Tyranny seemed promising, but at the end of the day it is a generic RPG. The Conquest system is a very good design, the only noteworthy thing about the game really. Yes, its world is ruled by an evil overlord and you aren't forced to play the good guy, but this isn't really anything new.

The game is almost all combat, with the same dialogues in between. "Now go there, kill those people for us while for some reason we don't help you, then we'll storm in right after you kill the last dude because we're all useless and only you, the player character, does anything throughout the entire game." To those who don't own this game, watch videos and you will see that this is a fact, this is the vast majority of the game's quest design.

So you go to the place you are commanded to. You fight your way through waves of enemies, all of them being the same typical human warriors, mages, or rogues, like you. None of you have any unique abilities. Mages wield the elements or "Force" spells, and maybe the most basic mind affecting spells akin to Fear. But the majority of the spells are just simple elemental ones like "Flashfire" and better versions of it. Or lightning bolts, you get the picture.

You kill the helpless waves of enemies because this game isn't difficult or tactical. After this an officer type figure presents himself or herself; usually herself, since this game has far more SJW ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ than any BioWare game. At least for one faction, most of its front lines officers are female warriors.

As always, this officer type figure wields bravado as her only weapon at first. They talk about their willingness to die for their cause, yet flee and let more waves of their minions die in their stead. More waves of enemies, you kill them, and finally corner this officer. She shouts more insults, then finally you battle and kill him/her. Then your friends show up after it's over to congratulate you.

Next, you are sent somewhere else to do all of that again. It is a cycle, almost every quest is as I just described above. The same generic crap over and over again. Combat focused with pathetic gameplay diversity in gameplay; okay so your mage can focus more on one element than another, big deal, while warrior and rogue have no diversity.

See this complete, pathetic little generic list of all spells in the game for yourselves.

http://tyranny.wiki.fextralife.com/Spells

Generic elemental spells clearly make up the bulk, spells that exist in every other game. Five Illusion spells, five Enchantment spells (they call it Emotion), five spells that are akin to Necromancy. Compare that to, for example, 22 illusion spells, 35 Enchantment spells, 48 Necromancy spells in Neverwinter Nights 2 (just about all of Tyranny's spell concepts included as well).

And enemy variety? Tyranny has next to none, again just human mages, rogues, or warriors. Compare that to games with over 100 (example 1[arcanum.wikia.com], 2[www.gamefaqs.com], 3[nwn.wikia.com], 4[nwn2.wikia.com], 5[www.gamefaqs.com], then mods for all of those save for #2). Compare that to Tyranny's list[tyranny.gamepedia.com], it's hard to call it anything other than pathetic. Same thing for quantity and quality of weapons and armor.

The UI is not very good, I haven't even found a way to split items in your inventory (e.g., splitting 5 healing potions into a smaller amount). The camping/rest system is very good, more hardcore than past RPGs. It provides lots of attribute and skill checks in gameplay; Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity are very solid in this area, and in some ways unmatched (mostly the use of physical attributes in gameplay).

The stat/rules system is partially illogical and it isn't fundamental enough. Finesse and Quickness as distinguished attributes, and no separate Intelligence one? Yup, I'm triggered. Finesse affects accuracy of all attacks and armor class essentially. Quickness only affects cooldown. lol.

Combat abilities are entirely cooldown based, simplifying itself from Pillars of Eternity and D&D games. It has combo abilities which involve the player character and a companion, which is a cool concept, and a few of these abilities are somewhat interesting but most of them, as well as almost every regular combat ability, seems as if they were all invented in the same day. The same problem Pillars of Eternity has, lack of creativity and originality in combat. Combined with the inability to rotate the camera due to dated inferior 2.5D (imitation 3d) graphics, combat isn't very fun. Why anyone is designing games like this after Divinity: Original Sin raised the bar is beyond me. Tyranny also has next to no enemy variety. The least I've ever seen in an RPG, such a small amount that it's startling. Almost every battle is just against humans.

The world is shallow, generic despite the emphasis on it being ruled by evil and how this is supposed to make it unique. It doesn't make it unique. Lore and backstory are shallow, not designed to provide anything more interesting than the game's 25-30 hour length. Hardly anything is written for any location, and beyond the few core factions there is nothing written in the way of cultures.

It's as if this game was made in under a year, as if it is someone's first RPG. Although it isn't very buggy thankfully. Nothing stands out about the companions, most of them have the same companion dialogue from every other RPG. Essentially every character speaks modern day 21st century American English in a Bronze age inspired fantasy setting... that stands out but not in a good way.

Tyranny provides a strong illusion of the greatly misunderstood "choice and consequence" design. Almost all of it stems from your Conquest. Nonetheless, Tyranny tries not to branch out too much or be unforgiving with its role-playing, thus it lacks the ambition seen in their own Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, Fallout: New Vegas, even KOTOR 2, and others. Hell, I ordered the execution of one of my companions, and it seems to happen in dialogue yet it actually doesn't? As if the game was afraid to let players kill her. Perhaps it was just a glitch.

The engine, being based on Unity 4 I believe, is an inconsistent mess. Performance and loading times all over the place, even though it's 2.5D. Check my PC specs on my profile before you blame that. For some reason this game is limited to 2.1 sound output, so my center channel and surround speakers are never used. Even other 2.5D isometric games are not like this.

Modding capability is so limited that it might as well not even be there. Not that Tyranny presents a good platform to play RPGs on anyway, due to the stat/rule system not being ideal and then the fact that it's 2.5D and so limited and outdated. Make your custom campaigns for Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition, Divinity: Original Sin 2, or Neverwinter Nights 2 (older yet more modern lol, and also the king of RPG gameplay diversity/content) instead.

In the end, it is clear to me that the project goal for Tyranny was just to quickly, and I mean very quickly, throw together an RPG with the utmost basic quests, utmost basic fantasy gameplay, utmost basic mechanics and RPG rules lifted from D&D but simplified infinitely, and utmost basic levels, paint it orange, quickly write a plot mostly involving bad guys, and market it as a revolutionary RPG because it's the only one set in an evil universe (which it isn't). The game is an insult.

Tyranny seemed promising, but at the end of the day it is a generic RPG. The Conquest system is a very good design, the only noteworthy thing about the game really. Yes, its world is ruled by an evil overlord and you aren't forced to play the good guy, but this isn't really anything new. The game is almost all combat, with the same dialogues in between. "Now go there, kill those people for us while for some reason we don't help you, then we'll storm in right after you kill the last dude because we're all useless and only you, the player character, does anything throughout the entire game." To those who don't own this game, watch videos and you will see that this is a fact, this is the vast majority of the game's quest design. So you go to the place you are commanded to. You fight your way through waves of enemies, all of them being the same typical human warriors, mages, or rogues, like you. None of you have any unique abilities. Mages wield the elements or "Force" spells, and maybe the most basic mind affecting spells akin to Fear. But the majority of the spells are just simple elemental ones like "Flashfire" and better versions of it. Or lightning bolts, you get the picture. You kill the helpless waves of enemies because this game isn't difficult or tactical. After this an officer type figure presents himself or herself; usually herself, since this game has far more SJW bullshit than any BioWare game. At least for one faction, most of its front lines officers are female warriors. As always, this officer type figure wields bravado as her only weapon at first. They talk about their willingness to die for their cause, yet flee and let more waves of their minions die in their stead. More waves of enemies, you kill them, and finally corner this officer. She shouts more insults, then finally you battle and kill him/her. Then your friends show up after it's over to congratulate you. Next, you are sent somewhere else to do all of that again. It is a cycle, almost every quest is as I just described above. The same generic crap over and over again. Combat focused with pathetic gameplay diversity in gameplay; okay so your mage can focus more on one element than another, big deal, while warrior and rogue have no diversity. See this complete, pathetic little generic list of all spells in the game for yourselves. http://tyranny.wiki.fextralife.com/Spells Generic elemental spells clearly make up the bulk, spells that exist in every other game. Five Illusion spells, five Enchantment spells (they call it Emotion), five spells that are akin to Necromancy. Compare that to, for example, 22 illusion spells, 35 Enchantment spells, 48 Necromancy spells in Neverwinter Nights 2 (just about all of Tyranny's spell concepts included as well). And enemy variety? Tyranny has next to none, again just human mages, rogues, or warriors. Compare that to games with over 100 ([b][url=http://arcanum.wikia.com/wiki/Bestiary]example 1[/url], [url=https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/589356-the-temple-of-elemental-evil/faqs/35669]2[/url], [url=http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Creatures]3[/url], [url=http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Creatures]4[/url], [url=https://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/258273-baldurs-gate-ii-shadows-of-amn/faqs/27144]5[/url][/b], then mods for all of those save for #2). Compare that to [url=http://tyranny.gamepedia.com/Category:Tyranny_creatures][b]Tyranny's list[/b][/url], it's hard to call it anything other than pathetic. Same thing for quantity and quality of weapons and armor. The UI is not very good, I haven't even found a way to split items in your inventory (e.g., splitting 5 healing potions into a smaller amount). The camping/rest system is very good, more hardcore than past RPGs. It provides lots of attribute and skill checks in gameplay; Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity are very solid in this area, and in some ways unmatched (mostly the use of physical attributes in gameplay). The stat/rules system is partially illogical and it isn't fundamental enough. Finesse and Quickness as distinguished attributes, and no separate Intelligence one? Yup, I'm triggered. Finesse affects accuracy of all attacks and armor class essentially. Quickness only affects cooldown. lol. Combat abilities are entirely cooldown based, simplifying itself from Pillars of Eternity and D&D games. It has combo abilities which involve the player character and a companion, which is a cool concept, and a few of these abilities are somewhat interesting but most of them, as well as almost every regular combat ability, seems as if they were all invented in the same day. The same problem Pillars of Eternity has, lack of creativity and originality in combat. Combined with the inability to rotate the camera due to dated inferior 2.5D (imitation 3d) graphics, combat isn't very fun. Why anyone is designing games like this after Divinity: Original Sin raised the bar is beyond me. Tyranny also has next to no enemy variety. The least I've ever seen in an RPG, such a small amount that it's startling. Almost every battle is just against humans. The world is shallow, generic despite the emphasis on it being ruled by evil and how this is supposed to make it unique. It doesn't make it unique. Lore and backstory are shallow, not designed to provide anything more interesting than the game's 25-30 hour length. Hardly anything is written for any location, and beyond the few core factions there is nothing written in the way of cultures. It's as if this game was made in under a year, as if it is someone's first RPG. Although it isn't very buggy thankfully. Nothing stands out about the companions, most of them have the same companion dialogue from every other RPG. Essentially every character speaks modern day 21st century American English in a Bronze age inspired fantasy setting... that stands out but not in a good way. Tyranny provides a strong illusion of the greatly misunderstood "choice and consequence" design. Almost all of it stems from your Conquest. Nonetheless, Tyranny tries not to branch out too much or be unforgiving with its role-playing, thus it lacks the ambition seen in their own Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer, Fallout: New Vegas, even KOTOR 2, and others. Hell, I ordered the execution of one of my companions, and it seems to happen in dialogue yet it actually doesn't? As if the game was afraid to let players kill her. Perhaps it was just a glitch. The engine, being based on Unity 4 I believe, is an inconsistent mess. Performance and loading times all over the place, even though it's 2.5D. Check my PC specs on my profile before you blame that. For some reason this game is limited to 2.1 sound output, so my center channel and surround speakers are never used. Even other 2.5D isometric games are not like this. Modding capability is so limited that it might as well not even be there. Not that Tyranny presents a good platform to play RPGs on anyway, due to the stat/rule system not being ideal and then the fact that it's 2.5D and so limited and outdated. Make your custom campaigns for Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition, Divinity: Original Sin 2, or Neverwinter Nights 2 (older yet more modern lol, and also the king of RPG gameplay diversity/content) instead. In the end, it is clear to me that the project goal for Tyranny was just to quickly, and I mean very quickly, throw together an RPG with the utmost basic quests, utmost basic fantasy gameplay, utmost basic mechanics and RPG rules lifted from D&D but simplified infinitely, and utmost basic levels, paint it orange, quickly write a plot mostly involving bad guys, and market it as a revolutionary RPG because it's the only one set in an evil universe (which it isn't). The game is an insult.