Pillars of Eternity: Hero Edition

A lot of reviews have covered similar ground, so I'll try to stick to points I haven't seen. Here are things I wish I knew before spending lots of money: - Story starts really well but becomes generic and derivative very quickly. This is nowhere near the storytelling of Planescape: Torment, or even Baulder's Gate. There's lots and lots of text, but a lot of it is pseudo medieval fantasy speak with little actual substance. - Only the first 5 or so enemies of every enemy type give you XP for killing them. This design choice was made by devs to discourage XP farming and use alternate means of passing through dungeons. However, lots of enemies are unavoidable and if you want to explore, you have to fight everything. There are a LOT of enemies to fight. I spent close to 30 hours fighting for no XP because I couldn't avoid the monsters. - Max character level is 12, which means that you'll only get to have a few of the very long list of character upgrades available. - Know that many attack spells effect allies (i.e. friendly fire), especially spells for early levels. Lots of spells are cast on spots on the ground, rather than the target itself. That means you have to predict where your target will be in 2-3 seconds. And a target standing still one moment is likely to move. Combine that with ally damaging spells, and you get a very ugly picture. - The Stronghold is almost a complete waste of cash. Devs clearly did not want you to become overpowering by using the Stronghold. However, you're asked to spend 50% of all coins you'll ever earn in game to buy all of its upgrades. That fooled me into thinking there would be a payoff. But there's very little, if no benefit at all. - Environments are beautiful, however. And lots of dialogue, especially for the mainquest, is voiced and voiced well. - Overall, Pillars is closer to an improved version of Icewind Dale than a Baldur's Gate equal. And you will not fall in love with your teammates in Pillars like you did in Baulder's Gate.

Perhaps my expectations were too high as a Kickstarter backer, but after several aborted attempts to get through this game over the past couple of years, I think I can safely say that it's the game and not me. Ultimately, it's a poorly edited, flat story, that relies on a ton of bloated exposition, takes itself way too serisouly, and just doesn't quite hit the mark of classics like the Baldur's Gate series, or Planescape Torment, What the game gets right: The environments are very pretty and well made, and there's enough variety to make it feel like you're exploring a decent sized land mass. Additionally, the mechanics are deeper than the old AD&D-based Infinity Engine games (Baldur's Gate et al.) and give you more character customization by far. Additionally, the little interactive storyboard cut-scenes were also a nice touch that added some depth to the roleplaing experience. Where it misses the mark: Combat can be a hot mess. Maybe it's the way effects layer on top of each other, the color palette or the low oblique angle of the camera, but it's sometimes next to impossible to "read" the battlefield -- engagement circles become obscured, character models become hard to distinguish, etc. Secondly, and maybe more glaring, the writing is often bloated and overly wordy, The writers also clearly were amining for a gritty, serious story, which isn't a sin in and of itself, but without any comic relief (ala Morte from Planescape) it turns into quite a slog by about 20 or 30 hours in. Lastly, the world of Eora is boring; at least the parts they show. You will hear about a lot of places that sound like they would be amazing to visit, but what you get to see instead is a generic vaguely Forgotten Realms like setting that failed to engage my interest. Conclusion: This is a compently made game, that makes a valiant attempt to restore a lost era of gaming and modernize it, but it's just too bogged down by over-exposition and needed more show and less tell.

This review will probably get buried like all of the others, but here goes. I'm a veteran of Infinity Engine games. I really want to enjoy this game ... I'm in Act 3 and I still don't understand when your health gets damaged. There are two kinds of health: endurance (i.e., per-encounter) and health (i.e., when it hits zero you're dead forever). It seems like 99% of the time, your endurance gets damaged in combat and your health gets ticked off little by little. If your endurance drops to 0, you essentially pass out during combat. When combat ends, you get a random attribute penalty until you rest for 8 hours. Throughout Act 1 and 2, I pretty much decimated enemies during every encounter. Now suddenly, I'm getting hammered like crazy and I'm actually dying. The problem is in Act 3, it seems to rely more on mind control or domination attacks and damned if I can figure out how to defend against it. Also, be prepared to travel ... a lot ... Yah, there's quick travel. Yah, there's fast mode for walking. But, in all honesty, it isn't fast enough. The slow map transitions really dampen the experience too. If you're a D&D expert, the game mechanics don't feel normal. Character development is a little confusing, but once you play a few hours you pretty much forget about it all together. It doesn't really seem to matter too much what your stats are. Yah technically you get +% of whatever for each point in your primary stats, but the game is pretty forgiving if you don't get it right. There seems to be a ton of skills to choose from, but honestly there are few "class" skills. So in essence all of the characters feel the same. Characters seem to have skills that grant additional per-encounter abilities. And you pretty much forget to use them because most encounters are dealt with straight up melee or maybe a few spells. I hear that Pillars of Eternity 2 will address a lot of these issues, so I'm looking forward to it.

Game is great. Lots of nostolgia from this one for those who loved Baldur's Gate. However, bad ally ai path finding, they get stuck between each other trying to walk or get to an enemy. No auto casting options for spell casters, you have to manually click on your spell caster to tell them which spell to cast. Ally Ai also stand there and dont help unless ordered to attack and help out their teammates. They will literally watch their teammates die unless you tell them to help each other. Um both left and right mouse buttons acts as move keys which is annoying when you want to click someone instead of moving them. There currently is no option to change this to only right mouse click to move. And graphics are a down side too. Its $45 bucks I expect decent graphics not rehashed graphics from the old days come on we are in the 21st century.

This game is average at best. New and exiting at first and the voice acting is quite well done. Yet it fails to keep that spark. The games mechanics are extremely convoluted and contrived. The characters are not interesting despite them trying REALLY hard to make them unique. Still... unique doesn't equal interesting or relatable. Leveling up feels like a mere after thought and i soon lost interest on even trying to use my characters abilities... too many with too little real impact. I guess they are only really of importance on higher difficulty levels. The combat was TERRIBLE before 2.0 and is barley adequate now that there's a (very rudimentary) ai system in place. still stupid as fuck but at least i don't have to tell everyone of them to do at least SOMETHING. even if its just pulling the next group of generic monsters from the next room. Valiant effort... but nothing more.