Recent reviews by DocCovington

THE ENGINE

Walking in this game is a pain in the behind. I got stuck twice within the first 10 minutes, and it took me several attempts to break free again, since you cannot jump in this game. The invisible walls in seemingly flat terrain are very immersion breaking, too. Even normal walking feels awkward and clunky.

When you create a game where walking and exploring are the main activity, and especially on an engine that drives my graphics card's fans to signifantly speed up on highest settings, you should deliver better than this.

Character animation is pretty rudimentary, and the characters' faces look almost emotionless. Textures and objects look crude and repetitive. It feels like you were playing something from 2004.

GAMEPLAY

The game has a dense atmosphere, but for most part, it's a walking simulator with very little to explore and a pace that is way to slow for this little content. The story is okay, but there are a lot of things that could have been expanded and elaborated on. I was pretty disappointed overall and bored a lot of the time. I am uncertain I will ever finish this game.

BOTTOM LINE

I can't in good conscience recommend this game at full price. It's just not that good.


Edit:

So I have played on and finished the game...

There are whole levels that consist of nothing else but you playing hide and seek with some mythological monsters (great fun with those horrid, uncustomizable controls) and reading a couple of texts that will tell you who those monsters are, trying to weave them into the history of the island.

Nothing in this game really makes much sense, from smaller things, such as swimming through ice-cold water early on in the game and then proceeding as if you weren't freezing to death, to important matters, and the final question: "What the F is that ending?!" (In the light of the mother's psychological issues, I was expecting more.)

This game is technically and content-wise a huge disappointment. It became a bit more exciting towards the end, only to (literally) blow you off the cliff with an ending that left all the truly interesting questions open and logic behind one of those many invisible walls.

Don't even bother.

This game turned out A LOT more innovative and complex mechanic-wise than I first expected when I started playing it. A solid puzzle game with increasing difficulty and nice easter eggs.

The story is quite intriguing as well. You think you know what is going on, but your assumptions are frequently replaced with doubt. Are you real or a simulation? Do those other people exist? What is their angle? Is this a case of nature vs machine, and who is really manipulating whom? - Play to find out!

Extremely limited options for a CRPG release of 2017.

Even though the DE (Definitive Edition) offers camera rotation and better zoom, the lack of vertical camera alignment and the camera distance being determined by the floor height of the spot on which the camera currently stands make for a very bumpy camera movement and exploration of your environment a pain in the behind. Controls in general leave a lot to be desired.

Pretty bad and unintuitive. You spend more time fumbling around with these than actually playing the game.

Quite clumsy and one of the worst implementations of a turn-based game I have ever seen.

+++ Only buy when on sale and if you are the patient type +++

This game feels very unpolished regarding the aforementioned aspects, regardless of its quality in story and dialogue, which is sad come to think that Neverwinter Nights was released 18 years ago, Dragon Age: Origins 11 years ago, and both games excell in pretty much all departments. I blame the publishers who these days don't give devs the time needed to create a perfect game.

Anyway, being able to interact with your environment in many ways is a big plus in D:OS2 and makes up a bit for the game's obvious technical flaws.

I absolutely fell in love with this game when it first came out and still recommend it to date.

Too bad the multiplayer never became very popular and servers closed early - it was fun, especially the realistic feel of archery.

I wish they'd make a remastered version of this first-person action fantasy gem! Solid engine, a good story, great gameplay.

Worth downloading for the additional voices alone.

Who doesn't like additional character features? :)

A little bit confusing as to the order in which to approach the several sections of the content, but otherwise a DLC well worth downloading and playing. (Tip: The "Eye" does not trigger the end game, you even must interact with it when it appears.)

A must-have expansion. I love winter themed content, and this one is particularly exceptional.

I don't want to spoil any details, you must try this on your own if you enjoy well written lore, a tense atmosphere and a nice challenge. Two thumbs up!

As bad as the game's predecessor was in many regards (outdated engine, bad UI, inferior KI, and a pathetic character editor for a 2015 release), the devs seem to have done everything right this time, and even outdid themselves.

All the aforementioned aspects have been reworked and brought up to an acceptable level for modern standards, with many QoL extras in addition. E.g., you can customize the AI behavior in detail, and you can even chose between RTwP and turn-based combat! The character animations are also incredibly detailed. Its smooth gaming experience and vast hours of adventuring fun (which, at a normal past, should last for months) makes it a recommendable purchase.

However, at some point PoE2 is starting to feel generic and repetitive in parts, which is why I couldn't bring myself to play through the game a second time. That and the highly disappointing, anti-climactic ending. The worst repetition of all was presented by the many conversations with the gods, which were similar in content each time and at some point made me cry out, "Please NO, not again!"

Which brings me to the second point of criticism: the walls of text that PoE1 also had. They still pose an annoying issue in PoE2, especially when they interrupt your adventure with text-only "action sequences." I would have preferred video cutscenes, but I guess that was beyond the engine's capabilities.

A definite plus is the naval combat feature, which is a fun aspect of the game, as are the DLCs which are a wonderful addition to the game and quite diverse in nature.

All in all, PoE II: Deadfire is a gem amidst games of the genre and indubitablly worth your attention.

[Revision #4]

That said, I wish Steam offered the option to leave a more neutral rating. Looking at PoE as a newer CRPG release, it really doesn't meet my standards set by other games of the genre, yet it isn't bad enough for a thumbs-down...

The gameplay feels like Baldur's Gate all over again, meaning like 1999. While that game was fresh and original at its time of release, being the first game that gave you an intense feeling of playing an actual fantasy RPG (like real pen & paper), this is 20 years later.

In 2020 (2015 when it was released), and after games like Dragon Age: Origins (2009), or the even older Neverwinter Nights (2002), a game with an isometric, non-rotateable camera that so drastically limits your view of an area like PoE does and makes exploring quite painful at times is absolutely outdated for today's standards. Apart from the technical aspect, you also don't immerse as deeply into the game as you would without those limitations.

The UI isn't all that comfortable, either, which also hampers the fun. The worst part is the submenus. Who wants to have to make several clicks to get to a certain skill or spell while immersed in combat? I, for one, don't - especially when the sensitivity of those submenu icons is terrible and makes getting to where you want a pain in the behind. You can't lock the character portraits, either, and so it often happens that you accidentally switch character positions instead of selecting the character.

Horrific. Strategic positioning is often out of the question. For example, the AI ignores your set formation if movie sequences are triggered, leaving your party exposed in a tight ball to AoE damage. You can try to reposition everyone as soon as possible, but this often results in heavy damage and losses when facing a large group of fierce opponents.

In addition to enemies, characters easily get stuck on objects as well. For instance, there is a tavern where you have to manually free 1-2 characters of your party each time they are attempting to walk towards the exit, due to a wooden beam that's "in the way."

When the characters get stuck during battle, you often see them desperately trying to move forward or finding a way around the obstacle/enemy. When that doesn't work, they move left and right and back again like brainless lemmings. Of course, that combat time is completely wasted for the AI isn't even smart enough to attack the nearest enemy instead when a character gets stuck and can't reach their ordered target. You have to manually command them to switch targets - character by character, naturally. Quite painful.

Your opponents often seem equally confused, chaotically running around, thus rendering AI scripts and formations provided by the game completely useless. Frankly, your best bet is to outheal any damage during such fights. Quite sad for a game that was released in 2015.

There is way too much valuable stuff in this game. You quickly lose track of things. Sometimes less is more.

I like the soulbound items.

The biggest downside regarding items in this game is the fact that you cannot alter enchantments on them. By the time you find the rare scales for legendaries, they have been rendered completely useless, because you can't apply them to your existent equipment as it already has the maximun amount of enchantments on it. Look at Dragon Age: Origins, now there was an intelligent way of handling item upgrades and enchantments. This is not.

Also extremely outdated regarding the visual quality and customization options. Just a few faces, no scaling, no different body types or any other details to add/change, and the hair looks like 2006's Neverwinter Nights 2. Seriously, does crowd funding provide too little to put resources into what many role-players consider a vital part of the game in which they easily invest an hour or two?

Don't even get me started... especially with the many sections of the Stronghold. Goodness gracious! The amount of loading screens you have to go through in order to use a room for resting at the Lodge.

Now that I have played the game intensely for two weeks, I must admit that the story is quite good. The quests are well-written and a lot of fun for most part.

The biggest downside is the walls of text that frequently break your immersion and force you into reading mode. I enjoy reading, mind you, but not in a computer game. This might have been a necessity 20 years ago, but many games have proven that the genre has since evolved and that text should no longer be the primary delivery method of story content. Having to read a character's emotions, rather than seeing them acted out truly doesn't meet my standards for any newer CRPG.

At some point I felt like skipping dialogue altogether, that's how bad it got with the chunks of text I had to digest. It also makes no sense to only add voice acting to random portions of a dialogue. (The voice acting is very good, by the way.)

And last but not least, I like the idea of my own upgradeable stronghold. It was fun to add all the stuff and see it affect gameplay.

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TL;DR: In my opinion, the game is outdated in many aspects for a 2015 release and not worth paying the full price.