Stories: The Path of Destinies

Just played this for the first time, and on the Steam Deck. Great game that I missed out on years ago that plays wonderfully on the handheld (maybe the very rare occasional slowdown.) The game itself has a really nice storyline and the voiceover and jokes are always enjoyable. Well worth grabbing!!

It would be even better if Zenobia was a female voice

nice

(with translator helps)

Negative:

Controls and how the character responds to my inputs suck. Sometimes he can't start running on the first try or does it with a delay if he's close to an interactive object. Why? I don't know.
During battles, it literally kills me (but just in the game). The target-assist system always sucks, but if you get punished for targeting the wrong enemy, it makes you suffer because you might not even do it, but you still get punished just because that's how the game works.
The time stop after every hit is... I don't find this a good idea, but okay. The worst part is that you get a longer time stop if you land a "perfect" hit. And that just breaks the whole process. I wanna f**king SCREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM how bad it is. Sometimes my character just stands still, literally, while I spam my buttons, even when not in time stop. Maybe it's some "interesting mechanic," I don't know, but it makes everything worse. I wanna cry in that moment, literally.
And I have a problem with grabs, the most powerful action in this game. Just when I want to grab, my character goes into this "AFK" state. Maybe I just can't get used to it, and it's my skill issue, but it's still not intuitive and not friendly.
Narrator is boring.

Spoiler:
In one scenario, the protagonist was kissed by a cat, but after he was killed, before he died completely, he realized that she loves him. So, okay, what truth did I get? I got the truth that the bunny is a traitor, of course he is, but why did they add the part where she kisses him and confesses her feelings? Just for what? I still need to figure out the truth about her feelings. That's frustrating. This sucks.

General things / Neutral:

Choices without choices: the problem with every game that claims to have "choices." They never give you real freedom, not even within the "game borders." Thankfully, we have fixed 4 choices for each ending (I don't know about the "truth"), because I don't need to predict my last choice. But still, I can't relate to what it is MY choice and not the protagonist's, because sometimes he does something I don't want him to do. That gives such a frustrating experience. But this is a story about someone else, not me, right? It's up to you, but I don't like it. Honestly, when he does what I want without additional choices, it feels really good. Thanks that this exists, not too often, but still.
Battles aren't hard; they made them similar to a beat 'em up, with the main focus on crowd control.
I didn't find this story is interesting. Like. So-so or even a little worse.

Positive:

Thanks that I don't need to find every chest in the game to get my max-level swords and stones. Thanks that I don't need to grind for them. Thanks that I don't need to grind through every ending to get the "truth," just 4 specific scenarios. Thanks that I don't need any levels for my character or items to beat the enemy. Thanks that the game still encourages me to be proactive and reactive enough in battle, and there is a reward for it (not a great one, but... still something). Interesting implementation of mouse controls where you need to click on the enemy. Lol, it's like playing a point-and-click action game, ha-ha.
And it's so cool that they even added a feature where, if you drop an enemy's shield while flying, it can stagger other enemies. That's awesome! And you can grab an enemy and use them as a live shield.

Não diria que eu aprovo nem reprovo esse jogo. Monótono demais, sem sal. Pra um jogo de escolhas ele é extremamente linear e o fator replay é quase nulo. No entanto, a história é bem feita, os personagens tem carisma e é uma experiência casual divertida. Minha principal reclamação é que não exista um botão de pular diálogos. Eu me apliquei a pegar todos os achievements, mas pra fazer isso é um grind desgraçado, você tem que fazer todos os finais e ver os mesmos diálogos de novo e de novo toda vez, além de matar uma quantidade interminável de inimigos em batalhas exatamente iguais toda vez. Não tem uma boss fight nesse jogo, o que beneficiaria ele bastante. Nota 6/10

Problem solving by abusing time loops is just a great way to do fun stories. Combat could be a little better, but honestly enjoyed tracking down the solution to the problems the characters are facing.

Take your mandatory remaster patches to a separate entry, thanks. Or better yet, to the garbage bin.

Ultimately, this is a good game with an interesting mechanic for telling and re-telling stories. I'd recommend people play it but just as a warning: there's only about 5 hours of real content here. There's only one 'real story.' If you're an achievement hunter, know that the hunt for the final achievements is rather repetitious and boring. There are literal hours of unskippable cut-scenes and dialog ahead of you if you should choose to get all the Steam achievements like I did. The story is okay and the characters are memorable, but at some points I think the story-telling mechanic actually impedes the gameplay instead of enhances it. Oftentimes you-as the player-knows that the protagonist knows something and yet the narration seems to act like the protagonist isn't aware of these things. It can be frustrating at times when you're trying to get into the story but there are opportunities for continuity that are missing all over the place.
The combat is really good, but in order to enjoy the feeling of being overpowered, expect to play 10 hours or more.
All in all, really fun game if you stop playing when you beat the game. If you choose to grind for the achievements, unfortunately the combat and the narrative elements become extremely monotonous and uninteresting. I finished the entire second season of Squid Game while grinding them.

i dont like being graded for my combat performance, nor the branching story lines, nor the storytelling

An OK game that used a compelling narrative and mystery to cover for a perfectly passable game-play systems. It seems to know this and almost throws the keys to the true end at you. Once you work out that there is nothing to keeping you playing after save grind for achievements.

The game is about making the right choices, for that you have to make a lot of bad choices first. You have to play a bunch of times on the same scenarios, but it allows you to keep finding new things in them each time, so it doesn't turn that repetitive ... that's until the end at least. By the end I kinda just wanted to have the full story and finish with all the other stuff already.
I really liked the character design and the voice acting, it was really well done. I also liked the fighting mechanics and the 3D scenarios. As a whole the story is my favorite part, and seeing how my choices have an inmediate effect, and not just in the ending, was pretty entertaining. There were also A LOT of dad puns mixed in, wich I enjoy quite a bit.

If Steam had a "neutral" option, I'd pick that.

Tl;dr:
This game is entirely middling. The combat is similar in camera work (read: no control over camera) like Bastion, but has a scuffed combo system akin to Batman: Arkham Asylum (where you jump/dash to enemies when doing your attack and there's a directional parry system). This title is not as good as either of those games.
The meta-grind loop isn't satisfying, just an obligation to 100% the game. After 3 Big-Ends and 3 Small-Ends discovered, the game has overstayed its welcome. I will only push through to 100% it because I'm stubborn.


Long-*** review time.
Gameplay:
There seems to be a solid input delay and input tracking, where if you mash you get stuck in animation loops and take unnecessary damage. You also cannot counter more than one enemy at a time, so if you get unlucky and have 2+ enemies throw attacks at you simultaneously while you're attacking something else - you get smacked.
That said, game is still really, really, really easy. After a frustratingly long time to unlock dashing, throwing enemies, and a hookshot, you can easily hit, throw an enemy into another enemy, then quickly execute both. Rinse repeat for everything that aren't the floating eyes that make up pseudo stealth sections. Shield enemies only require the occasional hookshot to pull their shield away (once you unlock that; alternatively, take the gem where a strike makes them drop their shield) or you throw someone else into them to knock them over and execute them. The game poses no real challenges to anyone familiar with games.
You grind sword unlocks/upgrades and level upgrades via doing many story paths and just repeating a very basic gameplay loop. Once you get all the level 3 gems (if you craft every different sword and just explore side paths you do this within 2 hours or something) the chests are pretty flaccid. I once opened an Epic chest and got a single +10hp heal out of it. Joy.
The narration is fine, if sometimes a little bit too constant.

Story:
Eh. Dashing rogue and former pirate turned rebel tries to save the known world from a suddenly tyrannical emperor trying to summon Old Gods for....reasons. Also the emperor's daughter is all-powerful mage cat girl who totally loves you despite the fact you haven't seen each other in what must be at least a decade.
It's entirely predictable/trope-y in the extreme, though some of the weirder paths (jumping around objectives instead of searching for a "big truth", so pick a major objective and then ignore it) can yield slightly surprising endings or segments.
I'd still be happier if a single story run didn't take ~30 minutes when there's something like 23 different endings you can get, + or - the actual True end. I would've preferred, perhaps, slightly more consolidated timelines (fewer endings to get) since they also share maps with one another. Just feels like I'm playing the same 3-4 maps with different narration over, and over, and over - which I am, because that's how it is.
If you wanted to beat this game quickly without 100%ing it you could probably do so in 5-6 hours - perhaps faster since the "Truth Finder" system can give you a sticker on story choices to guide you to unlocking your Big Truths after you've unlocked something like 5 endings of any variety (I had unlocked 3 big truths and 2 or 3 side-stories when the tutorial thing popped up saying it was an option in the menu).

Other:
The game isn't awful, it's just not great. It's entirely average feeling, but can be a semi-fun waste of time.
I'll probably stubbornly finish up the achievements I have left to do, the most annoying of which will undoubtedly be doing all the storylines and unlocking all the skills. Grind-city in a mid game is hell.
Also yeah all the characters are furry. I'm indifferent about it.

Rogue-like with almost souls-like combat timing. Enough fun worth the price with multiple endings

Stories: The Path of Destinies is a cool 10-20 hour action/adventure game with multiple endings.

The visuals looks amazing and the music and sound effects really fit the game. The gameplay is simple enough to understand and it can be played using keyboard and mouse, although it might be a bit difficult in the final hours of the game.

The game does eventually become repetitive later on, so I would suggest playing until you're satisfied even if you haven't unlocked everything if you just want to see the final ending.

funny narrations and stories, fluid combat, overall very good eventho it's short

One of my favorite games on the PS4 and I think it will be hard to convey why here but I will try. You play as a wisecracking fox that has a unique ability to rewind time whenever he dies. This is used to great effect to see over 20 endings from branching paths. The combat is an Arkham system with it's own touches here and there as well as a level system to give you new skills. The level traversal is kind of a low point in the game since you will see them so often. I almost wish there was a skip to next combat button once you've cleared a scenario once but each run isn't too long. Roughly 20-30 mins per run and I did enough to get every ending at least once as well as the final ending 5 more times to clean up on skills. I think what makes this game dear to me is the sheer variety in the stories that never lets you guess the end just because some of them are downright weird or funny. Several are sad and the final route is a perfect sendoff. I recently heard that the team had massive layoffs and I wish them the best. Between this and Omensight I feel like they did a great job with what they had and I will remember these games fondly. For what I like in this game I am more than happy to recommend it for the full $15 but I see it on sale from time to time for far less.

One of very few games I keep coming back to every couple years. This is an excellent action adventure game with fun stories to tell.

Can we get a sequel?

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The writing and characters in this game are great and funny, but there's only so many times I can be bothered to play through the game to get alternative endings, especially when dialogue can't be skipped at any point.

I played through it enough times until I stopped having fun. Maybe that's the best way to enjoy this game, but it's sad it has to be that way.

I would still, however, recommend it, even if just for a few runs, because the game is still very fun overall.

I want to like this game I really do, but it gets VERY Repetitive, very quickly. The combat lacks variety, not adding anything new after the first hour and there's only 5 enemy types.