A Crown of Sorcery and Steel

I've been waiting for this one ever since it's been announced, I love fantasy, I love casts of various characters, I love choices. What I don't love is most of this game. For my first playthrough, I was so disappointed I almost set out to write my most bitter review. But I pushed myself to replay it as to see the replayability value. My second and third playthrough were actually more enjoyable than the first, but only because I didn't have to reread all of the previous text. I have a lot of things to talk about. [b]Writing and story :[/b] • Some repetitions, not a very elaborate writing style, big blocks of sentences. It's not a hard read, not a very good one either. • Railroading, one of the bane of choiced based rpgs and stories. You can't decide what you want or don't want to do, you can only choose how you want to react to it (and the choices are a bit bland and simple). • A story with three main choices when having to act : black, white or nothing. Very binary choices, uninteresting most of the time. • The events are throwing themselves at you without any regard to logic, timing and meaning. They're irrelevant to the story, as well as quite ridiculous and forced. You don't have to always be in a setting of action and urgency to keep a reader hooked. Times out are good, calm is good. • Replayabililty. Eh, I guess it's ok. [b]Characters and interactions :[/b] • At first, I quite disliked the companions of our party. They irked me, some were just so annoying I would have liked to have them gone. I enjoyed them more during my following playthroughs but they're nothing amazing. Kinda cliché, bit boring. • Now the real issue, the interactions with the characters, especially our party. They argue ALL THE TIME and you are forced to take part in their squabbles. You side with one, the other is angry with you and vice versa. Even if you choose not to meddle, they are unhappy. It's truly infuriating to have someone get mad at you everytime you make a choice in this game (most of the events are about one of the main characters, so you'll always have someone dissatisfied). • Don't get me started with the queen, the villain of the story. Bad, personality so cliché and empty it doesn't even make me want to side with her. It's a bore. [b]Other :[/b] • The writer included portraits of some NPCs, with a wildly different artstyle from the thumbnail. My opinion on that doesn't really matter for this review but I just don't like it. It's a very caricatural style and not my cup of tea. • Very minor spoiler : one of the character belongs to an order with restrictive rules. One of them is that jewelry is prohibited, yet on her portrait, she wears a pair of gold earrings. I find that to be a clumsy little mistake, nothing impactful. In the end, I was almost ready to give a neutral-positive review, but as I thought of my first read, I couldn't go with it. So this is a neutral-negative review. Yes, I liked it in the end, but it's still a bad work to me.

This is just a no, for me anyways. There is no story here, its just a railroaded action adventure, and not a terribly interesting one at that. If you like "games" maybe this might interest you. If you want a story, with interesting characters and a reason to care about the MC your playing as, look else where.

Was really excited for this game as i played the demo, and had high hopes. But I just keep getting errors. I hoped the first one was just a fluke... but as it happened again and the game is just "stuck", it just seems it needs to be polished more. Keep getting "chapter2 line 158: Not a number: True" as soon as i restart the game, and can't click anything other than the cross to shut down the game. Think it needs more time to work out its kinks, so for now I cannot recommend.

I've only done one playthrough and I have to agree that there were a lot of frustrating aspects about the game. It kind of plays itself as a DND campaign and that's what I was expecting anyway. But the party is a mess and the conflicts are annoying. If this was a DND campaign it'd probably be pretty fun but that's because the player characters would be able to deal with things in their own way and solve their own conflicts between each other or at least make it more interesting than a "me or them" situation. Everything feels really chunky and segmented in a bad way. Each character has their own plot going on. Again, which would play out better in an actual campaign, but it's hard to get through in an interactive fiction format. In a story where you end up being the main hero/villain it sure doesn't feel like it when the NPCs have their own main character moments happening constantly. [spoiler] I HATED the elf. Having her nag you around every corner was infuriating and I'm kind of mad I couldn't just swing at her. I know it's to each their own and I try to give the character's a chance but she grated every single one of my nerves with her holier than thou attitude and valuing knowledge over the lives of the living. And she's super bitter to everyone in the party. Even the human who I assume is there the poly triangle happens with? It's just a rocky road all around. Also the way that everyone is unpleasant from the start aside from the leader is also annoying since with all the conflict that happens makes it seem unrealistic that we'd eventually be a cohesive adventuring party. [/spoiler] I also agree that the portraits in game being different to the art in the thumbnail is extremely jarring. I wish there was a toggle button for that.

Think Dragon Age Origin, but in IF format and without the DarkSpawn drooling at every encounter. I loved this game! You get to play as 4 races (Human, elve, Dwarf, Orc), and choose your path as well as choose your allegiance and who to side with. Should the past be fixed? you get to decide. Should some rules be broken? Fine, go ahead. Should something be respected? Only you can decide and assume the consequences. It's beautifully done, it's long and the companions and characters are endearing. Loved it. Would recommand, especially at that price! It's truly a work of Love and dedication!

I'm not good at writing reviews. So i'll just list what i liked. The story is nice. Seems to have quite a bit of reactivity to decisions. From screwing people over to help the villain to actually helping the party. Entertaining cast of characters that are well written and react to choices. The ending i got was satisfying enough. Ties up loose end rather well. Most importantly the villain calls main character "my pet" and that just adorable. Only gripe i have is with the portraits, i would have preferred if they were in the same style as the background picture. I reckon my playthrough was around 7-8h long.

I enjoyed this game after I tried a few paths and realized something. One, although the game SEEMS to pressure you into solving all the factions problems each game, you are rewarded by concentrating on completing your faction story first. Each "Faction" equals the various races in the game: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Orc. Those are the groups rebelling against Nidana. I noticed that the "thumbs down" votes that I saw chose to be a "double agent" for Nidana. That would be a complex situation to say the least. Anyway I chose the Elf faction as I am a straight guy and those options are limited in this game in the need to be "inclusive" of other types of romance. You CAN SKIP romance if you choose which would make all factions playable to me imo. Anyway, I played using the "tabletop RPG" mechanic turned on which tells you how your decisions will be viewed by others in the game, which makes it much easier to stick to your chosen Path or romance. While not "adult content" the romance scenes are better than most standard games on Steam imo.

I've had two play/read throughs and i'm kind of split on my verdict. First i played a dwarf who fought against the queen, romanced Khattya (elf mage), encouraging her to form a nieuw scribe order without the jedi-like doctrine, and ended becoming a symbol of unity between all races. Second an elf who was an eye for the queen + romanced her, lots of sabotage against the resistance, and in the end betraying her becoming the sole ruler of the land. (I roleplayed that in the end i realized i was not in love with her but her power + even end up to be a rare achievement) You have a lot of freedom to be the kind of person you want to be. Brutal, Tactical, Kind, Cruel, Humble, Braggadocious. Heck if you decide to join the queen there are many points were you can start a redemption arc for your character by deciding to cast her aside and suport the resistance for real. But what brings this down is some of the writing or rather the lack there of. A lot of conversations are over way too quickly and some location descriptions leaves a lot to be desired. Apart from your fellowship most characters are easily forgettable. This is sadly why i like but also am disappointed with the two epilogues. They are some of the best parts of the game showing you the world you helped create. You get to hang out with your friends and talk of events that have occurred. And in the queen's version you got to do some absolutely sadistic stuff. Example, taking away the voice of your old bard companion so they can no longer speak ill of you and taking away their lifelong dream of being a superstar. But it is way to short and if you spare the queen after her defeat you don't get to hear what happened to her. Speaking of, if your spare her life you must choose to hand here over to the human resistance or the elven scribes. but why cant you give her to Khattyas new order? Which i joined and in fact help create because i did not like the emotionless philosophy of the existing one + they kept a lot hidden from the initiates (like i said jedi like). It's just not a good story but also not insultingly bad it sits right in the middle for me. If you still want to give it a go i advise you don't rush through and take it slowly. otherwise you will begin to see the cracks.

I completed this just a month ago and literally don't remember a single event, character, or detail, so... that probably says something.