Pillars of Eternity was my first real cRPG, and it took me several tries to get into it. However, after starting a game and finally sticking with it, I can say this was a great game and an enjoyable RPG, with a few flaws. The good: The writing, setting, story, and characters are fantastic as you would expect from Obsidian. While many people seem to have an issue with the RTWP combat, I found it mostly enjoyable. Overall, if you let this game get its narrative hooks into you, you're in for quite a treat. As for the bad: While I found the combat enjoyable enough, there was A LOT of it - too much in some areas, in my opinion. On top of that, on the hard difficulty (and above), you need to treat almost every encounter as a serious threat. So there's a lot of combat that you have meticiously micro-manage. While this is alleviated on the normal difficult, many combats become less enjoyable because they require very little thought. It's an interesting conundrum - do I spend 40 of my 60 hours with this game micro-managing fights, or do I sleepwalk through fights and get bored with the combat? Also, while the game has a mostly fantastic presentation there are certain fights where it can be a little difficult to actually tell what is happening. The DLC did not feel particulary well integrated into the game. Story-wise, the dlc's writing is at a similar level as to the rest of the game. However, there is an issue with ludonarrative dissonance depending on when you decide to do the DLC, and it's not very clear as to when you are expected to do the dlc along the main quest. Additionally, the dlc throws off the balance of the rest of the game. This can be alleviated with level scaling, but I wish the game was balanced with the dlc in mind. Finally, there are bugs. Again, as to be expected with Obsidian. They are frustrating when they crop up, but not enough to ruin enjoyment. Many can be solved by a reload (which takes a while with the loading screens).
This game was 15 years old at the time I played it, and I would say that I haven't played a game in the past 10 years that has better gunfights than this game. Of course, there are aspects of it that are dated, and be aware that you might need to tweak a few things to get this game running well. While the graphics are obviously dated, the amazing lighting really helps the overall appearance of the game. The sound design is solid as well. The voice acting is so-so, but everything else sounds great, particularly the guns (with the exception of the assault rifle). The actual gunplay is top-notch. Guns are visceral, loud, and have a wonderful and terrible effect on the enemies you fight. The enemies feel smart - they will actively and effectively try to flank you, and make tactical maneuvers that I had never seen in shooters before (e.g., knocking things over for cover, crawling under things to surpise you, somersaulting over objects to get into cover, etc.). You have a time-slowing mechanic, which is implemented really well. I think my favorite part of the gunplay is the aftermath, however. The environments reflect the intensity of the gun fight you just engaged in. There might be papers and dust in the air from where bullets hit a desk or drywall, objects will be askew from that grenade you threw, and blood splatters the wall from when you let loose your smg on the clone trooper that was trying to flank you. It's a beautiful thing - Exceedingly well done. It's not all good, however. The game does get slightly repetitive. You will fight the same enemies in similar environments the entire game. The story is interesting enough, but it's told in a disparate way that makes it unecessarily hard to peice to together. Finally, the horror elements are there, but it's not a scary game. Regardless of flaws and age, this game is absolutely worth your time. Sure, you'll be fighting clone troopers in office environments the entire game, but you'll love doing it.
It took me 40 hours doing mostly everything. I had a good time, but after 40 hours, I was done with it. The focus of the game is on turned based combat, and that's what you will spend the majority of your game doing. The story is forgettable, the characters have almost no characterization, the crafting is mostly pointless (except potions in the beginning). This game put all of its effort into the combat. That being said, the combat is fun, but slow paced. Animations look great, but are slow, and there is no way to speed them up. As for difficulty, there are a few challenging parts in the beginning if you pick harder dungeons. However, after a while you can start to steamroll things. There is an aspect of party composition, so you could use a party that might not be ideal to give yourself some extra challenge, but that would have to be self-imposed. I will say I found the last boss to be slightly difficult (took me 2 tries to beat), but I was also using a B-team party for the last quarter of the game. I'd recommend it, with the caveat being that you HAVE to enjoy turned based combat. There is also a new game plus that supposedly ups the difficulty, but as I said, after 40 hours, I was done. I can't comment on it directly.
