Sovereign Syndicate

The most entertaining thing about this game are the Oscar Wilde quotes. - The story is decent, but it drags. - The gimmick of switching between 3 characters becomes tiresome quickly. - The UI is aggravating. You have no control over the camera, and spend the entire game focused on the top of your characters head. - I could go on, but this game took enough of my time already. I recommend you play "The Necromancer's Tale" instead if you like this genre. It is much better implemented and the developer is actively supporting it.

I wanted to like this game very badly but just couldn't. First of all, as you might already know, there is not much to do in game beside reading. Writing isn't bad per se, I would even go ahead and say it's decent but it kinda lacks variability (at least for a game that Sovereign Syndicate tries to be). Dialogues may have varied outcomes dependent on your choices and build but there are too few of those. And some other boxes of texts (namely those you get when clicking on items while exploring the city) serve no purpose whatsoever (maybe beside keeping your eyes busy) - they don't lead up to interesting interactions, don't really add to lore and atmosphere of the game, they just... exist. Graphics and artwork is average at best, same for music. Also, game presents you with almost vanilla-silent-hill-style horrendous camera angles. Shame, really, plenty of interesting ideas in this one.

It's a linear click, and read game with a story that fails to grab my attention. I may give it another go, but the three characters are far from what I'd describe as interesting protagonists, and it jumps between the three randos too afraid to commit to any one story.

[h1]Sovereign Syndicate[/h1] My God, does this story go anywhere? Ever? Sovereign Syndicate (SS) is a visual novel more than a game. I can't call it a RPG because I don't feel I have a lot of player agency and the choices made don't seem to have any impact on the story. It's taken a page out of the Disco Elysium book but doesn't have nearly the same writing, choice /consequence, mechanics, voice acting, player agency and or story that Disco Elysium has. This is a game that just treads water for hours at a time but can't swim. SS is a story told through the eyes of 3 protagonists across multiple chapters (18 of them). The 3 protagonists - Atticus Daley (a minotaur magician), Clara Reed (human prostitute), and Teddy Redgrave (dwarf inventor/bounty hunter) - are located in a Victorian Steampunk London and there's a bit of a murder mystery. It's an interesting setting and the graphics are suitable but dated, on par with visuals from about 10-15 years ago. They're washed-out, a bit fuzzy around the edges and without much finer detail that would help build this world. A game like Eriksholm, which shares a similar camera perspective, has far crisper graphics and far more detail. The graphics here don't really cut it for a game made in 2024. It doesn't help that the maps are quite small and so exploration is limited. The awful camera doesn't do the game any favors either, with some locations a virtual top-down view of this world that can't be edited. This game would have been far better at choosing just one camera angle and building around that versus the camera angle shifting slighting in different locations to the detriment of the game and the player. Each of our 3 heroes has their own personal stories that should ultimately combine across one larger mystery. Each chapters switches the protagonist as they trapse back and forth across the same handful of small maps to further their own personal tale. This doesn't work nearly as well as it sounds. Each Chapter is perhaps 30 minutes long and the constant switching means it's more difficult to follow the thread of any one protagonist. By the time you get back to their story an hour later, it's more difficult to remember exactly what they're doing or the nuances of their personality. It feels disjointed and awkward. The writing is decent enough and authentic to the game but it's nothing amazing. Unfortunately, there's no voice acting and the music is repetitive and dull. The real issue so far is that the story doesn't go anywhere. 50% of owners have completed Chapter 1. Barely half of those made it through Chapter 2. A paltry 15% have made it to Chapter 5. So fewer than 1/3rd of the players who played the game enough to get through Chapter 1 stuck with it for very long. It's because the story isn't engaging. It just doesn't move fast enough or draw the player in. The game takes so long to set up the 3 protagonists and their little situations that by the time the game gets moving in Chapter 7 only about 25% of those players who made it through Chapter 1 have stuck with it. That's an awful retention rate. Ultimately the big plot device is a murder mystery but players have little agency on how this plays out. There's a lot of talking while 3 different characters are trying to unravel the same mystery. To try to create some distinction between the 3, there are a number of pad quests but they're entirely unimportant. The Disco Elysium portion of the game is their internal dialog using traits. But these feel like they have almost no real impact. I've played out dialogs using one trait over another and there really isn't any difference. Furthermore, the traits level if you're successful using them. That sounds great but with one character (the dwarf) I had a massive run of failures to start - just bad dice rolls. But now the traits are under-leveled and therefore virtually every single roll is a failure for that character. But fundamentally that doesn't even feel like it matters. I can't stress this enough - this game feels like there's really no choice or consequence. If you don't own it and want to experience the story, I don't see why you couldn't just watch this on YouTube and get the same exact experience that I'm getting. Nothing I do seems to really matter and if there's no player agency then what's this game trying to be? I will probably continue playing out the story because I'm halfway through already. But I can't recommend the game. The characters aren't that compelling. The story isn't that compelling. This would have been a far better story if it had been told via just one of those 3 characters in the same universe. If you want an experience where multiple viewpoints come together as a cohesive whole, then go play Detroit Become Human. That's a masterclass on how to do it. This version doesn't go anywhere for half the game and then rushes towards an incomplete and unsatisfying conclusion. Sovereign Syndicate isn't a bad game, just a fairly dull and ham-handed effort. There's nothing really wrong with it but there's nothing really compelling either. If Steam gave me a neutral option, I'd pick it. But the ultimate question is whether or not to recommend a product and with so many good story-rich games out there, I just can't recommend this one as being worth your time or money.

Я очень разочарован. В игре нет игры, главный вопрос, который не отпускает: что я здесь делаю? Если в первой главе еще есть какая-то двидущая сила, пусть и невнятная, то во уже во второй с самого начала персонаж занимается тем, что знакомится с каждым бомдом и всем предлагает свою помощь. Покормить собаку. Покормить кошку. Помочь мальчику вырасти. Помочь рыбаку найти любовь. Зачем это все? Кто эти люди, почему мне не должно быть наплевать? Диалоги скучнейшие, в них нет изюминки, огромные горы текста уходят на незначащие обмены любезностями. Я очень ждал возможности поиграть и правда очень старался вникнуть в сюжет, но сюжета-то и нет. С величайшим сожалением бросаю это поделие, потраченных времени и денег жаль.

This is a high-quality detective game, and the investigation is conducted not only by the characters but also by the player, since only the player can piece together the clues from their three different stories told from three different perspectives, to figure things out before the game reveals them (or doesn’t reveal them at all). The main characters are very vivid, distinctive, and are a stark contrast to each other, which is why Syndicate also works really well as a role-playing game, since you’re not playing your typical "zero to hero" character you've created yourself, but as characters who already have their own backstories, priorities, and beliefs set for you, and you can influence their development to a certain extent. All of this blends perfectly with an interesting and unusual steampunk setting featuring elements of fantasy, along with well-written text: dialogues with other characters, commentary of the main characters’ personality aspects, and flavorful descriptions. All in all, the game is amazing - it’s as close to reading a good book as it gets.

Sovereign Syndicate is a very different kind of experience to what I expected, and it is certainly not for everyone. It is more like an isometric walking-simulator than anything, with you exploring an alternate London shaped by steampunk, multiple mythological species and the occassional bit of magic. I think the cutoff point for most will come down to how much reading you can tolerate, for there is a lot here. If you can deal with that, and you like adventures and alternate history, or just fantasy set in a more technologically advanced world that you normally see, then I'd recommend this. The world, and the story, are great fun to explore

It was a good game; it kept me hooked right up until the end. That said, it’s more of a visual novel—the “CRPG” label is pretty unnecessary. 9/10 More deep games: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45665580-Dark-Surreal-Ps1Grafics-Weird-Deep-Games/

A fun point and click adventure. There is no combat, it is all skill checks. Instead of dice it is your base stat + the number on the tarot card you draw. The devs did a great job making each of the characters not only feel unique, but make their interactions with the same NPCs feel different. For achievement hunters, not all of the achievements are straight forward (like the ones you get for beating each chapter). The game is not currently voice acted (except a singing scene), though the devs have said in the discussions here on steam that they plan to add VA to the game.