Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

Fantastic and really enjoyable game. These days it's quite rare for me to invest a lot of time in any game. There are simply to many games and most of those can't really hold my attention for a long time (sometimes I realzie that I've been gaming for a long time :-p ). But PoE 2 really drags me in and doesn't let go. It has been quite a while since I seriously thought about canceling a date or miss meeting friends for a beer simply because I really enjoy a particular game. But PoE 2 actually does that. I'm not really good at reviewing so I keep this simple. Do you enjoy RPGs, particularly RPGs like Pillars of Eternity 1, Neverwinter Nights 2 or even more classical games like Baldur's Gate? Then give PoE2 a chance. It is really, really good. The main story line (I have been playing about 35h right now) is very good, the character development is very good, the side quests are sometimes brilliant, sometimes only good, the NPCs are well written and so on. And if you don't like RPGs like I described above? Then please give it a chance, buying the game at a discount during a sale. :-) As you can see I really, really like the game. So 5/5 for me.

It's an AMAZING game with is own personal identity and you if you like actual RPGs with both good strategic combat, interesting world building with intelligent writing and a lot of text to read and choices to make, this is the game for you. It doesn't even suffer from the usual shortcomings of other "deep" games. It's approachable, the rules are not hard to understand and even offer a wide variety of difficulty settings both for those that don't want to be bothered by the combat and for the "hardcore" audience that wants that deep strategic combat. The fact that is aesthetically so pleasing just helps even more, some maps are so beautiful that you will stop to just admire them. It's a refined game like no other in the genre, especially design and balance wise. I feel that while it has been said a lot about it, rarely it has been treated fairly especially from those people that are so busy comparing this and other newer games to old glories (not seeing THEIR shortcomings) to not see and acknowledge the bunch of good things in them.

One of the best RPG's of 2010s, in my opinion a true descendant of baldur's gate 2. Superb atmosphere (XVI-XVII century colonialism carraibean era), music, and scenario. 100% must have of any crpg fan

This game takes all of the features of the first part and improves them significantly. What I enjoyed most: - the beautiful environments, - open world full of interesting encounters, - responsive, carefully constructed factions to support or oppose, - endless tactical options, especially with dual classing, - the shanties and tavern music. I particularly like how the designers painted a setting inspired by historical themes, like colonialism, progress vs tradition, faith and antitheism, without giving it an ideological slant. It feels like a colorful, living world that has it's brutal moments and macabre locations. What are the weak points: - short main quest, - shallow companion quests. Both of these are tradeoffs for the wide open world and numerous sidequests. While the companions have short quests, all of them are interesting in a way. You'll probably like some of them, and despise others, which is a mark of good writing, in my opinion. Continuing the weak points: - ship combat might as well not be there, - some convoluted mechanics, especially armor penetration, - some performance issues: long load times and memory leak (making the game work slower and slower until you have to restart it). As a fan of the genre, this is now one of my favorite games, especially after all the improvements brought in the patches and DLCs. Closing notes: Recent patches have brought an experimental turn-based mode as opposed to the original real time with pause. Not my thing, did not check it out. The highest difficulty level can be brutal in the beginning if you do not use the best tactics.

Suprisingly good as long as you are more into exploration - there is so many ports, islands and even abordage battles to explore, however do not expect ship manouvering and such because you will be disapointed - it's there but I was never satisfied with text-based fighting in here. Despite that there is so much content, I just can't imagine how it has flew under the radar and myself - I'm glad I found it. Similarly to POE 1 - expect tonnes of skill based checks and usually multiple ways to solve problems or at the very least muliple choices to finish quest. Also some small decision impacts from POE 1 can be noticed in here, but nothing super-important. Keep also in mind the game will be a spoiler to plot of POE1 if you haven't played it yet. Few different ships you can aquire, even small upgrades can be installed in the ship. So many unique weapons, and equipment in general, on top of it, you can enchant the equipment yourself, for a price of course. Finally meet some of the gods do their bidding or oppose and see if you can still survive.