Pillars of Eternity: Definitive Edition

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4.1/5

( 143 Reviews )

4.1

143 Reviews

English & 7 more

Posted on: February 2, 2020

Pretzl84

Games: 596 Reviews: 3

Plot is not as terrible as others claim

"Never argue about taste". Therefor, I very rarely review books or games. This is an exception because I want to address the negative reviews here that stem from critique on the writing. I've played through this game twice now and spent around 150 hours total with it, so I'm confident enough to form an opinion. Minor spoilers ahead though, so take heed. Some reviews here kind of crap on the story and plot presented in this game, and others crap on the writing. "Average". "Mediocre". "Weak plot". "Uninvolved story"?! Really now, come on. Obsidian delivered something grand here. The gameplay is there. It tries to expand on the formula of its predecessors without taking away what made (makes, for some) that formula work. Party management, class-based combat, weapon types matter, hundreds of quests in a world where you play an important role. The plot glues everything together. It is engaging, atmospheric and epic. You *are* the centerpiece of the story. No, you're not a child of a murder god like in Baldur's Gate, but your party's actions determine the fate of thousands of souls. Literally. You can verify that by the questions you get when you start a new game of PoE 2. Is that "uninvolving"? No, I didn't think so, either. I'm guessing negatives in regards to story primarily comes from two reasons: People who are feeling lost because this isn't a Forgotten Realms setting (or D&D for that matter), and people who don't enjoy reading all that much. I don't intend this as an insult, if you don't enjoy reading text, that's fair. There *are* a lot of words and prose to work through here, but for a video game the writing is atmospheric and of high enough quality to be enjoyable. To those who are on the fence because of those negative story reviews, I say give it a shot. Take your time. It won best RPG in the Global Game Awards in 2015, it didn't do that by not having an engaging story or uninteresting plot. My €0.02.

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Posted on: November 15, 2017

xernos

Games: 746 Reviews: 97

Information for all malconent

I also bought Champion Edition, and The White March - Expansion Pass in the past, today I added Deadfire Pack from GOG for free. I only lack novel and some other unimportant stuff (not in game), so all people who bought diffrent edition should simply add missing expasion for free and stop complain.

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Posted on: June 13, 2019

Wormerine

Games: 276 Reviews: 28

A flawed gem, better with each run.

Pillars of Eternity is a flawed game, but one you might want to give a go. It uses DnD like system, however, from ground up design for party based, top down real-time with pause game such as Pillars. While I love some of the changes, and am conflicted about others, overall it is a system superior to the titles that inspired it. It manages to offer more nuance and be more accessible at the same time. The biggest drawback of PoE is its budget. It was a kickstarted game, and the tight budget shows. It aims to be big, and it often backfires. There are more areas and ideas than the game is able to properly explore – a lot of maps feel empty, especially the populated areas, quests can be too straightforward and binary. There are kickstarter promisies that Obsidian had to honor (like two cities, very very deep dungeon, keep management), which makes the game spread really thin at times. Something I also have to mention as long time RPG fan are items – the very generic item system the game uses made finding new equipment uninteresting. However, the reason you should play PoE1 is its story and characters. While the storytelling does suffer from similar issues to gameplay – areas vary in quality, and a lot of content feels underdesigned – the big picture story and world are thought provoking and memorable. A word of warning – the game, characters and the story doesn’t quite click together until it is tied together at the end. I generally met two kinds of people – those who loved PoE story and characters, and those who gave up before seeing the conclusion. White March DLCs are an example of what PoE could have been. It preserves the depth and tone of the base game, while offering a much more varied, better paced and simply more fun adventure. This sidestory acts as a minicampaign of its own, covering more mundane adventuring and ending with some high level concepts. WM lands at the top of my favourite cRPG content and is to this day my favourite part of PoE franchise.

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Posted on: April 30, 2018

bruschetta

Verified owner

Games: 32 Reviews: 1

Average cRPG with slow uninvolved story.

Pillars of Eternity is a modern cRPG that is well constructed, but not particularly special. No element in this game stands out as above average. The story is extremely slow to develop. The overall story is interesting, but the slow pace removes all tension. The characters feel as if they're meandering along a linear path to a predetermined ending that the player cannot affect. Other than some interesting dialogue options, I do not feel that any of the choices that I made affected the story whatsoever. The writing is not particularly captivating. The combat is frustrating and requires a great deal of micromanagement. The combat makes up a large percentage of the game play, but players are not rewarded for participating in combat. i.e. combat provides mediocre loot and no experience gain. The stronghold management is poorly designed and detracts from the game. I give the game three stars because of the art, the voice acting, and the nostalgia factor. The game play and story are really a 2/5. I purchased PoE due to the glowing reviews on Metacritic (89%) and GoG (4/5), and due to the fact that it was created by Obsidian. I paid $40 for the Definitive Edition, and I do not feel that it was worth the price. For Mac users: I used GoG Galaxy for my installation on Mac OS X High Sierra, and it worked perfectly. I recommend Mac users use GoG Galaxy for their installations.

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Posted on: June 1, 2020

doodiecall

Verified owner

Games: 19 Reviews: 3

A joy to play from start to finish

Completed the game on hard difficulty with enemy up-scaled turned on when presented at various points in the game to keep the challenge on pace with my character levels. So where to begin. I'll start off by saying I'm not a CRPG veteran. In fact, I'm the opposite. Before Pillars of Eternity, I played Divinity Original Sin 2 (not complete yet but logged 150+ hours game time) and Pathfinder: Kingmaker (not complete yet but logged approximately 80 hours game time). In PoE, I've logged 173H 46 Min. and I've enjoyed every bit of it. I fought and defeated all dragons and all bounties. They were among the most challenging aspect of the game. My advice to all is to not give up. Try different strategies. It will all pay off because it is the greatest feeling of accomplishment when you do defeat them. It's great for CRPG beginners because it doesn't overwhelm you with too much customization or choices but also have enough of it to have depth. It's pretty straightforward. I read that some beginners have a tough time with early battles. My tip for early battles is to use all your skills at your disposal and read what they do. Don't expect to just win a fight by going kamikaze. When you're at a higher level you can easily win fights without using any skills. Overall Pillars of Eternity is a great game and will be one that I cherish since it's the first CRPG i've ever finished. Looking forward to playing PoE2:Deadfire.

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