Stories: The Path of Destinies

Stories is a game that has a lot of heart. Sure, there are plenty of things in this game that I have seen before in some form or fashion, but it never stopped me from having a fantastic time with it.

Solid action-RPG gameplay is elevated by the meta-puzzle that is the game’s branching storylines. The entertaining trial and error of trying to find the one “good” ending channels Choose Your Own Adventure books, and lends itself to a story that you’ll love playing again and again.

Technical issues aside, Stories: The Path of Destinies is a fantastic outing for Spearhead Games. Whether it’s the exciting combat, beautiful visuals, or branching narrative, there is plenty of value to be had in this low-priced title. It has fun betraying the player’s expectations, and that’s the biggest compliment I can give this gem of a game.

It’s like taking part in an anthropomorphic fairytale version of Groundhog Day. Reynaldo is an instantly lovable hero, but the true strength of the game lies in the amazingly witty work of the ever-prevalent narrator. The narration is of such a high quality that even manages to overshadow –for a while- the issues of level repeatability and its utterly simplistic gameplay.

With a cheeky narrator that doesn’t know when to be quiet, different stories that are told in brief, bite-sized chunks, and a fun and fluid combat system, Stories: The Path of Destinies is worth checking out even if its clearly lacking the amount of polish other games of this nature have.

It’s like that easy beach reading book that you enjoyed for a few hours on holiday, and then put back on the shelf never to read again.

No wonder the game leans so heavily on pop-culture references, as they help to distract from the relative emptiness of the game itself.

This is clearly a story based game with many different endings and I really enjoyed it. Played it multiple times actually, you’re a fox who has a book to go to the future multiple times to stop a war going bad. There’s a combat, a bit of betrayal, love in between it’s a good game if you want a good story and a lot of things to achieve. The only problem I’ve had was there weren’t enough for example not a lot of enemies in the combat scenarios.

This is a nice little indie game that is probably worth buying on sales if you like this kind of game. Good stuff first, the gameplay is all right, not great but not bad either. An action game from an isometric perspective with a decent selection of movements/magic that doesn’t require you having super reflexes. Gameplay wise it feels a bit like a beat’em up. The platforming side is kind of poor with you having to jump around only a bit. The exploring side is all right, maps are not particularly complex and they feel a bit corridor-like, but I insist, it’s not too bad, it is all right. Graphically speaking is good, not great but graphics are full of colour with an interesting art style, they might not be impressive in a good way but neither in a bad way. Same with sound and music, with the exception of voice acting, which I thought it was superb. Now finally, the main positive point is the story itself, I must say I found it surprisingly good. It is quite a serious/darkish story with quite a bit of nice humour on it, this might be surprising considering the animal look of the characters. Then, there are 24 different endings, yes 24. That is a lot and, sure, some of them feel quite similar but most of them feel quite different and surprising sometimes. I quite like the fact that having so many different endings, well written and connected via the main plot, gives the game a very cool “butterfly effect” feeling. The problem with so many endings is the fact that you have to complete the game a lot of times to get them all and it feels quite repetitive (in a bad way). And this is the only real negative point of the game, although quite a significant one I must say. Unfortunately, once you get 7-10 endings, you start to feel the game is getting really repetitive in a bad way. The problem comes from the number of different stages, so to get an ending you have to complete like 5 stages (around that, I not sure of the exact numbers) and maybe there are like 8 different stages. So, as you can imagine, when you complete the game 20+ times, that means you’ve played the same levels probably a good 15+ times and it is a bit tedious. I personally think it is a shame, because if instead of 8 stages the game had I don’t know 20-25 (even if it is re-using the same decoration but different map), the game would have been superb, but it can get a bit boring after unlocking a few endings. Summarizing, decent game gameplay wise, superb in story but it gets badly repetitive if you want to get all the endings. Still, I think there is a lot to enjoy in this game and it is well worth a small investment if you like this kind of game.

Stories: The Path of Destinies is an action RPG with a "Choose Your Adventure" twist. You play as a fox warrior named Reynardo who delves into a magic book, and you can make major choices which influence the story and determine the places you can reach each time in the dungeons. Every time you complete a playthrough (which will last 60-90 minutes max), the book's pages go back to the beginning and then you can start a new adventure and make other choices, to see different outcomes. The branching story isn't anything great, but gets the job done. Kudos to the trolling narrator with his 4th wall breaking jokes and real world references, though. Gameplay is pretty simple, you navigate dungeons in top down fashion and hack n' slash enemies, open chests, collect items, craft swords, collect XP and upgrade your stats. Unfortunately, there are no boss fights at all (at least during my time with the game, and I have done 5 playthroughs so far) and you have to fight a small variety of minions all the time. The fighting system is very fluid and responsive, it reminds me of the Batman Arkham series. But enemy and dungeon variation is too limited for enduring 25 playthroughs (each for one of its multiple endings, one of which is the "true" end), so a sense of repetition starts kicking in after a few playthroughs. However, every time you complete a playthrough, difficulty is raised automatically, with enemies gaining HP and becoming more aggressive. The game starts super easy on your first time and then gradually builds up quite a challenge, so it's not so boring after all. Graphics are nice artistically, but they are not the game's strong point in technical terms, that's why the camera is set in top down mode, instead of being player controllable in 3rd person. Low polygon counts, shadow pop in, fluctuating frame rate, even stutter while traversing the environment, but the arena-style fights are 100% issue-free. In the sound department, there is only the narrator who voices other characters in a "read me a fable" fashion, and sound fx are decent enough. For me, Stories: The Path of Destinies is a positive surprise. I just wish the developers had more time and money to craft a better game than what they actually made. For its price it's a good value. Give it a chance and you may like it.

A good top down hack and slash game. Very basic combat, but the troll narrator is a plus, the branching story lines are kind of cool, but the grind fighting the same monsters with very basic hack and slash and same areas become a bit tedious half way through the game. This type of game is great if you have time to kill, surprised this never made it to handheld. Pros: Semi- addictive, played to see how each story would end, troll narrator. Cons: Repetitive area and enemies, trial and error story line. The so-so: basic gameplay and loot/ rpg elements.

While the style is quite nice the game itself lacks any sort of originality or flavour. I feel that the gimmick of having multiple endings kinda takes away anything interesting in gameplay. Sad really.