Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

I quite enjoyed the game. But it was really nothing special. It felt more like an expansion to the PoE than a true successor (if there was not the original title, this would be just another average RPG). Music is the strongest part of the game. I especially appreciated the shanties. Combat is fun but there is really no real challenge in the game where you are forced to use some kind of tactics. There are plenty of special weapons with interesting properties, but they make no difference in the fight. The weakest part of the game is the story (there is almost none). World is open. There are many places where you can go. Each of them has some story. But I was still waiting for something bigger to come. And it dint. No real boss fight, no unexpected turns in the story. When I finished the game, there were a lot of petty stories about some NPCs and locations. But I didn't really care as I spent just a few moments with them.

Game mechanics are good, possibilities for originality looks huge, pace is too slow, combat difficulty varies too much. Just the fights are causing lots of frustration. Main story is not working with me; I quickly get 20 quests to follow and loose track of stories behind. Not the best buy I did this year

I would usually never write here, but I just finished the game and I have to say I'm disappointed. I explored every single corner of the game, often reloading dialogs to watch the ffects of different choices, and finished every single quest apart from those linked to different endings and sidekicks quests which were just boring. It took me 60 hours, and I feel like I've just ended the first chapter of the game. I reached maximum level quite before I finished exploring the world. But after 15-20+ hours non of the combats felt difficult (in hard mode), even though I played with an option that was supposed to augment enemies' levels if I was stronger than them. All in all combats and character customization feel like they're missing something. I kept waiting for the moment I would have to rebuild a part a of my team because I didn't really thought it through, but it never happened. I finished the game and what I think was supposed to be the final boss (or maybe my later choices skipped me another boss ?) without even preparing for it. The exploration side is a great idea (except from the naval fights which are a big disappointement), but the whole world feels empty. You don't really feel like exploring, because there is only one big city and a few small ports where there is nothing to do. The rest of the world feels like random isolated events. Main quests feel cheap. It lacks major, impactful plots that make you feel you're progressing in the story. As you pick quests from different enemy faction you would expect some important stuff to happen, but you can pretty much finish most of every faction's storyline without any problem, and all of them are very short. Side quests feel just the same, too short and not relevant, and most of them are just exploring a few screens and going back to town. Everything is really, really linear. I really enjoyed playing PoE1, but PoE2 feels much less consistent, for both gameplay and story aspects.

(i am sorry for my writed english because i am italian) I had awaited this game for sooo long ( i had truly loved the first Pillard of destiny) but the second game had leave me pretty disappointed (it make me fall asleep) overall is pretty nice (upgrading your boat assuming the crew etc), but when you start to exploring the world its when its start to get boring most of the isle its just go on the isle get the resource and leave the isle, here and there even in the water you can pick up resources, you can find some island with content (dungeon, levelled enemies and so on) but be caution because if you pick the wrong item early you can break quest (not primary yes, but secondary like the orrery quest) but after all this the plot is prettty straight forward and short, but lets start with the pro and cons [b]Pro[/b] Combat sistem its very nice Sea navigation Voice acting Class sistem Magic syestem Importing your doing in the first game Item enchant system [b]Cons[/b] The old and overused "i kill you so you loose all your stats from the first game" Main quest (very short) Secondary quest (too bland) picking something (or doing something) before you get the related quest it can break the quest (on my game appened twice) Naval Battles Exploring the world (i hate that face icon moving around the map) i want to explore every hidden corners Stance (not really needed) Subtitle (Italian subtitle are messy and full of error) and for most of the italian translation the gender distinction is missig, i have a woman and my PC is addresed like a man, aloth (as for all the mages) is adressed like a woman but there are hundreds of other errors I can have forgotten something, but the pros and cons are all here overall a scarce three star game

The story is very well designed and writing is pretty good, on the scale similar to PoE1. Art and scenery is simply breathtaking. However, it has major issues with overall gameplay design. To put it short and blunt, it is simply tedious and glitchy. Combat is even worse than PoE1 and substantially worse than Tyranny. Character development is also very limited. My main issue with the story is that it evolves around being an errand boy to higher powers or even minor NPCs. You don't even have a decent ability to command your own ship. At times, there is a feeling that the game plays itself without your actual participation. You do endless chores for all of these NPCs and eventually manage to save (or wreck) the world. It should have been less forcing, just tuning down the servitude tone will go a long way. Same is true for combat which is plain awful. It is extremely limited and AI is very simple and bad. Enemies are spawning out of thin air and your party and NPCs are jumping/teleporting all over the place for no reason. I understand that these days people like games that play themselves but this is not how a good RPG combat should work. It simply lacks precision, similar to PoE1, while Tyranny has been much better in this regard. Inventory is very cumbersome and management of everything is simply tedious. There is no fast travel, loading screens might not be very long but are very abundant, and just navigating around takes too much time. There is a huge disparity between the art/story and overall game design. Seems like the art/story part has been done by really talented team while all the rest is not very well thought through. It does have variety but all comes down to the same repeating and tedious tasks. The world of Deadfire is huge with hundreds of NPCs and there are no markers or navigation aids. So, you are forced to either take notes or use google/wiki as it is impossible to find anything otherwise, which is bad IMHO.