Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

There aren't many pirate-themed games, not to mention CRPGs, so the change of scenery was a great move. Set in the Deadfire Archipelago, you shortly become captain of your own ship with a customisable crew with their own unique dialogue, stats and traits. Unlike the original Pillars game, Deadfire is a sandbox where the player decides their own pacing and choice of exploration. This can both hurt or heighten your experience but thanks to scripted interactions and world map incentives it's also easy to find adventure and the way to "progress" the story. There is now a turn-based mode option, which is my preference, because you can sit back and properly strategize like a tabletop game. The mode has ups and downs, for example the Dexterity stat is heavily reworked to be weaker, but a wizard's AoE spell is now much more applicable. Also, NPCs are all almost fully voice acted and some companions from Pillars 1 return! You can import a save game or create a game state at the beginning. As for the world I really love the setting, the mature (but less dark) approach to the characters and dialogue and locations being less historical fantasy and more tropical and dark fantasy. You have places like wizard's workshops, a bathhouse to a mansion with wondering mechanicals - it reminds me a lot of Thief 2: The Metal Age. As for gameplay, it's similar to Pillars 1 but expanded and improved but also streamlined a little; all per-rest abilities are gone. There are more CYOA text events, dialogue has more skill, attribute and companion influence, along with the reputation system, bounty hunting and generally more roleplay ways to immerse yourself is staggeringly good. To me, Deadfire is an enormous improvement over Pillars 1 in almost every way, let down only by the ship combat system that is more frustrating than fun. The sandbox approach was absolutely the right thing to do and I love naming islands I find. Just a small thing to expect! Go, go play this CRPG!

I'll keep it short. The plot is less interesting than in PoE1. The open-world aspect makes a lot of odd quests seemed forced and lazely written. There are gamebreaking bugs keeping me from ending the game - which seems more interested in distracting me with tedious ship-battles and uninteresting encounters, than actually telling an interesting story with flow .

Ill start out by saying i went into the game hoping for a lot more than the first few hours got me. Story: You start you by having an angry god emerging from his plane of existence to the mortal realms, you dont know why he has done it but you know its something that has happened before. Only now its Dr. Manhatten running around causing havoc. You are tasked to find out what he wants to attain and why hes doing it. I dont want to spoil it but its so terribly written with a ton of holes in the story i dont know how it got past Obsidian Quality checking, it tries to be mystified and magical.. but it fails on many levels. Sidequests: They are mostly there to give you experience points, you do bounties mostly that is "kill this person for who even cares why reason" and get some money and experience. Some sidequests or companions that you would think have a great link to the main story.. isnt a factor at all. You think companions have amazing stories to tell, they dont, they end abruptly into nothingness, Possitive: First of all the game loads a lot faster than the first one The game has dual classing that works nicely ! Spells are per encounter Negative: - Story, and sidequests arent fleshed out. - Shipcombat is terrible in all aspect and too much of it. (not even a kraken to attack your ship) - The first big city you arrive in IS the main city of all things, and it doesnt feel that big to begin with. - You can use the best spells all the time but the time to cast anything is so high you basically cast buffs and go - The weapons are not very well balanced, you pick up a 2h, and even with no armor you swing so slow you want to cry. - Dualwielding is once again super powerful, ranged besides hunting bow is utter trash (thx modals) - The ending is utter puke. - Reputation isnt well made at all - Npcs are boring even the more unsavory ones. - AI Combat character management is terrible, too many parameters and its just very clunky, never got it to work right.

I'll throw in a tldr for those who have better things to do than read reviews. There will probably be spoilers for those bothered by such things, and I'm also reviewing the 5.0 version. tldr: Story. I found it both boring and uninteresting. Combat. For a tactical RPG it is boring and tedious. Gameplay, or the stuff outside story and combat. Frustratingly boring. Graphics/Art. Backgrounds and characters are nice, but you'll be spending most your time staring at a rather bland boring book, so basically a draw. Personal peeves. So many it's frustrating. So here starts my longer review. Basically the game starts out by you getting interviewed by your new boss. It's so slow and boring they helpfully included a skip button. Your boss sends you on your way and so begins your job as a middle manager in what can be best described as Office Space fantasy edition. You'll have multiple bosses and they'll all want to talk to you about your TPS reports. Which is basically why, for me, I couldn't care less about the story. It's probably why the first time I played I chose to leave the interview, which was and still is the best choice and most logical choice. After that you'll get to enjoy the exciting world of combat. By exciting I mean leisurely swinging your weapon, using your now limited ability/spell and then leisurely swinging your weapon until you're dead or your opponents are. It's honestly a joy when it ends. This leads us to gameplay. You'll quickly realize that this game is long winded reports in a bland book with some lazy art. Ship to ship combat, here's your report. Encounter with a group/ambush/enemy unit, here's your report. This lead me to rapidly dread exploring. The art is okay, but you'll be staring at the bland book, mostly. Finally my personal peeves, the narrator/voices are irritating, leveling is fairly terrible, and their ham handed story messages are generally off-putting. Basically it's a badly written book combined with a boring game.

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire is a really good continuation of the first game. All gameplay elements shine here: - Big and rich world to explore freely - Combat is varied and well thought out - Level progression has useful options and makes sense - Lots of uniqe items to find and interesting enchantments - Dialogue is fully voiced and important words are highlighted with short description (just like in Tyranny) - Different factions fighting for dominance Personally I prefer the story and the atmosphere of the first game as here I don't enjoy pirate/tropcal world as much. The story was a bit less involving this time for me, in the end it felt as I didn't do that much, only watched as the events unfold. Overall a really good experience, both games are what I missed for all these years - classic team-based cRPGs.