This game is Impressively Unimpressive

[SocioPsycho]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2fJHAUb5Bg

This is a summary of my review video, which I encourage you to watch
if you are looking for a more in-depth review.

Pillars of Eternity is a nostalgia filled game in the same vein as Baldurs Gate, a top down RPG adventure. To start out, the options menu and control menu both have a lot of options to make the interface and game experience personalized, which is a great thing to see. Graphically the game looks good, and has it's own atmosphere, which is nice. The game suffers from quite a few little bugs graphically, whether it be minor things like a dead enemies powers still triggering, or more annoying ones like debuffs that are supposed to last through a battle lasting even after I left the zone and rested in an inn. A detail list of more bug issues is in the video review.

The game also suffers from an excess of loading screens. From entering a house to going to another room in the house, and to another floor of the house, this coupled with the fact that the longer I played the game, the longer the loading screens were. This really breaks the immersion, and is disheartening the more you play.

The character creation is very well done, with lots of customizable options, and a great number of characters and styles to choose from, sadly no dual class system through. You also have the option to create and customize your entire party as you progress through the game, allowing you easily to play with six fully custom made characters.

The interface for the most part is sleek, with some customizable options, which is nice. It offers an option of a stash, where you can put all of your gear. I really enjoy this option, because it makes the selling of items really simple. As a loot ♥♥♥♥♥, this is one of the best systems for gear and items that I have ever come across. The quest log is fairly well organized, and the game offers a Journal feature that literally provides a written account of your adventures, as though you were in a grand novel.

Visually, the level design is well done, but upon closer examination of the map, you see that the world is not that large, and the pathway to get through the world is fairly linear and limited in where you can travel to. Within towns and cities, the exploration is limited as well, as you can only explore homes and buildings that directly relate to the story line. This takes away from a sense of adventure never allowing you to wander yourself into loot or trouble.

The crafting system is simplistic, and while it's not a feature I enjoy, it is necessary if you play on a harder level.It also offers an enchantment feature, where you can craft and enchant items and better your weapons. You are limited in what you can chose, which some might find disappointing. It's more like a starter kit rather than an in depth crafting system.

The story doesn't really connect with the atmosphere and graphics of the world. The story is written more like a book than a game. Each encounter comes with story text, that is elaborate and over detailed. Over and over again as you come across an event, person, or story driven device, you have to read about useless details such as the dew that glistened on the leaves in the early morning dawn. While this may be enjoyable at first, it becomes more of a tedious reading experience than a bonus to get through the game. Twelve pages to talk about one event. If you want more detail and in depth environment, the atmosphere should reflect this visually, not pages of reading. In spite of the extra details in the dialogues, the characters and villains in the game feel weak and extra. There is no weight behind your actions. If I slaughter an entire village, there is no consequences such as being ambushed by those seeking vengeance. It still feels like you are fighting against mundane mobs instead of affecting change in the world around you. The characters lack personality or depth. They are hypocritical in their beliefs; their actions do not support their words. Unlike Baldurs
Gate, where you had the option to go through dialogue with the option of leaving to battle something else and coming back if you got tired, here you have to read all the dialogue, complete the task that is required, then come back for more dialogue before you can continue in your adventure.

The combat comes down to experience more of which is by completing quests than by killing enemies. You only acquire experience by killing a certain number of a particular enemies, at which point you stop gaining experience at all after you kill X amount of them. The problems is that you come across many, oh so many of each opponents. It is annoying to have to continue to fight the same enemies, but not gain any experience, as humanoids of any kind never give any experience is just down right annoying as it wastes your time. The loot isn't all that amazing, and you stop gaining experience, so what is the point of killing these beasts? The amount of experience you gain is also scaled by the number of people you have in your party, which is poorly designed. If you want to distribute the experience gained but not have a in depth gain vs party member, it should be equally split between the members, they discourage playing with anything less than six party members as you get less Xp not more. You have an 'Awakened' soul, but your Awakened status adds little to no extra abilities to your character. You do not feel special in this game, sure having a fear style ability may be nice as a melee DPS but as a healer or ranged worthless. It does not customize to your class.

Each character has two health bars; health and endurance. This becomes more annoying than useful, as your character will naturally develop a higher level of health than endurance, but in battle it is your endurance that is drained 30x faster than your health. Once your endurance is depleted, your character is knocked out and useless, even if they still have a high level of health. There are magic spells, armor, weapons, buffs, and some natural race abilities that heal endurance levels through out combat. Yet they are still drastically lower than your health level, to the point where your health levels become unimportant. Having a tank character becomes essential, as the rest of your party can be easily one shot if an enemy gets to them. Beasts that are summoned with high defensive health numbers become almost pointless. As their low endurance numbers guarantees that they will be knocked out easily, for a creature with 400 health will be out due to their 70 endurance. Instead of balancing the damage taken versus the health you have, or adding tactical depth where people must have supplies to survive a dungeon, all you have to do is sleep and all your health points are restored. You have a camp kit and sleep whenever, and where ever needed, without the danger of ambush. There is no risk to your characters, or a need to prepare for a battle, as the threat of death is next to none, failure sure, death no. The combat becomes repetitive and disappointing. It limits your choices so far as gaining experience and getting low quality loot that I lose the desire to fight.

Each magical class had their own set of spells, (mages focus more on control and aoe damage, druid's debuffs the enemy and buffs the tank, priests are good for protecting the entire party, and ciphers focus on mental spells to confuse or control). Despite this, their class spells still felt too balanced with each other, with no impactual roles where having a particular class would give an advantage to a certain situation.

Traps can be bought or collected, but only one trap can be put down at a time. If you use a trap on a higher, stronger enemy, they do next to no damage. One trap against a boss is useless.

A brief summary leads us to this; performance wise there are many bugs and issues, these may be resolved over time through. The character creation is excellent and has depth. The interface overall is sleek with plenty of customizable options, just a few minor flaws in it. The level design, while graphically beautiful, was a disappointment with a lack of open world, and a misleading story with too much reading that only took away from the atmosphere, and left you with wondering more what is going on rather than knowing where to go next. Instead of making the character feel epic or powerful, you felt as if you were being led by the hand, with your choices making no impact. The combat reward is poorly done, where progression feels more tedious as gaining experience only from quests, does not reward your time at all.

This game is accepted and admired because of the severe lack of other games in this genre. It has many faults, and could have been so much better than it is. The more I played this game, the less I enjoyed it. At the end of the day, it did not respect my time, and felt like a chore. Everything feels drawn out to extend gameplay time, instead of for enjoyment and experience of the world. I cannot recommend this game.

This is a summary of my review video, which I encourage you to watch
if you are looking for a more in-depth review.

Thanks for your viewership and support; for more videos click here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/SocioPyscho

[Kain]

A 1:40 hour review? No thanks.

[Kyutaru]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Fenrir:

A 1:40 hour review? No thanks.

But sociopaths make the best reviewers. They have no emotions and can look at games objectively without fanboy squees.

[Kain]

"This game is accepted and admired because of the severe lack of other games in this genre." Well, he certainly likes to assume why people admire things.

[Alvin the Elf]

Oprindeligt skrevet af SocioPsycho:

At the end of the day, it did not respect my time, and felt like a chore. Everything feels drawn out to extend gameplay time, instead of for enjoyment and experience of the world. I cannot recommend this game.

100 minute video.

Oh, the irony!

[Radene]

So about that "respecting my time" thing...

[Marik]

This review is very subjective. I'm sure you know this yourself, so I'd prefer you label it at the top. People wanting facts or arguments rather than your personal feelings are going to feel disappointed.

[Kain]

"The story is written more like a book than a game. Each encounter comes with story text, that is elaborate and over detailed."

Yeah, sorry it's not your Bioware game where they were able to throw money into shinny graphics, nice cutscenes and expensive voice acting.

Also, what's the problem with reading? Why people get so much angry about reading, I don't understand why it's a chore, I mean, if it was Devil May Cry and you had to stop to read pages of text I would understand, but the whole pace of the game is around explorations, conversation and battles and they're all slow paced, the thrill so to speak comes from overcoming a tough foe, this is an RPG for christ sake.

[Kyutaru]

Tough foe? Pff... I'm playing on Triple Crown Solo mode and barely killed anyone so far. The whole game can easily be played by roleplaying, sneaking, and wearing disguises. I beat Raedric with my VOICE!

[SocioPsycho]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Fenrir:

"This game is accepted and admired because of the severe lack of other games in this genre." Well, he certainly likes to assume why people admire things.

If you like the game over others its due to what it has in it, then its not me assuming anything. If the genre is empty then what choice do you have, you fall to accepting what you have. If another game of the same type came out that was better yet you only had time to play one, what would you do?

Oprindeligt skrevet af Alvin the Elf:

100 minute video. Oh, the irony!

Where is the irony in getting a free review thus a game that you have to pay for?

Oprindeligt skrevet af Marik:

This review is very subjective. I'm sure you know this yourself, so I'd prefer you label it at the top. People wanting facts or arguments rather than your personal feelings are going to feel disappointed.

Every review, let's play or first impressions is subjective. Also the fact you say my video has no facts means you did not watch it.

[Kain]

But there are no severy lack of games in this genre, I liked the game because it was good, simple as that, I play a lot of video games, specially rpgs, I enjoyed this game not because I thought it was so unique or that it provided something that nothing else could, for me it's a well made game simple as that.

[Radene]

Oprindeligt skrevet af SocioPsycho:

Where is the irony in getting a free review thus a game that you have to pay for?

Time is money, and 100 minutes don't come cheap.

[SocioPsycho]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Radene:

Time is money, and 100 minutes don't come cheap.

Then what does the cost of the game and the hours of play put into it come out to. Especially if you end up not likeing it?

[Tikigod]

Each character has two health bars; health and endurance. This becomes more annoying than useful, as your character will naturally develop a higher level of health than endurance, but in battle it is your endurance that is drained 30x faster than your health. Once your endurance is depleted, your character is knocked out and useless, even if they still have a high level of health. There are magic spells, armor, weapons, buffs, and some natural race abilities that heal endurance levels through out combat. Yet they are still drastically lower than your health level, to the point where your health levels become unimportant.

Given that party member permadeath is a game feature. Might want to rethink complaining that health depletes slower than endurance.

That said, they actually get taken away at a direct 1:1 ratio. Each 1 hit of damage takes away 1 endurance and 1 health. Later on in the game you'll find health actually matters especially if you're doing a lot of combat healing in longer fights which restores endurance BUT NOT health.

The story doesn't really connect with the atmosphere and graphics of the world. The story is written more like a book than a game. Each encounter comes with story text, that is elaborate and over detailed. Over and over again as you come across an event, person, or story driven device, you have to read about useless details such as the dew that glistened on the leaves in the early morning dawn. While this may be enjoyable at first, it becomes more of a tedious reading experience than a bonus to get through the game. Twelve pages to talk about one event.

It's called doing narrative in games properly. Not through hollywood CGI sequences which tell you nothing and just give 'warm feels', but by providing an actual narrative in the game.

It's a lost art in most genres of games nowadays I will admit, and those not familiar or prone to not being interested in ACTUAL narrative and just want those 'warm feels' probably won't get much out of the fact that even small basic tasks have detail behind them rather than the more common standard now of scripted cutscenes showing you what actions you could have been doing if only you could be playing the game right now... but don't worry it would have been awesome just look at how badass the game is making your character look, just tell yourself it's all you as you watch!

Which isn't narrative at all, it's just stroking egos.

[Kain]

To be honest I'm fine with all the subjecttive parts of the review, whether I agree or not, it's up to my point of view. But again, assuming why we like something, kind of dropped the ball there.

[Kyutaru]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Radene:

Oprindeligt skrevet af SocioPsycho:

Where is the irony in getting a free review thus a game that you have to pay for?

Time is money, and 100 minutes don't come cheap.

What are you a chiropractor? It works out to $27 per hour if he saves someone $45. The vast majority of people in America don't even make half that.