Imagine having a book that let you cheat your death in the far future. Now imagine you have to read it over and over until you find the one true route that won't lead you to your doom. You probably thinking that it's like time-looping to repeat your actions in sci-fi shows about time travel like Project Almanac or Steins;Gate. 

But this little game I played is far from being sci-fi. In fact, it's set in a fairytale. Yet it takes me to an experience similar to those shows that I loved so much in a very amusing manner that I really enjoyed. 

WARNING! Spoilers ahead.

In short:
It's an action hack-and-slash-and-dash-and-smash-and-mash that button and repeat because that's how the amusing storytelling progress even when you crash, until you found all the 24 endings behind all the mess.

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The Branching Story of a Heroic Non-Hero

The fairytale world of Boreas is led by a generous Emperor, or so everyone thought, who for some reason turned evil. So annoyingly evil that he's going to kill his daughter for blood sacrifice to gain immortality, and tell her not to be upset about it because "everything is okay", like, what the f**k? The empire went crazy for power and has become a mess for the people. This is where the main protagonist, Reynardo, take part in. 

The story revolves around Reynardo, a retired pirate, who got his hands on a mysterious book that apparently could tell the possibilities of one's destiny in the future and allows him to repeatedly foresee which actions will lead him to the happy ending with Zenobia, the Emperor's daughter who has feelings towards Reynardo. 

So meeting your death, or the bad ending(s), is necessary to reveal the unspoken things and figure out which route will lead to the true ending, which is... Reynardo made the Empire destroy themselves, sacrificed the Rebellion (the people defender), and run away with Zenobia leaving Boreas to be a... ruin? Hmm.
Anyway... 

This branching story is the main idea of the game. Each choices you make will lead you to different path that will eventually reveal the 4 truths, about Reynardo's best friend Lapino, his love interest Zenobia, a mysterious stone of power, and an ancient weapon of god, in which all of them have the possibility to take down the Empire. 

You're put in a critical situation where you'll likely think that the sooner the conflict end the better. I followed that intuition and all of them led me to death, which then the book's page will roll back and the player will repeat  the journey by taking different routes, until all 4 truths are told and the true ending route reveal itself. There are 24 endings, but you don't have to complete them all to find the true route. 

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^{September 28th, daylight. The monsters have overtaken the city—ah wait, wrong game.}

The World That Could Have Been Better

The third-person perspective gave me a wide view of Stories: The Path of Destinies' vibrant and 'filled' world of floating islands. This is not an open world game, but looking at all the environments and the background, I'm sure if it was an open world game there would be so little empty space with nothing at all. 

But it's slightly unfortunate that, for a world rich with props and details, it lacks the lore behind nearly everything that would otherwise make the game's world much more interesting. It feels like the game tell you "Let's skip the whole background stuff and just focus on the main story I'm about to tell, alright?". Speaking of which...

Like the previous game I played, this game has a narrator who, amusingly tell everything throughout the game, except this is not a meta-narrative. The list of puns, cultural references, and other games references that he made is longer than this post, but still didn't sound boring everytime he quipped, which he'd do when your character is doing absolutely anything in the game, and it's something I really like about this game. The story is not a groundbreaking work, but the storytelling is unique.

There aren't many things to say about the combat, it's simple in every aspect and doesn't increase far enough. You basically button-mashing your way through everything. Switching between 4 different elemental swords during the fast paced combat, and the dash that Reynardo can keep performing is satisfying. 

There are not so many types of enemies either, but that's not the problem. But, I personally think, for a game that take the player to the beginning for like 24 times, there should have been at least some boss fights to add to the variety. 

There are virtually only 3 main characters including Reynardo, Zenobia, and Lapino who turns out to be a traitor. But the developer put these characters in a very good use, putting them in the major role with some good stories and endings to them. Although the true ending kinda make you question the game.  

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Is it Gud?

The idea of repeating yourself to choose different routes canonically is awesome, and it only gets better to be accompanied by an entertaining narrator. The combat is quite dashing, and the world is interesting. However, the developer left it right there, which is a shame. The lack of supportive elements that would otherwise make the overall game to be more than what it is, such as the depth in combat and levelling system, and the world that could have been more immersive, makes repeating the story feel not so rewarding. Not to mention some of the disappointingly silly endings in favour of quantity over quality. 

As I said before, the story flows similarly to sci-fi time-loop stuff that I loved. But ironically, the game overall didn't end up as one of my best experience. But still enough to make me consider checking out it's successor Omensight and see if it's any better, which I hope has everything that Stories: The Path of Destinies don't, and left behind the glitches and the slightly clunky control. 

Thanks for stopping by, Steemian, and I hope you like what you just read. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a game to check out.

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Image credit: Cover.

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^{DISCLAIMER: All artworks in this post (except for the cited ones) are belongs to me and I don't allow you, your partner, your cassowary, or your waifu to use them without my consent. Think I'm a smug? Fine by me. Happened before. Hate it if it happen again.}