Sovereign Syndicate

A very disappointing game. It is technically Disco Elysium alike but really it can't hold a candle. The plot is weak, the characters shallow, and the maps are dull and largely empty of anything but fluff descriptions. The story is overall poorly implemented - it goes from setting-the-scene to a mad rush of story leaps and then the end. I don't feel like I had much control over the story either - it felt on rails, but I cannot be bothered replaying bits to see if I can change any major outcomes. Sub-plots spring into existence and either gutter out uninterestingly or intertwine clumsily with the main plot. The setting isn't well utilised - if you got rid of the folkloric characters and just used humans it would be more cohesive, and the diesel/steampunk adds little. It all feels pretty clumsy. I'd actually rather just play a detective story in regular Victorian London I think! You play as 4 different characters with nominally overlapping stories... But in practice they barely overlap, but rather sort of all just meet clumsily at the very end. These protagonist characters largely lack compelling motivation and development and are shallow in depth - excepting Clara, to a degree, who was probably the best developed and most interesting of them. I think if the whole story had been about her, and she had been fully fleshed out, it would have been a better game. And Clara is a human, and so should probably be the least interesting given everyone else is some sort special being! I did complete it, but it was close - I pushed through because I was nearish to the end and figured I may as well see how it finished. And that push demonstrated how you can complete the chapters in 5-10 minutes a pop if you stop reading the fluff descriptions! Graphics are fixed isometric and clunky. Areas are empty and often require far too much slow walking to get anywhere (they are tiny, but travelling across them feels slow!). Almost every quest is just filler fluff and doesn't give any real reward. Hmm. Can I say something good - ok... the game had pretty decent descriptive writing and was occasionaly very mildly educational. But yeah, not a recommend.

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.

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

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.

Has some potential but ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ having one good character and mystery would have been better than four half baked characters and an incredibly lackluster mystery. Also, no real consequences to any of your choices or actions, failing or succeeding a check will not change anything

I enjoyed the world building, I enjoyed the Tarot Mechanics, and the Planescape: Torment/Disco Elysium stylings of the game. Top marks for the Otto chapter, honestly wish there had been more time playing the quirky automaton! The Bad: Choices weren't really meaningful, it really was more of a visual novel than anything, and very meandering/not too exciting. It really felt like the introduction for another game. I would love to see more produced in this world but I would like some proper RPG mechanics and decisions that felt meaningful.

Прекрасный образчик текстовых RPG нового поколения, вдохновлённых Disco Elysium. Здесь у нас уникальный паропанковский сеттинг, смешанный с греческой мифологией и разбавленный прочими сказками. Дело происходит в викторианскую эпоху, только вокруг минотавры и циклопы. В наличии три (четыре) героя, все они говорят сами с собой, клеймя Лондон и его обитателей, каждый на свой лад. А в городе творится неладное - из приюта пропали сироты, а неизвестный тип убивает куртизанок. Мы бегаем по нескольким небольшим картам и пытаемся собрать паззл воедино. Отличные диалоги, интересная ролевая система, позволяющая действительно отыгрывать того или иного персонажа, не влияя при этом на саму историю. Шик, блеск, красота. Одобряю и советую. PS Особенно хитро граждане обошли условности получения средств от государства (Канады, которая формально управляется британской короной, поэтому плохо про королевских особ низзя): вокруг творится настоящий -панк, но Королева - положительный персонаж.