Honestly, I dont know what to think. It's a game done really well when it comes to mechanics, very polished in terms of art, dialogues etc...
.. yet at the same time, the story completely did NOT captivate me. At all. It felt... forced. It felt rushed. And while the dialogues with various GODS were fantastic, it felt.. just MEH. Nyeh. It's trying real hard, but maybe its just trying TOO hard, hm ?
Also, the main plot is SUPERBLY short and 90% of the side quests seem almost meaningless, and seem to have zero impact on anything other than a short ambient message at the end of the game (which is cool, but again, it leaves a feeling of .. nyeh. Meh. Meaningless)
inventory management is a pain in the ass - and at the same time, you sell 99% of stuff you find, since you can upgrade your artfifacts.
PoE 2 is definitely a huge improvement over its bland predecessor, with interesting mechanics, role play improvements, and good dialogue. It is being let down by a badly mastered Unity engine, though.
The Good:
+ Improvements to the often nonsensical PoE1 system with better designed abilities and multi-classing.
+ Pretty tightly designed world - you are free to explore, but it's not an open world where you could get lost.
+ The game is has proper pacing and length (no 250+ hour time sink but not short either).
+ Dialogues are voiced now, and writing is organic, and not simply a huge lore dump. Also, kickstarter NPCs are gone for good.
+ Achievements mean something (you get points through them which can be spent to improve your main character when playing again).
The Bad:
- Lots of story NPCs are quite unlikeable, and accepting their "personalities" require very specific tastes. Thankfully, you can use sidekicks (companions without quests but with banter).
- You cannot re-roll your class, which is a huge oversight (you *can* re-roll your current class at any time but you cannot change it).
- Poor optimization (nights and storms will often tank fps).
- Loading screen simulator to an insane degree (you go to a tiny location - loading screen - you go upstairs to another tiny location - loading screen - now you must go back - loading screen...). I can say without an exxageration that 30% of my playtime are loading screens, and I am sitting on a Samsung Pro SSD with i7-12700. It is disruptive and absolutely unacceptable in 2018, let alone 2022 - developers, please learn how to use overlays in Unity to avoid incessant loading screens. Nobody has less than 16 GB RAM in this day and age, so you don't have to be afraid to use it. Even Pathfinder devs use it.
I spent hundreds of hours in PoE 1 and PoE 2, and not until the last 10 minutes of PoE 2 did I finally find the same spark of magic that made me fall in love with Obsidian at the end of KOTOR 2. An even more brilliant spark, perhaps. Whereas the end of KOTOR 2 merely affirmed a belief I already held about the balance of light and dark sides of the Force, the ending of Deadfire opened my eyes to a whole new perspective: on the value of ancient religions like the Greek pantheon vs. modern religions like Christianity.
But let's speak of practical matters first: the recommendation. Do not bother to play Deadfire unless you (1) played through PoE 1 and want more of it or (2) like to try out new and complex CRPG game mechanics.
Deadfire is an improvement over PoE 1 in all the big ways. The graphics are better and the world looks more lively. All the dialogue and even some narrations are fully voice acted, and acted well. The story is more thought-provoking, at least if you play all the way to the end and do not resist the game's themes. The quests are more complex and intertwined. The RPG system is bigger with subclasses and dual classes, deeper with a lot of interconnected mechanics, but also easier to navigate with a fully visible progression tree.
However, the barrier to entry is high. The story makes less sense and the main plot and some key character interactions have far less impact if you didn't fully experience PoE 1. The RPG system is a pain for casual players like me to fully grasp, even with my experience in PoE 1, and there is no auto leveling to help you. There is still no cool villian, or any villian really, to motivate the story. The main conflict is philosophical.
There are also small annoyances like an inventory system even worse than PoE 1 and the inexplicable removal of the keyboard shortcut to follow your party.
All that felt trivial at the end, when I understood the game's theme. It made the experience worth my while. It won't appeal to everyone.
I loved the first but obviously there could be some improvements. Not only did I find that a majority of those improvements were made, but they added a lot of little things that make the game feel so much more alive. Its a must buy for the genre imo. Obsidian's attention to detail and focus on a lot of great content is very commendable as well. Pillars of eternity has turned me into a hard obsidian fan and I hope they don't ever give me a reason to change that
7.8/10 too much water - IGN /s
10/10 for me, one of my all time favorites
I have played nearly every CRPG from the Baldur's Gate series to the Icewind Dale series to Planescape:Torment. Deadfire has the most polished and exciting visual/UI so far. The character progression and combat is an absolute joy to experiment with, even though the game does force you to do a lot of saving/loading if you want to try out the different leveling/upgrading options. In terms of gameplay and visual Deadfire is a worthy succesor to Pillars of Eternity.
So why the 4-star rating? The main quests are severely lacking. I overlooked the issue in the first game because there was enough intrigue in the world building to keep me engaged. While the political intrigues and dilemmas were very well set up in the background, I never felt I had enough time to explore what my main character should feel and do in those situations. There was never any real setback and challenge for the main hero to grow in. Nothing unexpected really happened in the main quest. Similar to the first game, the main quest line makes you feel like you skipped Act 3 and jumped straight into the finale. I didn't feel like I was on an epic journey, and I didn't feel like I knew who my main character really was at the end, like I did with great RPGs like Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape:Torment, Witcher 3. I felt like I hopped between a few islands, made some ethical choices based on my own real-world ideology, and the game ended. It's a real shame that this otherwise great game seems to be missing part of its soul.
Finally, while bugs are expected for a game of this size and complexity, some of the bugs don't seem like the type that should have slipped through. For example, at the time of this review, if you respec your main character, you may lose the skill points you buy from trainers. It's not a gamebreaking bug, but it seems like very obvious thing to have been missed.
