Tyranny Review (Neosho)
After beating Tyranny twice (first on normal and then on hard) I feel compelled to share my thoughts to fans of CRPGs.
What I think a lot of modern RPG's are lacking is the ability for the player to actually role play. Yes, they may have some of the trappings of RPG's like level up systems and class trees, but they don't allow the player to craft their own character. Tyranny remedies this problem by having an excellent character creation page which focuses on background and narrative just as much as it does on skills and abilities. It separates you the person playing the game from the character you created, which is important, because this games often forces you to make very difficult decisions with no clear cut answer.
To provide an example, my first character, Gong, was a bare-knuckle brawler who rose to fame by being an undefeated pit fighter. This caught the attention of the court, who chose to educate Gong in history and letters. Now, despite his formal education, Gong only really cared about inflicting as much violence as possible. When deemed worthy of being a Fatebinder (essentially a representative of the court), he used this status to satiate his bloodlust, using violence as the solution to his problems as much as possible. For example, he invited the queen of an opposing faction to peace talks for the sole purpose of taunting her into combat. When the queen fell for this trap, Gong was delighted, because she provided him the perfect opportunity to kill her with his bare fits, sending a powerful message to enemies of the empire. This act of barbarism awarded him the title of Queenslayer, which was used as a slander by his enemies and an honorific by his allies. He remains loyal to his Overlord, Kyros, because she is the most powerful in the realm, but if anything were to change this, he wouldn't hesitate to turn on her.
All of this character building happened before the game even started. Yes, you fill some things in as you move along, but the structure is there as soon you hit play. Combine this with extremely strong world building, combat where you really feel the impact of your attacks (impressive for a CRPG), and an extensive magic system, and you have one of the best CRPGs in recent memory.
The biggest downside is that the final Act felt rushed, with certain character actions not really making any sense. However, on a moment to moment level, the story is very well paced and doesn't waste your time, encouraging multiple playthroughs. Companion AI was also less than stellar in my experience and I had a much better time after turning it off and managing them myself. This would've been tedious in a lot of combat heavy games, but fortunately, Tyranny doesn't bog you down with meaningless battles. Every fight serves a purpose, which speaks to the excellent pacing of the game.