Recent reviews by Vik

At the end of the day, Tyranny is defined by an amazing story experience and mediocre gameplay. At its best, the game makes you feel like king ♥♥♥♥ of ♥♥♥♥ montain. You drive the plot more than anyone else and it's in your power to ruin even your strongest allies. Kindness is rarely an option, but being a bastard never felt so good.

The only problem is that the game is built on a very standard RPG frame and the talents are just plain boring. 50-60% of any character's talent tree is littered with disappointing options that don't really impact your gameplay. The 1-per rest skills are interesting as a concept, but rarely get used and easily pile up. By the end of the game, I was flooded by useless skills and I never even bothered with the spellcrafting system. Itemization tends to fall off in the later game, too, and it feels like they didn't have enough time or energy to balance out item stats and give you a smooth sense of progression in the final acts. You reach a point where upgrades just don't really happen anymore and that kills the fun of getting loot.

I don't want to give the impression that Tyranny is a bad game. In fact, it's one of the most satisfying RPGs I've played and the story had me hooked throughout. I'll be giving it a second playthrough, because I think the other story paths are unique enough to check out. I want to play again, using different companions, because they're so much fun to interact with. Mechanically, the game is just meh. I can't say how that's going to balance out for you, but I am REALLY happy with my purchase.

I maxed out my wealth by turn 2 and immediately died of gluttony. 10/10

I haven't finished the game yet, but I sincerely doubt the ending of the game is going to fix any of its issues. First of all, the premise is actually quite interesting. You crash land on a planet that is supposed to be full of vibrant life and oxygen levels close to Earth's, but instead you get a barren wasteland with no air. Right off the bat, you discover a deserted Russian colony, which should not be possible, as you're the first people landing on this planet after a 15 year journey. As story settings go, this one is pretty damn solid. The only problem is, the characters suck. Straight away, the main character is bombarded with situations both deadly and bizzare and 90% of the time he won't even bat an eyelash. For somebody who saw his crew die violently in front of him, he is pretty damn composed and that screws with immersion so bad! You're supposed to empathise with the guy you're playing, but most of the time I just wonder what the hell is wrong with him. If the game was trying to put all its chips on atmosphere and playing experience, the complete lack of emotion really kills it. The secondary character, who you follow for the entire game, is just as uninteresting, except she speaks in Russian.

In terms of gameplay, there are no new or exciting elements in Lifeless Planet. For most of the game, you're just jumping around. I wouldn't really call the obstacles in front of you puzzles, since they are entirely too simple. You just move from spot A to spot B, jump over some cliffs and enjoy the scenery. Skill is not really a factor in this one - if you happen to die to something, you just make a mental note of it and any sense of danger is gone. You also get get a robotic hand at some point, but that fails to inject even the smallest bit of fun. Without a single mechanic to pull you into the game, it gets boring VERY fast. Lifeless Planet is not worth the asking price of $20.

I'm a huge fan of the Might and Magic franchise, Heroes included, and that's the only reason I played through this. Unless you are REALLY desperate for your M&M fix, I can't suggest this as a viable purchase. For the same money, you can get much better titles, new and old.

As for the actual problems with the game:

-Graphics are laughable. Expect low res environs throughout the game

-Optimization is bad. I can run Skyrim on ultimate with no issues on my rig, but the turn based M&M is apparently too much, as even on middle of the road settings, there is going to be heavy lag in certain areas with dense foliage. According to the forums, this is a fairly common problem.

-No customization. There are 4 races with 4 hero type each (caster, ranger, tank, melee) and once you pick one of those, you get to decide on male or female. Oh, and also a name. Joy... There's no way to change the appearance of your characters and you never even get to see a model of them beyond a picture during character creation.

-Poor class balance. Rangers used to be completely useless, but after the patch they were upgraded all the way to just "meh". The game LOVES to spring ambushes on you (about 30% of the fights, along with most bosses), by dumping a ton of enemies at melee range, making bows and crossbows useless for the fight (once you engage in melee, you can't retreat till you kill everything in melee range). There goes a quarter of the hero pool. Tanks are also useless, since almost all bosses (and all undead, which are VERY frequent) are immune to taunt - your primary tanking mechanic. This means that 50% of the classes in the game have no purpose, except for flavor, at the cost of your party's strenght. That's just bad design.

-Turn based gameplay on a 2-dimensional plane. You can call this a throwback to the old M&M series, but it just doesn't work. Even the worst of Might and Magic games had a smoother transition between turns, than Legacy. The last ones even managed to mix real-time movement with turn-based combat. Also, turn based movement is not fun when on long treks between towns and quest points. This game has a lot of that, if you're looking for all the hidden little nooks and crannies.

-No voice work for quests. While it's not a necessity for every game, it would have been nice if M&M X managed to show off with something, at least.

-Lackluster story. Everything in M&M X screams "minimal effort" and the story is no different. It's painfully generic and set in a very boring world where every character is just a cookie cutter fantasy stereotype. There's just nothing new, even in the story: elves are elves, dwarves are dwarves and orcs wear fezzes (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, Ubisoft...) You can't even augment your party with new and interesting companions. Once you get out of the hero creation screen, that's it - it's set in stone. You DO have the option of getting two followers, but with no voice work and characterization, all they offer is a boost to one (mostly unimportant) aspect of gameplay.

Relative to what else is out on the market, even at this price, Might and Magic X - Legacy is just a bad game. It has nothing to offer, save for the faint nostalgia of the franchise.