Review RPG Codex Review: Tyranny - Kyros Demands Better

[l3loodAngel]

More imaginative dungeons and encounters, a bigger and more varied bestiary, a better and more clearly-differentiated magic and ability system, and overall balance tilted to favour attack over defence would help bring its combat up to DA:O standards at least, if ditching the cooldowns altogether is not on the cards.​

Wow, amazing.

 

[Togukawa]

Not only do you have no reason to join the rebels, but you have no reason to go up against Kyros, which is the end state of every path. The game basically forces you into that position through a plot device - that is, it's either you or Kyros, because he/she's coming after you no matter what. For most characters born in this setting, it makes more sense to serve Kyros, and to try to climb up the power ladder, than it is to fight Kyros, yet that is what you end up doing.

Kyros does have a reason to go against you though. At the end of the game you're powerful enough to constitute a legit threat. No self-respecting overlord would allow that.

Did you play the same game? In the Myothis letter chain you find out that Kyros sets you up from the start to become powerful. It's literally in there: "Kyros edict of execution was setup for SOMEONE to claim Ascension Hall... to think that Kyros did not know what would happen would be a massive underestimation of the Overlords long view."

Kyros has absolutely no reason to go against you, you're just a pawn in the overlords plan and at no point can you do anything different than what the overlord wants you to do. It's telling that you don't get the mission to kill everyone else, no you are given the order to make them join you or kill them. You become powerful because you unlocked a spire and because you have become the main power in the tiers, both things which the overlord directly ordered you to do.
Now if the overlord would give you an order to kill everyone else, and you decide to instead convince some people to join you instead, then you might have at least have the illusion that you were subverting the overlord plans.

But I'm sure you know this already, as you've explored many different branches of this soon to be cult classic with a dizzying variety of adventures to choose.

 

[Haba]

But what I don't want, and the reason I find your reviews the ass cancer of this site, secretly killing us, yet only registering as mere butt-hurt in the eyes of the by-now truly disaffected, is to have YOUR consumer whore bullshit even slightly appear to be representative of what I or others think. Which we both know it very well will, the hypersecond Infini slavishly updates our Steam curator page and the second past this review was embarrassingly strewn across the front page of our esteemed website.

I think the review just should be properly tagged:

And it should be moved to the right subforum.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Goddammit, this site is getting really retarded lately. And all for a dev whose biggest achievement to date was creating a mod that tried to salvage Fallout 3

 

[Whisper]

Kyros does have a reason to go against you though. At the end of the game you're powerful enough to constitute a legit threat. No self-respecting overlord would allow that.

Here, i can help.

"You are powerful, but now powerful enough to be a threat".
Or "Kyros is group of people, and now they want you to join them as one of Kyros".
Or 100 other explanations anyone can make up.

Problem solved, now you can stay loyal to Kyros.

 

[hell bovine]

Not only do you have no reason to join the rebels, but you have no reason to go up against Kyros, which is the end state of every path. The game basically forces you into that position through a plot device - that is, it's either you or Kyros, because he/she's coming after you no matter what. For most characters born in this setting, it makes more sense to serve Kyros, and to try to climb up the power ladder, than it is to fight Kyros, yet that is what you end up doing.

Yeah, but the game also hints that certain events - like you awakening the spire - were at least expected (if not planned) by Kyros. And that Kyros knew that you were an archon and about your powerts before your character did, and could have had you killed as a baby (like she/he did with some of the others). Of course the issue to whether you are simply going against the overlord, or the overlord has been pulling strings, remains unresolved. Buy our DLC to find out, I guess.

 

[Shadenuat]

Game has a lot of unjustified choices and choices that do not fit it's premise or setting. That's why I can't agree with positive part of PJ's review. Sometimes having a choice can harm game's narrative more than not having one. A choice to go around and grow potatoes wouldn't add much to Fallout 1, don't you think - thankfully it's developers thought about it and added a few preventive measures; like it doesn't add much to Bethesda games. That's why I don't like cloth map in the beginning either. You have no idea what are you doing there. At that point of player's level of familiarity with the game, it's nothing but several coin tosses.

Perhaps I falsely believed that game was *supposed* to give me something that developers didn't think about. I thought I was going to be a servant of evil overlord and would have to gently maneuver between various masters and factions, not another superhero Chosen One.

I still can't believe no companions in your party fight one another, like in Baldur's Gate. I guess there are too few of them to even allow it.

Afterall, we can't allow player to fail in the game, don't we? If it would have been hard to gain companion's loyalty, player might end up without companions. If player fails to like any factions, he can become a glorious rebel. If player does't want to, or even fails it that, he can always go solo. Thankfully, player can't attack Archon of Shadow as he has plot armor and dialogue will always make player follow into right direction. If player doesn't like anyone, he can always kill everyone, including most powerful archons.

You always have a choice of how not to fail at the game and feel good about yourself, get unique endings and achivements. Developers have you.

...fucking Kyros candyland.

 

[Prime Junta]

Kyros has absolutely no reason to go against you, you're just a pawn in the overlords plan and at no point can you do anything different than what the overlord wants you to do. It's telling that you don't get the mission to kill everyone else, no you are given the order to make them join you or kill them. You become powerful because you unlocked a spire and because you have become the main power in the tiers, both things which the overlord directly ordered you to do.

tl;dr you're butthurt because an evil overlord stabbed you in the back.

I can relate to that.

 

[Infinitron]

You may consider this some sort of writer's flourish, but they're no less fucking baffling lies and gushing, whorish hyperbole on the level of that idiot who considered DA2 the best RPG of the decade. Oh wait, that last quote was from his review. Did you notice?

Darker, sexier, better.

Kryos demands better.

(Funny how the third word is the same in both, isn't it?)

This review may be the most thorough demolishing of Tyranny's gameplay and mechanics available anywhere on the Internet. Around half of it is basically pure negativity. For years now, people have been freaking out over stylistic issues in our reviews and I've realized that I can't really help you with that. But rest assured, the Codex's qualitative advantage in matters of substance will remain.

 

[an Administrator]

Yup, the review criticized the gameplay mechanics really hard, more than any other review on the Internet. BUT on the other hand, it gave a blank cheque to the writing and worldbuilding to 'balance' it out.

 

[Haplo]

Goddammit, this site is getting really retarded lately. And all for a dev whose biggest achievement to date was creating a mod that tried to salvage Fallout 3

Nah. I guess this won't be a popular opinion, but Obsidian's greatest achievement was PoE. Also NWN2 with expansions. Heck, I'd even rate KOTOR 2 above FNV.
A lot of good stuff came from this studio.

 

[Roguey]

Shades of ironyuri; "this review wasn't negative enough."

Only this time the (attempted) ragequit happened before it was properly published.

 

[MrMarbles]

Shades of ironyuri; "this review wasn't negative enough."

Only this time the (attempted) ragequit happened before it was properly published.

Ironyuri should be here to trash it. Him and Bubbles both leaving definitely affects quality and entertainment level of this place.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Finished the game on PotD with 4 casters (playerchar, Eb, Sirin, and the old whatshisname sage). Had fun. Combat sucked ass, but i liked the spell crafting part.
Story was ok i guess.

Decent review mr Junta.

 

[Rake]

Goddammit, this site is getting really retarded lately. And all for a dev whose biggest achievement to date was creating a mod that tried to salvage Fallout 3

Also NWN2

 

[Haplo]

Finished the game on PotD with 4 casters (playerchar, Eb, Sirin, and the old whatshisname sage). Had fun. Combat sucked ass, but i liked the spell crafting part.
Story was ok i guess.

Decent review mr Junta.

Ah yes, with all the bitching taking place, I almost forgot.

Thank you for the review, Prime Junta.
I wouldn't call it a potential cult classic or praise the setting that much. Very interesting, but not consistent enough and shame about the special snowflake stuff plus impregnable plot armor.
Then again I've even found the combat okay-ish (some more enemy variation would be welcome), so you rated this aspect harsher then I would.

Overall Good job!

 

[Malpercio]

DA:O standards at least

What standards now?

 

[Reinar]

It's really sad how many people ITT (and on the Codex as whole) can't read.
"It could have been a classic" -> "No, retard, it is not a classic!"
"It's similar to dark ages" -> "No, retard, it's not in the dark ages!"
"Some parts are interesting" -> "You retard, how can you tell everything is perfect?!"
"It would be nice if it was at least as good as DA:O" -> "DA:O is the perfect 11/10 gaem nao?"
Fuck, reminds me of small kids arguing about who is more stupid. You're stupid. No, you are. You are 10 times more stupid! You are 1000 times more stupid! You are million million million times more stupid!

 

[Prime Junta]

DA:O standards at least

What standards now?

DA:O has genuinely impactful abilities, diverse enemies, and well set-up encounters. If you get fireballed, earthquaked, pulled by a Revenant, or shield bashed, you notice it, and from the start you have similarly powerful abilities that you can use and combine in different ways for different effects. You won't beat DA:O fights just mechanically spamming your best attacks as timers wind down; you have to react to what the opposition is doing and use what you have intelligently.

I do not like cooldown-based combat, but like anything it can be executed well, or poorly. DA:O executes it well. DA:I executes it poorly. Tyranny, even worse.

 

[Orobis]

Obsidian's greatest achievement was PoE. Also NWN2 with expansions. Heck, I'd even rate KOTOR 2 above FNV.

 

[Malpercio]

DA:O standards at least

What standards now?

DA:O has genuinely impactful abilities, diverse enemies, and well set-up encounters.

No, it doesn't. Every enemy in DAO feels and play the same, Darkspawns literally fight as bandits that fight as spiders that right as undeads. You can even sleep the undeads. You spam your 1-2-3 abilities and potions.

I don't think I even changed by "strategy" during the dragon fights in DAO.


Tyranny is superior by default since its areas are not filled with trash mobs. There is more trash in DAO than all IE games combined. The fucking Deep roads is like the game vomiting trash mobs in your face.

 

[Prime Junta]

No, it doesn't. Every enemy in DAO feels and play the same, Darkspawns literally fight as bandit that fight as spiders that right as undeads. You can even sleep the undeads. You spam your 1-2-3 abilities and potions.

Did you ever get fireballed? Fight a revenant, dragon, stone golem, or arcane horror? Survive an ambush while on the road? Use spell combos? Use that one spell that makes the target invulnerable but paralysed?

(There are way too many trash mobs for sure, moreso towards the end of the game, and yes, darkspawn, bandits, and undead are effectively interchangeable. Also plodding pace, stilted dialog, yadda yadda yadda. But that's a different matter.)

 

[Infinitron]

I guess DA:O's combat starts out like what you described, but it becomes incoherent in the late game as you gain tons of abilities you don't really need, your stats inflate into the high double digits, and you discover the power of mage spam

 

[Malpercio]

No, it doesn't. Every enemy in DAO feels and play the same, Darkspawns literally fight as bandit that fight as spiders that right as undeads. You can even sleep the undeads. You spam your 1-2-3 abilities and potions.

Did you ever get fireballed? Fight a revenant, dragon, stone golem, or arcane horror? Survive an ambush while on the road? Use spell combos? Use that one spell that makes the target invulnerable but paralysed?

(There are way too many trash mobs for sure, moreso towards the end of the game, and yes, darkspawn, bandits, and undead are effectively interchangeable. Also plodding pace, stilted dialog, yadda yadda yadda. But that's a different matter.)

I can't say I did any of these things as I played every freaking encounter in that game the same way.

The game you are describing is BG2, you know, the one spells, counter spells, buffs, debuffs and enemies that require different weapons and abilities and have immunities (Reminder: You can sleep undead in DAO)

DAO is like the poster-child for bad encounter design. Soooo mind-nubbing boring.

 

[Prime Junta]

DAO is like the poster-child for bad encounter design. Soooo mind-nubbing boring.

Well, Tyranny is worse. :shrug: