I had been curious about Pillars of Eternity since it's Kickstarter, since I very much love an involved and interesting story with character I want to engage with on a quest to save the world. I'm a sucker for the classics. What I played was... fine. The two big hang ups I have about the game are the story and the combat. The story felt like it was trying to get its claws into me. A power awakened in you that allows you to see past and present at the same time? Not only that but actually interact with said past objects and people? Awesome! Sadly, nothing cool or interesting actually comes form having these powers. Not even some focus on the theme of madness or insanity because of your character experiencing chunks of past lives, other people's experiences, or past and present happening at the same time. It simply gives you flavor text for a large number of NPCs and that's kind of it. While I didn't grow up with CRPGs, I did play a good chunk of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale to familiarize myself more with how Pillars would play. And I understood the combat easily enough. But playing on Normal, through the first chapter and a half, was just AWFUL. I had to slog my way through the majority of combat in order to complete quests which give you the bulk of your XP to level up. (For those curious, my party was Druid (me), Barbarian, Fighter, Mage, Cypher and Priest.) So I had to Quicksave and Load constantly and attempt battles multiple times. And the companion AI didn't help, leading me to turn it off completely and direct everyone. Not helped by the fact I got Paralyzed by Specters three separate times trying to complete a story-relevant dungeon. Even after toning the difficulty down to Easy, I still felt like I was walking through knee-deep sludge just to make it through fights to progress the uninteresting story. After 25 hours of effort dealing frustrating AI companions, a dull story, very pretty environments and visuals, I can only say that you have to be a big fan of CRPGs to see this through to the end, or have a LOT of patience.
