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Thursday, March 31, 2022 1:20:30 PM

Tyranny Review (aruvin)


TLDR

Tyranny is a unique product that puts you in a counselling session with a white masked dude, a shadow assassin, a green smoke joker and 1 immortal stone cold purple general where you are tasked to bring peace to this realm, acquire towers by drawing puzzles on the floor in 1 mess up world filled with lunatics, beasts and banes.
Jokes aside, Tyranny is a product beyond its time. It is rich in story provided you know what you are doing and has plenty of politics/drama for you to enjoy.

Non-TLDR

Tyranny (T) developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Paradox Interactive. The PC version was released on Nov 10, 2016. As of this writing, metacritic (https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/tyranny) shows:

An average meta score of 80 from 67 critic reviews
An average user score of 7.8 from 633 ratings
11 Most Discussed PC Game of 2021
#72 Best PC Game of 2016
#34 Most Discussed PC Game of 2016

Honestly, I am left speechless because its very hard to describe what T would offer. it is a rather odd but a brilliant product at the same time. What i can honestly say is that T deserves more love & recognition for what it wants to accomplish.

Controls, Audio, Visuals, Story/Writing

Visuals: Beautiful. Everything down to its details. So much work has been put into the level design, characters and the bosses stand out. +1 to the visual team
Audio: While not every character has a voice, those that do like your companions, the narrator, its been done wonderfully. The tone expresses their expression. There's not much emphasis on music though however you will go into battle unconsciously with the "battle music" playing behind. For that to happen, it means they got the music right to set the mood and feel while you are enjoying the game. +1 to the audio team
Controls: WASD and mouse. Nothing fancy.
If there's a complain, it would be at mid/late games, where your characters has amass skills AND spells that can get cluttered in that tiny UI.
Story/Writing: I'll make it simple. It's done brilliantly and properly. With 4-5 story paths you will be replaying to experience the journey however what pulls the story back is the design. More on this under mechanics. Each character has background/loyalty/questS/romance option. +1 to the story telling team

Mechanics

The game is about:

You
The people around You
What You want to build/destroy in this world
That includes a heavy relationship management between different factions and ultimately Kyross/your boss.

While many RPG has tried to deliver the "You/Your choice" matter in this genre, most of them you dont really see or FEEL the consequences. This is where T differentiates itself from the rest of the RPG - but - the cost is in its design. it is a double edge sword situation.
What do i mean? You start off by creating your world with a preset of questions. After that, the game locks you in that "world" and you are no longer able to deviate from it - and sometimes you trigger/miss events from it as well. Sometimes you change your mind and you just want to take/break the object right in front of you but you cant because this is the world you have set for yourself and you are not allowed to change it. This is the downside of the design.
However if you are able to embrace this design and it's little flaws, you are going to experience a game from different perspective, conflicts, journeys and decisions that challenges you and the world you want to build/destroy.
So as you progress through the game, you level up. You allocate stats, skills, skill tree and build/destroy relationships around you. Money is rather limited at first but if you dont buy stuffs like clearance sale, you will have a ton in late game and that comes helpful when you have 5 fully build towers - where you can research, build armour/weapon/artifacts/scroll/potions for you and your entire team.
The Towers is another unique feature to the game. It feels like an extension of you rather than having a castle/stores in a location/my city. The vibe is different. If you are someone who enjoys story rather than rushing through the content, you will appreciate the towers as it will give you a sense of a breather from this crazy war-torn world and be able to communicate with your team and build all sorts of wonders.
Leveling system is rather odd. You have your traditional stats allocation but also "skill" allocation that grows with how much you use it in the game.
Skill tree may seem limited but it actually offers more "depth" rather than superficial "more str" "more agi" "more int" type of skills and then you also have companion skill combo, faction skills, artifact skills xD
Spells are even weirder. You pick up spells from scrolls/sigils. and there's sub-class for the spells, they affect/change your spells behavior. There seems like 7 or more main spells - and then 8? sub spell options. While not every main spell will have all 8 sub spell allocation, this gives you the idea just how much more you can do with magic. Did they have to complicate magic in this manner? Hmm
Weapons. There are a ton of weapons but ultimately you will "feel" only a few types matter either because of enemy types/enemy armours. It's not simple to play as a range character in T as most enemies will rush to your face/hug your face and this makes the party strategy/companion build more important than you realized. Its even more apparent once you play solo aka the anarchy path.
Boss fights are rewarding. They give you some of the most unique weapons in the game and thanks to the game+ option we are able to import our character with all the stats, skills and weapon into a new world. Go and have fun.

My personal thoughts/My Summary

I feel Tyranny is an ambitious product. Its like game of thrones in 2D, RPG setting. The team had a vision however it is technically challenging and that is why it was designed in this semi-linear manner. is this good enough? for me a yes.
Because we do not have a system smart enough to have a dynamic "action and consequences" scenario & "relationship management" system. Yet. Maybe in years to come with more AI tech - and thats where i feel T will shine. Actually, i am impressed with the companion quests/behavior here if compared to Neverwinter nights (the game that i looked up to when it comes to 2d, rpg, strategy game)
I feel, to enjoy T, you have to get involved with its politics and know what type of world you want to create. Going in mindlessly, maybe you wont feel so much satisfaction. or you dont even know what you are missing out.
So, on the scale of 0 - 10, my personal rating Final Judgment for Tyranny is a complicated-but-well-deserving 8 out of 10.