I’ve just purchased the game on steam, played and finished it today.
Overall, I think the story and characters were good. Also the choices felt engaging and immersive as I finished my playthrough in one sitting. The writing was quite good as well; if it weren’t I wouldn’t have sat there reading for 9 hours.
On the other hand, the depictions of warfare, kingdom politics, rebels, and political schemes, medieval hierarchy were severely lacking for the lack of better words. Things that felt completely illogical included(spoilers ahead):
You take in an orphan commoner girl under your wing because her parents died and she is suddenly your royal heir to succeed you. This is not how succession works. I didn’t even have a choice in that. I simply took her in as my ward, I didn’t want to adopt her as my child.
commoner children mock an heir and prince in front of him repeatedly in the open. How does this thing fly? In most countries they would have been severely punished(even killed) for their contempt of royalty; it’s not a matter to be laughed off as done in the game.
You are attacked by dozens of assassins in your hunt as a king and you are guarded by 2 soldiers. Nice. And when you return injured, your soldiers don’t give 2 cents about your injury and demand to know if you succeeded in your hunt because that’s supposed to be a tradition to prove the new king’s worth. Seriously? I should have had an option to take the tongue of that soldier.
Your kingdom knows war is coming because reasons, but they don’t know who the enemy is, while knowing when the war will happen. Again this is not how war works.
Your dad kills an ally nation’s king after inviting him because the ally’s king tried to ally with your vassal. Everyone but the victim’s family is okay with you violating the hospitality customs. It should have been perceived as graver sin. Also that’s not how alliance works. You don’t ‘summon’ ally kings to your capital as you will.
After marrying your brother off, Clara is suddenly your lover. I had a crush on her but she turned into my lover without my input behind the screen.
One big grief I had was the fact that stats usefulness was also questionable since I built my character as a warrior(close combat) and I never fought anyone, not even when fighting off the assassins. I wonder what those stats are for if some of it is not even used once. Why is swordsmanship a separate stat from close combat?
Scout parties constantly get killed in your own territories. Not how skirmishes work…
You seem to only have one vassal in your three kingdoms. Not how feudal system works… I know your ‘allies’ gather at the end, but it’s very vague and your vassal houses are not even present throughout the game except for one. Also if you had multiple kingdoms as allies as depicted in the end, the enemy shouldn’t even have been that much of a threat to you.
And a lot more of these illogical moments that escapes me at the moment.
Nonetheless, the characters were interesting and the story was still engaging despite all these flaws. I was immersed to find out what happens in the end, albeit the end turned out to be very anticlimactic. I also want to praise the volume of the game(even though it is unfished. I feel the conflict with your cousin should have been concluded in this book because it’s built up from the very start) Overall, I enjoyed the experience a little more than I was baffled by some depictions and lack of understandings of medieval society sometimes shown in the writing.
Agreed about Astryn, unless my MC is a literal idiot, I have no idea why he/she would even like her, much less fall in love with her. Especially after the things she had done.
Pretty much straight facts, The only way I see it making sense is if you were roleplaying an MC that doesn’t give a shit about his people and hates his family.
My favourite is also how nobody bothered to send out the skirmishers and raiding parties. When that is how 90% of warfare is done in the medieval era when you raided your enemy to death before the battle even started. And these big battles and sieges were actually quite rare, usually a result of failure to raid the enemy to death.
On the more positive note, I do like how game captures the spirit of “elitism” that permitted medieval society quite well. With how plebs is constantly shown to be unhappy. “Oh you saved children from being beaten? This is concerning.” Or “You have spared a poisoner´s life because they hold a valuable strategic value? This is unacceptable.” It leans into, that knightly chivalric spirit of these paragon nobles who are quite clearly better than your typical peasant.
I agree, wile I do like how Aetheris defend us in that scene, I wish we have the option to tell our mom what happened and have those kids family’s been punished for this.
SoR’s greatest strength is in it’s character writing and application of character dynamics. Given the themes of family, it only makes sense for this to be its strong point!
Some thing I feel can be improved upon in the next book:
More implementations into the mc’s actions that come off as less railroadey like they did toward the end of the game, give the mc (and player) lots of chances and important moments to actually use some of our skills we haven’t utilized in this book as well as our leadership
I think it would be a good idea to not only find some more inspiration from real world medieval (or ancient times societies like the Roman empire and others) governing and war tactics, but also use them to more naturally execute the worldbuilding of Rhivenia, I personally think Rhivenia’s world is quite interesting and hooked me in, but it’s execution in the story was sorely lacking, I believe this is the reason why some players might have been confused by some of the characters endgame actions
This kind of game would DEFINITELY benefit from having a lore section with excerpts and Rhivenia world lore like some interactive fics do that the player can check on throughout the game, this helps to keep players informed without having to worry about how you might have to show it happening in the story when it might not be needed right then and there!
This is just my opinion! I could be wrong so feel free to correct to add on to the suggestions!
This one made me chuckle because it was so awkward in game. I took her in because I wanted Sir Arnold to train her as a soldier. Then suddenly I learn that I’m now a parent She is just a random girl whom we know nothing about. Why would we declare her an heir?
I’m not pleased but I wasn’t totally disapointed either, Book 1 is pretty much just setting the groundwork so a lot can be just shrugged off as a inconvenience at worst so my expectactions were basicaly null barring wanting to make Richard Suffer in the full release, overall it’s meh as a standalone book but decent as book 1 for the trilogy i guess
The biggest problem I have is the Railroading and the skills being useless outside of hunting that affects only one event and that’s it, we can learn the pantagonian language but we can’t use that or show off our fighting skills or be a smartass and try to see events in history to prove your points with knowledge so we feel that the Mc either as weak, incompetent or spineless
Honestly the Romances were meh outside of Lena, Revna, and Daemir which are pretty interesting at least for me, but how are we to like Astryn after she poisons everyone? It’s not a Jun/Ko situation where she is insane or not really right in the head so we can’t 100% blame her, she is totaly sane and fine mentally and she knew what she was doing so she comes off as Unsympathetic even if she wanted to help her friend (Yes she feels remorse but it kinda comes out as “Yo i am sorry for almost killing you dawg so We cool? Great, now we are even”)
Isn’t there a whole plot about The Maresians or whatever wanting to make Richard become king so they can effectively puppet him? Why couldn’t they poison the keep instead? That way it will show that they are very influent and truly mark them as a threath but don’t let us know that so the fault falls on Astryn, that way the same events will happen but Astryn still comes as sympathetic
But like i said before, Book 1 is mostly just setting the groundwork and foundation for the Book 2 and 3 so most of it can just be shrugged off since it’s the “Starter” before the Main course, I think we will have the battles and more about Erwan in Book 2 so we will likely have a bigger variation on who rules the throne with Richard being Idealistic and Naive, Atheris being more Rash and Pragmatic, and The MC as a “Wild Card”
I loved playing this game, it always amazes me how the Rhiverians always hate me. Any decision I make, they come to criticize me, these people have nothing to do, HOW AM I SUPPOSE TO LIVE LAUGH LOVE IN THESE CONDITIONS??
Had the same problem played it as kind? They hate me. Played it as cruel? They hate me. Trying to be neutral? They hate me.
But I love how we can do a slowly going insane King MC (i.e. “I will kill everyone that is against me” in the hunt, “You will regret your words” during the speech) love that
You make a great point about Jun/Ko, but its also a scale issue for me. The worst things that Jun/Ko end up doing are harmful things to the Ronin that they kind of deserve. They also go after two of your allies. But, like you said, Jun/Ko aren’t all there mentally due to traumatic experiences. So even though its not justified, its somewhat understandable and you can possibly sympathize. What Astryn did could literally be considered a full blown terrorist attack. Its a much harder pill for me to swallow.
Wish this would be a choice haha!
Erwan hears rumours and after insane King MC starts to massmurder their own people, he arrives as Rivenias saviour…
But damn the lovely drama of the choosen RO that has to see the person they loved slowly changing (from “I wish my people would love me!” to “They think I am their enemy… well I will show them!”) descending into madness and becoming unrecognizable? Perfect!
Exactly, Jun/Ko is basicaly insane and a walking trauma bomb and it would have been more suprising if they didn’t come out that way
Astryn? Well she basicaly tries to coup a goverment, kill you and your family because she wants her friend to have a throne and she hardly feels remorse until much later, along with being perfectly fine so no brainwashing or trauma that makes her insane
A simple change like making the Maresians poison everyone and blame Astryn or make her feel much more reluctant on her scheme (if you are friends with her) to the point of maybe trying to avoid poisoning your/poisoning herself out of guilt would make her come out as sympathetic but the Book Plot would basicaly go around the same since Astryn would still be the perfect scapegoat
On the topic of scapegoats. I thought It was hilarious as hell that when your thinking of potential suspects, you can blame Queen Isabelle for poisoning the kingdom. It ends up being even more hilarious if Atheris is queen because she just automatically believes you lol
You know Richard was sweating bullets
Overall the game is great - only as usual short because you have to wait for the second part well, but that’s nothing.
only it is true as others say - romance with Astryn is idiocy, and the main character would have to have serious mental problems to get involved with someone like that. if such a thing happened, the closest member in the family should hit him / her hard on the head.
Well, and do they really consider the main character a weak ruler every time? Seriously, I’m doing my best, people.
Also the fact that I don’t know anything about the romanceable characters in general is average. In the sense, Clara is expressionless, Daemir is cold and it’s not clear if he manages to show any feelings at all, Lena, who calls you pathetic in the introduction, Xavier, who may be okay, but his whole character is based on suffering, Revna, who altogether cries for someone and it’s not nice to cut into such a thing. Astryn I’ll skip, I’ve already commented on her.
Just to emphasize that this is my opinion which is quite, well, personal. It may not look like it, but I really enjoyed it, I love games in a medieval setting.
And in general, I found a mistake - Matteo says he is 11 years older than the main character, and I checked in the stats and it’s 21, though.
I don’t know how possible this could be, but perhaps the author could provide updates to the game or something with more options on what to do with Astryn.
There HAS to be a way ruler!mc can fake Astryn’s death to the public and then enact the power of psychological warfare on her in secret to…well not offer…but make her our ally. Regardless of whether or not she wants it!
She is just a random girl whom we know nothing about. Why would we declare her an heir?
played it as kind? They hate me. Played it as cruel? They hate me. Trying to be neutral? They hate me.
well, but that’s nothing.