The Superlatives: Shattered Worlds

I really liked Aetherfall, but I cannot fathom the point of having the same protagonist from the prequel serve a completely different role in this one. All of a sudden you are thrust into being an 'Arbiter' all the while barring you from being a 'Superlative'. Barely any stats from the previous game carry over, some of which are just straight up gone. Character building out the window. As others have stated before, it's better to play with a new character on this one. Perhaps importing a save file should only import the world state rather than including the superlative protagonist. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Know that you don't get to play superhero on this one like you did in Aetherfall. You're more like a space detective or whatever. I'm leaving this negative because of how poorly an imported character was integrated to the story, but credit where credit is due: this game gives you cats and lets you name them. Thanks game.

Good, not great. Good. Good story, characters, well written bla bla bla. If only this is not a sequel, it would been great. Continuity is depressingly lacking. Very minimal effort put forth to bring our choices from past game to now. I mean, I didn't train new recruits to defeat a legend in order save the world then forgotten about so soon, regardless of peace or not. I HAD a team. Where are they? Only one person looked for me! Past game's achievement or progress alongside character development are very minimal except few core stats. We are put in a different role rail roadedly. We could be playing same story as a Superlative as well. If you can look past this flaw, please go ahead and buy. 6/10 Good game, bad sequel. The [strike] Superlatives[/strike] Arbiter : Shattered [strike] Worlds [/strike] Progression

Enjoyed Aetherfall quite a bit but must say the more I've played Shattered Worlds the more disappointed I've become. After replaying Aetherfall till I was satisfied with how my character turned out it was a huge dissapointment to discover almost nothing you did in Aetherfall seems to carry over or affect Shattered Worlds. I understand if the author wants to write a new story but it really diminishes the satisfaction of a player when nothing you did in the previous book seems to matter. It's as if you start the game on a completely blank slate. I was Head of the Society, managed to keep my recruits together, optimize my stats, etc. but now all the stats start blank and you can't call upon anything from the previous instalment to assist you. The narrative of this book also seems to be quite weak. Plot threads jump at you here and there, and the whole time it seems as if the protagonist is the only person in the universe, and so tasked with solving every problem, from the largest to the smallest, by himself. It's just strange that you're forced to deal with huge political matters by yourself and entire organisations solely rely on you to succeed. Sorely disappointed.

Ok, I have now played through four times. I can recommend this now. As my preliminary review stated it's better to start a new character for this one than import your character from Aetherfall. In Aetherfall you are a superhero. In Shattered Worlds you play a character called The Arbiter, which is a fancy name for a James Bond style secret agent whose mission is to prevent trouble at a peace conference between Earth, Mars, and Venus. It's still set in the cool Victorian-Age/Steampunk universe as Aetherfall, but superheroes and spy fiction are two very different genres and starting with a dedicated spy gives you better starting stats to handle what you will run into. This is one of those games that you will have to re-start from the beginning multiple times to figure out the correct path. Once you do, you will be rewarded with a pretty good game. If this sounds cool to you, then buy this. But I want people to know what they're getting before they spend their hard earned cash.

While I did enjoy this book, I dont feel it is quiet up to the same level of excellence as the first. The story starts off pretty railroaded, and the choices offered revolve alot more along the lines of what you think of others, who you want to side with, than who you are as a person and how you want to go about doing things. The scope of the story is on a lot larger scale, and while that does make some decisions take on a more epic feeling, it also takes away a bit from building personal relationships and attachments. You do get a chance to bond with a character of your choice (romanticaly or just friends) but everyone else just gets moved over to the side to make room for all the action going on. Mind you each of the characters available has their own story line with you, so you can get to know them all on seperate play throughs but still itt doesnt give you that part of a group feeling you get in the first book. Speaking of which 1 or 2 of the characters from the first book show up for a few short moments through the beginning of the book, and the rest (who stayed with you through the end of the first book) do get a cameo moment towards the very end. I honestly liked all of the characters from the first book and I wish I could have had move time with them in this one. All in all this is a good read, and the world setting the author created is really interesting. Just keep in mind that this book is moving to a slighlty different rhythm than the first one.

At first I disliked this game because, aside from the setting, it has nothing at all to do with its predecessor (The Superlatives: Aetherfall). In fact, it's its complete opposite: There you lead a team, here you're a lone agent. There you used your super-powers, here you have none. There it was a regular super-villain story, here it's all about political machination. However, as the game progressed, I liked it more and more for what it was. While I still feel that Shattered Worlds only suffer from being connected to Aetherfall, I enjoyed the deep political angle and the ability to explore the alien cultures deeper.

Enjoyable. I have not played the game that preceded this one, but it must be a masterpiece given that others have criticized this work based on how much more they liked the first story by the author.