Tyranny is an amazing RPG in the vein of Baldur’s Gate and other Infinity Engine classics where you play the unusual role of herald for the evil overlord trying to take control of the world. In a world where I would have infinite time and no other obligations, I would’ve burned through this game in its entirety, but sadly I only managed to play through the first chapter. I really enjoyed what I saw, still! With a very interesting world, mechanics and characters, I’d feel really comfortable suggestion Tyranny to RPG fans.
After creating your character through a now-standard list of screens - appearance, class, stats, skills - you go through a Conquest, which is some kind of visual novel-style introduction to the game where you make options about how the initial stages of a war went. This is hefty enough and has you learn about the various factions in the game, most notably the Disfavored and Scarlet Chorus, all part of the big bad overlord army, but using different methods and fighting under different ideologies. I have to say that making me pick sides with such a strong voice made me a bit stressed out, especially because I ultimately knew I wouldn’t have the time to properly explore all options, but it is a strong narrative push forward for sure.
After the Conquest, you get thrown into the fire again, bearing an edict of destruction over the whole region if the war is not won inside a limit of in-game days. The dialogue system is pretty cool, with the usual mix of stat-based answers, choices and faction affinity requirements to be allowed to pick specific choices, but I also enjoyed the highlighted words that would give explanations of what things were - and sometimes more surprising flavor text as well. Going through all conversation choices can sometimes have a negative effect, so I was on my toes and enjoyed the dialogue system a tad bit more when I enabled the option to see the bonuses and penalties I would gain for picking specific options.
The battle system is pretty straightforward, with characters and enemies fighting in real time with the option to pause the game to plan things out. Spells and skills have cooldowns instead of daily charges, which I appreciated. I had a few issues with the complexity of it all, because some specific enemies seemed to need a specific damage type or weapon, and it was unclear what I could do. But playing on easy alleviated that. Also I had some problems with the party AI where non-controlled characters would just Do Nothing. Healers wouldn’t heal, melee fighters wouldn’t get into range to attack and instead were just sitting around off-screen twiddling their thumbs.
The gear and item system were fine, you have four slots for equipment plus two accessory slots and weapon sets and everything is well defined. Items however, are way too much, you can pick up trinkets and baubles from so many barrels, bushes and corpses and so much of it is just temporary stat boosting potions and “normal” quality gear that you’ll never use. I wish it wasn’t there, or that the auto-loot was better because it’s just a lot of clicking around for nothing.
Spells are created by combining runes, so you can customize them and make them really powerful, as long as you keep their lore cost below your stat. I love the tree-based talent system and allocating stats on level-ups is fine although I wish the game wouldn’t force a “ARE YOU SURE” popup every time and building a balanced party is made easy that way. The characters you have with you are really well-written and you want to learn about them. The various factions are well realized and you can gain bonuses for being liked or disliked by them. You also get mail that you can reply to, and there are a bunch of side-quests that can end up in plenty of different wants depending on what you do.
I really enjoyed my time with Tyranny! Sadly the way I play games, I couldn’t sink my teeth into it as much as I wished I could. Maybe I’ll try again in the future, we’ll see! Try it out if you like wordy RPGs!
