Empyrean

To be frank I'm surprised this game doesn't have more love. It deserves it. But then I'm also a person who didn't have any problems with stats whatsoever, like game specifically tells you what it's going to test and it also tells you that your piloting skills and your fighting skills aren't the same so why would there be any confusion I can't say. And I have been playing it before the changes.
On the other hand the game has a very rare diselpunk setting, the best writing on COG games I've ever seen, lovable characters, a lot of replayability, and I find myself coming back to it again and again. Can't recommend enough, 11/10, like seriously.

I really wanted to love this game. The setting, the characters, I wanted it to be great, and it was at first. Then came the choices. The stats are too overly complicated to relate to the choices given to you and it's hard to figure out exactly what each choice will come out to be. Not that I'm against being surprised, but when you're trying to decide if a game changing choice is going to use your "reflex" or "finesse" skill then it becomes too stressful for this genre of game.

The writing, oh god, the writing. It was superb, easy to follow the narrative, and it was really immersive. Until about half way through the game. The author wanted to make the plot more complex and add new characters and mechanics, but ultimately it ended up being a quagmire of different words that felt important, but was hard to relate to other parts of the story. This includes the characters too. Each character felt unique and special in their own way, but when you got into the nitty gritty of the story in the later chapters, they lost their luster and unless you were focusing on one or two specific characters, you simply could not keep track of them and many were left in the background as you went through your branch of the story.

Long story short, pick this up if it's on sale, otherwise, go play Choice of Robots. Choice of the Deathless is even easier to follow than this one, and Deathless is just one huge time jumping flashback.

The stat system in this one is terrible.

I was recommended to play this game and I have to say this is among the best of text-based genre. The story is breathtaking and engaging with satisfying romance. The saga is wonderous and believable enhanced by brilliant writing.

Although there are several flaws that are hard to ignore (spoiler alert).

One is the main villain. He's just so stereotyped like other villains in superhero movies. Since he is your father, I had expected more interactions with him and more depth to his character, like turning him around by high persuasion skill or appealing to his fatherly love for you, but no, he's just a stereotyped ambitious short-sighted villain. It was a huge disappointment to me.
Second is I felt that some characters are just inserted into the story to "add flavors" to romance arcs, but they are just so unlikable with no redeeming qualities, like a rich man's son who literally shoots you then tries to steal your aero and the manipulative female fatale who sabotages and murders to overtake your nation. Even though they did spice up the story quite a bit, I can't help but feel they should be replaced with more interesting and less stereotyped characters.

A good game that provides a surprisingly in-depth approach to politics, not just forcing you to ally with the "heroic" revolutionaries but also allowing you to work through the systems put in place by the combines to achieve your goals. Despite this, it is difficult to feel completely in control because options are not clearly explained. For example, skillful fencing requires you to have high reaction and vigor, whereas shooting requires high vigor and sensitivity/nerve. However, these subtleties are never actually explained in the game itself.
As a result, you will often end up blindly guessing which combinations of stats you need for each choice unless you choose to read the game's script, which is a shame, because this is one of the few COG games which allow you to make meaningful political choices.

Just Finished! Wow! I loved it. Great, immersive writing style, unique characters. Will definitely be looking for new games from this author.

Good game, solid story.

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.

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.

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

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.

Really enjoy the game :3 I've only done one playthrough and I definitely plan to do more in a attempt to get all the achivements, another good edition to Choice of Games, I would highly reccommend this. Of course many might not like it for the whole text-based adventure and no graphics but I disagree, these are games that I can jump into quickly, have a fun time and not need to wait for things to load.

10/10

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.

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

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!