Stories: The Path of Destinies
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Critic Reviews for Stories: The Path of Destinies
Stories sets a very high bar for writing and story in a video game. Similarly, while many games tout that player decisions matter, Stories truly delivers. Visual design would rate well alone, and audio/narration is nearly perfect. The price of admission is a good deal, with gameplay developing new wrinkles through about a dozen stories to keep it fresh, which would land you about 6-10 hours of gameplay. Some players will get tired of combat sooner, some will persist for the stories. Completionists looking for platinum will likely get tired of killing ravens. Replayability's only blemish is that the game is so fast to "complete" that you pretty much need to go through a few times just to start grasping the true nature of the game. This is a small nitpick to be sure, and players will likely stick with this game for a bit to see what Reynardo will do next.
Spearhead Games' Stories: The Path of Destinies is a fascinating jaunt through a more mature fairy tale setting that blends serviceable gameplay with remarkable wit.
The process of learning new things with each playthrough is rewarding, but the repetition takes away from the experience
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.
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.
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.
Stories: The Path Of Destinies is a charming and colourful game that is well presented with good narration. The number of paths that can be taken allow for a lot of replayability, and there's some well crafted combat. However, there comes a point where the game does become repetitive, which can make drumming up motivation to unlock all the stories tough. Even so, Stories: The Path Of Destinies is worth going through a few times, even if you don't want to go through all 25 paths.
Despite some repetition and a handful of weird glitches, it'd be hard for me not to recommend Stories: The Path of Destinies. The "Goosebumps" kid in me was just too excited to have branching narratives from a developer that had fun with the concept instead of using it as another box to check in its marketing plans. I'd gladly return to this wonderfully weird world, but if there is a next chapter, I hope that there's more to see.
