The Superlatives: Shattered Worlds

The original Superlatives game (Aetherfall) is one of my favorite Choicescript games. It provided a tale of a small group of young Victorian superheros trying to survive without leadership and exploring a fascinating world built by the author.

This game more or less puts that at a distance. Your powers and friends from the first game are shoved away. Alternatively, you can start a new character without a connection to them.

This time, you aren't weak, you are essentially an envoy or almost an angel for higher powers. Everyone respects the authority you bring.

This makes the game (as others have sad in reviews and discussion on other sites) that this is less a direct sequel to the first game and more its own standalone game. I agree with that, and will evaluate it as such.

This game has a lot more big politics. The two main threads are a delicate balance between three parties (Earth, Mars and Venus) to a peace treaty, and a series of strange rifts bringing strange and violent people.

The political balance was interesting and delved into worldbuilding. The rifts scenario had a twist halfway through the game that made it far more interesting.

The writing for this game is good, I think even an improvement on the first. I wrote down or screenshotted a few things that I thought were especially good. The love interests in this game are detailed and have their own private dates and side quests.

Overall, as a game, I loved it. As a direct sequel to the first game, pretty good. I would feel comfortable recommending it even to people who haven't played the first one, if they're interested in things like major diplomacy and dating spies.

I received a review copy of this game.