Tyrant's Lair

Hello people!
Welcome to another review, and this time it's the turn of... "Tyrant's Lair", a 2014 game made by Loowiz, author of "Quondam Warriors" a game that I reviewed last year. That was a classic fantasy rpg adventure game with a party of characters that weren't the classic strangers that met to fight a great evil, but rather some friends that were separated for a long time! Nice idea!

"Tyrant's Lair" is an earlier game of the same developer that, as I will explain later, shows some limitations and issues that were corrected in "Quondam Warriors". BUT if you read the description on the main page, the presence of some problems was already stated by the developer!
The game stars Maximilian, the so called pompous blonde hero wannabe that wants to put an end to the darkness and evil influences that are corrupting the lands and kill the Dark Lord. Ok, so far this is nothing new, but expect to travel through weird land where sailors crowd a little inn, suspicious guys sends you to do some errands, and... some glitches. Many characters in fact suddenly change charset when you interact with them... sometimes this make sense, other times not at all!


The game has few diversions, and the nicest one is playing hide-and-seek with this girl!

But the greatest problem of the game is... GRINDING! Unfortunately, unlikely in Quondam Warriors here Maximilian is all alone. OR I wasn't able to find a companion, even if I noticed some equipments that are probably made for *someone else*. And this makes adventuring a chore since the only way to win is getting stronger, fighting and fighting, using the healing spots to recover. At least you can save anywhere and anytime, and escaping from battles isn't difficult! But the problem is that bosses are tough and they won't let you run away, so save often!

Battles are random encounters (except for bosses that are obligatory battles, but still invisible!), and enemies will get stronger and tougher as you progress, but if you expect that levelling up will let you learn some skills, it's a no! Skills or abilities are learned when consuming some special items that are sometimes randomly found as loot. For example I got the "Hit Hard" attack (a stronger attack that requires some TP) from one of them.

That's not to say that there are no interesting parts: I like the sidequest in which you have to look for a catgirl that plays hide-and-seek inside a city, the cookies that give powers, I liked that boss battle against Death... an opponent that has a very lousy accuracy but it's a one-hit-kill! And there is also some humor and some weird situations and I liked, there is a sense of parody, like in the looooong linear path towards the evil bad guy!

Mapping is... uhm I do not if parodistic or simply amateurish. There are places where for some reason you cannot enter, parts that you cannot explore (for example the innkeeper tells you to visit the hut in the first town but hey, I found no way to enter!). Other maps are instead pretty good, like the interior of the castle, while dungeons are never too interesting, but considering this was a first game... it's not too bad. Still I do not understand some choices, like the items that for some reason only increase Strength/attack, not the other characteristics, and this is even for the armor pieces (the accessories instead have various effects, some improves speed or attack or other characteristics). Weird is the leitmotiv here!


Zombie? That's A LOT of zombies actually. YES, I'm all alone, and NO, I cannot run away!

Final Verdict
"Tyrant's Lair" is a bizarre RTP game that seems a parody of the classic fantasy game (I still do not understand if some issues and glitches are intentional, anyway it actually HAS some fun parts!), unfortunately grinding became so unbearable at a certain point, because enemies were tough and I needed to fight SO MANY BATTLES that I got bored. Maybe someday I'll finish it. MAYBE! And maybe you will like this game more than me, who knows? Try it, while I'm going to replay "Quondam Warriors"!