Tyranny is a weird game to review because I actually liked the game, but also feel like it has flaws so huge that I can't actually recommend it in good conscience.
First, the biggest reason I'm giving the game a negative review, despite enjoying it: At one point I encountered a bug that made it literally impossible to progress the main story. It turns out that making certain choices in a certain quest just leads you to a state where your main story quest is impossible to complete, and the only way to continue is to load an old save before you made those choices (and if you don't have one you're just screwed). And that's just not a forgivable bug to have, and I'm not going to leave a positive review to a game that has it. And the game is no longer supported, so that bug will never get fixed.
The game also had a ton of smaller bugs. Some were very minor, some were major ones that could lead to breaking side quests and making them impossible to complete but at least not breaking the main story. It's apparently also extremely easy to break the main quest of the DLC and lock yourself out of completing it, but fortunately I was able to avoid that.
As far as the game itself goes besides the bugs, I think it has a lot of great ideas but a lot of big issues with the execution. I like the idea of an RPG where being evil is the default path and you have to go out of your way if you want to try to actually be a hero, the opposite of most RPGs. I really liked the game's worldbuilding and thought it had a pretty good main story, and while the last act was short I actually really liked the direction it went (at least for me). The game does branching paths well, with multiple routes through the game and factions that you can side with that can lead the story in very different directions.
I liked the party members you get overall. They're not my favorite cast of party members in an RPG, but they're all interesting characters. Unfortunately, the actual development of their personal stories are lacking. Three of them have some good interactions with the main story but overall their own personal story never goes anywhere. The other three actually do have pretty good personal side quests that develop them as characters, but they're all locked behind a paid DLC, even though only one of them actually has any connection to the rest of the DLC's content whatsoever.
The big issue with the story was the way some choices were handled. There are a lot of moments where it felt like you really should have a choice in something, but just don't. Things like discovering an ally has a scheme your character might disapprove of but being forced to play into it, or discovering new information that completely changes the morality of your mission but being forced to carry out the mission anyway. For a game that clearly really wants you to get into the roleplaying, having moments where major choices are just taken away from you for no reason really hurts that and breaks immersion. I liked where my character's story arc began and ended but there are points in the middle where I basically have to headcannon certain quests going differently because the game forced me to do something that made no sense for the way I was roleplaying my character.
I haven't talked about the combat at all so far, and that's because it was mostly just forgettable and easy. It's mostly just pretty standard real-time-with-pauses CRPG combat. It's got a cool spell system where you can customize a lot of aspects of your spells which I really liked, but besides that it was forgettable. I played on the second-highest difficulty but, after the first act, never even came remotely close to failing any fights in the game. I couldn't turn up the difficulty to get more of a challenge because the highest difficulty can only be chosen at the game start.
In the end, without the game-breaking bug, I'd be very conflicted on whether to give this game a positive review or a negative one. It has a cool concept and I enjoyed the world, many of its characters, and the overall story, and it had some moments that actually offered really interesting choices. At the same time, the combat was mostly too easy to be interesting, it's got tons of other bugs too, at some points in the story it forced me to do things that really should have been a choice, and there are some great party member quests that really should be in the core game but are locked behind paid DLC. But the game-breaking bugged sealed the deal.
I wouldn't say no one should play this game. It is still a cool game that does some really interesting things. But if you do play it, save often and be ready for some possible frustration with the story forcing you to do things that should be choices.
