Niche Plays: Stories: Path of Destinies

OK this was one of December's PS Plus games, did you grab it? I have to admit I wrote it off as another generic sidescroller with animal characters, but wait, after finishing Final Fantasy XV I found I had a bit of time to spare on another game. I'd heard it was another game where your choices affect the story and I'm a sucker for those, so I gave it a go.

Turns out I was completely wrong about this game, it's not a platformer, those aren't cutesy animals and this is far from generic.

Easiest way to explain this is it's a mix of Zelda, Diablo, the Batman Arkham games, classic Choose Your Own Adventure novels and a touch of Brian Jacques "Redwall" novels,  with a smart art style and a sense of humour to rival Tim Schafer/DoubleFine... it also reminds me of Terry Pratchett or Spike Milligan in places and some story elements have been described as Lovecraftian! The fact that I just compared a game called "Stories" about a magical book to several actual literary works just adds to the                                                                                             charm of this game.

The writing team have also taken inspiration from a whole range of geeky sources, from Star Wars to Marvel, and so much more. You can see this passion for pop culture in the titles of most the game's trophies, numerous one-liners and even a strangely familiar church in one of the first chapters.







I took my first playthrough pretty slow but once you reach the end you get a sense of the many paths through the game... so begins the addictive quest for the True Ending! Each run through is only 5 chapters so shouldn't take more than an hour or two but you have a chance of discovering new information that affects your choices and even if you revisit old areas you might see new paths or new enemies, particularly as you can upgrade your sword to open various elemental doors. You can also learn new skills to help keep the combat fresh, with a new tier only unlocking once you discover a "truth" of the story.

When I started writing I still had a way to go to unlock the true/good ending but I puzzled together the right combination of choices... although there's around 20 alternative paths I could have ended up on.

Thanks to a bug I did get stuck in the landscape once but it wasn't too frustrating to restart that section. I could see the combat and repeated maps getting old if this was a bigger game but it does enough to keep you hooked long enough to get to the end and there's always the question of "what if...?" to answer if you want to unlock every path. These are pretty minor niggles and Stories is still a fantastic game from a small developer (Spearhead Games), I have to wonder what a game with this creativity and charm would be like with a blockbuster budget and hundreds of people working on it.

Another hidden gem of the PS Plus subscription (and also available on Steam). I recommend you try it out and see if it wins you over like it did me!