Stories: The Path of Destinies is a game where you play as Reynaldo, a Fox who finds himself in the situation of reliving the same stretch of time over and over again until he chooses the correct path. Not necessarily the most original idea, but one that I rather enjoy myself. You'll be playing through X out of 24 different stories, each takes about 20-35 minutes to play through. In about 5ish hours I was able to play through 7/24, and get the True Ending. You'll be trying to find out the 4 truths that will help you survive through everything.

The gameplay is pretty simple, you have 4 swords that each have a special ability (3 relate to damage output, 1 is an inefficient heal that you'll rely way too much on), a skill tree that you won't even halfway complete (the xp scaling gets extremely high), and some gems that add various damage related bonuses (there's only 1 that deals with sustain and that one's garbage). These previously mention elements are a little frustrating (way too much damage options, too few sustain options), but the best thing about the combat in Stories is that it's not frustrating, and extremely fluid. Once you get into the grove of things you'll feel like you're running through the level and it feels nice but it's not at that point where you're overleveled, because the enemies do a good job of punishing mistakes you make.

The art/music isn't anything to write home about, but it's not bad in any sense of the word, simply good enough not to complain about and bad enough not to compliment. The levels get a little boring towards the end because due to the nature of the game you're going to be running through the same enviroments time and time again.

The Story was the best part of the game, there were a few memorable characters, the narrator does a great job of bringing you into the story, he is truly the greatest aspect of the game. It feels like an uncle or grandfather expertly weaving a tale with a book on his lap as you sit and watch in wonder. He does most, if not all, of the voice acting, simply changing his voice to fit the character, but every voice is distinct. You can tell when he's doing Reynaldo or Lapino. There were some Good Momments (I laughed a few times, felt a few heart strings tug, felt genuine worry for the characters in the game). The True Ending leaves a bit to be desired, but one of the best parts about this game is that you can spend 15 or so minutes following that path where YOU end up with the ancient weapon and decide to burn a path of destruction. There are a ton of different paths to choose from.

Overall: better than I was expecting. I got the game on sale, and almost feel bad. Definitely worth it's original asking price if you are at all interested in the game.

Buy if you enjoy hack-n-slash-esque gameplay, getting into the story of a game, unique characters, and/or multiple path games.

Don't buy If you are looking for a game with huge action, challenging gameplay, boss battles, or a long adventure you can sink your teeth into, this is not the game for you.