Well, here's my take on the game (been months since I last played it, so my memories might be incorrect).


Sryth is one of these games that makes you wonder why doesn't it get more attention. I mean I was kinda astonished at how much the developer spent crafting the lore and visualizing each situation in the game (and we're talking about tens of thousands of pages for, and I think 10% of them are free I think).

And despite the huge amount of content, the developer actually manages add unique flavors to almost all of them, as opposed to some games who just have big repetitive content just to extend play time.


Now that I'm done providing all these positive points, I'll start with the negative ones:

My problem with sryth is not the story but it's with the gameplay itself.
Let's begin with the character creation, right from the start you see stats and different attributes and wonder what do these all do, luckily the game has a built-in guide explaining things, and then you assume that you understood and continue creation with character's skills and powers, all wondering broad options they all give you.

And after finishing the intro and reaching the first town and exploring here and there, you find a shady merchant (shady merchants are always the best sellers in EVERY RPG :D ) who sells you a sword for a cheap 100 G, which upon inspecting it provides a whopping 15+ to melee rating compared to your measly 1+ current starting weapon....but you can only buy it if you're subscribed.

Already at this point I can sense the power gap between free users (if I remember that have a limited time until it free accounts disable) and paid users (only 5$) is IMMENSE (I didn't play much of the game, but I still haven't found a weapon that is half as powerful as this sword). I mean when your game has free players who struggles lifting rocks and paid players who lift boulders with ease, then you should consider removing free options and makes it priced already just to avoid newbies having to suffer something paid newbies aren't aware of its existence.

And about the combat, on the simplest forms (ignoring the weapon material and special effects from said weapons, as well as enemy's abilities, and a lot of stuff) it consists: Melee rating, HP, NV, Melee difficulty (goes from 3-18) and finally attack modes.
Let's talk about Melee rating and Melee difficulty, as you can guess the higher your melee rating the lower the difficulty so that you can roll a D20 and sigh as rolled 6 while the difficulty is 5.

I didn't really question the combat until I used my telekinesis blast (keep in mind I'm the type hoards xp up to a threshold then spend a little, so my telekinesis was like 8 at that time) which dealt a modest 0 DMG....an absolute zero....I was like "What the hell? is something wrong?" and I went and searched the net and found apparently my power LV is too low (also found out telekinesis is least useful in combat but has many interaction with story), so despite me choosing that power at creation, it wouldn't benefit my in game UNLESS I spend lots of xp to it to actually deal damage and MORE xp to deal the same damage as my melee.

So next came my telekinesis thrust which increases my melee rating based on my power LV which also determines its duration, I got necromany later on but I was disappointed to find that Wraith touch is an improved telekinesis blast, and that summon undead DOES the same as telekinesis thrust but better, the only downside is that wraith touch doesn't stun, and telekinesis power can be used in non-lethal combat.

Now let's switch to my experience with random encounters, because for some reason, I managed to find encounters that cause melee difficulty to be 3 and 12+ on the same session and the same area, and that's assuming the game did not add additional enemies which causes the difficulty to raise further. From here I REALLY questioned the how am I supposed to play the game, I mean is this game where you throw a dice to see which monster did you encounter, then another dice to see how many, then another dice to see what's your D20 roll (and an additional dice to see how effective was your power...if not more), then another dice to see how much you two dealt based on D20 roll, and then yet another roll to see if special effects were activated. If THAT was really the answer, then nope....sorry but it's one thing when dice roll controls the outcome, but it's another thing when it controls the INCOME and the OUTCOME.

There's probably more stuff to talk about but that's all I'll say for now.

TL;DR:

The game is great and has plenty of unique content to explore and get lost into. Worth a lot for a 5$ payment.

My only quarrel is with the combat system which is fully random (I get this is supposed to be DnD-like but it's singleplayer and there's nobody except the player to enjoy the bad outcomes).


I wouldn't mind if you disagreed with these complaints.