Tyranny - More Reviews

Originally Posted by luj1
there is only ike 3 types of enemies in the game tho …..

Maybe four: frontliner, skirmisher, archer, wizard.

It does not matter though since different factions have different variations on the types. A hero party might be very efficient against troops of a faction and struggle against others.

I've been enjoying it so far, but it definitely has up and down moments. Like many, not really a fan of the combat. Not very far through it yet as I won't have serious gaming time until the holiday week.

Biggest annoyance is something that has been in these games forever…

Why bother giving me the ability to use (or create) a party order if you're just going to ignore it whenever an important battle starts? The combats that become "muddied" and "unfun"… yeah, they usually start with the game deciding "you'll be standing like *this*, despite being in an obvious combat situation". Because the order I obtained companions should absolutely dictate how I approach scripted events.

This game suddenly feels timely.

Maybe too timely to play for escapist purposes.

Originally Posted by Darkbridger
Why bother giving me the ability to use (or create) a party order if you're just going to ignore it whenever an important battle starts? The combats that become "muddied" and "unfun"… yeah, they usually start with the game deciding "you'll be standing like *this*, despite being in an obvious combat situation". Because the order I obtained companions should absolutely dictate how I approach scripted events.

Engagement weighs.

Formations are used to cope with engagements that are not initiated (ambushes…)
They are rare in Tyranny.
Most of the time, the player is given the initiative of the engagement. This gives the opportunity to deploy accordingly to the plan determined by information collected from scouting.
It makes no sense to stick to a formation when a deployment grants a strategical upstart.

As to be muddied, it is part of players' responsibility to order the battle field.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
Engagement weighs.

Formations are used to cope with engagements that are not initiated (ambushes…)
They are rare in Tyranny.
Most of the time, the player is given the initiative of the engagement. This gives the opportunity to deploy accordingly to the plan determined by information collected from scouting.
It makes no sense to stick to a formation when a deployment grants a strategical upstart.

As to be muddied, it is part of players' responsibility to order the battle field.

If by "ambush" you mean… my party walks up and talks to someone in plain sight, then sure. It's still annoyingly dumb and I don't agree that it's some sort of "balance" feature for different types of combats.

Chien, do you actually like this game? I'm not sure I've ever seen you actually write what sounds like praise? Must be one awesome game then…

Writing isn't that good. Archons are too cartoonish

Originally Posted by Darkbridger
If by "ambush" you mean… my party walks up and talks to someone in plain sight, then sure. It's still annoyingly dumb and I don't agree that it's some sort of "balance" feature for different types of combats.

Ambush means ambush, that is a situation when the enemy location, number and make up are unknown before the engagement is made.

As to wishing for more ambush situations, players are given most of the time the great benefit of initiation of combat.
After watching vids,it appears that scouting is a rarity, engagement is made with no prior knowledge, engagement is made without any purpose, no order is brought to the battlefield and so on. Added to that, the product is not played in RTwP.

Players must show they know how to walk before they wish for walking.

Originally Posted by Éder Álvarez Balanta
Writing isn't that good. Archons are too cartoonish

Agreed, but the writing succeeds in what it sets out to do. Although the game’s ‘heavy’ in many ways – your character basically starting out as fantasy Chaos Nazi middle management participating in a ruthless, semi-genocidal war of conquest – the ‘tone’ of the game is actually rather schizophrenic. There are strong cartoony elements to the visuals, voice acting is over the top, characters are over the top, humor is often silly rather than genuinely dark/sarcastic/laconic, etc. This ‘bites’ with the grim and serious nature of the overall setup in the game.

I think that’s deliberate, because playing that role in a somewhat more ‘realistically’ presented setting á la The Witcher - or even just a generally more serious-feeling fantasy setting - might be too confrontational and / or uncomfortable. When it comes to playing a character in a game with a serious and grim setting (even with a fair bit of appropriate humour), the player character is, at worst, a nominally neutral character who has the inclination and possibility to do at least some good amidst the horror and madness.
That’s not the case in Tyranny. Even if you want to be less of an a-hole because of purely pragmatic reasons (‘if you treat the peasants reasonably, they’ll be productive peasants for the Empire’) or want to force/persuade the quarreling Evil Empire factions to cooperate, the game railroads you into decisions or consequences that are unmistakably bad and might not even make much sense.

By making much of the game ridiculous, silly and over the top, the emotional impact of the bad stuff (massacres, executions etc.) is softened. A lot. Maybe not good from an immersion perspective, but it allows playing an ‘Agent of Evil’ and still have some lulz rather than feeling acutely and permanently uncomfortable.

Otherwise, I like the game and think it’s pretty good (if flawed in a number of ways). Just don’t expect to play a ruthless, pragmatic conqueror in a somewhat believable Iron Age / Bronze Age-ish fantasy world, 'cause this ain’t that game.

Originally Posted by Fluffyhotep
By making much of the game ridiculous, silly and over the top, the emotional impact of the bad stuff (massacres, executions etc.) is softened. A lot. Maybe not good from an immersion perspective, but it allows playing an ‘Agent of Evil’ and still have some lulz rather than feeling acutely and permanently uncomfortable.

hmmm… so Obsidian doesn't want players to feel bad while committing atrocities? That's an interesting approach…

Honestly I'm not really sure that Kyros is all that much more evil then any medieval era conqueror. His empire reminds me of the Roman empire really. They even do their best to compensate innocent conquered people who suffered during the war, and while some of his war tactics are ruthless, most are not uncommon in real life wars. So far the only really evil thing I've seen is how he employees the scarlet chorus as one of his army units (the scarlet chorus really does seem quite a bit more traditionally evil).

I wouldn't call forcing a prisoner smash the faces of her friends with a stone while everyone around is laughing and mocking her just to save herself emotionless nor soft. There are some really brutal choices you can make. I've had a number of occasions where I feel I need to question just how ruthless I want my character to be.
I think the largest impact on the emotion/evilness level of the game comes down to whether a person can feel emotionally towards a series of text rather than a voice acted cutscene or similar.

That cartoonish feeling more likely comes from the animated portraits on the side.
Archons are particularly affected. The unity game engine at work as products usually show the same issues. Devs were forced into a graphic and animation style that does not serve the whole.

The story sounds interesting, but I have to have good combat in party-based games, and I'm not hearing enough positive things about the combat to make me want to play this right now.

I'm real big on enemy variety, and hearing that there are so few kinds of enemies is disappointing.

Originally Posted by JDR13
The story sounds interesting, but I have to have good combat in party-based games, and I'm not hearing enough positive things about the combat to make me want to play this right now.

I'm real big on enemy variety, and hearing that there are so few kinds of enemies is disappointing.

Combat actually isn't that bad. Micromanaging your companions makes combat a lot more interesting rather than just letting the AI work. It's going to be a lot of waiting around if you let them just do their own thing with their AI's instead. On the matter of AI, the ability to customize your companion AI's are extremely limited. Lack of variety in enemies is a thing though sadly. Those two are the only cons of combat to me.

Finished the game - 47 hours for a fairly thorough playthrough. The end was rather abrupt and anti-climatic. I was caught off guard - I thought, "Ok, now onto the next part..what!? Its finished?" It was "ok". I preferred PoE to be honest, and not because of the 'good vs evil" thing (I played both sides of the coin It just seemed less enjoyable. I also felt railroaded into some choices, where there was no possibility of me refusing or a somewhat fake 'choice' that I was forced to make (but should not ave been, with all the power I had accrued). I could probably articulate things more, but suffice to say while I was satisfied with the experience, I was not bowled over. Bah humbug!

The issue with enemy types is that the story is mostly about politics and war, and as a result the majority of the enemies are human. In theory there are a lot of different types of human opponents, but in a real time game you can't really appreciate the subtle differences between different archers from different factions. You mostly only care that they are ranged attackers.

Arguably things wouldn't be so different even if you had more monster types. In real time it's just as hard to appreciate the subtle differences between an orc archer, a goblin archer, and a skeleton archer. But at least they look a little different.

So far though I don't really mind. Fighting mostly humans is just a part of the story, and I'd rather keep the interesting story than to lose it in exchange for slightly different looking archers. But I also wouldn't want every game to be like that. Sometimes it's more fan to smash some orcs.

The ending screams "a sequel is coming" because it's rather anti-climactic. It ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

Originally Posted by fadedc
Arguably things wouldn't be so different even if you had more monster types. In real time it's just as hard to appreciate the subtle differences between an orc archer, a goblin archer, and a skeleton archer. But at least they look a little different.

It makes a significant difference to me. One of the reasons I enjoyed the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series so much is because of the tremendous variety in the bestiaries in those games. On the other hand, Dragon Age seemed quite limited by comparison, and that's a major reason I didn't like it as much.

Given the story in Tyranny, I guess it's understandable. Though I have to wonder if the shortish development time was a factor as well.

Originally Posted by JDR13
It makes a significant difference to me. One of the reasons I enjoyed the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series so much is because of the tremendous variety in the bestiaries in those games.

Same here, for sure.

PoE had a pretty nice bestiary but I don't think even that game compared to BG or ID (just going off the top of my head).