Stories: The Path of Destinies

Gameplay

Stories is an action role-playing game. The player can move Reynardo across the landscape, using a grappling hook to help cross open spaces between floating islands. At times, the player will encounter enemies and Reynardo must fight them before the player can proceed. The player starts with a number of basic attacks and blocks they can use, but as Reynardo gains skills, earned by gaining experience points from combat, more advanced combat techniques become available. Should Reynardo lose their health during these fights, the character will be respawned at a recent checkpoint and will have to start the combat over again.

Skills can be gained once Reynardo has gained enough points at various alters across the landscape. Treasure chests hold material items that can be used to craft or improve one of several sword types at a workbench. These swords can be used in combat for more potent effects, but also are required to unlock certain doors that are present on the level.

Within a level, the player may find an option to complete it to one of multiple endpoints, or may find only a single endpoint. Here, the game will then present the player, through narration, with two or three options they can take the story, which will determine which level the player will next start; in a few cases, a choice will lead to an immediate conclusion of the story often in the capture or death of Reynardo. There are generally four or five of these choices before the player reaches a final level and the conclusion of the story at that point. At this point, the player is then shown the magic book picked up by Reynardo at the start of the story, and how that ending fits into the overall picture. In this meta-game, there are four "truths" in relation to the game's narrative that will remain fixed regardless of the decisions the player takes, and the player's goal is make the right selections to discover each of these four truths.

When the player repeats the game to discover these truths, Reynardo will retain all upgrades he has earned. This can enable access to areas on some levels that were currently blocked without having the correct sword. When the player comes to decision points, they will be shown which decisions have already been made in a previous playthrough, so they can explore other options. Information from the narrative can be used to determine which decisions are better options; for example, one path may reveal an ally to actually be a mole for the enemy, so by avoiding choices with that character will likely lead to one of the truths. Once the four truths are discovered, the player wins the game, though may go back to explore the other possible endings.

Plot

"Stories" takes place in a world of anthropomorphic animal characters in a steampunk-themed world on islands floating in air.

The protagonist is Reynardo, a fox corsair who reluctantly had retired from his adventures because of his mother's dying wish. One day his hometown is attacked by evil musclebound ravens sent by the Empire led by Isengrim III, once a humble and shy toad and a scholar but now has started a vicious campaign to find ancient artifacts and forgotten magic to gain immortality and access to a race of "elder gods" who once nearly destroyed the world once.

Reynardo is the only survivor to escape the town sailing away on his fast airship with a mysterious book. As Reynardo reads the book, he gets himself sucked into a Rebellion against the mad Emperor as the sole survivor of the vanguard, he is the last line of defense against the mighty imperial armada about to overtake the entire realm.

Reynardo finds out that the book is magic and provides him a narrative guidance as he makes choices along the story that provides a path that ends with a result that may or may not be to his benefits. The book is not showing Reynardo a future set in stone, but a possibility of what could transpire, despite him directly living it. During his many choices, he learns that Lapino who is a cowardly, goofy rabbit and a spy working for the Rebellion and Reynardo's best friend, is a traitor working for the emperor.

However, Reynardo discovers that a feline woman named Zenobia who is Emperor Isengrim III's adopted daughter as well as his best general that he knew during youth and is still in love with, has feelings for him as well even though she is conflicted by her loyalty to her adopted father. Reynardo tries many paths and choices, from using ancient demonic artifacts that possesses him to kill as many as possible no matter friend or foe, old magical technology that turns out to be extremely unstable that it can destroy the universe, to using his loyal friends but they all ends the same: Reynardo dies at the end and is thrust back to the beginning of the book.

Eventually, Reynardo wises up and uses his knowledge of his past experiences via the book to win this time. He tricks Lapino into fetching the evil artifact that can corrupt him and kill the emperor so that he is forced to use the same unstable magical weapon that can destroy the empire. Reynardo also regains the trust of Zenobia by telling her that the Emperor plans to kill her as a sacrifice to the old gods. However, Reynardo's plans fails as he discovers that Zenobia knocked out Lapino and grabbed the artifact, and now she has killed everyone in the Rebellion due to the corruption but Reynardo manages to free her by finally admitting his love for her thus destroying the artifact because it was weak against true love.

Reynardo and Zenobia decides to escape but they are quickly followed by the empire fleet led by the emperor himself who is using the highly unstable magical weapon as a cannon, but after a couple of blasts, the weapon explodes and eradicates the entire fleet allowing Reynardo and Zenobia to safetly sail away to a new home.

Reception

Stories: The Path of Destinies received mixed to positive reviews on release. The concept of the game, which combined the nature of action role-playing games with the allure of Choose Your Own Adventure books, was seen initially as a positive, and the gameplay was considered a cross between Bastion and Star Fox. However, the game's combat system, though considered very fluid similar to the Batman: Arkham Asylum game, was very repetitive with very little variation in the types of enemies or the range of moves that Reynardo could complete. Further, because the player must play through the game several times to get the right ending, this further highlighted the limited range of combat options, making the overall title seem dull.

Stories was named Best PC Game and Best Indie Game at the 2016 Canadian Videogame Awards.