Tyranny - Small rant about a great game.

[Drasius]

Tyranny is like most of Obsidian's games. A very interesting setting, and story with wonderful characters....that's hindered by a sub-par combat system and an unfinished plot. I really like the game though. If they ever actually finish making it I may give it another play.

I remember putting it down after a few hours due to the combat system, but a couple of years later, I picked it up again, set the combat to story mode (or whatever the lowest difficulty is) and got copious amounts of enjoyment out of a really cool, unique story with fascinating characters and one of the best magic customisation systems I can remember. To this day I still can't quite put my finger on what irks me about the combat system though, as I loved all of Bioware/Black Isle Studio's other stuff of that vintage and earlier, and played through Ascension (among other mods) enough times to trivialise even the harder settings.

I will say that I don't enjoy Pillars' combat system much either though, so maybe it's a new system style thing rather than some weirdness specifically with Tyranny.

I will say that Pillars did a better job of making me interested from scratch, but Tyranny was far superior once the story got going. Took me ages to finish Pillars and I put it down a few times over a month or so. Tyranny, once I'd gotten past the beginning combat akwardness, I had multiple occasions where I was so engrossed with the story that I didn't notice it was late until the sun came up.

[Cikomyr]

I have to admit the magic system is 70% of what makes the combat system enjoyable to me.

Theres just something about customizing your spells to try to break the rules in certain fashion. I just managed to create a Bouncing Interrupting Force Bolt that wrecks havoc. I like to throw it in a volley by 3 mages at the same time to make sure the entire opposition is dazed.

[Morty]

There are quite a lot of ways to lock off the rebel path.

You can do it in the conquest path, if you duel the queen the rebels are locked to hostile for that playthrough.

You can also lock it off by the first screen of the actual game, what you do with the captured rebel can disable it.

Bear in mind that Tyranny is a choice between flavours of evil, the rebel path is well hidden and easily disabled for a reason.

Yes, and I certainly find it quite refreshing.

[Cikomyr]

Yes, and I certainly find it quite refreshing.

I recommend Noah Gervais's vid on Tyranny.

He explains in detail how an evil playthrough resonated more with him. Because he allowed himself, inch by inch, to become a collaborator and an enabler of the Unfavored. He wasn't coopting the system, the system co-opted him.

[Morty]

Okay, so I've started a playthrough with the eventual goal of joining the rebels. That said...

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I assume Barrik and Verse are not going to be terribly happy about desertion, so is it possible to keep them in my party afterwards?

[Aotrs Commander]

I throughly enjoyed the chance to play proper Evil DOING Evil for once (as opposed to Evil Dude still basically has to some world-saving or sorts, looking at you every single other Bioware/Obsidian/Black Isle RPG...!)

I was even more pleased when Bastard Wound came out and they

Spoiler: Ending

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-finally allowed you to go to Kyros as say "all wrapped up with a little bow on it boss, what next?"

Being the cog in machine and not having to rebel against the dude/dudette who'd conquered the world was glorious.

Especially given that at the end of act one, I really understood why Kyros had locked all these cretins in here on pain of everyone dies, because I was only lack of levels away from murdering them all myself, bickering imbeciles!

If I did a second playthrough, I STLL probably won't side with the rebels or chorus, because frack those guys ~(I mean the lawful guys were just as hopeless, but they were salvagble), but I'm so tempted to do a "glare silently" playthrough.

[GloatingSwine]

Okay, so I've started a playthrough with the eventual goal of joining the rebels. That said...

Spoiler

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I assume Barrik and Verse are not going to be terribly happy about desertion, so is it possible to keep them in my party afterwards?

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Yes, if they fear you enough by the time you do it (3 or higher).

[Morty]

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Yes, if they fear you enough by the time you do it (3 or higher).

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Hmm. Not sure if I can rack up enough fear by the time I get there. I'll have to think about it.

[The Hellbug]

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I headcannoned the Bastard's Wound ending on my first one anyway. As a pragmatic and 'you get one chance to not step directly into my way' but not otherwise unreasonably evil sort of character (given the circumstances), the implied enmity with Kyros at the end of the game seemed like a silly position to be in, especially given the other sorts that were hanging around.

[Aotrs Commander]

Spoiler

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I headcannoned the Bastard's Wound ending on my first one anyway. As a pragmatic and 'you get one chance to not step directly into my way' but not otherwise unreasonably evil sort of character (given the circumstances), the implied enmity with Kyros at the end of the game seemed like a silly position to be in, especially given the other sorts that were hanging around.

Personally, the lack of that particular ending was my only major critism with the game before Bastard's Wound came out.

[Drasius]

I throughly enjoyed the chance to play proper Evil DOING Evil for once (as opposed to Evil Dude still basically has to some world-saving or sorts, looking at you every single other Bioware/Obsidian/Black Isle RPG...!)

I was even more pleased when Bastard Wound came out and they

Spoiler: Ending

Show

-finally allowed you to go to Kyros as say "all wrapped up with a little bow on it boss, what next?"

Being the cog in machine and not having to rebel against the dude/dudette who'd conquered the world was glorious.

Especially given that at the end of act one, I really understood why Kyros had locked all these cretins in here on pain of everyone dies, because I was only lack of levels away from murdering them all myself, bickering imbeciles!

If I did a second playthrough, I STLL probably won't side with the rebels or chorus, because frack those guys ~(I mean the lawful guys were just as hopeless, but they were salvagble), but I'm so tempted to do a "glare silently" playthrough.

I never got BW, but still got that ending. You sure you needed BW for that?

[Aotrs Commander]

I never got BW, but still got that ending. You sure you needed BW for that?

If it wasn't part of BW itself, it must have been part of the main game update that went with it - it wasn't in the base game, certainly or I'd have picked it the first time around (and not been part of the (pun unintended for once) chorus complaining about it on the PDX forums...)