....you made a terrific game that bombs because you happen to release it at just the wrong time. And the end result? People forget about it and then ten years later it appears on various hidden-gem or favorite lists. The mechanics are deep, meaningful and a lot of fun to digest, similar to the first installement but now with a lot less clutter. For instance, spells are usually per encounter now such that you don't have to rest every two steps. You can also multiclass now with a simple but suprisingly sturdy system that allows for a lot possibilities while each combination stays potentially viable. I had a lot of fun coming up with different builds and hiring adventurers to test them out. The world building is excellent and solving its mysteries provides a motivating backdrop to most of your sidequests. There are also different factions with meaningful motivations and a closed questline which forces you to decide the fate of the archipelago. Or you can just go your own way and explore lots and lots of islands to find a staggering amount of well-done sidequests, challenging encounters and only the shiniest of loot. The game also gives you a lot of dialogue choices for roleplaying (much more than in, say, Divinity 2) which practically begs you for a replay. Plus, there's the DLCs which are all excellent in their own way and add another shovelfull of content. But.... not all is well. The main-story bleeds mystery but ends up being the very definition of anticlimatic. Some new mechanical systems are a bit shallow (ship combat), work rather poorly (afflictions) or lie somewhat at odds with the story (exploration). There's also the companions. In contrast to the first PoE they are clearly a step back - their main-quests are boring, the characters can be borderline soap-opera and I always had the feeling that a lot of them required a better resolution than what we are given. Still, this is one of the best crpgs out there. Go play it.
