Sovereign Syndicate Reviews

its an OK game if you buy it on sale.

A great story, managed to do most things, enough that I'm satisfied with my time. Failed one side quest due to unfortunate wording. One complaint I'd have against it is the chapter system making it so that, while you generally have the same maps to go around, you basically have to go through the same places over and over again because you never know what places have changed for that specific chapter. A lot of the times I expected a character to have a new quest for me that I could miss by not talking to them at a specific day, though I am mixed to report was not the case. Meant I spent a lot of time running around checking every NPC but getting default dialogue as well. There's also no retrying checks like in Disco Elysium, if you fail that is it, though the consequences aren't usually that bad and half the time you still get what you want anyway, just maybe with a slight penalty. I'll also say of the three stories you go through, one of them ended weaker than the other two when all converged, which was a little disappointing, though that might be partially due to some decisions I made. All in all, an enjoyable Disco Elysium inspired game that does its own thing.

Interesting RPG, for a game without any combat. It all focuses on dialogues, and they are well-written ! The steampunk London settings are very nicely done. Art is great. Characters are very memorable. Story is great, although the ending felt a bit underwhelming (but maybe I didn't manage to get all options to unlock resolution for all quests). Overall a good game for 16h gameplay!

I do not regret the time, nor the money I've spent on this game, and I have much faith in the next games from this developer, but this one came out quite rough and unpolished; It could use a Final Cut. I would not recommend anyone not ravenous for a cRPG to play this. While the story and the world are captivating enough, the gameplay was quite dissapointingly dull at some points. The game has an open world, but does not utilize it beyond the introductory chapters to the characters -- there is most often no point to ever revisit plot-irrelevant locations that have no quests pointing to them, you will likely not even hear a different "goodbye". Yet there are sometimes minor things to pick up or look at, which makes you run in circles in a mostly barren city with nothing to repel the growing boredom. And you WANT to check everything you can, as this is a detective game -- evidence can be anywhere. The writing also felt like trolling sometimes, especially near the end. Another huge gripe of mine is the optimization of the game. The long loading screens even withing the same building were often distracting and most of all annoying. The framerate was also largely unstable and I've had issues with the game's graphics -- such as flickering textures, and my hardware is well within the recommended options. Overall, the game is a not-so-short, interesting adventure in a unique world, and while it may be rough around the edges, especially on the technical stuff, it is quite forgivable, when you consider, that this entire game was made by a small studio as their first project. Which is why I do not regret spending my money and time on it, but due to the issues I've mentioned above, also cannot recommend this game to most. If those issues are ever addressed, I will gladly change my review to a positive one.