Tyranny

Extremely underrated. In my opinion, a strictly better CRPG than Pillars. The setting is interesting and unique. The characters are interesting and unique. Each area has an interesting theme/hook because of the edicts, and the way everyone reacts to their situation feels believable and immersive. Great writing, and in my opinion a CRPG lives and dies on writing quality. My only gripe is with the way aggro works, which makes it very hard to keep squishy backliners alive (rip my boy lantry).

[h1][i]“Even our house pets are rather evil.”[/i] ~Ilwrath, Star Control II[/h1] The 90s didn't just mark a moment for role-playing games; they redefined the very essence of interactive storytelling. It all began with a sequel to Star Control, a game whose influence, though rarely celebrated today, laid the groundwork for the rich interactive dialogue options we now take for granted. Tim Cain (the man behind games like Fallout, Arcanum and The Temple of Elemental Evil), for example, claims Star Control II to be “his personal favorite RPG of all time” that inspired him a lot when he worked on his own projects. Sure, we had some advanced dialogues before that in giants like Wizardry and Ultima, but it wasn't before SC II when we started to get that certain feeling that we were actually living in that virtual world. And when the Fallout series appeared? Boy, oh boy... Nowadays, Fallout is our typical console-oriented stuff from Bethesda. With dialogues being just some short replies that lead to pretty much the same result. Back in 90s? It was an entirely different story. While taking SC II as an inspiration, Black Isle turned dialogues into something absolutely magical. Not only it felt a lot like an interactive version of a Choose Your Own Adventure book, the stats of our character actually mattered. The smarter we were – the more complicated our conversations became, charisma made us more likable, certain specializations used to unlock alternative solutions and so on. Fallout and its sequel did not look impressive. Moreover, those were turn-based games that were unable to compete with mainstream stuff like Diablo. But what it did with the dialogues? It was magic. Finally, there was Baldur's Gate. Made by a young Canadian team founded by newly graduated doctors, it revolutionized the whole fantasy CRPG thing. On many levels. First – it introduced us to the so-called Infinity Engine, which was perfect for this kind of entertainment. Second – it actually used Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. Third – while being a real-time game, it had “the advanced pause”. The same exact one we can see in Bethesda's Fallout nowadays. The idea was both simple and genius at the same time. Turn-based stuff was cool, but not everybody likes it, while obviously, real-time battles with a big party can become chaotic. Hence the idea – to let us pause the game at any moment and let us give our party commands. Pause the game, make some commands, unpause and see the results. Like I said, simple, yet genius. Most importantly, though, Baldur's Gate was a true RPG. I already mentioned D&D, right? Well, when it's about D&D, there's that thing called alignment. Most of the games wants us to be good. To do the “right” thing. Baldur's Gate allowed us to be not only good, but also bad. And everything in between. Should I say it was fun? Up to this day, there are not so many games that fully allow us to make any avatar we wanted. And most of those? Most of those are from Tim Cain. Speaking of Tim Cain, after his work on Arcanum and The Temple of Elemental Evil, he moved on from Interplay to co-found Troika Games. Heck, he was one of Troika's three founders (yes, there were three, hence the name). Unfortunately, as we all know, Troika didn't do well financially, which led to it being closed in 2005. But guess what? After working for NCSoft for some time, Tim... Joined Obsidian. Yeah. [i]The[/i] Obsidian. The one that began its story making sequels to BioWare games, developed the best “new” Fallout (New Vegas) and... Yeah. Reviving good ol' Baldur's Gate in its original form. Minus the licensed D&D thing, of course. And yes, Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity was the first game, on which Tim worked after joining the team. While Tyranny? Tyranny was the second. If you think you know where this is going, you're correct. Tyranny is pretty much another Pillars of Eternity. It looks like Baldur's Gate (everything – from UI to cursors are [i]exactly[/i] the same), it feels like Baldur's Gate (both the “advanced” pause and dialogue trees are there) and, well, it's Baldur's Gate. When it's about core thing? There isn't much to say here, really. You like Baldur's Gate – go ahead and buy Tyranny. You'll f*cking love it. What's the difference, though? I mean, OK, clearly this here is not a licensed title and there won't be any references to D&D and its settings. But what's the difference from Pillars? Why not just giving us another Pillars game? Well, there's a reason for that. A pretty good one too. See, Tyranny comes with a pretty unique world, in which... there are no lawful good characters. In the world of Terratus, everybody was touched by evil one way or another. Even the good guys are neutral good at best (again, no D&D stuff here, I'm just making parallels). You included. And that's the funny part. Even when games do give you full control over your character and their views, you always start either good or neutral. In Tyranny? You're the bad guy. Like, for real. There's that big godlike figure that aims for world domination and you're their servant. You goal – to enter the current region and make sure it'll fall. Or not. Because again, what we have here is Baldur's Gate variant and it's up to us to decide how we want things to end. We can become tyrant on our own [i]or[/i] free region from tyranny. Like I said, though, lawful good isn't a thing here and there'll always be... Something. In other words, Tyranny is a Baldur's Gate about evil guys. Is that it? Is that the only difference? Nope. Remember how Baldur's Gate had reputation? Well, in Tyranny things are even more complicated. Our usual reputation is called favor (loyalty when it's about companions), but this time there's also so-called wrath / fear. And, of course, both play a very important role in dialogues. Which are exactly as juicy as you want them to be. If something, dialogues are the main dish in Tyranny, while the world itself... Isn't really that big. Location-wise it can be compared with the very first Baldur's Gate, which had 54 areas. Tyranny has about 70, but the maps themselves are actually quite small and not complicated enough. Which makes it game way shorter than you'll probably want (something about 20 hours to beat the main story). Sure, Tyranny also comes with its own thing. Remember how in Obsidian's Neverwinter Nights 2 we had a stronghold with some recruitable characters? In Tyranny we've got customizable towers, in which we'll be able to hire NPCs like traders and trainers (leveling in Tyranny will make you think of good ol' Gothic a little), but all in all, it won't make much difference. All in all, Tyranny feels like a “Baldur's Gate lite”. But you know what? Somehow, it only makes the game better. If something, that's what makes Tyranny to stand out. For what it is, Tyranny is perfect. It makes you remember exactly why we fell in love with those advanced dialogues back in the days. If you'll expect Pillars of Eternity, you'll of course, notice the lack of the exploration, but that's just the thing here. Tyranny is a dialogue porn. That's what it's all about. And that's why I ended up loving it so much. With one big “but” – Tyranny is... ridiculously imbalanced game. No, seriously, it's like they didn't even try. Magic is strong, bows are weak, while swords are something in-between. Feels like a joke. And despite the small world, you [i]will[/i] fight a lot in here. Still, I don't feel like going on this game too hard for that. Make it 100+ hours long and I will. I totally will. But with it being a tiny little present for those who grew up playing those games I've mentioned above? I don't think it'll be fair. Tyranny's beauty comes from its world and its dialogues. If you seek a meticulously balanced game with vast exploration, Tyranny simply isn't it. But if you crave a compact, dialogue-rich experience steeped in moral ambiguity, Tyranny delivers a truly unique and memorable journey. Dixi.

Not many games offer believable evil storylines. Tyranny not only offers such a wicked experience but also pretty much excels at it. It truly is what it claims to be: dark, gritty, and sick. Genuinely disturbing! The writing is supreme. I didn't expect any less from Obsidian. Why negative? As much as it pains me to admit, the game itself was pretty underwhelming. From a gameplay standpoint, it was a tough pill to swallow. Including one particular [spoiler]Azure Shield[/spoiler] game-ending bug. The only thing that kept me going was treating it like an interactive book, one that leaves a bitter aftertaste. And I don't know exactly why. Maybe it had outstayed its welcome and the flaws got me in the end, or it's THAT good it got under my skin. Perhaps both. Alas. Either way, my final judgment, like the Edict of Malediction, will remain.

This game is unfinished. The ending felt rushed and it's just a giant cliffhanger. I cannot recommend it at full price. What a missed opportunity.

Tyranny is not a great game, but I lowkey kinda love it. If you have read The Black Company by Glen Cook, and you should they are excellent fantasy novels, you're basically playing as the strongest of the Taken. Which means, you're the baddies. At first, I really hated that, but then I read the Black Company, and it's actually a great idea. When I first played Tyranny, I did not like the game and some of those dislikes remain. The combat is largely a carry-over from Pillars of Eternity, but thankfully Obsidian learned about UX/UI design and the interface is better. Still not great, but better. They also massively simplified being a spellcaster and the spell-building system is neat. It's still Real-Time with Pause, which may not be to your taste, but it's less baffling that PoE1. The real thing about Tyranny that I think a lot of people didn't like is that you are playing as the baddies. If you, like me, cut your cRPG teeth on Dragon Age or Knights of the Old Republic, you may be expecting that it will be or become a heroic fantasy. Yeah, no, it doesn't. You're the bad guy and you stay the bad guy the whole time. What you get to decide is what kind of bad guy. This is a controversial choice, but I think it's actually a really genius decision from Obsidian and it's really what has kept me playing. As I stated, Tyranny is not a great game. I'm not really even sure it's a good game. But it is an intensely interesting game. It has some bright spots and some flaws, the gameplay loop is merely tolerable, the characters run the gamut from forgettable to annoy to tolerable, the writing is ok. But Tyranny is more than the sum of its parts and it is philosophically fascinating. It's not for everyone, but it is for me

The game was planned to have five acts but they only made three, and it's as rushed as that sounds. The combat is basically filler. And the ending railroads you onto a specific path that might make no sense for your character. Despite all that it's still the best narrative game of its year, because the writers are competent with interesting ideas, and most games don't even clear that low bar. If you like CRPGs you should get it. Every game in this genre has a bunch of major flaws and we put up with them because it's not like we're going to find a half-decent story anywhere else.

tyranny to prawdziwie wyjątkowy izometryczny rpg, w którym zaczynamy z grubej rury jako zbrodniarz wojenny, a kończymy jako zbrodniarz wojenny

This is a really hard decision to make but ultimately I have chosen to leave a negative review out of disappointment rather than anything the game itself directly does, but rather what it does NOT do. (Spoilers ahead.) This game and all it is, if it could be summed up briefly would be "A Tease" or a sense of "Teasing". It scratches all the perfect itches of wanting to "start from nothing" or "lower station", and build your character into a Tyrant or Humble Ruler of an empire but never really truly grants that opportunity. You never get to really explore the possibility that it teases you the whole game and I can not recommend it because of that. It would have been and easy 10/10 recommend if it let you actually command and rule and follow through with the powers you get, but it never truly does. You get dropped off just before you get the ball rolling and it completely crushes all the value of the build up unto that point. All the choices and consequences of the players actions are left effectively on a "cliff hanger" rather than actually being properly explored and traversed. (It is like writing the prologue to a story that has yet been written or told, you get to play in the early parts, but never ride the wave to the end of it, only getting to about half way at best, before stopping.) So much potential into being able to have such a lived through and flushed out back story and early main story you make for your character, and yet you can never truly experience that finality. It is truly a let down and disappointment that we as the player get to lose out on that experience. As the ending states it is "the heralding the end of one long campaign and the beginning of another." This last line hurts far more than anything else for me. Perhaps if we were to ever have a Tyranny 2 this could be fixed and I would change my review due to the nature of needing to continue the story progression in the next game, but because we only have the 1 Tyranny, I have to leave a negative as it only leave a sour taste of a high scope project that leave the player wanting more, but never granting that reward and experience. This is why if I could summarize the game in a single word it would be "tease". You learn about all these characters back story, lore, "language", ancient writings, glyps, and symbols, so much rich writing and history only to never be given answers to any of it. The majority of it is "left to player interpretation". I can appreciate wanting players to think and imagine for themselves but when you put this much work into the "hype" of reaching that peak only to say "use your imagination"" it leaves me dissatisfied and upset for the lack of a better description. In all fairness the core game itself and all that it offers is very much a easy 8/10 experience and a strong recommend for any CRPG fan, but due to the nature of how progression is handled and the lack of a satisfying conclusion I have to leave it negative. The build up is honestly unmatched in this genre space. It is by no means perfect, but from what I believe it set out to do, it does that concept quite well. It is just a shame that we will likely never see it laid out in full.

Combat here is bad, really really bad. It's hard to understand what's happening, to control your characters, they often got stuck doing nothing and don't follow your commands (even with party AI turned off)... It's not an issue with real-time-with-pause, I have thousand of hours in the old Infinity engine games, also played 100 hours of Pillars of Eternity and didn't remember combat being so awkward. I know combat is not the focus in this game, and I liked the story and writing, so I truly tried to like this game. But I play isometric RPGs because the strategy and mechanics are important to me. If your main focus is story, lower difficulty to the minimum to finish combats quickly, because they are just not fun, and give it a try. If your are more like me, look elsewhere.