Pillars of Eternity: Hero Edition

Pulls you in, keeps you in, and delivers and strong ending. Nothing but good memories.

I really like the artwork in this game. There are a lot of interesting aspects overall and a fair amount of originality. On the surface, I like the different character classes, including the various and unique options that you have available. I thought I would really get into this, but on the whole, I found the actual playing experience quite hollow. There's not much playability here. I feel like the combat should be enjoyable. The mechanics are interesting, if a bit too complex, but the main thing is big battles are so sloppy. The action is so hard to follow. It should be much crisper. And because it's 2D without a rotating camera, sometimes characters or monsters are obscured from view when you should be able to see them. I know that happened in BG, but c'mon this is a 2015 game. Aspects like movement and sightlines are pretty unrealistic. It just doesn't feel natural or intuitive. The ally AI is hit or miss as well. I just couldn't enjoy the combat and that pretty much ruined the game for me. The story is interesting in places, but the flow feels quite forced. I like the moral ambiguity angle to a point, but it's really overdone and not particularly cutting-edge anymore. There are also lots of bugs and places where it's obvious they cut corners due to cash or time restraints. I appreciate the developer's pain, but I still paid 50 bucks for this...

Pillars of Eternity has it all for an Infinity Engine veteran craving a proper CRPG experience: A fantasy world with a reasonably novel campaign setting concept, great writing (yes, you *will* be reading a lot), nice tactical combat, a long story, and all of that with visually appealing bells and whistles. It's a great-looking game, and has the content to match, even if a lot of it is very bare-bones and mostly inconsequential (your stronghold and reputation, for example). Where it falls short to the point of faltering is its third act. All tension dissipates, and the narrative thread unravels, as anything other than just following the main quest to its conclusion very much feels like filler - and not particularly interesting filler at that. Also, it's narratively top-heavy towards the end, and kind of expects you to really care about characters you barely met or heard about throughout the game, as the quest pacing is very uneven unless you just follow the main storyline; it's nice to not have a linear adventure, but you also have to somehow make sure you don't dilute the player's investment in their character and the things they're supposed to care about so the story has an actual impact. Another low point are the companions, whose stories are very short, and just not that interesting or satisfying. There's some effort there, but I could barely bring myself to care for any of them. It doesn't help that the voice acting in Pillars is... well, not exactly bad, but mediocre to the point I just put the voice volume to 0. American accents can absolutely be done in fantasy, but everyone sounds so blase and uninterested, it's like the developers went to a local Punxsutawney watering hole and had some of the local patrons read the lines in exchange for a couple of cold ones. Three stars is a bit harsh - it's very much a three and a half for me - but a game in which I find myself sighing at yet another trash mob during the final stretch kinda deserves it, I suppose.

There are so many other reviews of this game that cover everything. Its a good cRPG, but not great. I think if you like cRPGs like Divinity Original Sin, Torment, Wasteland, etc, you will probably like PoE. I definitely think this is a win, if you get it during a sale. The game does a poor job explaining the mechanics of how things work. Even a veteran cRPG player like me will be will end up referring to online guides trying to figure things like stats out. I just finished Act I. The pacing is slower than other games. Its not a combat heavy game so far and combat is not particularly difficult. The game wants you to pause on use abilities, spells, positioning, etc. So far, its been unnecessary. Just right click an enemy and autoattack is generally all you need to do. I think if you are a veteran RPG player, up the difficulty. There are some frustrating mechanics in the game, a silly map system which has annoying load times, a terrible inventory system, and more. All typical of any RPG.

I came into the game not expecting much but somehow I still ended up underwhelmed. The big problem with the game is that it is simply shallow. The hook is weak, the characters you meet are all generic and uninteresting, the towns and dungeons you visit are serviceable but completely bland, you never get the impression that there is anything actually going on there and there is never a reason to revisit an area in later chapters. The writing itself is serviceable but the world building, story and the philosophical ideas explored read like something a redditor came up with. The party members you find each get exactly one quest, and the conclusion of said quests doesn't even conclude their character arcs, or give them much of an arc at all. It's more that they start at point A and arrive at point B, you expect it to go somewhere from there but no, that's it. The combat is by far the games strongest point but even there it's just serviceable and the impact is a bit diminished by the horrible pathfinding and encounters which are randomly way more difficult than anything you've faced in that same area. I can't say I was a fan of the boss fights either, it felt like the devs just had to give them unreasonable stats and spells to make up for the fundamental limitations of crpg combat, as such fighting them felt like it was mostly about getting good rng on the rolls and AI behavior. There is a player fortress to manage but in my 67 hours of game time I only had 2 (two) npcs show for short dialogue + the npc for the one fort related quest. The fort itself is so far out of the way that you won't really be visiting it much. It is a shame they didn't do much with it as the fortress related quest is the most memorable and engaging one. TLDR: game is serviceable but generic, check out literally any other high profile CRPG that came out in the past 20 years before you play this. Pathfinder and Divinity are both significantly better series.