After a 400-year war, Kyros the Overlord has almost united the realm of Terratus under his iron fist. But is (s)he a truly nefarious god-like entity? When is a conqueror evil? Aren’t most civilized countries on our planet soaked in the blood of their original inhabitants? Aren’t massacring megalomaniacs hailed as honorable heroes in famous sagas and History classes alike? Can we tell the difference between a smooth-talking demagogue and a merciless but law-abiding leader?
Obsidian’s Tyranny, hailed as a spiritual sequel to Pillars of Eternity, is a thought-provoking masterpiece that daringly asks those impossible questions. There have been many games where the main protagonist was evil, but it has always been superficial, humorous and lighthearted. Tyranny’s theme is adult and dark in an unprecedented, profound way and pulls no punches: you can actually feel bad with some of the choices you make… and immediately after that you justify your actions so they actually make sense. And it’s THEN that you genuinely feel troubled, when self-realization hits you. Tyranny has the capacity to take you into some dark places of the psyche; if you intend to go into Tyranny wishing to change things up, hoping that there is a way to turn the evil protagonist into an unwilling hero, you will be disappointed. Moreover, if you traditionally play only good-aligned characters in RPGs, you will be challenged. The best you can do is offer merciful murders and diplomatic devilry.
The will of Kyros is enforced by Edicts and Archons. Edicts are country-wide massive curses that plague the land for aeons while Archons are Kyros’s immortal champions, each with a very specific portfolio (Justice, War, Secrets, etc). Two of those Archons were dispatched by the Overlord to the Tiers, a small patch of land that remains unconquered: Graven Ashe, the Archon of War with his army of law-abiding but ruthless Disfavored; and The Voices of Nerat, a chaotic, scheming cacophony of collected personalities who leads the Scarlet Chorus, a maniacal horde of bloodthirsty savages. Predictably enough, the two conquerors can’t cooperate to quell the local resistance so you are sent by Turon, the Archon of Justice, to deliver a very special Edict to the rival armies: “if the two Archons fail to conquer the Tiers in eight days, everyone in the valley dies, including Archons, armies and locals”. As a Fatebinder and high servant of the Archon of Justice, you are essentially an autonomous triptych of judge, jury and executioner. In other words, your will is law and you have the power to shape the events unfolding: Tyranny will test your morality and make you reevaluate some of your principles, granting you with almost unlimited power in the process.
Tyranny plays much like Pillars of Eternity: battles follow a pausable real-time system as you issue orders to your four characters (from a sadly limited pool of seven) and utilize skills from different trees, artifacts, reputation rewards, even spectacular combos with your main character. What’s interesting is that all heroes follow a skill-based system, not a class-based one. All level-ups are also based on skill usage: the more you employ your skills, the more they level up (even if they are secondary ones like Athletics or Subterfuge that are used in dialogues or environment interaction). And when skills level up, your generic level goes up as well. Also of note are two other mechanisms that differentiate Tyranny from PoE: a quite flexible, albeit underutilized magic system where you create your own spells through the combination of arcane sigils, as well as a very robust reputation scheme that unlocks a multitude of active/passive skills, according to your dealings with different factions, archons and companions. There is again an attempt of a base-building support mechanism like PoE’s, this time tied organically to the main plot, as you unlock five spires of power that hold the secrets of the Tiers. You can hire henchmen here, trainers and vendors, artificers and alchemists in a system that works decently enough but feels detached from the rest of the game, to the point of being omittable (at least in low/medium difficulty settings).
Tyranny follows PoE visually as well. All areas are beautiful, detailed hand-drawn paintings but sadly not very lively and lacking in interaction, while all character models are in the low/med polygon-count spectrum. Obsidian has again chosen Unity for their game, although this time they have ironed out technical issues and inadequacies (except a problem that dramatically affects loading time in some instances). Aurally, on top of the passionate voice acting, Obsidian delivers a magnificent music score with a little help from Justin Bell, the brilliant composer of PoE’s haunting, melancholic opening theme à la Poledouris. This time, Bell opens Tyranny in a heart achingly slow drag, with relentless blasts of lamenting horns that cry mourningly of dread, despair and defeat.
Tyranny’s similarities with PoE and other fantasy RPGs end here: contrary to the majority of the games in this genre, Terratus and the untapped Bronze Age setting offer more anthropocentric hierarchies. Archons and Edicts aside, this is not a high fantasy setting and most of the time you will be fighting human opponents, not fantastical beasts. Dragons and dwarves, elves and fairies have no place in this cursed realm; Terratus is not a heroic kingdom of gallant knights, it’s a despair-soaked realm governed by unchallengeable sorcerer kings of immense power that simply can’t be toppled (distantly reminiscent of the ill-fated Dark Sun cosmos).
Although Tyranny’s unique lore feels more approachable than PoE’s, this is not a game that you can enjoy in small chunks of time. The talented wordsmiths at Obsidian have penned some wonderful descriptions and dialogues and you must be prepared to do some heavy reading (especially during the deep dialogue trees of your companions). Tyranny’s text is evocative, engrossing and extensive; an estimated word count sits comfortably at the 600.000 mark. For reference, Planescape’s word count was 1.052.000, while all seven books of the Harry Potter series were also around a million words in total. Thankfully, some terms and phrases are accompanied by handy, color-coded pop-ups. These provide short biographies of important NPCs, as well as reminders of the choices you made through the initial Conquest set-up when certain characters recognize you and react accordingly. It should also be noted that, as you shape alliances and declare wars, some quests and areas are organically blocked out. That means that despite a medium duration (20-24 hours for a complete walkthrough), you can easily play Tyranny again with a different character specialization, just to make different decisions and experience more of the game’s content.
Despite its unique charm and character, Tyranny is not without shortcomings. It’s quite easy to make a wish list of things that could have been: more companions or the ability to create tailor-made heroes, a better balanced loot system that scales more fluidly, more optional quests and errands, a more lively environment with interaction, some more unique combat encounters or set-pieces (battles can be a bit repetitive) and, above all, a less abrupt unsatisfying finale following a rushed final Act (admittedly, Tyranny’s gravest error). I would really hate to have to buy a DLC in a few months, just to see how this story ends.
Tyranny is undoubtedly this year’s triumph for hardcore RPG enthusiasts. In a world of casual, superficial games, of hollow gimmicks and marketing novelties, Obsidian’s latest RPG is a text-heavy isometric masterpiece that stands apart with its thought-provoking narrative. Obsidian might have found the perfect companion in Paradox Entertainment and we can only hope for the best, as long as they both treat this niche community with respect.
From the review I get the writing, the world and role-playing is good. Not much about mechanics, though if I go by RPG Codex it probably isn’t great and infact might be rubbish. Probably need some mods to fix it up, especially the deal with friendly fire.
Will wait till the Definitive edition especially because of the cliff. Not digging the recent surge in games with cliffs. Make standalone proper games you damn people, you can expand on it through proper expansions following some other character like the NeverWinter Nights expansions. Getting sick of these incomplete .. .. . .
Incomplete what? INCOMPLETE WHAT?
I NEED CLOSURE GODDAMMIT!
😛
Most of the game looks good and interesting to me, but the combat style is what throws me off. Had this played out like Diablo or Hellsing, I would have nabbed it right off the bat.
I got it, played the beginning with the chess board, got really immersed with the story. Then the fist enemy showed up and there was a 10 second wait in between each attack, which killed all the build up. Alt+F4 out of that pretty fast.
Kinda impossible to handle a party of 4, each with various skills, in real time…
Which is why having them as followers could be a thing…
But that way you wouldn’t have any control over what they do in combat.
Pre-set orders and stances have been around for years.
This isn’t something new and revolutionary, that can literally only be done with turn based combat.
Whatever turn you can make in chest, you can do completely in real time.
I tend to agree with you about the turn-based combat. But if you are already willing to give up companion’s control with presets, why not go full AI with the agressiveness being dependent of each character?
Could go with that. I mean, depending on what decisions you’ve made and generally talking with your AI partners after and before a battle could influence them in the next fight. I remember Binary Domain having such a system, especially if you said the wrong kind of words to your AI partner, it gave them quite a bit of life and personality to them.
Yeah! That would be a nice way to build into the RPG aspect of the game. It could allienate the purists but I think it would be an awesome mechanic.
It doesn’t even have to be for that game. I just wish we had a game with that idea in mind, instead we get either this or Diablo clones. No one seems to want to craft a CRPG but without the turn based tactics, but still keep the depth of the game (depth as in everything else, not the TBS side, some like to confuse that with being all the depth).
Actually, I think they confuse it with real time with pause, that this game and Pillars had. I also think that they think cRPG is also sinonymous with extremelly complicated stats and skills management over character building and a good story. But maybe that’s just me.
I see your point, but honestly these are two completely different subgenres.
You can play Tyranny on the lowest difficulty levels, use Fast Mode, enable party AI, turn all pause commands off and watch your heroes make short work of enemies.
That kinda beats the purpose though, doesn’t it?
I’m with you guys though, you have to be in a very specific mood to play these slow, methodic, paced games. I think i made a clear warning in the review that there’s some heavy reading in Tyranny. So it’s honestly a matter of taste. BUT, it’s not fair nor logical to bash the game for it. I suggest, when you are in a more relaxed mood, give it another shot.
Sidenote: if you liked Diablo/Helsing, get Titan Quest Anniversary Edition, it’s on sales, worth it!
” I suggest, when you are in a more relaxed mood, give it another shot.”
That would suffice if I was into turn based tactical strategy, but sadly I am not.
I was’t really bashing the game at all, I was merely pointing out how I’m not for turn based tactical strategy. I just wish the combat was more akin to Diablo, but it’s not and thus I have to wait for Wolcen to complete itself next year. I wonder how many more Tactical based strategy RPG games will come out next year compared to real time like Wolcen.
I already own TQAE, but that’s also a game I played years ago.
Like Martin said, combat like Diablo is impossible in a game like this unless the enemies are complete pushovers. The enemies have so many different strengths/weaknesses/tactics/etc. that party A.I. just isn’t capable to adapt to all the situations. Many people who like this genre play at the harder difficulties where it’s absolutely required to direct a majority of your parties actions, presets just get steamrolled. On the lowest difficulty it’s do-able though.
Which is why I was talking about different options. It’s not practically impossible. We’ve managed so many feats over the past few centuries, I’m sure we’ll overcome and create new ones for a small genre.
Nice review Mr Kopov… Kolovo… Kuvo…
Nice review Chris. ?
this was another masterpiece by obsidian, don’t hesitate, I really hope they get to work on a triple a crpg
The problem with these games is that while deep in topics and story (the way i like it), they are walls of text, which i end up not wanting to parse after a stressful and tiring day of work…
Not talking of casual games, but if they were exactly the same without SO much reading, i’d play them.
i agree. They should add voice to text..
Sadly, RPGs don’t sell like AAA hotcakes, plus it’s a genre where you usually get more elaborated and complex stories, and putting voice work into all of that is forbiddingly expensive.
Yep, not what I’d expect, as listening to hours of dialog is still almost as taxing as reading it.
Especially if the voices are bad, or annoying.
Sure, if you’re comfortable with doubling the budget of the game.
Nice review, thanks chris, will buy it in a few months maybe more 😀 Also Have to save for Divinity 2, then Wasteland 3 then Torment then Harebrained Schemes next game.
I really hope that HS release a new Shadowrun
I
AM
A
SHADOWRUN
ADDICTED!
That would be great but their next game is BattleTech (Tactical RPG), hope for something like Front Mission 3 or MechWarrior & Front Mission Hybrid. but hey atleast the Art style is close to shadowrun.
FM3 would be great o/
rpg codex is full of Snow Flakes and morons.
From what i have seen on youtube the music just arrrggg isn’t finding it’s own identity.
The company needs to be more vocal towards their audience. If you making an expansion or second game say so. Talk about how you will continue it. Until that is announced I’ll stay away.
Like the word building that I saw though watching people play. Great Atmosphere. Not sure it’s on Planescape torments level though and what is?
Don’t shoot, but I don’t understand the reference to RPG codex. I must have missed something, care to elaborate how is this relevant? Sorry, I’m new 🙂