Obsidian and Paradox announce Tyranny, an Isometric RPG

wingamestore.com has it for $38.20 (15% discount) for the base edition. I think I’m cracking…

MMORPG.com loved it.

Yeah, initial reviews are strong.

So in the first battle the game lost my keyboard and both myself and my NPC buddy were doing 1 damage to the enemy per hit as our weapons were ineffective. Good times, heh.

What’s the RPG system like? I love BG sooo much, but struggled with PoE, mostly because I couldn’t wrap my head around the RPG system. Quit when I reached the second city.

The stats and such are similar to POE but appear so far to be simplified.

I didn’t pick a class at creation, just an “expertise” (Javelin) and a secondary expertise (Atrophy Magic). All these did was modify my starting skill values for things like Javelin and Atrophy Control, as well as support skills like Subterfuge and Parry and such. Looks like an open-ended skill-based sort of thing?

Dunno yet if it has the ridiculous raft of debuffs that POE suffers from. Probably going to start over as a smashmouth Conan type; I don’t think Javelin is really doing it for me just from a role-playing perspective.

Conquest system is pretty good. I haven’t even started the game yet and I already feel connected to my character.

I recorded a quick video of character creation for anyone stuck at work. I made it a little faster and hopefully less painful than some of the longer videos I watched on the topic, and I specifically don’t get into the Conquest system @Bateau is talking about just because I think it’s a pretty cool thing everyone should get to experience fresh that first time.

Enjoy!

I started with a javelin as my main spec. Seems like a nice middle ground between melee and ranged. I also got to use a combo ability with the first companion that you get and instantly liked it. So far the game system feels a little less arcane than PoEs - the combat also seems slower which makes it easier to parse what’s going on.

So I caved in and got it. Only played a little more than an hour but I like it so far. It’s been pretty heavily story driven and there’s a lot of world building to keep track of. It’s a neat world, however.

I created a guy who specializes in two handlers and has shock magic as a secondary weapon line. Playing on normal, there have not been many challenging fight so far. Many of the conflicts have been more dialog challenges in trying to decide what I want to say or which faction I want to appear to be favoring.

I did not play a ton of Pillars but from what I saw it feels like a number of the systems in use are refinements of what we saw in Pillars. That shouldn’t surprise anyone, but if the mechanics of Pillars left you cold I don’t think much will change here. That also means to me that in many ways I felt like I was playing an expansion for Pillars.

One interesting fighting mechanic is that you and your companions can perform combo moves which automatically happen once you select it for one of the characters.

The conquest system is an interesting way to develop your character and the events and choices you make are referenced all the time by in NPCs in the game. I agree that it feels like a worthwhile customization to your character.

I hope Obsidian changes the format for their games in the future. I really don’t need to know all the details and intricacies of the hierarchy and structure of Big Bad’s army or the diplomacy that goes with it. Especially not 10 minutes into the game when I’m just visiting a camp. And I wish the names were a little more…distinct (this might be a problem because I’m not a native speaker). I still don’t know if Tiers is an actual name for the continent or if it’s a metaphor for how it looks, how it was taken over by Kyros, or what. But I guess it beats the quasi Celtic names used in Pillars.

Game systems are pretty much 1:1 copy of PoE - with better UI. Not exactly my cup of tea. I don’t know, maybe I’m just done with this type of RPG.

Although the combat is the same, the leveling system is more Elder Scrolls than PoE.

I’ve only played for a couple hours, but so far I’m enjoying this a lot more than I enjoyed PoE. And PoE was pretty good.

I played for 3 hours so far. 2 of them spent making my character and reading backstory. Good stuff. I really find myself involved in this world already.

The hardest thing in the game so far was to find out how to leave the first real area and get to the second area. Finally I was about to give up but read the quest description one more time about how I had to go the Southeast, and I tried going to the corner of the map, and hey presto, a little area of the map revealed itself that I hadn’t seen before, and I was able to travel to a different area.

Other than that hiccup, I’m really impressed so far. I can’t believe just how much better this game looks compared to the Infinity engine games. The animations are so much better, and when you play on the default zoom level instead of zooming out, there’s so much more detail to the artwork for everything. I only played PoE briefly, but I don’t remember that looking this good.

I’m playing on Story mode instead of Normal, and I’m liking that choice so far. I can feel like a badass while enjoying the story.

I’m getting the urge to reread The Black Company.

This guy gets it.

And thus far Normal mode is pants-on-head easy.

Pants on head fun, though?

Too bad about the combat. :( PoE was weak in that regard as well.

In what respect? You don’t like the manual pause?

Combat seems a lot better than POE to me. Smaller party size, turns occur at a slower pace. It’s the same system, but it’s a lot less frenzied in my opinion.