Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire - Obsidian Edition

I'll focus on major differences from Pillars 1: PRESENTATION is phenomenal. Pillars already looked good and this is even better, both in graphics and art direction. This is the best looking CRPG I've seen. MECHANICS: the addition of kits and multiclasses is great (and fairly well balanced by CRPG standards, compare BG2). Also, partybuilding is hugely improved by letting you choose from 1 of 3 similar classes for companions. The 2nd major change is less positive. Now all abilities (including spells) are per-encounter. Also Spells are unlocked individually with the same levelup points as passives (just like other classes' actives). This incentivises only unlocking the best spells then using these same spells in every fight. Finally, the true open world is a big improvement and vastly improves the sense of exploration and discovery. (The actual ship management is pointless but easy to ignore so it doesn't detract from the game.) WRITING: Worldbuilding is great, with a well-realised, original Pacific Islands/colonial/pirate fantasy theme. The local and colonial factions are interesting and nuanced and this comes across in game but sadly your interactions with them are not nuanced: you still choose which factions to help/destroy and these conflicts escalate far too quickly. The main plot is a lot less serious than Pillars 1. Personally I prefer this because I didn't like Pillars 1's plot and pacing is improved by replacing the huge lore dumps with Tyranny's hover-over glossary system. But YMMV. Also worth noting it ends on a cliffhanger for a 3rd game that will never come. Finally, companions are a mixed bag. Once again, their concepts are interesting but this time they seem like caricatures. Each companion has several traits (e.g. "antireligious") which determine reputation gain/loss with them. Unfortunately, their personalities seem boiled down entirely to these traits. On the plus side, companions' quests are more substantial and satisfying than in Pillars 1.

Finished pillars 1 and 2 with all dlcs respectively and pretty much all sidequests that are possible within one playthrough each. Pillars 2 was in many ways a weird game. I've never experienced a game where the two sides of the same coin shined so brightly in the opposite direction. Pirate theme with your own ship and crew is cool, but soon you'll be tired of micromanaging food and drinks and find a way to avoid or skip it. Ship battles are by all accounts sad depicted by non-sensical text battles. Graphics are beautiful and effects are amazing, but locations are rarely memorable and the frequency and length of loading screens is laughable. FPS breakdowns are there often. The main story and sidequests are good, but also without going into much detail, I don't think the main story makes sense at the end within its own lore... Dlcs are totally not worth the original price. Neither items nor story nor locations. But with a big discount for each it's ok. Unecessary nevertheless. And now my biggest gripe, the companions. All of the above is important yes, but the heart and soul of any crpg are the companions, and deadfires are unvaried, flat, humorless and bland. So bland and boring. Interactions with each other, with the player, with the world etc are scarce, and when, then a sentence here and there nothing more. And lastly, texts, voices are amazing and they poured their heartblood in it, but the amount of reading is too much in the sense of unvital stuff. I don't need to read the reaction and facial expression of everyone every sentence. That just drags everything infinitely and slows down the pace. I think remembering this game will give one the illusion that it was better than it is. Performance issues aside, and strangely lack of creativity, this game is solid. Worth one playthrough or perhaps even two. And frankly, as a gamer, that should be good enough

It's a solid effort, the game mechanics are complex but approachable. The scenery and world is quite impressive. Ultimately however, it failed to make me care about any of the characters. The quests are interesting enough but somehow also shallow: brings no real change to the world and there's no real point to doing anything. The ship and ship combat idea was interesting but again, there's no reason to engage with it, there's no reason to upgrade anything, and doing the ship combat through a text menu interface was honestly a bad choice. And then the death blow: late game bugs that occurs deep into a DLC dungeon and breaks the game. I'd have to load a save several hours earlier and skip the DLC entirely to be able to play the game. It's been a known issue for 5-6 months at least, so I don't expect I'll ever be able to finish the game.

Main story isn’t as long and well-structured as in PoE1 since during the sailing and side missions the main story seems to be on hold. Although the main story did pick up near the end. The good: Side missions on the other hand are many and branching. On my first main city visit I spent about 30 hours doing side missions all over the city. I liked the city map visualizations which showed where you are, the places you could visit and when you travelled in the city it also showed the trail of your journey through the streets and alleys. The bad: Ship combat really wasn’t my thing, therefor I used to just board everyone before the actual naval combat started. And I missed the old Castle management aspect. There just isn’t much to manage on your ship. My biggest gripe with PoE2 was the party size. In PoE2 you can have only a party of 5 whilst in the first one you could have a party of 6. Because of this I didn’t like to experiment with different party configurations as much. DLC: For me the DLC the “Seeker, slayer and survivor” was the most ‘meh’ due to its combat focus. Beast of Winter and The Forgotten Sanctum were good because of their lore heavy nature.

Really wasn't looking forward to it but the changes in the systems since POE 1 are great. Haven't felt so torn picking a side to fight for in a long time. Story is good, ship combat is a bit clunky at first but once you get the hang of it isn't bad...But you are here for RPG goodness and this delivers.