 Hello guys, I'm Philip Magnus and today I'm going to talk about Tyranny Act 1. But before that, I have a question. How do I start to talk about a game that has scored basically every major box in my list of things done right in a role-playing game? Well, perhaps some background is in order. Tyranny is a story where you, the player, take on the role of a Fatebinder. But what is a Fatebinder? Well, you are basically a Judge, Jury, Executioner and occasional Elend Boy to Karras, the evil Overlord, who has done what Sarum and Voldemort, those pesky loudmouths, never could. She has taken over the world. With a mastery of all powerful magic, Karras' edict spells, the Overlord rules uncontested. Act 1 picks off after two of Karras' Arkans, the leaders of the disfavored and the scarred chorus respectively, managed a semi-successful Invasion of the Tears, which is basically this last part of Terratus, still not officially under Karras' rule, I say officially, because the Tearsmen use the same language, currency and their culture isn't too far from the one under Karras. At any rate, before you start the game, you can make several choices in the Combust mode, which will greatly enhance and change the state of the world. Basically, you will be suffering from consequences of those choices for the bigger part of the game, or at least for all of Act 1, I suspect that it goes over Act 1, however. So, what I'm trying to say here is choose wisely and choose with care. Your choices will matter. The game starts after you do the whole conquesting, with you bringing a terrible edict to the two Arkans, the voices of Nerath and Graven Arsh. The edict is a direct response to a rebellion that the two commanders seem unable to crush, mainly because of their bickering and constant rising hatred and loathing for one another. Karras' message in pragmatic overlord fashion is, end the rebellion, or all within the Tears will die, including you guys, oh and Osu, you the Fatebinder, who unfortunately ended up as the expendable Erenboy. What happens in the very first scene, once you click that start game button, is that the pass you just pass through, to get to the Tears, haha, get it, pass through which you pass through, anyway, it basically becomes inaccessible. Thank you, Karras. Well then, that's about enough background for you folks. The basic gist of the first act is that you have 8 days until Karras' Day of Swords, during which the edict you just carried to the Arkans, is basically going to activate and murder everyone. And I suspect that you don't want that to happen, although there is an achievement if you do not stop the Outbreakers, so anyway. It sounds easier than it is, rising tensions between the restrained Honourable Draven Arsh, and the absolutely insane, albeit hilarious, voices of Nerath. Much could be said about either of these characters, and I have a feeling that I'll take my time to discuss them in their own videos, but the most important thing to understand is that these Arkans factions are reflections of their very leaders. The disfavoured are a small professional army, Claudine Ireland professional, I already said that, and merciless. They are basically very, very much going to make you feel like a hero, and like an honourable man, which is kind of going to tilt your perception of what you are doing, you are going to forget just how evil some of the things you do are, if you follow them. The Scarlet Karras, unlike them, the disfavoured are always also very picky about who they include in their ranks, unlike the Scarlet Karras. The voices of Nerath's faction and followers, they are, let's just say, absolutely insane, and like a microcosm of the worst that Darwinism has to offer. Constant power plays, advancement through killing, and I don't know, an overall hostile work environment, let's just say that it doesn't awake my fate in humanity. And there is something strangely charming about that psychotic bunch, which I ended up choosing, maybe because they don't hide who they are through noble means and through noble language and through this feeling of superiority that the disfavoured have. Plus, it's mainly because of the fun as hell companion, slash assassin, slash elite Scarlet Karras soldier, slash Scarlet Fury, verse. Verse is the very first companion you unlock, and suffice to say she is a lot of chaotic murderous fun. Speaking of choice, say goodbye to the binary good guy, bad guy decisions, you've gotten used to in Bioware's Dragon Age or Mass Effect games, and as well as a bunch of other RPGs that have similar choices. Serving a bad guy, in this case a bad gal, since Karras is a she, means making tough decisions, some of which can be downright evil, but that's ok, being a bad guy isn't all bad, and it is where Tyranny excelled, in so many different ways, if you want a game which can show you evil in an entirely, well not an entirely, but in a new light, in a unique and ambitious way, Tyranny is the game for you. And its first act is going to give you plenty of opportunity to do some wretched evil things, as well as some small acts of kindness of course, like telling the truth to sorcerers or many other choices that you wouldn't expect in most other games, or any games really. Take the skills usage for example, if you have an athletics of let's say 35, you can basically go towards an enemy, grab him and choke him in your hands if he displeases you, which kind of sounds Star Wars-ish, yes actually if you like the dark side and sit, Tyranny is probably for you, as well as there are many options with other skills involved and your background, which you choose from I believe 10 or 12 different options I personally want to, with the noble backstory, because this seemed to fit my power fantasy and what are these games if not an outlet for your power fantasies, so go ahead and you know, play it and let's see what you'll come up with, tell me about it in the comment. At any rate, you've probably gotten it from my voice, but I'm really happy with Tyranny so far, it's much shorter than Obsidian Entertainment's last entry in the RPG genre, Pillars of Eternity, which I still haven't finished by the way. Tyranny is a mere 20 to 30 hour experience, whereas I've seen people put in Pillars anywhere from 100 to basically 500 hours, which I have no idea how you can do that, but congrats mate. A lot of the time you'll spend in Tyranny is basically reading text, but boy, what a good text. The writing of Tyranny is absolutely fantastic with this moral ambiguity I already spoke about and a general feeling and ambience, which reminds me a lot of the Malazan books of the fallen, which if you haven't read, you should. Particularly in its use of everyday language between soldiers, the dialogue in Tyranny doesn't come off as pretentious but rather as very realistic, which I realize is a word that doesn't fit much with the topic of a game about an evil judicator who does his overlord swill, and yet that's exactly what it is. The characters are so much fun. The two Arkans are really colorful characters, sorry I'm using characters way too much, they are really interesting. Their minions are also nothing less than a thrill. Verse Landry and I believe Barak, or is it Borak? I have it written down somewhere. Ah yes, Barak. Those are the three companions you unlock during the first act. You also unlock Ebb at the very end of it, but I don't really know much about her yet, so I'm not going to discuss her here. Anyway, verse is the slightly psychotic girl with the heart of gold. Landry is a sage from this library, which you have the option of basically burning down with an edict of Caires at the very start during the conquest, and Barak is a disfavoured who can't remove his armor, because he was in the middle of another edict, which did things to, well basically he managed to survive, but only because of some strange occurrence that locked him in his armor, which is cool, which is nice. I don't blame him, he's a really tanky character, but also he is very much a bigot, and he has a superiority complex. Not at all too pleasant once you strip away the nobility of basically the disfavoured, which is what a lot of the members of that faction are really, which is not to say that the Scarlet Chorus faction is better, I mean versus a psycho and she doesn't hide it, and neither do most of the other Scarlet Chorus members, which is really impressive and amazing that I find them so charming while they are absolutely bonkers. Well, each of these characters have only about one tenth of their dialogue voiced. All the companion voice actors are nothing less than stellar. They give you just enough for you to build a basis, a foundation of how the characters sound and behave and about their personalities, and then they let you read on all the minutiae, all the tiny, interesting, fascinating details, which you can go without of course. It's really a great way to handle characters the same way in fact that they used in Pillars of Eternity, and I do believe that one of the actors at least makes a return from Obsidian Entertainment's 2015 game. Now a bit about combat, and I still haven't made my mind up about it, but you've probably seen some footage of it by now, and it's safe to say that compared to Pillars of Eternity, the combat system is a lot more simplified, a lot faster, easier to get into, spells are cooldown based instead of limited per every rest you make with your characters, rests really are used only to cure wounds and for a very limited array of opportunities which you can unlock by having either more favor or rat with your companions, as well as having more favor or rat with factions. With factions though you unlock passive abilities, whereas with companions you unlock active ones, which is all fun game, all of these abilities which you unlock like that, they are insanely more powerful than I think the magic is, the magic is weak, it is not all that interesting, although it has a fairly fascinating, yeah let's go with a fascinating concept of preparing your spells, which I will go more in depth at a later date once I know more about it. Till and his first act has presented a big fascinating world which doesn't annoy with its writing, actually it's the very opposite the writing is exceptional and you're going to fall absolutely in love with it, I know I did and I know that I need to play more of it. It allows you to take on a perspective that has never quite been done before, not like this anyway, you may go with some tried argument that's overlaid and so on and so forth, did let you go in the shoes of villain but that doesn't really, it doesn't have anything to do with what is going on in Till and he the first act has only managed to wet my appetite and to make me want to play further. I will be returning with more comments, more videos about Till and he because honestly this game is a lot of fun and I'm probably going to replay it three times because I can see three maybe even four routes which I really want to take so far and who knows maybe there will be more in the future anyway thank you guys for watching this was fun and I hope to see you next time if you enjoyed this video please like share and subscribe if not send it to the guys and dolls you hate and make their day worse or better bye we'll need to advance across the matani we lose everything if we stand still and we move to back up plan green the earth shakers didn't make it over the mountain in time so we do this the hard way over the walls instead of through so you found your backbone at last we were worried past humiliations would make you soft timid that was a record for you right the makers dozen lost in one sortie if you had waited for the chorus reinforcements maybe we'd have eyes and ears on the matter