Game Review – Stories, Path of Destinies

Stories, Path of Destinies is a delightful indie aRPG from Spearhead Games with a choose-your-own-adventure narrative structure that came out in 2016. I went to go pick up Spearhead’s newest game, Omensight, when I noticed that Stories was on sale for the hard to pass up price of completely free so I thought I’d give that a shot first.

I was very pleasantly surprised. I had not played any of Spearhead’s games before, and I was impressed by Stories on every level.

Plot

The storytelling in the game is really well executed. The dialog is light, memorable and even funny. The voice acting is top-notch and really adds to the immersion. Most of all, the conceit of the choose-your-own-adventure really works here. The story is literally told as a choose your own adventure novel — the narrator reads through the novel until he comes to a decision moment, and then you choose what route to take ~4 times per playthrough, each time unlocking more bits and pieces of the plot, enabling you to unlock new decisions on subsequent playthroughs, or make better-informed decisions about your choices.

The story, in terms of one playthrough, is relatively short — each playthrough takes about an hour, and a ‘full’ playthrough where you unlock enough secrets to get the good ending, takes about five playthroughs. A few reviewers on Steam felt that replaying through the same dungeons multiple times was tedious, but I didn’t feel that way at all. You don’t really play through each dungeon that many times. Since you’re playing through five times and making different decisions each time, you only replay the same areas about two or maybe three times at most, except the final act, where the branching stories always converge. Not only that, playing through the same dungeons a few times actually felt pretty rewarding given that as you continue through subsequent playthroughs, you have more and more swords which also act as keys, allowing you to reach areas in each dungeon that were previously inaccessible.

These secret rooms in each dungeon not only have significant rewards, but also often have notes that add extra layers of dimension to the plot. The whole thing reminded me of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, which had a similar conceit — you replay through the (short) game multiple times, but each time you do so, you get access to new scenes and plot details that shed light on some of the mysteries the first playthrough doesn’t explain.

Gameplay

The gameplay was very nice. I really enjoyed the level design of the dungeons, which combines the aRPG stylings of Diablo with some tropes of the Zelda series, like obstacles, switches and hookshot sequences.

The battle system was very fluid and somewhat reminiscent of the Assassin’s Creed series, but much faster paced and more satisfying. It’s as you’d expect from a Diablo style game — you click on enemies to attack — but the enemy archetypes require some more strategy and quick thinking. Once again, I think some influence from the Zelda series came through here. For example, enemies attack and do quite a bit of damage; you have to make sure to counter them or dodge, or you won’t be getting very far. Some enemies explode on hit, some enemies channel high-damage spells on you that you have to dodge or interrupt, some enemies have shields that you have to disarm them of in order to do damage.

All in all, the fighting system was a pleasure. My only two complaints about it are minor. One is that there were no true bosses in the game, not the friends who are villains in some branches, not even the main villain who’s built up as the big bad for the entire game. The second is that I thought it was annoying that movement and attacking use different mouse buttons as opposed to the ‘click the ground makes you move, clicking an enemy or object makes you attack’ controls Diablo uses, which I prefer.

Art

The art was, simply put, really great. The choose your own adventure part of the story is told largely through motion comics which were, in the simplest terms possible, very charming. The 3D is quite well done, also — character models are designed with a cel-shaded look and are somewhat reminiscent of the graphical style for Windwaker.

I think the thing that blew me away most in terms of the graphics was the environments themselves, which are simply beautiful. Not only are they beautiful, they really do justice to the ‘theme park’ philosophy of level design. Platforms and long staircases often serve as a visual treat.

If I had to think of a complaint about the art, gun to my head, I would say that it felt like there was a little bit of a disconnect between the storybook art for the characters and their 3d models — mostly that character models were all way taller than I expected them to be.

Upgrade System

The upgrade systems were nice as well. Essentially, there are three different upgrade systems, all perfectly scaled to the overall scope of the game. You have a WoW style skill tree, which unlocks new combos, uses for your hookshot, etc. Then, you have a weapon upgrade system, which basically takes the items you collect during the game and allows you to upgrade your weapons with them, similar to something like Devil May Cry. Simple, but satisfying and effective. Finally, you have a gem system, similar to Diablo, where you can equip 3 out of about 8-10 gems you find over the course of the game to augment your combat abilities by increasing attack speed, critical hit chance, allowing your sword hits to knock away shields, etc.

I know they expended some well-utilized effort on balancing these systems for the scope of the game, because when I had unlocked the good ending, I had unlocked just enough skills to feel like I was ‘high level’, but had enough remaining that if I chose to play through a few more times just to see what happens with different story choices, I would still be getting a little bit stronger.

Concluding Thoughts

There are definitely some similarities to Bastion in terms of the art style, the reactive narration and some of the gameplay, but Stories is definitely its own game and delivers a unique and satisfying storytelling experience.

I would strongly recommend checking this game out and, also, giving a look to Spearhead’s new game which just released, Omensight.