Tyranny is really fucking good. Took a hurricane to realize it.

[fantadomat]

You must be pretty sick degenerate to not like 15 year old girls!

The only sick degenerate stares at you through the mirror.

That one is not sick,he is a elegant charming proud gentleman!

 

[Sacred82]

In one fell swoop Obsidian managed to solve all of the problems that have accumulated throughout the years with:

- companion "like/dislike" systems (they chucked the good/bad parameters and instead companions will stay with you either out of loyalty or because you've dominated their wills/lives, and neither "path" is wrong or right either in terms of gamification: both produce tangible and unique feats/perks/benefits so there is no need to always treat a companion one way or the other due to wanting a specific outcome in terms of their prowess)
.

Hmm. Can't you actually unlock BOTH paths, making interaction super-duper-powergamey? But even if they contradict - you're still gaming the interaction by choosing the option you want to pursue. I don't see how that solves anything. Also, at first glance, some wrath/ loyalty abilities seem to clearly favor certain buids as well as party setups, so yes, it still matters very much how your relationship with the NPC ends up.

And that is not even mentioning that, yes, you can turn off pointers saying whether you're incurring someone's minor wrath or something, but from where I stand, the writing is much too shitty to accurately reflect what implications any line of dialogue would have. The very same problem existed with Pillars and its dispositions. But in Tyranny it's actually worse, with one dialogue option incurring some faction's minor wrath, inspiring someone else's loyalty majorly, having whatever effect on two companions at the same time sometimes, and throwing the disposition of Archons in the mix for good measure. IMO, it's a fucking mess.

 

[Glaucon]

What is it with potatoes and america?

Also, good post. Was hesitant about playing Tyranny, but think I'll pick it up and give it a go.

 

[PEACH]

Tyranny is definitely many... things, but It's definitely not juvenile. I don't particularly care about Tyrany's "rep" but considernig the large amount of failings the game features... i find it a bit sad that now juvenile is heaped upon it unjustly as it's the one thng that it isn't.

Strongly disagree.

While there's a lot of interesting ideas and some genuinely enjoyable lore in Tyranny, as soon as the game actually shows important characters like the Archon of Secrets / Archon of War / Bleden Mark it takes a huge nosedive into high school short story tier writing.

When I was initially hearing about the Voices of Nerat I imagined all sorts of possibilities in terms of how they could handle him. He's an amalgamation of memories and minds, a spymaster, torturer, he's absorbed other Archons and leads the Scarlet Chorus. Tons of opportunities to make him into something fearful and sinister and still keep his offbeat sense of humour.

What does the game do instead? Writes him like he's an obnoxious teen who reminds me of a worse-written version of Hoji from the Shadow Warrior reboot. Now, I haven't played through on the Scarlet Chorus side of things (for obvious reasons) so I'm sure I'm missing at least some depth here, but not a single line of dialogue in Act 1 showed him as any of the things he's repeatedly described as by NPCs / lore dumps. As soon as I saw him bickering with Graven Ashe in the tent I could see the writing on the wall.

Graven Ashe isn't much better. I killed his daughter and grandchild while aligned with him and he proceeded to get angrier and angrier and angrier and then... nothing. A single line of dialogue after threatening my life he pretty much said "How's that spire though fatebinder?" *reputation with Graven Ashe has increased* Bleden Mark is another obvious example. Pretty sure the only big name character that lives up to their lore is Tunon who at least seems to fit his role of being an adjudicator.

The game sets itself up to have a world that I initially expected to be quite interesting based on the Conquest scenario and the lore of the Archons, Kyros, the Edicts and etc. but at every opportunity it has to showcase these things in real time it fucks them up completely and undermines its entire set up with goofy mediocre writing and plotting.

Maybe juvenile isn't the best possible word, but I don't think it's too far off.

 

[Haplo]

Tunon is pretty cool... until the scenario where he possibly bends the knee out of the blue....

 

[ArchAngel]

Tyranny is definitely many... things, but It's definitely not juvenile. I don't particularly care about Tyrany's "rep" but considernig the large amount of failings the game features... i find it a bit sad that now juvenile is heaped upon it unjustly as it's the one thng that it isn't.

Strongly disagree.

While there's a lot of interesting ideas and some genuinely enjoyable lore in Tyranny, as soon as the game actually shows important characters like the Archon of Secrets / Archon of War / Bleden Mark it takes a huge nosedive into high school short story tier writing.

When I was initially hearing about the Voices of Nerat I imagined all sorts of possibilities in terms of how they could handle him. He's an amalgamation of memories and minds, a spymaster, torturer, he's absorbed other Archons and leads the Scarlet Chorus. Tons of opportunities to make him into something fearful and sinister and still keep his offbeat sense of humour.

What does the game do instead? Writes him like he's an obnoxious teen who reminds me of a worse-written version of Hoji from the Shadow Warrior reboot. Now, I haven't played through on the Scarlet Chorus side of things (for obvious reasons) so I'm sure I'm missing at least some depth here, but not a single line of dialogue in Act 1 showed him as any of the things he's repeatedly described as by NPCs / lore dumps. As soon as I saw him bickering with Graven Ashe in the tent I could see the writing on the wall.

Graven Ashe isn't much better. I killed his daughter and grandchild while aligned with him and he proceeded to get angrier and angrier and angrier and then... nothing. A single line of dialogue after threatening my life he pretty much said "How's that spire though fatebinder?" *reputation with Graven Ashe has increased* Bleden Mark is another obvious example. Pretty sure the only big name character that lives up to their lore is Tunon who at least seems to fit his role of being an adjudicator.

The game sets itself up to have a world that I initially expected to be quite interesting based on the Conquest scenario and the lore of the Archons, Kyros, the Edicts and etc. but at every opportunity it has to showcase these things in real time it fucks them up completely and undermines its entire set up with goofy mediocre writing and plotting.

Maybe juvenile isn't the best possible word, but I don't think it's too far off.

I played the Scarlet Chorus path, I found Nerat kind of interesting. He is definitely shown as a entity with a plan.
Except the way you get rid of him was kind of stupid.

But I agree that the wrath system was kind of stupid at times (still better than what PoE had). Some situations should have triggered automatic responses instead of just giving wrath or whatever.

 

[Iznaliu]

That one is not sick,he is a elegant charming proud gentleman!

Being an "elegant charming proud gentleman" and being sick aren't mutually exclusive, you know.

 

[Cosmic Bane]

the writing itself in Tyranny is miles above what is present in PoE

Damned by faint praise.

 

[ArchAngel]

the writing itself in Tyranny is miles above what is present in PoE

Damned by faint praise.

Well that is best we can expect from nuObsidian. Long past are times of MotB or Kotor2 and they are not coming back.

 

[fantadomat]

The old dilemma with CRPG: you can't have good combat, good story and good roleplaying (C&C) in one game.

I hear that DOS combat is very fun, but at the same time the story sucks. Should get DOS1 to check it out.

DOS combat gets old fast.

 

[One Stoned Bastard]

It's not the hurricane, it's that you can finally be "I'm thinking for myself" evil again, instead of the "I'm killing puppies for fun" evil that we've grown accustomed to with the last few decades of gaming.

Also, it's only because of the hurricane.

 

[Jenkem]

just saw this thread and wow it got me pumped went and grabbed all the dlc and the portrait packs and going to play again with the bastard's wound and tales of the tiers just wow

 

[Durandal]

on the plus side I played and finished Tyranny and whole-heartedly believe it is Obsidian's best "Codexian-style cee-and-cee" adventure-game/RPG hybrid.

In one fell swoop Obsidian managed to solve all of the problems that have accumulated throughout the years with:

- companion "like/dislike" systems (they chucked the good/bad parameters and instead companions will stay with you either out of loyalty or because you've dominated their wills/lives, and neither "path" is wrong or right either in terms of gamification: both produce tangible and unique feats/perks/benefits so there is no need to always treat a companion one way or the other due to wanting a specific outcome in terms of their prowess)

- faction reputation "system" (they did the same thing here as with the companions and instead of either always alienating a faction or alternatively being their serf, instead you do your thang and either piss them off, or court their loyalty, or go for "neutral" faction alliance, a 3rd choice not present with the compnaions; neither of the 3 possible faction outcomes are bad or good, and each path plays into Tyranny's codex-style cee-and-cee, of which it has a lot)

the writing itself in Tyranny is miles above what is present in PoE and thanks to (now currently at 3 months) without electricity or internet (or running water the 1st month...), I was bored enough and without anything else much to do that I actually fucking sat down and read every single fucking dialog.

Dialog-wise I think Tyranny is the best Obsidian has done, 2nd only (obviously) to Mask of the Betrayer. In terms of writing F:NV is still their materpiece as it a masterclass in how to write an endlessly iterative CRPG.

Alpha Protocol already did this