Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

I got very tired of the divine story telling of of PoE, but in this installment it got even more boring in term of world building than the last. The previous one at least had its great moments. It throws loads of lore that is pretty boring tbh. It really feels like a cheap D&D wannabe because we cannot afford the licence. The story itself is very uninspiring, Mostly because at the end you end up wondering, whether you had any agency in it. It creates this fake urgency for resolution while at the same time asks you to waste time running errands around the map. It creates caricatures (ffs say Ekera one more time...) of Polynesian / colonial stereotypes. The voice acting while good becomes painful to listen to with the silly additions of ekera, ac, and other taglines that try to make the setting exotic. Pirating and maintaining a ship is as boring of a chore as one can guess, but at least better than keep management which is a very low bar anyway. For a game engine that is unable to load locations in < 2sec the game requires you to switch and revisit too many loading screens. I think spend more time loading than playing. I was asking myself hard if I wanted to complete quests that required me to to travel 5 screens to just report my completion. Underneath all this poor world building and technical anachronisms you can scratch a relatively fun to play tactical combat game. I liked the multiclass system a lot, and finally a game that doesn't try to make wizards useless per-rest casters as the first installment in the series. Visuals of prerendered backgrounds are also stunning in every single screen (at least there is a reward for waiting forever to load). Also I quite enjoyed some of the dungeons that were spread across the archipelago. They were a great break between nonsense "ekeras" from chatty officials that were trying to distract you from the actual story line.

Takes everything good about the first game and improves on it while cleaning up everything annoying or broken. A super well done and immaculately polished game that delivers on the promise of a open ended story better than anything i've played.

Pillars 2 updates the engine and the mechanics of the previous game to a more enjoyable level, bringing forth a far better gameplay system. However, this comes at the price of the writing, which was not up to the level of the first game. Overall though, I think the gameplay improvements balance out, and the DLC especially raises the level of the game to an enjoyable state. Definitely worth a look, even if you're not a fan of real-time with pause combat, as they've added a turn-based mode.

I was put off from buying this for a long long time by the somewhat mediocre reviews on here but I was very pleasantly surprised. The bottom line here is that if you enjoy infinity-engine type games like Baldur's Gate and (more recently) the Pathfinder games, you'll enjoy this. The writing is really very good for a cRPG - probably the game's main strength - and continues the previous game's interest in playing with philosophical and metaphyical themes in what is otherwise your standard cRPG story, albeit set in an unusual and evocative Caribbean-type setting. As other reviewer have noted, you are dumped into a four-way political conflict over dominion of the Deadfire Archipelago and all the four sides (amongst whom you will eventually have to choose) have plausible and sympathetic reasons for wanting things to go their way - there are actually meaningful choices to be made instead of the usual tiresome 'goodies vs baddies' fare. The setting's 'Gods' (really just powerful beings) are more present in this game than the first, and the story is altogether better for showcasing their petty Greek Pantheon-type squabbling. Your companions are also very well written on the whole and it is a bit of a shame their quest lines are so short - seems a missed opportunity to spend more time with a group you'll probably grow quite fond of. The game itself is a bit too easy for its own good, which is its main flaw for me. If you've played Pathfinder: Kingmaker on anything above normal difficulty, I'd recommend cranking it up to max difficulty and even then you'll probably still find it gets a bit too easy after mid-game. The problem is partly that the game hands out experience too freely so that you'll hit max level well before you're done with the game, after which point you'll just steamroll through most encounters, making for a boring experience towards the end. Still, if you like these kinds of games this is a really fun romp that'll keep you entertained for 100+ hours!

Lemme get some things out of the way first. The story is fantastic. The story had me near tears at times with how powerful, awe inspiring, and beautiful many of the themes were. Eothas was simply absolute perfectly written and performed, I wish that had been longer. The deep philosophical themes help further push this story into the realm of highbrow entertainment. I imagine those who know little-to-nothing about philosophy in general may have found the story lacking, pacing aside. I cannot possibly explain how perfect the Eothas part of this game I just loved, I couldn't wait to talk to him again and learn more about the character and his motivations. This is where we begin to have issues however: Because Eothas is so well done, and because many likely wanted to rush the game to talk to him as the story progresses, the game seems create dumb barriors that make no sense that stop you from rushing, which normally wouldn't be a huge deal if the game also didn't constantly remind you of how much of a hurry you should be in. This sense of urgency it forces on you ultimately hurts it, and it does this even with much of the DLC as well. For example, Eothas will say "I'm going here, I will not wait long" and you may want to do that, but you can't because the game makes you do a ton of petty crap (or grind) in forced-preparation for much of those meetings where he says practically the same thing, why tell me to rush if you're gonna force me not to. Don't tell me to hurry if I can't, and don't tell me to rush at all if the game is already too short. Rant aside, there are other small issues, like so much space but so little to do. I played for nearly 70 hours, which is 30 more than what GOG says is the average playtime. Very little to explore given the amount of space. Durance not being in the game was sad. Other good things: Loved the pirate theme, the boat combat, the OST, the new cultures, and all the lore you stumble upon that connects masterfully PoE1 to PoE2.