Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

Deadfire is a flawed mix of world building, narrative and mechanics, each of which never come together as they did in POE 1. The story that should drive the game is not compelling or well-integrated with the world. Do not buy this for its turn-based feature. It doesn’t work well at all and changes a number of core mechanics in ways that do not make sense. Numerous bugs persist in the game, including a reproducible crash to desktop. There are bugs in the dialogue, with random gender mismatches. Potions cannot be used with AI turned on, and some traps do not work. Many items do not work as they are described due to programming errors. The voice acting is absolutely terrible, much worse than the previous game. It is so grating that I played the entire game without it, with all voice volume turned to 0. The writing is often crass, for example there is one dialogue in which a character’s breasts are referred to several times in a row, which is just juvenile. The romance is clumsy and unconvincing. When a quest ticks to a certain value, companions will then deliver dialogue to you whether it makes sense to do so at that point or not. There is also a tension in the game between numbers-crunching combat and narrative communication. Parts of the game, especially the DLC are made purely for the numbers. The companions are fine, and it is helpful that the game recommends certain companions for certain quests, though sometimes this can lead to an unworkable party (e.g. The Forgotten Sanctum). The focus on factions, and allegiance to them, is something Obsidian clearly loves (e.g. New Vegas, Tyranny), but it leads to one-dimensional characters whose only attribute is their faction and is not interesting. The blend of fantasy and pirates is fun, but ultimately Deadfire’s narrative is unfocussed and poorly written, and ends with a passive protagonist whose choices have minimal effects, leaving the player wondering what the point of the story was.

Deadfire is a game about your adventure, about you as an explorer, and about how you navigate through the conflicting ideologies of the people of Deadfire. The bread and butter of POE Deadfire lie in its robust side content. Explore wherever that interests you, fulfill whichever quest that amuses you. The main story itself is unfortunately quite short and simplistic, but it tackled the topic of colonialism and its impact on the people on different sides. The combat in Deadfire is seamless and enjoyable. You are able to customize your companions' battle AIs in depth. Combat relies on positioning and tactics instead of excessive pre-battle buffs. There are many unique weapons and equipments with game changing effects. Speeded-up walking/sailing! The game is definitely not perfect (e.g., the naval text combat system isn't fun, the game has many loading screens). All in all, I still enjoyed the game greatly and look forward to more from the developer.

-Some of the best exploration in games -Deep, intellectual fight between antagionists over the fate of the deadfire -Easily the best RTWP gameplay, up there with best RPG gameplay -Easily the best versions of traditional TTRPG classes, stats and mechanics -Great balance, can have a HUGE option spread of character concepts -Fantastic prose -Extremely vivid and imaginative graphics, probably the best representation of high fantasy outside of BG3 Overall, I just love this game to bits. The writing is very fun and plays EXTREMELY well with the "pirate rpg" concept. The gameplay is FANTASTIC. The characters are VERY well done. This game won't make you cry, but it will make you feel epic and conflicted on the choices to make. 100% reccomend to RPG fans. FYI: Play POE1 first (on POTD difficulty), import your save into this one, and then play this game on POTD as well. Every other difficulty is way too easy for CRPG fans.

To put it simple.... .. its fun, has a great story so far 20 hours in. graphics are great and music is solid. the only things I miss are 1. the zone maps to explore and fill out but i see how they are trying this new system and its not bad. 2. the creators commentation, something I loved from the first game.

I like the brand new turned-based combat! But fights can be very lasting on high difficulty, so beware. Overall game feels much different from PoE 1, more lighthearted and it has big focus on side quests and bounty hunting, the main plot is not a strong point.