When this game was released - I was pushed back by the "pirates" theme and not intuitive mechanics. But when I get used to some things and understood the game a little bit more...
It's surprising, but PoE2 skills/classes mechanics are balanced better, than Pathfinder. The main story is short but interesting, the world is huge, lots of interesting side quests and characters.
It's one of a few games that I did not uninstall after 100% completion, and replay it from time to time.
I really enjoyed this and in a lot of ways, more so than the first game. Just to get it out of the way, my biggest gripe is still that it's realtime with pause instead of turnbased. So, I really loved seeing the characters returning for this game. Eder is especially better than ever! The new characters are also excellent additions, though I do miss some of the characters that didn't return. The various stories are all well told and interesting, with the main plot tieing up far more consisely than the first and better all around. I just wish the game had a more focused way of distributing them. Once you get to Neketaka, you spend a really long time there before being sent back out of the city. Or maybe thats just how I play these types of games. I try to get as much done in a single location before moving on and there is just so much to do inside Neketaka before you can move on. I also didn't like the ship to ship combat. After a few ship battles, I just ended up resorting to storming the opponents ship every time. I really enjoyed the new setting as well. It took me a while to get the hang of who was who as far as factions are concerned, but eventually, i picked it up. Really gotta make some tough choices in this game, which I also liked. I think overall I enjoyed this one more than the first. Hopefully the few bugs that are in the game get ironed out before then next DLC, which I will definitely pick up.
PoE looks, sounds and plays just like BG1 and BG2. If you're looking for something to play after BG1 and BG2, then PoE should be a great choice for you. Of course, the graphics and sound are better in PoE.
I loved BG1 and BG2. Truly great games. Both allowed players to dig as deeply (or not) as they wanted in regard to all the subtleties and complexities of the D+D rules. I opted to jump in and create some characters and start playing. I created balanced parties (i.e., tank, wizard, thief, ranged, etc.). But I didn't try to get as sophisticated as many players did. I just played the games, and they were a blast!!
PoE is the same. There's a ton of depth, if you want it. But it's easy to build a party and start playing. A key reason this is possible is the "Story Mode" (which BG1 and BG2 Enhanced Editions also have). But for those who love a challenge and like to delve deep into the intricacies of D+D, there's plenty of difficulty levels.
Only reason I don't give PoE (or BG1/BG2) 5-stars is minor annoyances like tedious inventory management, sometimes it's easy forget where to go on a quest because that info often isn't included in the quest description, can't click and hold the mouse to keep the party moving, etc.
I know Larian Studios is working on Baldur's Gate 3, and I'll definitely check it out when it's officially released. But in the meantime, if you're looking for a chance to experience a new classic, PoE would likely be a good choice.
Currently clocked 400 hours in deadfire, made through the game in potd difficulty multiple times. Played all old obsidian games (even alpha protocol...) and really love crpg. That said deadfire is a inferior product even compared to the direct predecessor.
The good:
- solid ruleset similar to D&D, combined with many subclasses can provide high diversity in building your characters.
- looks pretty.
The bad:
- horrible performance, the more maps you load the worse the fps and stability, which eventually will crash your game. It's truly puzzling how mostly 2D ingame graphics can have such poor performance.
- many bugs still remain. From the most recent playthrough: magical items losing enchantment; stuck in enemy pull effect animation (had to reload after combat victory...); enemy charm effect killing your character in sanctum dlc area; final boss fight in beast of winter crash due to incompatibility with AMD GPU. And many more...
The worst:
- as of patch 5.0 there won't be any more patches, considering the bugs still remaining, it just leaves a bad taste.
- class balance could use a closer look at, especially because this is what i think the game does the best, currently some classes just outperform in majority of situations.
- story pacing feels weird, the main quest is very short and doesn't really feel engaging. The tone of the game also changed somewhat to a lighthearted one, maybe due to how almost all companions are flirty and joking all the time. Spaking of companion, because of the new relationship system, especially the returning old characters from pillars 1 got reduced to stereotypes. Pallegina's personality got hit hard.
Overall a mixed bag of a game with more tedency into the negative. Many features feel shallow (just look at the shipcombat), which i think is a pretty good description of the game as a whole.
This is a classic RPG experience with modern QoL improvements.
Great combat. One of the best mechanical system I've seen in an cRPG. building a system ground-up and not using some table-top rulesets definitely paid off. As soon as you try to play a table-top based ruleset after playing PoE2 you will notice all the tedious mechanics that bring nothing to the table in a computer game adaptation.
Visually, absolutely stunning!
Music? Memorable and just as good as in the first title.
Writing? Even the characters that appear cheap at first will open up in interesting ways as you progress. And yes, rejoice, the dredful 'lore dumps' are gone.
Side quests are a great show of Deadfire's factions' powerplays.
Naval combat, the only questionable mechanic, is completely redeemed by the virtue of being able to go straight to ordinary combat at any moment of a naval engagement.
The only possible objective critique left after all the patches is that the main quest feels short, the 'side' content is the real treat here.
But can you show me someone who plays Baldur's Gate, Arcanum or classic Fallout games only for the main quest? It goes without saying that anyone who is into this kind of games will complete every quest they can reach, so the adra colossus quest line being short is not a deal breaker at all. You are still looking at a solid >40 hour playthrough and that's just the core game without DLCs.
