundreds of thousands of copies.

Oh boy you have no idea.

 

[HansGruber]

https://steamspy.com/app/362960

76.000 Steam sales, plus undisclosed amount of GOG Sales. Retail sales are included in Steam sales, as it seems that the retail version is just a Steam copy.

edit: GOG has a quite sizeable marketshare (i have only found quick and dirty numbers from TW 2, which had 16% of it's sales sales on GOG), so J_Cs 90 / 100k might prove correct in the end.

edit #2

For scale, Dishorned 2 has 202k owners on Steam: https://steamspy.com/app/403640

I'd consider Tyranny a success then?

 

[Starwars]

Finished it. It was... well, it was alright. But it feels like a very fractured game in many ways.

-The combat is dogshit. Anyone saying this is better than PoE, you are a retard. I can't remember the last time I was so bored with combat in a RPG but it might've been the orc caves in NWN2 or maybe the Deep Roads in Dragon Age. Some good ideas. The combo abilities are more fun than I thought and spell creation is fun though very limited. But... ugh, it's a slog for sure, and takes forever on higher difficulties.

-The writing was really good overall I thought. There are some try-hard dark moments to be sure but for the most part it manages to keep a nice tone.

-Visuals are well executed but the locales just aren't that cool in my opinion. Didn't wow me the way I expected.

-Companions are disappointingly average. Some depth to them but I think this game would've been better if it had been set up as a RPG without the token RPG companions. Kills-in-Shadows was actually a lot better than I expected her to be from reading that short story though. While I can stand the voiceacting in this game, props to her voiceactress because she must've blown out her voice during the recording.

-I appreciate the choices and reactivity a lot but unfortunately it feels a bit too "binary" to me. Both the Disfavoured and Chorus feels like idiots in their own right and, while I haven't played it, the "rebel path" seems like it would fit in weirdly with the premise of the game.

-Having the player occupy a role of some power really changes the way the game feels even though you're still stuck doing dirty work for most of the game.

Spoiler

-Having power thrust into the player's hands via the Spire and Edicts felt very cheap and weak to me. I thought the game would've been a lot more interesting if you were sorta stuck under Kyros no matter what you did, or defeated if you challenged him/her. But nope, the game had to pull the "you're a hero" card, even though you're still kinda evil. So disappointed by this.

-Having companions just felt really weird to me. When you first meet them, it starts off promising because you can order them around and be a jerk. But they still resolve into a "standard RPG companion" state where they'll joke around with you, be all chummy and stuff. Completely breaks the feeling of being a dangerous and respected Fatebinder. The Loyalty and Fear stuff feels promising at the start but of course... it's rather easy, without even trying, to max out both of those meters. Stupid.

-The Spire shit feels more tacked on than the Stronghold stuff in PoE. All the upgrades and stuff you can do feels completely meaningless given that the game is rather short and you're not likely to upgrade them until you're knocking on the door of the end. There is like zero reason for it.

-The endgame is like... non-existant. I appreciate that they didn't go the route of having an enormous slog of combat to go through before the end-boss. But the pacing is way off. It ends completely abruptly where I was fully expecting the game to have more gameplay. So weird. The court stuff with Tunon was nice.

-I have to mention this again but your rise as a second Overlord felt so fucking weak to me. The way Tunon, just threw himself at my feet without me even trying felt like such an obvious egostroking move that it actually pissed me off. Especially if you play the game wanting to serve under Kyros it makes even less sense. The game *really* wants you to feel like a special person and it's sooo weak.

Despite all my problems with this game, I hope they will get the opportunity to make a sequel or another game in the same setting. There is a lot of potential here and some parts are done very well. But yeah... this was a pretty frustrating experience for me despite really liking some parts of it.

 

[HansGruber]

Done crunching numbers, but not done with the game, i really appreciate that for once there is no archetypical heroes journey here. Actually, it's quite similar to real historical evil regimes where random nobodys suddenly got to weild the power to decide about some persons life and death, rather than working your way up a ladder. Any other RPG which puts you in that role? The only other game, which is an obvious inspiration, which does this is papers, please.

 

[Grokalibre]

Done crunching numbers, but not done with the game, i really appreciate that for once there is no archetypical heroes journey here. Actually, it's quite similar to real historical evil regimes where random nobodys suddenly got to weild the power to decide about some persons life and death, rather than working your way up a ladder. Any other RPG which puts you in that role? The only other game, which is an obvious inspiration, which does this is papers, please.

Other rpgs that put the player in a "chosen one" role? I suppose one can think of a couple at least.

 

[Lacrymas]

Just got Sirin, she's slightly more interesting than I thought at first. She

Spoiler

ordered her unborn brother to abort himself from his mother's womb

, how cool is that? She could reveal things that nobody else can, but that's assuming they continue her character, but from what people here say, that's not the case for any of the companions. She could've been used like Visas to disarm/cripple Kyros in the end, but again, they have to continue the whole premise. You can also acknowledge that she calls Kyros both "him" and "her" and she says that she won't tell what gender s/he is. I'm assuming that s/he's a genderless being or can change genders, probably not intentionally. At least I'd have wrote it to be unintentional.

 

[Haba]

76.000 Steam sales, plus undisclosed amount of GOG Sales.

[--]

I'd consider Tyranny a success then?

A game about drinking beer and mosquitoes made by one-man-studio sells 80.000 on Steam. It is also a better role-playing game than Tranny is.

 

[prodigydancer]

"chosen one" role?

It's really not the important part here. Right from the start you have something to lose: a position of at least some power. You're not a peasant from a burned down village, not an outcast, not an escaped prisoner. You're somebody - and not just in the end where you "chosen" potential is realized. You also have a few things to consider when picking sides. For instance, is your word worth anything? Because at some point you pledged your life to Kyros and Tunon. Siding with the rebels might seem like a noble thing to do but it also makes you a traitor.

 

[Sykar]

Is the magic system of this game interesting and visually gratifying?

 

[Neanderthal]

You can stay loyal to Kyros can't you?

 

[HansGruber]

A game about drinking beer and mosquitoes made by one-man-studio sells 80.000 on Steam. It is also a better role-playing game than Tranny is.

A game for 14.99 $ outsells a game for 41.99 $.

 

[Bubbles]

It's also outsold Underrail, which is another $14.99 game.

 

[Lacrymas]

Absurdian have a lot more history and coverage (especially with PoE and New Vegas), so it's obvious that it would sell better than UnderRail or you mean that beer and mosquitoes game? I'm wondering whether UnderRail (or any other of the glorious incline) would sell well if it got massive PR, I'm assuming that it will, but whether The Masses(tm) would "like" it is another matter.