Ragemage
Wept for Zion
Before we get started, I want to lay out a couple of things. One, this will be based on my completed Independent Run wherein I tried to see all the game that I possibly could in that type of run. As a result, there may be major spoilers , but I will do my best to tag them. The time it took me to beat the game once, doing everything I possibly could in an Independent run (minus all the Conquest changes), took me 38 hours total.
Overall Score: 18/20
World Design: 1
Tyranny's world design is superb. Almost every location is filled with small chunks of lore, little spyglass blurbs to click on and get a very detailed description of what you're looking at (a la POE), and you never really feel like you're running through the same areas again and again. Each part of the world map has enough variety in the designs to help the next big world chunk you explore feel completely unique from the previous. The Stone Sea and the Blade Grave couldn't be more different in terms of design for example. One is a giant rocky area filled with huge purple stones and your screen literally tremors as earthquakes happen with very high frequency. The Blade Grave is filled to the brim with rusted armor and weapons strewn everywhere and massive metal colossi towering over your party, while wind is constantly blowing across the screen like you're in a massive sandstorm. It also helps a lot that, depending on your choices throughout the game, a few locations can change appearance drastically, such as
Atmosphere: 1
Tyranny is meant to represent a war-torn region completely turned on its head by 3 years of constant war, in-fighting, and pillaging. To this end I think the atmosphere represents this perfectly. Everywhere you look, even in the most remote, far flung corners of the world, there is always evidence of Kyros's war with the Tiers, whether it be dead bodies of specific factions, ruined shelters, destroyed lands, and so forth. You really feel like, to be blunt, shit has really gone down here. The Edicts that encompass nearly every big area in the story also really help with this feeling of the region being torn to pieces by Kyros. The Tiers are truly a mess, so much so that they may never be the same way again.
Suspension of Disbelief/Balance: 0.5
Now Tyranny did have some balancing issues unfortunately. Many of the enemies' armor and attacks seem to do a lot more damage than your's, even if you have better equipment. For example, I had Verse (one of the companions) with 2 very high level purple-tier weapons, but once she started attacking she would STILL comment "This thing couldn't pierce cloth!" as if she were still carrying her level 1 daggers. I got the best equipment in the game but it really didn't seem to do diddly-squat against higher level enemies. Maybe I was simply playing it wrong, but I gave all my gear enchantments, upgrades, etc on top of it being nearly top-tier and it still wasn't doing much like it probably ought to. The other issue with balance involves loot so I'll get to that later. All that said, I never feel like the game gets TOO difficult to handle except near the very end. The combo abilities you can perform with your companions really help with this, and you'll never have money issues in this game unless you hire pretty much all the help you can at every Spire, so rest as much as you like, buy more campfires, and keep using those combos.
Main Story Writing: 1
This is an Obsidian game, of course the story's going to be great! Just like New Vegas, there are 4 different paths to choose from: The Scarlet Chorus, the Disfavored, the Rebellion, and an Independent path. Now I can't speak for all the paths because so far I've only played the Independent one, but the game definitely leaves me wanting to go back through and see what the other paths have in store. I don't want to give out spoilers in this section because it's the main plot, but I will say it really does feel like your choices matter here. I was surprised by just how much freedom I had to change the outcome of the story in my own way. There were a couple of times where I thought it was strange I couldn't do more such as not being able to interact nicely with some factions, but I have to assume this is because you're still seen as a Fatebinder to everyone in the Independent run rather than a causeless rebel, up until a certain point. I've heard people say that the Independent Run main quests feels like a collect-o-thon but I never really had a problem with it. The game is very fast paced and it never feels like you're stuck in one area trying to grab an important item for too long. I personally felt like I was getting more and more powerful as the game went along, maybe even tough enough to take on an Archon.
I would honestly compare the way this game's story progresses to Dragon Age: Origins. The world isn't exactly "huge" per say but you have these large story areas where you end up influencing the landscape quite a bit with your choices and who you side with, and while everything feels independent of each other it all comes together in the end. Honestly it's to the point where I really hope Tyranny gets a DLC that extends the ending of the main story like how Origins had Awakening. I got really attached to my character and my companions in the specific way I played it, I want to see more of what my choices affected in the grand scheme of things.
Side Story Writing: 1
I enjoyed the sidequests in Tyranny just as much as the main quest. There weren't many at all that felt arbitrary. If there were some sort of fetch quest in the game, it would usually result in a trial rather than "go here and get this for me", wherein you would end up judging both sides of the situation and decide who gets punished or if both go free, then decide who gets the item or keep it for yourself. The law is in your hands, and you can dole it out as you see fit. Basically put, the only side quests that feel a bit worthless are the ones where you go out of your way to be a "good guy", which usually results in people spitting in your eye anyway, which I'm fairly certain is the point. What the developers said is true, you will get better rewards for being an evil bastard than you would being a nice person as in most games. This of course may not be true for a Rebellion run and you may get better stuff for being a good guy there but I can't testify to that yet.
Faction Story Writing: 1
The factions in the game are interesting and diverse. None of the different Tiers factions feel cut from the same cloth, and the Scarlet Chorus and Disfavored are as different as night and day. This is where the Loyalty and Wrath/Fear system really comes into play. Practically everything you do that would be displeasing to the Disfavored, the Scarlet Chorus love, and vice versa. Anything you do that pisses off both factions has the possibility of pleasing Tunon or the Tiers' factions, or you might just make everyone angry at you. It helps shape how exactly to interact with these people, as each faction has their own sets of likes and dislikes that help them stand out from one another. Depending on how you play the game, I feel like each faction represents a different motif of good and evil. The Rebellion can range from Lawful Good (Veredien Guard) to Chaotic Neutral (The Unbroken), the Disfavored fit Lawful Evil very well, and the Scarlet Chorus fits Chaotic Evil. As for going Independent, you can fit into pretty much anywhere on the spectrum depending on how you play as there are a myriad of choices when it comes to each faction. The factions of the game are unique, interesting, and have a diverse cast of members. I can't wait to see more of them in my next playthroughs, because honestly I didn't get to see the brunt of most of the Rebellion since they hated my guts after I might have, accidently,
Dialogue: 1
As I stated above, your interactions with people really shape how factions and towns are going to respond to you. You could be known as anything from a Peacebinder to a motherless swine. The dialogue of course has to accomodate for all this. There's plenty of opportunity to be evil and plenty of opportunity to sound like you're a decent person. Just like with Pillars of Eternity, certain skills can also influence dialogue and give you even more choices (Athletics, Lore, and Subterfuge) and also give you extra XP. The companions and archons probably have some of the best dialogue, but all the dialogue is well written. Obsidian doesn't need Chris Avellone as a crutch to write well after all, so put that fear to rest! Conquest also changes quite a lot of dialogue and your choices in it really do matter, as it can help either put you on good terms with a faction right away or cause them to despise you from the get-go.
NPC Design: 0.5
To start off, all the unique NPCs look fantastic and the design is nice. There's also a few ways to customize your own character, as character customization is back. That's why this part isn't getting a 0. The problem is that there just aren't that many hair/beard/what-have-you combinations in the game to make everyone look unique. Sure they swap it up with tattoos and different hair styles and things like that, but given there are only 5 faces for males and 5 faces for females that aren't one-of-a-kind, a lot of NPCs end up wearing a helmet or mask to cover their face to make it seem more diverse than it is. I just wish there had been more facial and body-type options in the game, as it results in a lot of NPCs (especially amongst the Scarlet Chorus and Disfavored) look very similar to one another when they don't have helmets/special armor.
Companions: 0.5
Now don't get me wrong with the scoring here, I thought all the companions in the game were fantastic. They all worked off each other, their dialogue is very witty/interesting, their backstories are great, and so forth. Basically what you would expect after the fantastic companions in New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity. The reason why I don't rate the companions a 1 is that, for all this build-up and constantly gaining Fear or Loyalty with your partners throughout your journey, causing them to try and rebel against you, side with you out of respect, side with you out of fear, etc etc, not a whole lot else is done with them. Oh sure your Fear and Loyalty count will indeed play a pretty big part in the later stages of the game, but up until then not so much outside of your companions wanting to leave you a la New Vegas's Negativity Points. (like how Boone would turn on you after you've killed a lot of NCR or joined the Legion) The Loyalty and Fear stages also seem to be a bit busted. For example, take Barik. Barik tried to leave me really early on in the game so I decided to conscript him and be a dick to him the rest of my experience. Yet despite me doing my best to offend him and piss him off, I never could get his Fear meter all the way full, the 5th stage stayed locked no matter what, saying I needed "a major event" to unlock it. I never figured out what that is, so maybe I'm just missing something. But another issue would be that Loyalty influences dialogue no matter what. Even though Barik hated my guts and hoped my head would fall on a pike, every time I talked to him back at base his opening dialogue would be nice because I had a Loyalty of 1 with him instead of 0 despite his Fear being 4. I even made the bastard
and I STILL couldn't get his Fear meter to 5! There's no Companion Quests either. There's no resolvement for Barik's armor being fused to him, there's nothing you can do about Sirin's helmet, and so forth. This is a disappointment because the game builds it up like you'll be able to fix these problems. Barik brings up that a Forgebound could probably get him out of that armor, but when I take him to the Forgebound Headquarters I get nothing. Granted he does say he'd rather keep it on until after the war, but I should be able to have some influence in that decision. With Sirin, I know who locked the helmet on her head, so when I take her with me to
I expect the helmet to come off since the spell should be lifted, but nope. She only makes a passing comment about being happy to have tagged along afterwards. It's very strange how they tease these companion quests but the only companion who gets anything close to one is Kills-In-Shadow, while the rest are left to the wayside.
Combat: 1
If you liked Pillars of Eternity's combat, you'll probably like Tyranny's. Tyranny however is more reliant on your own skills, there aren't any kind of overpowered abilities except for combos. Things such as being able to summon 2 ogres, a giant beetle, 20 goblins, and a patriarch in a pear tree to help deal with your enemies isn't an option anymore, with summons being gone completely in fact. It's more tight and focused on your weapons and your skills rather than how overpowered your spells and abilities can be. Of course this can also make the game more difficult as you have to make sure your weapons and armor are always up to par since you never know what sort of powerful enemy is lying in wait next, which means actually spending your money on merchants and things like that to get decent gear, but I think this added challenge makes you have to think more. I do really really miss summons though, those were probably one of the most fun aspects of PoE for me.
AI: 0.5
This is unfortunately where those famous "Obsidian glitches" come in, at least on my run. Most of the time the AI works pretty well, and I can leave it alone to do its job. But every now and then the AI seems to just wig out and not want to respond at all, or it never wants to use any of its moves and only basic attack. Kills-In-Shadow is, despite probably being my 2nd favorite companion, sadly the most guilty of breaking. I had a lot of battles in the game where she would simply stop working. I couldn't get her to move, I couldn't get her to attack, I couldn't get her to do anything even by manual control. It got to the point where I had to put the game on Story-Mode, to my everlasting shame, because she was my highest level companion and I couldn't beat the game without her, but she kept bugging out. I also noticed that the companion AI will do some really stupid things at times. Let's use Kills-In-Shadows as an example again. The enemy known as Bane are essentially these ghost-like creatures that are immune to status effects. Well every single time we fought a horde of them, Kills-In-Shadow AI would ALWAYS use her fear roar against them, basically wasting precious time and attacks because they're immune to it. I have no idea why either, but because of this every time we fought bane I had to make sure to manually control her so she didn't get us killed by wasting time roaring instead of leaping on a powerful enemy and tearing its guts out.
Weapon/Armor Design: 1
The armor and clothing designs in this game look fantastic. It's not quite as customizable as Pillars but there are a LOT of unique weapons and armor to be collected throughout the game, and all of it looks completely different from other weapons. I don't just mean particle effects either, I mean actual different models to gaze at. It's nice. No complaints here, everything is stylized and the uniques truly feel unique.
Player Character: 1
You have a lot of ways to decide how your character reacts to the world. With all sorts of dialogue choices to choose from, as is to be expected of Obsidian, you can be anything from a muscle-bound brute who cracks heads open to get his way, to a dignified diplomat who does his best to shoot for a peaceful option. The only thing set in stone (in the beginning anyway) is that you are a Fatebinder and you work for Tunon. Other than that, your character, how they percieve the world, and how they act towards it is entirely up to you.
Player Creation: 1
Character creation is a tiny bit sparce compared to Pillars of Eternity (mainly in the facial department) but there are plenty of hair and beard combinations to at least make your head look unique. Though there are only 3 body types to choose from, I feel like tattoos really help differentiate you from everyone else. There's all sorts of different color combinations and patterns to choose from, the tattoos are really what helped save the character creation for me. I also like being able to make my own custom banner (which will be your flag and color should you go Independent) and being able to change my armor color to reflect this. You can also change this in-game anytime by clicking on your character's big portrait in the Inventory. You can also pick a portrait just like in Pillars, though they're a little wonky looking. Picking a "job" of sorts also helps gain you quite a bit of extra dialogue with certain factions from what I can tell. For example, I went with Hunter for my first run and thus Beastmen were friendlier to me than they normally would be.
Skills/Perks: 1
There are quite a few options when it comes to skills and perks here. Not just you, but all of your companions, have at least 2 different branches to pick from which can drastically change the way you play. For example, Verse can go from a super-fast dual-wielding maniac to a very accurate archer who fills enemies with more arrows than needles in a pin cushion. You can also pick up extra abilities and perks depending on how you treat other factions. You'll get special perks depending on how "good" you are to certain factions, while getting other perks depending on how bad you are to them. This also leads to more ways to play the game since, while it can be easy enough to get both Fear and Loyalty perks from companions, it's nearly impossible to get both the Loyal and Wrath perks from entire factions, which means your particular perks will change each time.
Loot: 1
Although like in Pillars your inventory is going to be filled with a lot of useless junk only meant to be sold, I feel like Tyranny did a better job of balancing out the loot. Often-times you'll end up finding some really nice gear if you look around out in the wilderness instead of all the good stuff being regulated to merchants and quests. I found one of the best robe mages in a cave hidden in a small alcove I had to crouch to reach, for example. The loot is more evenly spread out, though one problem I have with the loot is that, though near the end, you'll start finding a lot of purple-tier loot, I really only found 3 orange-tier items in my entire playthrough of the game, and they all came through quests. Strange that I would find the 2nd-highest level in abundance but the highest level gear is impossible to find? You would think there would at least be a couple, or that some of the early artifacts might be orange to reflect their power.
Voice Acting: 1
Although not every line of dialogue is voice acted, what voice-acting there is I find to be very good. Everyone really seems to be putting their all into acting out their lines, I never felt like anyone wasn't pulling their weight. Welllll.. Except for Bleden Mark. I was expecting this guy to sound super intimidating like Lanius from New Vegas given his reputation, but he pulled a Caesar on me and practically sounds like a laid-back teenager. It's very strange, especially given how the other Archons in the game talk and sound. Other than that, I think the voice acting is top notch, all the emotions of the dialogue are really embraced by the actors. You can really tell the difference between Loyal dialogue and Fear dialogue with your companions for example.
Replayability: 1
Oh yeah, there's definitely replayability. I'm already planning on playing as a Disfavored next since a lot of my quests on the Independent run pitted me against them more than the Scarlet Chorus and I want to see what the opposite of my actions would have been. Each of the 4 ways to play seems to come with a ton of choices, and a lot of the main + side quests have different beginnings/outcomes/rewards/etc depending on which faction you sided with/betrayed. The game is very fast-paced and I feel like it there isn't a sense of overwhelming to try and replay through the whole thing all over again at all, unlike say, Pillars of Eternity where a single playthrough can clock you in at over 80 hours if you try to do everything. The Conquest segment in the beginning also adds to replayability a ton given all the options with it. I want to see what dialogue changes or event changes happen if I do things completely different from my first run. There's almost too much that can change with the Conquest segment, I restarted it like 3 times during my first playthrough just because I couldn't make up my mind on how I wanted it to go. It really does change a lot in regards to how people will react to you within the story.
Exploration: 1
Like I said earlier, the game has a Dragon Age: Origins feel to it. Each big area has a lot of small areas within it, and while the little areas may feel miniscule, there's usually a lot of secrets/quests/what have you hiding within them, you just have to look. So it may seem like there's nothing there at first until you start looking around and discover things like hidden loot or lore you would have otherwise missed. It makes exploring even the tiniest little maps interesting.
Sound/Music: 1
While Tyranny does re-use sound effects and some music from Pillars in order to save money, I feel like the new soundtrack and sounds are lovely and immersive. There was really only one place where I didn't think the soundtrack didn't really match the setting, and that was the Stone Sea. The music there always sounds like you're in combat even when you're just mundanely exploring the outlying villages. My particular favorite soundtrack is when you first end an Edict or activate a Spire. The woman singing during that segment gives me "Sins of the Father" vibes, very chilling.
Overall Score: 18/20
World Design: 1
Tyranny's world design is superb. Almost every location is filled with small chunks of lore, little spyglass blurbs to click on and get a very detailed description of what you're looking at (a la POE), and you never really feel like you're running through the same areas again and again. Each part of the world map has enough variety in the designs to help the next big world chunk you explore feel completely unique from the previous. The Stone Sea and the Blade Grave couldn't be more different in terms of design for example. One is a giant rocky area filled with huge purple stones and your screen literally tremors as earthquakes happen with very high frequency. The Blade Grave is filled to the brim with rusted armor and weapons strewn everywhere and massive metal colossi towering over your party, while wind is constantly blowing across the screen like you're in a massive sandstorm. It also helps a lot that, depending on your choices throughout the game, a few locations can change appearance drastically, such as
a small farming village called Plainsgate that has been torn apart by the earthquakes in the Stone Sea. If you didn't stop a certain someone from making his way there, then half the village will be gone and it will be referred to as "Halfgate" from now on
Atmosphere: 1
Tyranny is meant to represent a war-torn region completely turned on its head by 3 years of constant war, in-fighting, and pillaging. To this end I think the atmosphere represents this perfectly. Everywhere you look, even in the most remote, far flung corners of the world, there is always evidence of Kyros's war with the Tiers, whether it be dead bodies of specific factions, ruined shelters, destroyed lands, and so forth. You really feel like, to be blunt, shit has really gone down here. The Edicts that encompass nearly every big area in the story also really help with this feeling of the region being torn to pieces by Kyros. The Tiers are truly a mess, so much so that they may never be the same way again.
Suspension of Disbelief/Balance: 0.5
Now Tyranny did have some balancing issues unfortunately. Many of the enemies' armor and attacks seem to do a lot more damage than your's, even if you have better equipment. For example, I had Verse (one of the companions) with 2 very high level purple-tier weapons, but once she started attacking she would STILL comment "This thing couldn't pierce cloth!" as if she were still carrying her level 1 daggers. I got the best equipment in the game but it really didn't seem to do diddly-squat against higher level enemies. Maybe I was simply playing it wrong, but I gave all my gear enchantments, upgrades, etc on top of it being nearly top-tier and it still wasn't doing much like it probably ought to. The other issue with balance involves loot so I'll get to that later. All that said, I never feel like the game gets TOO difficult to handle except near the very end. The combo abilities you can perform with your companions really help with this, and you'll never have money issues in this game unless you hire pretty much all the help you can at every Spire, so rest as much as you like, buy more campfires, and keep using those combos.
Main Story Writing: 1
This is an Obsidian game, of course the story's going to be great! Just like New Vegas, there are 4 different paths to choose from: The Scarlet Chorus, the Disfavored, the Rebellion, and an Independent path. Now I can't speak for all the paths because so far I've only played the Independent one, but the game definitely leaves me wanting to go back through and see what the other paths have in store. I don't want to give out spoilers in this section because it's the main plot, but I will say it really does feel like your choices matter here. I was surprised by just how much freedom I had to change the outcome of the story in my own way. There were a couple of times where I thought it was strange I couldn't do more such as not being able to interact nicely with some factions, but I have to assume this is because you're still seen as a Fatebinder to everyone in the Independent run rather than a causeless rebel, up until a certain point. I've heard people say that the Independent Run main quests feels like a collect-o-thon but I never really had a problem with it. The game is very fast paced and it never feels like you're stuck in one area trying to grab an important item for too long. I personally felt like I was getting more and more powerful as the game went along, maybe even tough enough to take on an Archon.
I would honestly compare the way this game's story progresses to Dragon Age: Origins. The world isn't exactly "huge" per say but you have these large story areas where you end up influencing the landscape quite a bit with your choices and who you side with, and while everything feels independent of each other it all comes together in the end. Honestly it's to the point where I really hope Tyranny gets a DLC that extends the ending of the main story like how Origins had Awakening. I got really attached to my character and my companions in the specific way I played it, I want to see more of what my choices affected in the grand scheme of things.
Side Story Writing: 1
I enjoyed the sidequests in Tyranny just as much as the main quest. There weren't many at all that felt arbitrary. If there were some sort of fetch quest in the game, it would usually result in a trial rather than "go here and get this for me", wherein you would end up judging both sides of the situation and decide who gets punished or if both go free, then decide who gets the item or keep it for yourself. The law is in your hands, and you can dole it out as you see fit. Basically put, the only side quests that feel a bit worthless are the ones where you go out of your way to be a "good guy", which usually results in people spitting in your eye anyway, which I'm fairly certain is the point. What the developers said is true, you will get better rewards for being an evil bastard than you would being a nice person as in most games. This of course may not be true for a Rebellion run and you may get better stuff for being a good guy there but I can't testify to that yet.
Faction Story Writing: 1
The factions in the game are interesting and diverse. None of the different Tiers factions feel cut from the same cloth, and the Scarlet Chorus and Disfavored are as different as night and day. This is where the Loyalty and Wrath/Fear system really comes into play. Practically everything you do that would be displeasing to the Disfavored, the Scarlet Chorus love, and vice versa. Anything you do that pisses off both factions has the possibility of pleasing Tunon or the Tiers' factions, or you might just make everyone angry at you. It helps shape how exactly to interact with these people, as each faction has their own sets of likes and dislikes that help them stand out from one another. Depending on how you play the game, I feel like each faction represents a different motif of good and evil. The Rebellion can range from Lawful Good (Veredien Guard) to Chaotic Neutral (The Unbroken), the Disfavored fit Lawful Evil very well, and the Scarlet Chorus fits Chaotic Evil. As for going Independent, you can fit into pretty much anywhere on the spectrum depending on how you play as there are a myriad of choices when it comes to each faction. The factions of the game are unique, interesting, and have a diverse cast of members. I can't wait to see more of them in my next playthroughs, because honestly I didn't get to see the brunt of most of the Rebellion since they hated my guts after I might have, accidently,
destroyed the leadership of the Rebellion by tricking them into thinking I was on their side and then took their headquarters as my personal base.
Dialogue: 1
As I stated above, your interactions with people really shape how factions and towns are going to respond to you. You could be known as anything from a Peacebinder to a motherless swine. The dialogue of course has to accomodate for all this. There's plenty of opportunity to be evil and plenty of opportunity to sound like you're a decent person. Just like with Pillars of Eternity, certain skills can also influence dialogue and give you even more choices (Athletics, Lore, and Subterfuge) and also give you extra XP. The companions and archons probably have some of the best dialogue, but all the dialogue is well written. Obsidian doesn't need Chris Avellone as a crutch to write well after all, so put that fear to rest! Conquest also changes quite a lot of dialogue and your choices in it really do matter, as it can help either put you on good terms with a faction right away or cause them to despise you from the get-go.
NPC Design: 0.5
To start off, all the unique NPCs look fantastic and the design is nice. There's also a few ways to customize your own character, as character customization is back. That's why this part isn't getting a 0. The problem is that there just aren't that many hair/beard/what-have-you combinations in the game to make everyone look unique. Sure they swap it up with tattoos and different hair styles and things like that, but given there are only 5 faces for males and 5 faces for females that aren't one-of-a-kind, a lot of NPCs end up wearing a helmet or mask to cover their face to make it seem more diverse than it is. I just wish there had been more facial and body-type options in the game, as it results in a lot of NPCs (especially amongst the Scarlet Chorus and Disfavored) look very similar to one another when they don't have helmets/special armor.
Companions: 0.5
Now don't get me wrong with the scoring here, I thought all the companions in the game were fantastic. They all worked off each other, their dialogue is very witty/interesting, their backstories are great, and so forth. Basically what you would expect after the fantastic companions in New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity. The reason why I don't rate the companions a 1 is that, for all this build-up and constantly gaining Fear or Loyalty with your partners throughout your journey, causing them to try and rebel against you, side with you out of respect, side with you out of fear, etc etc, not a whole lot else is done with them. Oh sure your Fear and Loyalty count will indeed play a pretty big part in the later stages of the game, but up until then not so much outside of your companions wanting to leave you a la New Vegas's Negativity Points. (like how Boone would turn on you after you've killed a lot of NCR or joined the Legion) The Loyalty and Fear stages also seem to be a bit busted. For example, take Barik. Barik tried to leave me really early on in the game so I decided to conscript him and be a dick to him the rest of my experience. Yet despite me doing my best to offend him and piss him off, I never could get his Fear meter all the way full, the 5th stage stayed locked no matter what, saying I needed "a major event" to unlock it. I never figured out what that is, so maybe I'm just missing something. But another issue would be that Loyalty influences dialogue no matter what. Even though Barik hated my guts and hoped my head would fall on a pike, every time I talked to him back at base his opening dialogue would be nice because I had a Loyalty of 1 with him instead of 0 despite his Fear being 4. I even made the bastard
kill a Graven Ashe's grandbaby
kill the Voices of Nerat
Combat: 1
If you liked Pillars of Eternity's combat, you'll probably like Tyranny's. Tyranny however is more reliant on your own skills, there aren't any kind of overpowered abilities except for combos. Things such as being able to summon 2 ogres, a giant beetle, 20 goblins, and a patriarch in a pear tree to help deal with your enemies isn't an option anymore, with summons being gone completely in fact. It's more tight and focused on your weapons and your skills rather than how overpowered your spells and abilities can be. Of course this can also make the game more difficult as you have to make sure your weapons and armor are always up to par since you never know what sort of powerful enemy is lying in wait next, which means actually spending your money on merchants and things like that to get decent gear, but I think this added challenge makes you have to think more. I do really really miss summons though, those were probably one of the most fun aspects of PoE for me.
AI: 0.5
This is unfortunately where those famous "Obsidian glitches" come in, at least on my run. Most of the time the AI works pretty well, and I can leave it alone to do its job. But every now and then the AI seems to just wig out and not want to respond at all, or it never wants to use any of its moves and only basic attack. Kills-In-Shadow is, despite probably being my 2nd favorite companion, sadly the most guilty of breaking. I had a lot of battles in the game where she would simply stop working. I couldn't get her to move, I couldn't get her to attack, I couldn't get her to do anything even by manual control. It got to the point where I had to put the game on Story-Mode, to my everlasting shame, because she was my highest level companion and I couldn't beat the game without her, but she kept bugging out. I also noticed that the companion AI will do some really stupid things at times. Let's use Kills-In-Shadows as an example again. The enemy known as Bane are essentially these ghost-like creatures that are immune to status effects. Well every single time we fought a horde of them, Kills-In-Shadow AI would ALWAYS use her fear roar against them, basically wasting precious time and attacks because they're immune to it. I have no idea why either, but because of this every time we fought bane I had to make sure to manually control her so she didn't get us killed by wasting time roaring instead of leaping on a powerful enemy and tearing its guts out.
Weapon/Armor Design: 1
The armor and clothing designs in this game look fantastic. It's not quite as customizable as Pillars but there are a LOT of unique weapons and armor to be collected throughout the game, and all of it looks completely different from other weapons. I don't just mean particle effects either, I mean actual different models to gaze at. It's nice. No complaints here, everything is stylized and the uniques truly feel unique.
Player Character: 1
You have a lot of ways to decide how your character reacts to the world. With all sorts of dialogue choices to choose from, as is to be expected of Obsidian, you can be anything from a muscle-bound brute who cracks heads open to get his way, to a dignified diplomat who does his best to shoot for a peaceful option. The only thing set in stone (in the beginning anyway) is that you are a Fatebinder and you work for Tunon. Other than that, your character, how they percieve the world, and how they act towards it is entirely up to you.
Player Creation: 1
Character creation is a tiny bit sparce compared to Pillars of Eternity (mainly in the facial department) but there are plenty of hair and beard combinations to at least make your head look unique. Though there are only 3 body types to choose from, I feel like tattoos really help differentiate you from everyone else. There's all sorts of different color combinations and patterns to choose from, the tattoos are really what helped save the character creation for me. I also like being able to make my own custom banner (which will be your flag and color should you go Independent) and being able to change my armor color to reflect this. You can also change this in-game anytime by clicking on your character's big portrait in the Inventory. You can also pick a portrait just like in Pillars, though they're a little wonky looking. Picking a "job" of sorts also helps gain you quite a bit of extra dialogue with certain factions from what I can tell. For example, I went with Hunter for my first run and thus Beastmen were friendlier to me than they normally would be.
Skills/Perks: 1
There are quite a few options when it comes to skills and perks here. Not just you, but all of your companions, have at least 2 different branches to pick from which can drastically change the way you play. For example, Verse can go from a super-fast dual-wielding maniac to a very accurate archer who fills enemies with more arrows than needles in a pin cushion. You can also pick up extra abilities and perks depending on how you treat other factions. You'll get special perks depending on how "good" you are to certain factions, while getting other perks depending on how bad you are to them. This also leads to more ways to play the game since, while it can be easy enough to get both Fear and Loyalty perks from companions, it's nearly impossible to get both the Loyal and Wrath perks from entire factions, which means your particular perks will change each time.
Loot: 1
Although like in Pillars your inventory is going to be filled with a lot of useless junk only meant to be sold, I feel like Tyranny did a better job of balancing out the loot. Often-times you'll end up finding some really nice gear if you look around out in the wilderness instead of all the good stuff being regulated to merchants and quests. I found one of the best robe mages in a cave hidden in a small alcove I had to crouch to reach, for example. The loot is more evenly spread out, though one problem I have with the loot is that, though near the end, you'll start finding a lot of purple-tier loot, I really only found 3 orange-tier items in my entire playthrough of the game, and they all came through quests. Strange that I would find the 2nd-highest level in abundance but the highest level gear is impossible to find? You would think there would at least be a couple, or that some of the early artifacts might be orange to reflect their power.
Voice Acting: 1
Although not every line of dialogue is voice acted, what voice-acting there is I find to be very good. Everyone really seems to be putting their all into acting out their lines, I never felt like anyone wasn't pulling their weight. Welllll.. Except for Bleden Mark. I was expecting this guy to sound super intimidating like Lanius from New Vegas given his reputation, but he pulled a Caesar on me and practically sounds like a laid-back teenager. It's very strange, especially given how the other Archons in the game talk and sound. Other than that, I think the voice acting is top notch, all the emotions of the dialogue are really embraced by the actors. You can really tell the difference between Loyal dialogue and Fear dialogue with your companions for example.
Replayability: 1
Oh yeah, there's definitely replayability. I'm already planning on playing as a Disfavored next since a lot of my quests on the Independent run pitted me against them more than the Scarlet Chorus and I want to see what the opposite of my actions would have been. Each of the 4 ways to play seems to come with a ton of choices, and a lot of the main + side quests have different beginnings/outcomes/rewards/etc depending on which faction you sided with/betrayed. The game is very fast-paced and I feel like it there isn't a sense of overwhelming to try and replay through the whole thing all over again at all, unlike say, Pillars of Eternity where a single playthrough can clock you in at over 80 hours if you try to do everything. The Conquest segment in the beginning also adds to replayability a ton given all the options with it. I want to see what dialogue changes or event changes happen if I do things completely different from my first run. There's almost too much that can change with the Conquest segment, I restarted it like 3 times during my first playthrough just because I couldn't make up my mind on how I wanted it to go. It really does change a lot in regards to how people will react to you within the story.
Exploration: 1
Like I said earlier, the game has a Dragon Age: Origins feel to it. Each big area has a lot of small areas within it, and while the little areas may feel miniscule, there's usually a lot of secrets/quests/what have you hiding within them, you just have to look. So it may seem like there's nothing there at first until you start looking around and discover things like hidden loot or lore you would have otherwise missed. It makes exploring even the tiniest little maps interesting.
Sound/Music: 1
While Tyranny does re-use sound effects and some music from Pillars in order to save money, I feel like the new soundtrack and sounds are lovely and immersive. There was really only one place where I didn't think the soundtrack didn't really match the setting, and that was the Stone Sea. The music there always sounds like you're in combat even when you're just mundanely exploring the outlying villages. My particular favorite soundtrack is when you first end an Edict or activate a Spire. The woman singing during that segment gives me "Sins of the Father" vibes, very chilling.
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