Posted on: May 29, 2023

Unfallen_Satan

Games: 609 Reviews: 78

Obsidian's War and Peace

Like War and Peace, regardless of how much critical praise it garners, many people who pick it up will never finish. Unlike War and Peace, whose required dedication is known beforehand, most players do not appreciate the time Pillars of Eternity asks of them. There are fewer people who finished PoE on GOG than the number of Kickstarter backers who redeemed the game here. Length is my only major complaint about the game. Yes, there are issues with inventory management, with ease of progression, with some missing quality of life features, and a narrative that at times gets lost in the woods. However, Obsidian set out to create their first original, truly fleshed out world. On top of that, they were also creating a workable, partially original RPG system. Obsidian did its best to make the two parts complete but fell short when making them lean. "If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter." True of us all. I disagree with the reviewers who say PoE is not excessively long because the core plot is of average length with a lot of time taken up by side quests. All great Obsidian games have been built on the strength of their side quests and side characters. I say without hyperbole that Eder is like a brother. I am sorry for the way things turned out between me and Pallegina. And I miss my companions who did not make to the Deadfire. On the other hand, I do not recall a single Obsidian antagonist who was epic enough to utter the line, "You exist because we allow it, and you will end because we demand it." PoE is no exception. The big events of PoE feel petty the way big events in the real world feel petty. I have always appreciated that about Obsidian, but perhaps it is time for a game with larger than life characters and struggles. For most, Pillars of Eternity is not the game to make you fall in love with Obsidian. If you already love Obsidian, however, and have a lot of time for games, you won't be disappointed at the end.

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Posted on: March 15, 2018

MichaelFurlong

Verified owner

Games: 238 Reviews: 12

Pretty, lots of lore, but kinda pointless

I loved the old IE games and playing them was a big part of my early teens so the opportunity to play another game in a similar vein has been a big attraction for me. I was excited to see what 20 years of progress would look like. I saw alot of the negative reviews but also read a few retrospectives which indicated that alot of the previous flaws had been dealt with in this "definitive" edition. Oh boy. . . . unless you are happy wading through loads of pointless combat and reading tons of lore with no relevance to the game itself then move on. Overall, POE may have driven me back to pirating games (pirate first buy if it's good or keeps me playing more than a few hours). I simply don't have the disposable cash to drop 30+ dollars on a game to then go "ah shite, well why don't I buy another and maybe it'll be better". So what are my reasons for disliking POE to such an extent, well: -Dialogue and dialogue choices. Many of them lead to the same response or something inanely similar. I haven't had a single conversation with an NPC as much as just talked at. Can I challenge the inquisitor that's obviously involved in the killing of 20 people and hanging them from a tree . . . Nope. Not a single option to interrogate and confront such a monstrous act but I have no option but to kill a bunch of drunks (in the middle of the village but no-one cares). It's like there is no narrative or flow, just random dialogue options. Even the attribute and background associated choices lead to the same conversation paths. - Combat, oh god. At high difficulties it's a slog through multiple combats each requiring the same tactics, each one being slow and time consuming. Conversely, at lower difficulties it's easy, simple, and boring. Regardless, there's little reason for any of the combat except to have more combat. What makes it even weirder is that they removed XP acquisition from combat and added sneak mechanics, but I still need to fight everything to progress. So why do they force so damn much of it? Personally, I'd much rather have fewer, narratively meaningful, tactically interesting combat. - Narrative. Kinda boring. There's obviously been alot of effort to fill the game with lore about the overall world. That's cool. But surely the focus should be on the game narrative itself. I don't spend 30 dollars to play collect the book (though I do enjoy well written lore). The narrative of the game world should take precedence, of which there is little. The PC is part of a caravan that is killed and gains the ability to interact with dead spirits. Cool. Then s/he should traipse through forest killing wolves until s/he finds someone that can tell them more. That's it, that's the draw. Other, much more interesting narratives like the mass murders of peasants by violent nobles is ignored. I'm really disappointed in Obsidian. Maybe if rather than 80 odd hours they made a much more narratively focused 30 hour game with more variety and choice it would have been better. I've played for a bit over 10 hours and doubt I'll do back. If I could I'd ask for a refund (the only time during my time on GOG I want a refund to a game). I'm amazed at the players who, having said they felt like me after 10 hours, forced themselves to play to the end or near end so they wouldn't feel cheated. As if wasting 60 hours on a boring game is better than having wasted 10.

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Posted on: May 2, 2020

von_Hardenberg

Verified owner

Games: 606 Reviews: 17

Grimderp Adventures in Purple Prose

Someone put a lot of effort in this. I'll give them that. Sadly, the end result is anthing but stellar. Story: Starts with "Oi, I'm not feeling so well, guess I caught a bug or something." Ends with "Talk to some actually-not-really-but-quite Gods about the fate of the world." Sadly, the actual story progression stars you and a bunch of people that I'd gladly dump at the next village playing plumber/janitor for a world filled with lazy NPCs. Your career as Fedex-boy/Murderhobo for hire occasionally gets interrupted by lazy exposition dumps. The people you travel with are like diarrhea: Grim serious and not particularly fun to be around with. No romance options here, thank the gods. Writing: Someone needs to be smacked with a guide on "how to avoid boring people to death with purple prose" so hard that they cough up the thesaurus they accidentally swallowed. Show. Don't tell. And if you must tell, FFS write english and not something that looks almost like it. Combat: Decidedly meh, realtime combat on crowded maps that like to dogpile you, occasionally unresponsive companion AI vs micromanagement from hell, garnished with a light drizzle of friendly fire and unexplained arcane mechanics. It's better than the writing, though. World: Utterly generic grimderp fantasy, the highlights being "our hobbits are furry", "our orcs surf", "our definitely-not-planetouched™ look even stupider than the originals". Also pretty uneven writing, at the start everyone is "oh woe is me, for the chiiiiildren are born without souls!!!" to "eh, here, have some political conspiracy....kids, what kids?" in about 3 very small map transitions. The "manage your own keep" thing was nice, but ultimately unfulfilling, the extended 15-story-dungeon below felt like tacked-on busywork designed by someone who really, really wants to do an old-schoold D&D dungeon crawl. It's a serviceable RPG in the vein of Baldur's Gate. It doesn't hold a candle to the Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2.

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Posted on: April 6, 2022

LinusWP

Games: 218 Reviews: 1

My favourite isometric RPG

Playing Pillars of Eternity was a really magical experience for me, from the amazing music to the creative worldbuilding. You can truly tell that this is a work of passion, and no other original universe for an RPG has had me quite so interested in the world and its history. It certainly is not flawless. You will need to be patient, as the story takes a while to really get going, and the game does bombard you with fantasy terms and names from the very beginning, often without an explanation what they mean. It could be argued that this adds to the immersion (which is something I adore about this game), but I think the game would have benefited from a system like the one Obsidian introduced in Tyranny, where you can click on hyperlinks in the text to get a definition or some background info. If you stick with it though (at least I can speak for my own experience), learning about the world of Eora with all its factions and rich history is a rewarding experience; I was so intrigued that I started taking in-game notes. And Pillars then goes on and delivers on the promise of RPGs, the thing books can't do: Interactivity. There is a point to learning all these things about Pillar's rich world, as you will need this information to make informed decisions over the course of the plot. Which faction are you going to support? Are you in favor or against the controversial practice of soul magic? The combat in Pillars is fun, and its original system of classes and abilities feels fresh and sensible. One issue I had is that special effects from magic and such can make it hard to see what is going on at times. If you have played a RTWP combat system before, this should feel familiar while still having its own ideas about how things should work. If you are looking to get totally immersed in an interactive fantasy world, Pillars may well be what you are looking for. If you want to try out an RPG like this for the first time, you should check out Tyranny instead.

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Posted on: June 27, 2021

Pahkasika

Games: 238 Reviews: 5

Mediocre RPG

Playing this game in 2021 means that the revival of old-school, isometric cRPG's has been going on for quite a few years. One of the games that started this trend is definitely Pillars of Eternity. However, as much as I tried, I just can't like this game as much as I would like to. The words average, adequate, mediocre, unengaging come to my mind when describing the experience I've had after a bit over 30 hours of playing. It just seems that there is lack of anything risky or truly original in this game. It has plenty of features and it does most of them well, but it seems to lack some kind of true identity. Think of Planescape: Torment (focus on story) or, a more modern one, Tyranny (choice). In my opinion, Pillars of Eternity lacks that core focus and theme of the game. The main story has been okay, the world is pretty typical medieval fantasy setting, the companions are good but not memorable (maybe apart from Grieving Mother), and unfortunately the leveling system is simply boring. Most of the side quests have been pretty fun, but they seem to follow roughly the same pattern: you get the quest, there is a plot twist, and you have the opportunity to either betray the original quest giver or finish the quest per the original request. Maybe the mechanics of the game are just too "visible", but so far the game has offered very little in terms of surprises. I'll probably not finish the game as there are other, better titles to focus on.

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