Quick Look: Tyranny

Matt Rorie's Tyranny

Maybe not the ideal tone for the world right now but what a great game.

Jeez, the term "quick look" is more strained than ever. Looking at the player bar, this video's gonna last like four whole years.

Matt Rorie, the Sid Meier of Obsidian games.

Oh a quick look with Rorie and Vinny.

Rorie and Vinny?

Both of them? In one video??

Glad to see Rorie on this. Can't do an Obsidian QL without him.

@dreiszen: You obviously haven't seen Papa Vinny's Trucking Adventures. http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/quick-look-euro-truck-simulator-2/2300-6934/

Yay a Rorie QL :D

The most moé duder digitally together with the most genki duder.

Clearly the most anime QL in recent times.

EDIT: So nice they at least mention gog, normally people think that PC gaming = Steam but I really think thats BS as theres quite a bit more to it than just using Steam.

Love how Rorie just keeps messing up the names of the main factions. Especially "the Dishonored" got a good-humored but slightly confused laugh out of me. That's a different game, my guy.

Also love how they assume Kyros is a man, because I made the same mistake and I bet a lot of other players will too. The game does a really good job of keeping Kyros' gender ambivalent until certain people in power start referring to Kyros as "she" and you're like...wait a second.

They got me twice cause even after they start doing otherwise they keep fucking with you depending on who you are speaking to.

Tyranny looks good for sure, but I heard it's a little shorter than these games tend to be, like around 25 hours. Not necessarily a bad thing.

That actually sounds great to me! I might be in for this one, looks very interesting overall.

Looks like a bit streamlined PoE to me.

And Vinny mentioning he stopped playing PoE around the time he had errands around a big tree, that's not even at an hour mark into the game, lol.

A wild Rorie appears.

@efesell: I assume you're talking about the second part of my comment? Yeah, I think part of the trick is that Kyros is often referred to as Overlord, part to invoke a sense of fear in the people, but also because the "common" people aren't supposed to know about Kyros being a woman. The Fatebinder definitely knows, though.

I didnt think it was possible, but the battle system in this somehow seems worse than Pillars of Eternity. Which, is a game I really wanted to like, but absolutely could not get into the battles.

Is it me, or was he calling it Pillows of Eternity?

Gameplay sees some major improvements from Pillars of eternity and the story is great, it's good to be the bad guy for a change. Highly recommended.

@sandalinbohemia: That's the thing though other people who would absolutely be in the position to know for sure keep going back and forth on the subject. I think even Tunon is evasive on it if you ask and also gets kinda mad at you.

@applegong: It was several hours in for me.

I've been playing it for a while now and really loving it so far.

It really depends on how you play these types of RPGs.

If you're mostly mainlining yeah 25 hours sounds about right. But if you're actually reading the text, trying some different options, experimenting with the RPG systems and generally just really delving into it, it can be much longer, easy 50 or more.

It's definitely billed as being deliberately shorter then something like Pillars of Eternity. The emphasis here is more on replay ability because oh boy can you really change up how you play through it in terms of personal narrative and decisions.

Like if you compare the Icewind Dale vs Planescape, in terms of "combat vs story' This one falls way closer to the Planescape on that scale than did its predecessor . Pillars, for me, just did not cut it, not enough investment, drive, interest. I quit, as did many others according to what I believe Obsidian mentioned somewhere online, playing Pillars at around the time you make it to the big city.

In that game I was struggling, begging, searching, pleading with the game to give me narrative to invest myself in, it didn't. This? This starts strong and just keeps going. A very strong follow up after Pillars was just "ok".

I wouldn't throw out GotY or "as good as BG2/planescape' or such. The game seems to have its issues (Why no drawn character portraits! The in game models are ugly that close up!) but in general its done a great job of holding my attention. Way more then, to date, any of this new wave of CRPGs has done.

Healthy recommendation if your a fan of this genre. Absolute must buy if your in the same niche as me and found Pillars didn't grab you with its narrative, world and characters despite hoping it would. For everyone else? Eh, chances are you know if you like this genre. But if not, the QL is a pretty good example of the flow of the game. Talk, cut scene, fight, talk cut scene, fight. Erring on the side of more talking/cut scene then fighting but like 35:65 or so).

The premise of it sounded really cool, but I sat down to try to play this yesterday and yeeeessssh. This game is not for me, it was just way too old school (which will be great for some people, just not me).

Shame, seems like it is a cool game, but I do not have the patience to play through a game like this anymore.

Also, wtf is up with PC game developers killing functionality to third party apps that allow me to map my controller to a mouse? I know it's not great, but it's how I prefer to play the game, but between this, Stellaris, Infinite Space 2, City Skylines, and a few others it's been a real f'ing bitch to play on my couch.

I bought this to scratch my Shadowrun itch this year, and as advertised it does a good job of making choices feel important. Aside from some weirdly long load times, it seems like a Good One of These.

This game is pretty amazing. Thank you Obsidian!

I like that they continue the Dragon Age tradition of stupid hats for spellcasters

If they had a bigger budget and voiced every main role line ,it wouldn't be much different than a top down version of Dragon Age Origins. Another wierd thing I foudn out about this game, is that it doesn't really make you a bad guy. Apart from a few moments your choices can be pretty mildy evil in comparison with the world that surrounds you and what fatebinders seem to be able to do. There's also some discrepancy in the dialogue. Sometimes its really dark or appropriately stern, and others, especially during conversations with your companions it gets pretty silly and sort of ''roast-like'' , instead of serious evil,which in my prespective should be more like a game of thrones or glengarry glen rose type of dialogue but with murder in it. I think apart from Verse, which has a light manered menace in her character, all the others are pretty much too cartoony to convey the amience that the rest of the game tries to have: Barik is like low intelligent good hearted loyal guy, lantry is an old cheery man with a drinking problem ,who although escaped a gruesome death,he's pretty happy most of the time, Eb is another cursy old lady who is rebelious and wants to kill you but then joins you with a few meaningless lines of dialogue,sirin is a too girlish balerina/prodigy child and could be done a lot better ,and the beastwoman joins you very abruptly and for a non-sensical reason, and her voice is pretty annoying. I don't know if its the voice acting at fault or the script too thin on those particualr cases. For example Duran from PoE didn't really have that much more dialogue, but was a pretty unique and interesting character overall.

Rorie, my man, Dragon Age Origins came out in 2009. Hahaha!

I'm having fun with it so far, i really really liked PoE and this feels like a more experimental spin-off. The main narrative is grabbing me tho i'm having issues feeling invested in the minor characters or the world aound. I wish there were a few more combats and some variety there; also a few different companions would be nice (if you don't wear heavy armor it becomes vendor trash, since Barik wears his own thing...). Also warning since it's Obsidian in this first few days bugs always lurk just around the corner...for example I've just got the Sirin "Godspeed" bug and now i have to figure out the exact last save where the bug wasn't there and go from there

Burning Man Bar

The writing is tighter and much more focused than Pillars, but for me (and this probably isn't a typical opinion) the combat is too easy. Pillars uses per-rest and per-encounter spells which requires a good bit of strategy in how you balance spell use during fights. Tyranny changes this to MMO-style cool downs, so any fight is just hitting casting/ability buttons and waiting until the timer expires so you can do it again. This is probably the sort of CRPG combat most people are used to and comfortable with these days, but it's too simplified for me.

Still, I'm enjoying the game quite a bit. Obsidian always tells a good story.

This video is 40 minutes long. That is on the low end of quick look length.

If you're just going to skip through the conversations like they did here.... don't buy this game. There is a lot more role playing than there is combat in this game.

Vinny and Rorie! SWEET :D Great combo

I'll probably never play this, but I'm incredibly happy that games like this, Pillars of Eternity, and Divinity are carrying the CRPG torch.

I've played enough Tyranny at this point to know two things: that it's really cool and that if you've played neither, that you should absolutely prioritise Pillars of Eternity over it.

Glad Rorie got a chance to show this game; I may have not noticed it otherwise.

I still havn't finished POE but this game's world seems interesting to me.

Does this vid seem a bit dark to any one?

@dreiszen: The first 40 minute QL went up in 2009, they spent 90 minutes on Gran Turismo in 2010. I wouldn't consider this a new development.

40 minutes is about the par time for recent quick looks, generally it isn't very easy to get a vertical slice of the action in a game while also letting the gameplay flow naturally or get a sense of the tone.

Most engaged I have been with a CRPG in a long time.

Haven't had a chance to watch the Quick Look yet but I'm about 20 hours or so into the game. I tend to waste a lot of time in these games so I imagine a normal person would be closer to 10-15 considering where I'm at.

It's basically been marketed as a shorter repeatable CRPG experience. I know that the story I've crafted with my first character has been completely different than my friends' stories. If you've played Pillars of Eternity, or are familiar with that game, Tyranny is very similar.

Difficulty can be adjusted pretty drastically through various options as well as an overall Easy, Medium, Experience, and Hard options.

I'm loving it a lot but I'm purposefully playing on a lower difficulty than I should be in order to soak up the story and maximize my gaming time (newborns suck up a lot of free time).

I really like the setup of this game but I generally don't like pen and paper/dice rolls based RPGs. Hmmmm.

"A new RPG from Obsidian set in an original fantasy world in which the forces of evil have already triumphed."

Too soon...!

@efesell: Not sure what you mean by ideal tone for the world. I mean, stories about evil kings taking over the world are kinda par for the course when it comes to fantasy.

I remember wanting Baldurs' Gate so bad in 1998. My dad tried to find it at all of the local stores but had no success. He was able to have a friend in California buy the game and ship it to us for Christmas 1998. It was a glorious gift! Yes kids, the world was like that not that long ago. No "alexa order me game" or "steam, ah I want this game, click" ... literally drive or have someone from another state to buy a game if your state didn't have games. Anyways, I remember cracking open 7 ... yes 7 CDs, no NOT DVDS ... CDs ... we're talking like 737 megabytes at max on these beasts and that game had 7 of them. Baldur's Gate was special though and I loved it but I didn't play it multiple times like I did Daggerfall and other RPG of that sort back then. It wasn't until I played Planescape Torment that the CRPG genre really grabbed me like it did other games at that age.

Needless to say I tried Pillars of Eternity and hated it. I couldn't stand how the best rogue spec used pikes (wtf) and many other nuances that I just couldn't get past. It had so much potential and the quick look sold me on the game and whenever I would read forums people would talk about how good it was, but yeah, it just wasn't for me. I also don't know if this will be for me but thanks for bringing back some memories. I also tried icewind dale on my tablet and I got killed in the first town by a pack of goblins and haven't played it since. Really want to like this genre ... Divinity Original Sin was an absolutely joy though. Wait, divinity 2 already came out in september? Wtf.

Anyhow, after watching this it makes me curious how the progress on the TIDES OF NUMENARA game is going - has anyone played it and can say if its any good? I know it was in early access for kickstarterrs or something.

Off topic, but where is the dishonored 2 quick look? I've been waiting almost 6 days and I'm starting to think they arent going to have one.

@convox: You're like the fourth person to inform me that 40 minutes isn't that long for a quick look. At first I thought people were deliberately missing the joke, but I'm starting to think it might actually be me.