Review shinespark 4/5 · Dec 22, 2021
A stat-driven text adventure where lies have consequences
"Heroes of Myth" is an interactive fiction game in the Choice of Games house style, chock full of character stats, political maneuvering, and Big Meaningful Choices.
As ever in this long-running series, you create a character with 2 or 3 core competencies (combat, speech, magic, etc.) and employ those skills to solve an escalating series of open-ended problems. There's adventure, …
"Heroes of Myth" is an interactive fiction game in the Choice of Games house style, chock full of character stats, political maneuvering, and Big Meaningful Choices.
As ever in this long-running series, you create a character with 2 or 3 core competencies (combat, speech, magic, etc.) and employ those skills to solve an escalating series of open-ended problems. There's adventure, there's intrigue, there's generally a selection of 3-6 halfhearted Bioware romances.
Thankfully, this game has a few things going for it that elevate it above its zillion siblings. The premise is great: you play a talented illusionist who years ago fabricated and heroically thwarted a demonic invasion, suddenly forced into actual heroics when demons start invading for real. The prose reads well, there's a satisfying buildup to the big bad, and the inability to consistently please every NPC in your party keeps choices interesting. Most especially, the focus on personality-driven stat checks rewards you for defining your character's values and motivations early on and actually playing that role, which is pretty rare for any RPG.
It's a bit long, and a couple major characters are too broad to really care about, but Heroes of Myth is definitely one of the better Choicescript games of the past few years!