Stories: The Path of Destinies Reviews
No wonder the game leans so heavily on pop-culture references, as they help to distract from the relative emptiness of the game itself.
An inspired mix of Groundhog Day and Choose Your Own Adventure style decision making, combined with a half-broken action role-player of considerably lesser interest.
Stories: Path of Destiny has a lot of good ideas and tries to implement them as best it can. Ultimately, most of the best ideas fall a little short of the mark. The combat is ambitious but ends up being sloppy. The story is large but ends up being repetitive. The RPG elements are fun, but most of it is maxed out very early in the game making it sort of pointless. Everything that this game does, starts out well, but always falls short. In most cases, these drawbacks are enough to ruin the experience. The end result is a game that tries to do a lot, but doesn't try hard enough.
There is a lot to love about Stories: The Path of Destinies; clever craftsmanship of the branching narrative; vertically intricate level design; and being able to see events unfold differently as characters relationships shift is a compelling and original experience. Unfortunately it is let down by, while not uninteresting, monotonous gameplay with no real substance or relation to the broader story.
It would be so easy to praise Stories: The Path of Destinies far more. So much of it is actually done right and is competent, from the great voice work and decent visuals to solid story and plethora of endings. The problem is that these multiple endings also offer little to no variation in regards to level variation, which quickly causes what would have been a fun and enjoyable story romp to, instead, having to start over in a "choose your own adventure" book from Page 1 every time an ending was reached. Even a bit more level variation would have easily driven this up the ranks, but, as it is, it just becomes a chore to play through. It is worth the play regardless, though. Just be ready to play through the same things a lot.
Stories: The Path of Destinies suffers from being extremely repetitive, which drags down an otherwise entertaining tale.
When you take it for what it is, Stories: The Path of Destinies is a cute, charming isometric action-RPG with a central idea that feels fresh and unique.
While Stories: The Path of Destinies certainly has some unique elements and beautiful levels for people to enjoy, unfortunately it turns out to be a mediocre RPG that truly struggles to provide any meat. This is a hard game to recommend, though if the price is right or is on PS Plus, it's worth a look.
We have to assume that Stories: The Path of Destinies just isn't optimised nearly as well as it should be on the PS4 – and that's an absolutely massive shame, because this is otherwise one of the most charming, original, and enjoyable indie titles available on the system. Branching storylines, cool combat, and rewarding RPG elements work in tandem to form a memorable adventure, but one that needlessly stumbles and falls over various technical issues. This certainly isn't the true ending that we were hoping for.
It's like that easy beach reading book that you enjoyed for a few hours on holiday, and then put back on the shelf never to read again.
Stories: The Path of Destinies is a decent game.
Stories looks like a unpolished narrative experiment. The main problem here is an ordinary combat system and a set of situations that never challenge the player. Trying to discover every possible ending, though, you'll discover a light and inspired platformer.
Review in Italian | Read full review
If the RPG mechanics are your main attraction, you'll probably be disappointed, but as an experiment in choice-driven narratives, Stories is clever, impressive, and well worth a look.
An action RPG for all ages to enjoy that unfortunately gets muddled down by a mediocre soundtrack and lack of enemy variety.
Stories: The Path of Destinies offers an interesting narrative, unique plot progression system and often enjoyable gameplay. However, it's held back by unfortunate glitches and quite a bit of repetition.
Most of Stories: The Path of Destinies is hinged upon the idea of discovering the best possible outcomes of its story, no matter how nonsensical it may be at first. It's a clever way to build a narrative, because it's built around the assumption one will fail multiple times while still retaining useful knowledge to apply in a different run.
With its interesting fairy tale feel and engaging mix old and modern gameplay mechanics, Stories: The Path Of Destinies is a love letter to action role playing games of years past. The unique narrative style, the choices system and smooth battle system are quite engaging during the first playthroughs, but the limited amount of content eventually makes the game feel a little repetitive. Even with its issues, however, Stories: The Path Of Destinies is a game that's very well worth the time of action RPG fans.
A fantastic fantasy action hack-and-slash RPG game, Stories: The Path of Destinies definitely delivered on what their title suggested. A must for every RPG lover out there.
Stories: The Path of Destinies is a really intriguing title, and, as far as I'm concerned (and despite it's flaws), is a worthy investment, but its choice making narrative needed to offer a bit more to really make an impact. As it stands, the game feels a bit shallow.