Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Dec 14, 2016

  This one is hard for me to call. On one hand I love CYOA games and CoG and this is obviously one of those. But on the other hand I've never been quiet as frustrated with one of these games either. My first play through was very frustrating. It seemed I failed every thing I attempted, without quiet managing to kill myself while doing so. After Hobbling to the end, and truely not happy with the ending I got, I of course immediately started another play through, checking my stats with every choice / action I made. This helped some in figuring out what happened after the fact with my choices, allowing me to figure out what the best choice to take in a given situation was based on the stats I was sometimes un wittingly gaining / loosing but seriously removed any enjoyment from the game play. And sometimes things still didnt make sense. Sometimes a choice would increase a stat, other times it would check a stat. All in All I think this game needs some serious feed back between players and maker to iron out wrinkles in the game mechanics so that they make more sense and allow a player to have a better idea of what their choices will earn them, or require of them to be succesful. That said, the story itself is very interesting. I really enjoyed the world setting and most of the characters. I really wish I could have explored some things / places more! Especially the world of Deep Tech. I definetly feel there is room in this world for more adventures, exploring, and just mingling. So I'm going to give this one a thumbs up in hopes of encouraging the author to revisit the game mechanics some, and maybe consider a DLC or another game in the same world setting that will let me further explore this fascinating place.
• gamedeal user

  Jul 3, 2017

  Not as fun as Choice by Gaslight, and I'd get it on sale, but it gets marks for having the best beginning I've ever seen.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 5, 2016

  Just to be clear, I do feel like I got my money's worth. I did like the story and setting(which I don't think is really dieselpunk, but close enough I guess), and it was overall fun to read. BUT The choices are horrible. I actually liked the variety and the way it changed the story, that wasn't the problem. The problem is that the author seems to think that the choices/stats system makes sense to the user. It doesn't, not to me anyway. This is a problem with a lot of COG style games. The authors don't want to give too much away about the story by describing the choices before you make them, but in this case there just isn't enough information given to understand the consequences of a decision before you make it. It's one thing to surprise a player/reader or punish them for making stupid decisions, but it's another entirely to fail to give them the information they need to choose. If I'm going to be punished for choosing something stupid, it shouldn't be because all of the choices appeared to be equally valid. The other problem is how this ties in with the stats system. The stats are overly complicated and poorly thought out. I appreciate where they were going with this, but 10 possible stats that can be used during decisions, and no clear indications of which stats will be gained or which will be checked for the success of those decisions, it becomes impossible to make intelligent choices. Part of this problem is a lack of consistency. For example, sometimes a choice described as “quick” uses the “reaction” stat and sometimes it uses the “finesse” stat. This gets especially bad in choices that use two stats in the check (which IMO should NEVER be done anyway), you may know what one is supposed to be but not the other. Again, this is isn't the only COG style game to have this problem, but it’s so bad here that it makes the game more annoying than fun. If you really like the COG games, and are looking for something else, this isn't the worst possible game. But if you are new to COG style games, or if there are others that you think sound more interesting, I strongly recommend checking out some of the other games (especially considering the full price of this one). Choice of Robots, Slammed!, and Champion of the Gods are all better and cheaper. Tin Star, and the Infinity series are both under the Hosted Games label, are the same price as this one, and also better (and significantly longer). Final opinion: this one is worth playing, but only if you have exhausted better options.
• gamedeal user

  Jan 30, 2017

  TLDR; bad choice and stat design, skip it. The author has an ideal path and if you can guess what it is you'll have a great story, if you go off the rails the author punishes you up to and including not giving you an ending, the story just ends. If I could get a refund I would. Dont know how this passed COGs quality control. 2/10
• gamedeal user

  Feb 27, 2017

  Having played over a dozen CoG CYOA games I feel well-versed in the format they use as well as what to expect from a CoG adventure, so when I say this was probably the worst of the bunch, I’d like to think I know what I’m talking about. While playing Empyrean I felt like I was missing a chapter or two of character motivation and development, not truly understanding why MU would throw everything in with a bunch of rebels when I specifically clicked the “I don’t trust these guys” option. Perhaps if there was more of an incentive or reasoning behind the decisions made by MU I would agree with there not being options to be neutral or pick another side, but without this most decisions felt arbitrary. As much as I want to enjoy this, it just feels unfinished.
• gamedeal user

  Dec 2, 2016

  One of my favorite Choice of Games so far! Storyline was very detailed, but didn't end up convoluted. Characters were appealing, and the romance I saw (Strephon's) had some really interesting character development (looking forward to seeing what happens in the others when I replay too!). Some stats could have been made a little more obvious (vigor was one of my highest and I never figured out what caused it or what it helped lol) but others were pretty self-intuitive and it was typically easy to figure out which choices advanced or worked off of them. Clarification also would have been helpful in-game for what would be lost if certain locations were attacked, like choosing to protect the Old Palace vs. other locations (there may have been details on them in the tabs of the stats page, but I'd have liked to see it included in the game's storytelling itself). Honestly though, my few complaints hardly matter when pitted against the good qualities. I'm definitely going to be replaying this in the future, and will cross my fingers for another game set in Empyrean's universe!
• gamedeal user

  Dec 3, 2016

  So far, so good! Really love the story, the characters, everything really!