As often in stories, there is a big bad guy. Here he is called Kyros and has decided to invade the whole of the known world. As often in stories, the big bad has an army at his command. Here there are even some of them: the Disgraced, an army as collected as it is disciplined, and the Scarlet Choir, a savage horde constantly growing as it enlists by force those of its victims who manage to survive. And as so often in stories, there are those who resist the invader, those who usually don the stuff of heroes. Except that in Tyranny, you don't embody one of these noble souls at all! As a Fate Sealer, you work directly under Tunon, Archon of Justice and senior minion of Kyros who oversees the two generals who lead the Disgraced and the Scarlet Chorus. Part of your role is to issue Decrees, which serve as both ultimatums and terrifying spells. In short, you are more or less garbage.
A GAME THAT MAKES MALE!
This context has the merit of being exotic, especially since the universe spares us the usual clichés of medieval fantasy (no orcs, elves or dwarves on the horizon). Having to regularly arbitrate between the two armies of Kyros, at the expense of the poor invaded inhabitants who only seek to defend themselves, leads to interesting moral dilemmas. On the other hand, some players reluctant to embody uninhibited brutality may find it difficult to fit into their character. If you're used to traditionally playing "neutral good", "loyal good" or "chaotic good", you're going to have to do some violence to yourself... Don't believe that Tyranny locks us in a straitjacket. The character creation phase alone offers many degrees of freedom. Beyond the choice of gender, appearance, origins, expertise, attributes and other skills, the game even offers us a playable customization segment, called Conquest. Essentially textual, this little adventure asks us to make choices in the face of particularly thorny situations that took place during the invasion of Kyros. And everyone will remember your decisions...
Better to like reading if you want to play Tyranny which, fortunately, does what it takes so that you don't feel too drowned under the mass of information. The game notably uses a system of colored hypertext links and tooltips, thanks to which one can easily remember who a particular character is...
For example, if you play a woman and during the conquest phase you burned down the Citadel of Vellum, some characters will call you the Pyromaniac and will immediately fear you. But this joyful principle does not stop at the conquest phase. Each dialogue option, as well as each decision taken during the various quests, is likely to influence your reputation with this or that faction, and even with this or that member of your group. Each choice you make will have significant consequences, sometimes even going so far as to open or close access to certain quests and regions of the world. This permanent customization of the gaming experience goes hand in hand with a very great richness of writing, the dialogues being as extensive as they are well written. Better to like reading if you want to play Tyranny which, fortunately, does what it takes so that you don't feel too drowned under the mass of information. The game notably uses a system of colored hypertext links and tooltips, thanks to which one can easily remember who this or that character is, what this or that term specific to the universe of Tyranny refers to, or even what it happened during such and such an event. In any case, don't worry, the efforts necessary to get into a game due to the uniqueness of the proposed universe and the old-school, even hardcore, side of the game, will be rewarded later on.
BUTTERFLY EFFECT
The wide range of possibilities, in terms of action and dialogue, the real consideration of each of our decisions, the strong personality of our traveling companions (we manage up to four characters simultaneously) or even the distilled humor in some discussions are the guarantee of excellent moments. However, the game is not free from flaws. We can, for example, reproach him for a certain monotony in the “bestiary”, which is particularly badly named here since we mainly face humans. It's consistent with the proposed universe, but after killing a few hundred soldiers, we tell ourselves that a little more fantasy wouldn't hurt. We can also be surprised that offensive spells with area effects do not hurt our companions. Usually devolved to titles oriented towards the general public, this absence of "friendly fire" denotes a little in a game as rigorous as Tyranny. Rigor, you will need a good dose of it to manage the fights as well as possible. Based on a classic real-time system with active pause, they require permanent micro-management, which may please some players but frustrate others. Because even if the game offers different automatic attack behaviors for our companions, the artificial intelligence does not prove to be reliable enough for us to leave him the entire direction of the fights. Finally, let's finish with a few words on the technical aspect, not necessarily essential for this type of game, but always good to take if it is successful. This is indeed the case here, the mix between 3D and isometric view managing to evoke the great figures of the past while knowing how to stay up to date. Nostalgic for Baldur's Gate or young players wishing to taste the flavors of yesteryear in good conditions, Tyranny is waiting for you!
