Review of Tyranny

Note: As usual, it's a bit of a work in progress, so feel free to ask questions, make requests and whatever else. I have decided to skip the various sections this time, but I have no idea if that'll work out.

Review of Tyranny
The RPG-veterans over at Obsidian Entertainment have returned with a new RPG, set in a world where the tyrant Kyros rules with an iron fist. The player enters the world as a so-called “Fatebinder”, which is basically a judge, jury and executioner. However, they are not above the law, and answer to the Archon of Justice, Tunon, who is tasked with bringing justice to the far corners of the world.

There has been some controversy leading up to Tyranny about whether or not the main character has to be evil. Let me dispel that myth right away: It is entirely possible to be good overall, but not exclusively. It’s a rather fascinating concept, in that the main character is a person of influence in a dictatorship. Not everyone working for Hitler, Hussein or Mussolini were evil. Far from it, and I feel they could have gone even further with it in terms of drama, conspiracies, trust, betrayals and so on, but it’s still very interesting, with a lot of choices to make.


Character creation has had a facelift since since Pillars of Eternity

In fact, there are choices to make right from the start. The character creation is an upgraded version of the one found in Pillars of Eternity, and the experience feels a bit smoother. Classes are now gone, replaced by a system more similar to Elder Scrolls, so all you really need to pick are looks, icon, voice, starting skills and background. The background is actually the most interesting, as it has an impact in quite a few conversations, opening up new dialogue options and occasionally even new ways of solving quests. I find such features refreshing, and it reminds me a bit of Arcanum, which is usually a good thing.

Once the character has been created, it’s time to go through something called “Conquest”. Conquest is a rather quick, map-based intro where the player gets to choose what the Fatebinder did during the actual conquest of a region called The Tiers. Conquest can be skipped, but the choices have some surprising consequences throughout the game, and new dialogue options can pop up as a result when least expected, so it’s worth doing properly.

After the conquest has taken place, it’s time to enter the world. It quickly becomes obvious that the engine is an upgraded version of what we saw in Pillars of Eternity: The interface is very similar, the look and feel is very similar, the combat mechanics are quite similar and so on and so forth. However, it’s a heavily polished version, which makes the whole experience feel better, especially later on. In terms of combat, the start is a bit slow due to the lack of abilities and long attack timers (hit, wait.. wait.. hit again.. wait.. ), but it really picks up after a while.


There are a lot of skill checks to encounter while exploring the world

There are a few differences between the combat in Pillars of Eternity and the combat in Tyranny:

• The party max size is now 4 instead of 6. This makes it easier to avoid some of the messier fights in Pillars of Eternity, but it also greatly reduces the flexibility of the parties. Similar to Dragon Age: Origins, most parties will likely end up with a tank, DPS, healer + one random, most likely some type of caster as they are the most flexible. I would personally prefer at least one more spot in the party to add some mix and match potential.
• Attributes are slightly different: The heavily criticized “Might” is now exclusively physical, and spell damage is gained as an alternative to increased area of effect size on spells.
• One of the biggest changes is the actual experience point system. In Pillars of Eternity, only exploration, bestiary updates and quests provided experience points. In Tyranny, this system has been replaced by a system very similar to the one found in the Elder Scrolls series: Using or training (max five per level) skills, will grant levels in said skills, which in turn yields character levels. It is not a common system for party based RPG, but I have to say it works rather well. The only slight drawback with such a system is that certain characters, with more active abilities/spells gain levels a bit faster.
• Another big change is spell crafting: A system where you can combine a core, an expression and various accents to create spells. The only limiting factor is the amount of Lore a character has: Higher lore means more, and more powerful, components can be used. This means that characters with high lore can create some truly overpowered spells. I’m actually fine with that, however, as the trial and error process of high level spell crafting is genuinely fun, which is what games are all about.

High level spell crafting can create very powerful spells

All that being said, combat is rarely the highlight of games developed by Obsidian, and Tyranny is no exception. It still feels a bit clunky at times, the encounter design is still a bit limited, and it’s fairly obvious that most of the effort went into the writing. This is not necessarily a bad thing; it simply depends on the preference of the player.

Personally, I like games that require a lot of reading, and I prefer the writing in Tyranny to that of Pillars of Eternity. It is a bit less pretentious, a bit more direct and a bit more engaging. It might not sound important, but it does actually make a difference, especially since both Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny contain so much dialogue and lore.

In fact, reading about the world and the various locations, people and history is actually more fun than exploring it. Don’t get me wrong: The world looks and feels great, and the atmosphere reminds me of Arcanum in a way, but it’s a bit too restricted. The dungeons are good, and contain a few decent puzzles here and there, but the outdoor regions are simply too small, which limits exploration and the overall sense of scope. For example, we are told early on that the Disfavored are few in numbers, but extremely skilled, whereas the Scarlet Chorus is a massive horde. This fits both their philosophies, their lore and the various characters met in each faction, but it doesn’t actually fit what we see in the game: Both factions have more or less the same, limited number of people, and it is never actually shown that they’re different in terms of combat.


One of several interesting dungeons

Luckily, there are quite a few choices related to the factions, including a few major choices that greatly influence how the story plays out. This, in turn, really helps add a lot of replay value despite the limited exploration. There are few games with a better implementation of choices and consequences, and almost everything has an impact. I spotted a few mistakes here and there, such as dead people referred to as still being alive, but that is expected given the sheer amount of choices.

I do not know whether it is the amount of choices, the music, the atmosphere or the shades of grey, but what I do know is that Tyranny has reminded me of how much I want a remake of, or sequel to, Arcanum. Preferably with an engine as smooth and good looking as the one Tyranny uses. What Tyranny lacks isn’t technical, nor is it a matter of writing, characters, story or atmosphere. It genuinely feels like a good, polished game. What it lacks in comparison to the old-school games it emulates is simply scope: It strives to be an Arcanum or Baldur’s Gate, but ends up being Planescape: Torment without the weirdness to carry it, in a time where people are far more unforgiving.


That message certainly looks familiar.

Overall, it is still a good game though. I enjoyed it greatly, and I will be completing it a second time soon due to the high replay value. It is just a shame that, as with most Obsidian titles, it falls just short of greatness. I do consider it worth the money though, as we are not exactly swimming in old-school, party based RPGs with decent production values and good writing.

Verdict: 4 / 5
The reason I am giving it a 4 out of 5 despite the flaws mentioned is that I’m the type of player who can ignore most flaws if the writing, choices and consequences are interesting enough, especially since we rarely see games with that particular emphasis. For anyone else it is likely to be a fairly average game, roughly 3 out of 5.

Pros:

• Good writing
• Choices and consequences
• Lots of skill checks
• Spell crafting
• Character progression

Cons:

• Restricted exploration
• Somewhat clunky combat, especially early on
• Not enough options in terms of party setup
• Limited scope

Another very good review. Thank you.

A pity this was a more minor project, as it seems it might have had the potential to be something special.

Thank You for the review, Maylander!

Nice review. I'm going to pick this up at some point.

Good but not great review!
But okay since it's "work in progress"…

Thanks for this M.

Originally Posted by Ripper
Another very good review. Thank you.

A pity this was a more minor project, as it seems it might have had the potential to be something special.

Indeed, and it has Obsidian written all over it. They never seem to have the resources to really go through with their vision.

Thanks for the cheese… errrr… review, Marylander!

Cheers for that Maylander, an encouraging read. I'll be picking this up as soon as I can justify it - possibly during the Christmas steam sales, I'll have to see.

The strong choices and consequences and slightly subversive morality are two attractive features for me; whilst the four party member downgrade from six in PoE is a negative, I suspect I'll enjoy it regardless.

Originally Posted by Maylander
Indeed, and it has Obsidian written all over it. They never seem to have the resources to really go through with their vision.

Yeah… sure… resources…

Workmen and tools etc etc.

Thank you for the great review…sounds like to me you hit it right on!

Good review, im playing Tyranny for 2 days already and it quickly become one of my favourite crpgs released this year. It has so many Cook's Black Company and Eriksson's M.Book of the Fallen inspirations, that it's hard not to be happy playing it. And all in very tasty classic crpg sauce . Great game!
I have high hopes that Obsidian Devs will continue Tyranny as great rpg series along with Pillars and other projects. Im so tired by "sandboxing" "new" almost empty new AAA crpgs, i love that special feeling of classic isometric or dungeon crawling crpgs, when You have time and atmosphere to dig into the story, details, and so on.
Don't get me wrong i have tons of fun with games like Witcher 3, DA, ME, but as rather old gamer, my biggest love is directed at that old style, with modern improvements crpgs. And im wishing to all of us, that Devs will follow path of Obsidian for next years . Modern crpgs like F3 or F4 , W3, DAO, DAI , ME are ok and have their place, but world without classic rpgs will be very sad place for most gamers.

The choices and consequences remind me a bit of Age of Decadence. It feels like they have tried for something similar, which isn't about creating a massive 200 hour long game, but instead a 20-hour game, with a lot of choices and consequences and thus actual replay value.

I have played the game for about 10 hours and I am playing as a friend of the Chorus, but with my own agenda of gathering power.

I think I will play again as an evil asshole following the Disfavoured again to see if the game changes enough to be fun.

For me, the main complaint is combat. It just feels like a chaotic mess. I am playing on normal and only lost one fight and that's by just clicking on random attacks, so I would suggest going on hard if you like the combat. The only reason I am not playing in Story mode is because I would like I am cheating then.

In reality RTWP is really not for me and I would much rather have turn-based combat, especially in party RPGs.

So unlike, Age of Decadence, I do not see myself playing this more than twice, but to be honest, that would make it on par with some of the games I consider to be great.

In conclusion, I would say:
Despite the combat, this game has a ton of amazing elements, such as lore, choices and consequences, character progression, etc. I would recommend it to anyone who likes games of this vein and I think that people who enjoyed the old games of this sort like Baldur's Gate, NWN and Planescape would like it very much.

I would not recommend this game to people who are looking for a tactical combat RPG a-la Blackguards or Dungeon Rats as the combat is chaotic or to people who do not like reading much.

Originally Posted by Maylander
Indeed, and it has Obsidian written all over it.

They never seem to have the resources to really go through with their vision.

Its not that they arent "going through with their vision" , but the project was initially conceptualized as a B-Team project, just as PoE was

Originally Posted by Pladio
I think that people who enjoyed the old games of this sort like Baldur's Gate, NWN and Planescape would like it very much.

Really? Im not enjoying it , its pretty bland and boring. Its a short game, plus youre fighting 2 or 3 enemies the entire game and your exploration is limited… This has all hallmarks of a mediocre, filler project

Originally Posted by luj1
Its not that they arent "going through with their vision" , but the project was initially conceptualized as a B-Team project, just as PoE was



Really? Im not enjoying it , its pretty bland and boring. Its a short game, plus youre fighting 2 or 3 enemies the entire game and your exploration is limited… This has all hallmarks of a mediocre, filler project

In "boss fights" i have seen up to 6.

This is 44e on gog my man

How buggy is this thing? Still dealing with backlog, but kind of tempted to give it a go.

It was fairly buggy when i played it nothing game breaking but things like characters not moving to a position where they can attack in combat and not being able to click parts where you can walk through.

Originally Posted by BoboTheMighty
How buggy is this thing? Still dealing with backlog, but kind of tempted to give it a go.

It has mostly some pathfinding issues that may be problematic if you play the game Real Time (I don't so it's just a minor annoyance when combat happens in close quarters). In any case, it's always wise to wait for a few patches not only for this but for all recently released games. Still… I've been playing this one since even before it was released (media copy) and haven't found any significant bugs.

Similar to Dragon Age: Origins, most parties will likely end up with a tank, DPS, healer + one random, most likely some type of caster as they are the most flexible. I would personally prefer at least one more spot in the party to add some mix and match potential.

One part of the playability/replayability is to build a supporting party around the PC.

A lot of options.

Originally Posted by Damian
In "boss fights" i have seen up to 6.

I've had at least one fight with 10+ enemies. For the most part though with only 4 party members you can't have that many enemies or you will be slaughtered.