Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth

So far my experience in the first book/part was great. Gameplay wise you shouldn't expect to much but the story and the atmosphere are well done. The characters (especially Philip) are still as good as i remembered them and I can finally affect their actions. I read the book(s) a while ago and soon the new one title of Ken Follet will be published, so this is a great possibility to experience the key moments again. Overall I think daedalic did a great job so far but there is still a lot to do till the next two parts arrive. (just don't expect too much besides the great narrative) So a clear recommendation from my side ^^

This is basicaly a Telltale style game for people who are getting bored with the usual telltale formula. The story starts slow, but you can feel impending doom just around the corner. I was never bored during the first hours and I appreciate that the game takes some time to introduce the characters. The artstyle is very much in line with past Daedelic titles, especially the Dark Eye games, which means hand drawn characters and backgrounds. I honestly cant wait for the next part to be released, this is definately worth your money, if you like a story heavy experience. 4/5 stars, because the animations sometimes dont show correctly when a character is talking. Hopefully an easy fix.

Story is great as everyone mentioned. Gamplay is non existent, some bar where you have to click at correct time, appears around 10 times. No puzzles (you cant call a puzzle connecting only two objects you can interact with), just click explore world, read lore. The only thinking you are doing is remembering what happened and trying to pick right option in dialog. There is no possibility to replay dialog and there is no pause. I would call it interactive story, you can influence what happens but not to a great extent. I had fun, thats why 4 starts, -1 for no pause.

The events of the game (and the novel it’s based on) take place in the 12th century England during the times usually known as “the Anarchy” and, rarely for game stories, span across several decades and generations. The story itself is fictional but tries to be grounded in history and reality, showing lives of very different people as they deal with both personal issues of relationships, hopes, faith as well as events bigger than they are, involving politics, wars and the church.There are dreams, promises, accidents, plots, murder, betrayals, revenge and forgiveness, all centered around an unlikely town of Kingsbridge and it’s cathedral. And it is all written and told really well. Every chapter feels well put together and contained, telling a necessary story arc, while also being a good story driven adventure game to play. Switching between character viewpoints never feels confusing and makes the storytelling much more interesting than it would’ve been otherwise and there is genuine feel that you influence the story in little, but very meaningful ways, all the time. It’s not great all the time, of course. The little minigame for “action”-ish bits feels a bit silly and out of place, where the rest of the game always seems to fit the storytelling really well, for example. The cutscenes/dialogue are not properly skippable, which can be annoying if you do fail one of these minigames in specific points, which lead to a game over. And while the game almost never felt like it wasn’t really clear what to do or how, there were a few moments where it was hard to understand what the game was expecting you to do to progress. I loved my time with Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth and if you love a good story and/or are interested in medieval history, you absolutely must play this game.