Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

238h took me to complete this game with all the DLC.Story better than POI 1.Graphics absolute masterpiece.Music nothing special pretty good overall.Huuuuuge content.The biggest grip is the god damn retardet lv cap.Why cap such enormus game at lv 20? u gnna hit it before any DLC and Hasongo.If u buy it mod it. Easy mod on nexus mods expand it to lv 33 which is enough.

I've been playing this off and on(through different playthroughs) since 2020. Beating it each time I play because it's a great game. What makes it so great? It has classes, it has multiclassing set from level 1. It has companions and their quests. Those companions are romanceable. It has a story that can go a lot of different ways depending on your actions(far more than most games). It's an Obsidian title worthy of the name. I like it a lot more than the first somehow. You can be a pirate and steal some booty. The downside is not having DA/BG3 conversations, but this is a classic CRPG like baldur's gate 1+2, Icewind Dale, etc. So it's less immersive than the newer generation of gamer might come to expect.

The game starts out really strong, with lots to explore and mysteries to uncover. The late game doesn't live up to the built-up anticipation, though. I kept feeling like I was being asked to care about things I honestly didn't care about, over and over again. It made me appreciate the "stoic" dialogue options, which amounted to just asking the other party to get it over with. Full playthrough on normal difficulty took 44h 42m. That included scouring the entire open map, and finishing every single quest that wasn't blocked by my chosen course of action (or simply bugged). It was nice.

This is game we are been waiting for ever since BG2 and NWN2. Sure, story is bit weird, but combat mechanics are awesome. Want build options and ability to fully costumize your character - this is for you!

The game is a decent entry in the RPG genre, but one that feels unimpactful and slightly chaotic. I had fun playing it, but had trouble staying with the game - my first playthrough took me almost half a year to complete. So let's start with the game's setting. Graphics are really decent, with well designed spell effects, environments, and character models. It is mostly a pleasant experience. Music is OK, some tracks are absolutely excellent, with some exceptions of bland mediocrity. I particularly disliked the common combat theme, as well as the music at the very beginning. It gets better, but nothing spectacular. Voice acting is fantastic, with most characters having their own tone and cadence. Where the game really shines is the world - the cultures in the game, people's stories are absolutely remarkable. The names and languages, religions and beliefs, backstories are really well written. In fact, most of the writing is also really good. The game has a huge problem with its main story though. While everything is executed really well, it just doesn't stick. It's bland. It's unrewarding. It drags on. It's as if someone really wanted to put something on top of the story of PoE 1 and just came up with this bunch of nonsense. There was not a single moment in my playthrough where I was genuinely interested in what comes next. The other problem of this game is combat. Naval combat is pretty bad, it's not complex, nor is it interesting. It's done in the pen and paper style, but the writing and mechanics of it are just boring. I found myself either pushing for a hand to hand combat, or running away. Not that hand to hand combat is actually good. It is slightly too random and too imbalanced. Even if you micromanage, you will find it hard to win seemingly easy fights. All in all, it's a decent title with some good sound and graphics design. Ultimately though, it's unrewarding and slightly bland, and with it's mechanical faults, it's hard to grade it higher than 3.