VERSUS: The Elite Trials 12+

First off, the biggest pro that I see in this game is how the story evolves. The first book focuses more on consistency, with developing the main goals of your character and making consistent choices paramount to succeed. However, the second book, while still making sure you keep consistency, offers you some more flexibility given the politicking scheming side of it. Overall, despite it being a little confusing at times, I find it best to take it at face value. If I don’t understand what is being explained, I either read it over or simply look at the choices and see which stat the choices utilizes best. This way, I can take it at “face value” and just determine which choice coincides with my stat if the explaining gets too confusing. That said, I’d recommend it to anyone. Very well done.

I enjoyed all of the Heroes stories that's been written by this author and I've come to enjoy Versus as well. There's so much depth to the character you create and how it represents your own desires. I love delving into the lore and learning about all of your fellow Versians and their motivations. I was really touched by Grog's decision to save his people if he managed to become Reborn. Apart from this, I honestly would just replay this story over and over to go through the Wone chapters over and over again. Great work!

I usually love ZS's games so I'm having a hard time figuring out why this game in particular just doesn't work for me.

I guess it feels like we're still doing a lot of literary (and literal) world building and not really following the main plot as much. If anyone asked me what the plot of this game was, I would have to shrug; a lot happened but none of it contributed to a coherent overall story, unlike the first game where I could tell you the plot. If the goal was to feel like a detective story, it missed the mark by a lot, which is really disappointing and very unlike the usual quality I see from these games.

I'm still going to keep hoping the next game makes sense of this one, but it will be with less enthusiasm for sure.