Generally speaking, I enjoyed the game, but I don't think it was perfect. I will break it down. The Good: Combat is generally pretty fun Character customization is pretty good A lot of cool spells and summons The story is pretty good once it gets going, with a few nice twists A couple of memorable characters, especially Velianrick and Isla. A lot of opportunities to avoid violent solutions, which is nice. The Mediocre: Combat gets pretty easy after a while. I played through almost the entire game on veteran with just my PC and Bijalla. Spells are a little overabundant, which reduces some of the tactical need for preserving spells. Not enough different skills. Templars, Fighters, Barbarians etc all have the same class abilities. Crafting is cool, but experimentation can be pretty frustrating. A lot of fetch quests, some of which can be tedious. The Bad: The load times. My goodness! I know a lot has been said of this, but they're really bad! Most of the characters are half-baked. Bjalla gets a decent arc - and I guess Jade too, - but Hamlin and Helgenhar's quests don't go anywhere. More to the point, the party members feel a little thin, we don't end the game knowing much about them. It's much closer to Icewind Dale or BG1, rather than Planescape or BG2, which truly had great party members. The epilogue is rather...underwhelming. Only a couple things you do affect it, and there's no story closure for the PC or his companions, which feels unfinished. Ultimately, I enjoyed my experience, and I did put about 70 hours of gameplay (three characters, only one finished), so I'm glad I stuck it out to the end and I'm happy to have supported it. I just wish it had more fleshed out characters, and a better epilogue.
I'm a big fan of this game. The graphics are good, the gameplay is exciting, and the storyline is awesome. But the poker dice minigame is f*cking atrocious. I have never seen such unbelievably stacked luck. It literally doesn't matter what I roll. I can have a full house, and my opponent will roll four of a kinds. Two pair, my opponent will roll three of a kind. Straight, and my opponent will roll full house. Every time. Every single f*cking time. I don't know what CD Projekt Red were thinking when they made this minigame, but the computer is so impossibly lucky that it makes me think they rigged it on f*cking purpose just to make sure everyone who plays the game loses their g*dd*mned m*therf*cking mind every time they roll those stupid, f*cking, obviously loaded dice.
I can't even figure out how to get past the first mission/quest/chapter. I'm sure that's at least 80% on me, and if I put enough hours into it, I could probably figure it out. The gameplay itself is straightforward, but I'm not having any fun. I've only put a couple hours into this, and that's where it's going to stop. If I better understood what my objectives were and how to accomplish them, I might enjoy the game more. But as it is, I'm not having fun, so why bother?
If I had known the definitive edition was coming, I wouldn't have bought the regular edition a couple of months ago. Oh well. This is an amazing game, well worth the asking price.
I have a lot of mixed feelings on this game. For one, it's a time vampire. It's all too easy to spend hour after hour on a single shard, trying to defeat the local lords. It gets a lot worse when you have to fight other masters on the larger maps. I don't mind the difficulty of the learning curve. Some things you just have to learn by dying. One thing I really like is how, as you conquer shards, you unlock the abilities to build new buildings, recruit new soldiers, learn more spells, etc. What I DON'T like is the difficulty settings themselves. I'm playing on beginner because I'm already spending five or six hours on a single shard, and I don't really want the hassle and grind of playing on hard levels. What's frustrating is, after spending six freaking hours attacking a shard, you finally get to the enemy's demesne, kill the hero and the army defending it and launch a siege. Two turns later, another hero shows up...and he has minotaurs in his army? That's like a level four soldier, but I can only recruit level two...I mean, what the hell? I was so furious, I rage-quit. I'm playing on beginner difficulty. I don't mind a challenge, but to have a beginner opponent with army units I won't be able to create until maybe ten or fifteen shards down the line? Hardly seems appropriate for beginner level. To be fair, this doesn't break the game. I still could win - if I resurrect my hero six turns later, rebuild my army and have my other two heroes conquer their way back to his demesne along with the third once he's resurrected. But after spending six hours on a single shard, the last thing I want to do is spend three more getting back to the point where I can win. It's a good game, but the difficulty level is way too imbalanced.
First off, I want to address some of the negative comments other reviewers have addressed. Some have complained that the stronghold was a "waste of money." This is a pointless complaint. Honestly, what else are you going to spend your money on? I had 120,000 coins at the end of the game. Give me a break. Others complained about a linear story. Sure. But how many story-heavy video games don't have a clear arc? A clear story progression is a big part of a logical narrative. People complain the story is too linear, but how many people want to watch a movie that jumps hither and thither at random. There are plenty of tasks and side quests to keep you busy long before you tackle the main quest. Someone complained that there are no AI scripts. That's just dumb, because there are available AI scripts for all the characters; you have to go into the character menu to assign one, but they're there. Another reviewer complained that all the races basically look human. That's also stupid, because the Infinity Engines all had the same problem. Human, Elf, Half-elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Gnome...all pretty much look the same. These races are standard fantasy trope, and complaining about is pointless. KotOR was set in the Star Wars universe, and half your party members are human. Get over it. Someone also complained about all the nonessential NPCs and the immersion-breaking tombstones. This was a crowd-funded game, and these things were placed in the game on their dollar. If you don't want to break the immersion, don't read them! Despite all the stupid complaints, this game does have its issues. Combat was enjoyable at times, but downright frustrating at others. The story, while deep and faceted, was at times heavy-handed and somewhat anti-religion. I didn't really like some of my companions, and I felt like the voice acting appeared and disappeared arbitrarily at times. Pillars of Eternity isn't as good as Icewind Dale or Planescape: Torment, but it's still a solid adventure.
