Pillars of Eternity: Hero Edition

I played the game when it was released and due to outside factors dropped it. I started a new game about a month ago and have now clocked 50h+ of game play. The patches have massively improved the game play. The plot while slow to kick start, gets into full gear around the start of Act II. Game play is solid, combat is challenging at high difficulties, the sound track is great, and the lore immersive. A few "bad" things: gold is plenty full, you will never need to save money for anything. The party AI is weak but kinda irrelevant as on easy/story mode the fighting is easy and on harder difficulties one would want to micromanage. Fast travel allows you to move to a location, but not within it so a little time is spend moving from A to B within a map. Combat can be daunting on new players as there are a lot of effects happening at once: use pause, read. Overall, no major problems and lots of good things.

Constantly wanting more and the curiousity it arouses in me on whats going to happen next is addicting. I usually have a hard time sticking to games with a lot of areas spent talking but I just find this whole universe riveting. I've read a lot where people had said theres more time spent talking than combat but I never had that issue, though I usually saught out combat with enemies as much as possible, and I gotta say I never felt like the text was too drawn out. Now my attention span is kinda crap so there were quite a few books in game I tried to read but they couldnt keep my attention, along with some minor conversations, but really most of the "important" text or the text to at least get the main story and whats going on is all voice acted so if youre worried about that dont. Theres a vast array of options this game offers, from tons of choices having consequences later in-game to really deep character customization, skills, and interactions. Pillars of Eternity is a Must for any Rpg lover wether it be videogame rpgs or pen and paper you'll love PoE.

If you are considering getting an RPG game, and you're considering a game that: ...allows a good level of characterization for your player character? ...has a story is very deep and detailed, but not at all tedious? ...has creative lore? ...lets you create your own companions, in addition to having extremely detailed story companions? If so, you should try Pillars of Eternity. It checks off all the boxes. The game has a distinct setting, customizeable characters, and excellent writing. Each response your character has at his disposal may elicit an entirely different outcome in the conversation. What's best about this is that each conversation is not standard. What I mean by this is there is no "Good, Neutral and Cruel" options in every talk. Your tone, knowledge of the topic at hand, background, past decisions, skills, or present company may affect a conversation in different ways. The best part is that there's not a formula as to when this could happen. It just depends on the conversation. Classes are differentiated pretty well, with the old favorites (barbarians, wizards, rangers, etc) making appearances. There are several ways Pillars differentiates them, however. Some are intuitive-the ranger has an animal familiar of your choosing, for instance, and the barbarian specializes in AoE attacks-but others are fairly innovative. The paladin gets to choose from several orders that affect gameplay. One may add to the burn damage of an ability, another may add a healing option. The priest has a similar process with the god the player devotes himself to. These options are selected at character creation and in certain dialogues enable unique options. Each option also affects what kind of reputation your character prefers. In addition, there are original classes like the chanter and the cipher that are entirely of a Pillars flavor. My original review was 3700 words over the limit, so I left the two best parts (thanks GoG) but that should be a testament to the game.

I had high hopes for this game. But now, having slogged my way through it, I don't think it's going to go down as a classic for me personally. That being said, there are certainly things to like here. The graphics are really pretty to look at, and the music is almost worth the purchase price on its own. I enjoyed the combat a lot. Strategy is key, and rushing in with an overpowered character is not an option. Not many RPGs have made me give up in frustration at repeatedly losing an encounter, only for me to tackle it later on with a different approach and coast through it. All in all, however, I don't find myself in any rush to replay this game now that I've completed it. Why? Mostly because of the story. It's okay. It's passable. But it tries to come across as a lot more profound than it actually is and never, ever gripped me or made me desperately want to find out what happened next. The game world itself mirrored the story; not bad, but lacking in depth and charm. And the less said about those immersion-breaking fan-created NPCs, the better. For a game which requires its players to read so much, I found the writing to be rather dull. The player character's spiritual experiences in particular are too heavy on metaphors. It ultimately made me skip through large parts of the conversations (which admittedly might have dulled my experience somewhat). Then there's the loading screens. Those darned loading screens!! All areas - even very small ones - take absolute ages to load. This makes quick traveling from area to area a frustrating chore and too often takes the pace out of the game. It seems such a small thing to complain about, but really affected my overall experience. I love what this game stands for and I fully support Obsidian's campaign to get it made. I really hope it sells well and proves a point to developers that this old-school approach is not dead, so that we may see similar games like this. But overall, I can't shake the feeling that this game could've been so much more.

For sure, Obsidian was able to make an RPG of the year. Everything in this game is brilliant.