Review RPG Codex Review: Darth Roxor on Disappointment, thy name is Pillars of Eternity

[Beowulf]

While I agree with many points that the review brought up, I think it might be a little to harsh in comparison with my own, personal experiences.

And some criticism is undeserved:
[...]– in BG/IWD, if a dude broke through to hack up your mages, you could cast hold person and be done with him. In PoE, not so much [...]
Well, in PoE you have this priest spell - Stop, which does exactly that (if successful), also paralyse, charm, confusion, which sort of work to a similar effect (taking out enemy combatant away from your mages for a while)

But that's just nitpicking.

And regarding lack of super powerful legendary items - I was first disappointed by it as well. But on the other hand this let's players craft your own legendary (so to speak) weapons - keep in mind, that in order to get highest tier enchantments you need to fight some legendary (so to speak ) fights, like killing dragons for ingredients. Also, giving the player the ability to craft weapons as powerful as the best weapons you can find (and even more) lets players, who don't engage in much subquesting, but follow just the main storyline, some means to not feel like they are missing some important part of the game (and at the same time you don't have to read through forums to see if you haven't missed any +3 whip of edginess, without which you will be gimped later on) - hurr durr, balance.

Also - bounty fights, after the first 3 or 4, turned to be quite good and challenged me to use not only my per-encounter abilities, so I would (personally) count them among memorable ones. To each his own, I guess; but I will not deny, that I was utterly bored fighting late game trashmobs. Small maps didn't alleviate the problem at all.

Anyway, it's always good to look at different viewpoints.

Perhaps it was just that I didn't expect much more than BG with new graphics. 6,5/10 for me, while I think Darth would rate it way lower.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

I found 2 or 3 additional armors with second chance incl. a robe.

I remember

Spoiler

Adra armor from vampire lord in the Paths of Nua, Robe from mind flayer bounty, what else gives it (aside from Eder armor)?

 

[OndrejSc]

Hey, go easy on that PUA hate.

Fixed.

 

[Angthoron]

Rhianna Pratchett

?

Rhianna Pratchett hasn't worked with Larian since Beyond Divinity. D: OS writing issues have nothing to do with her.

Well, shows how much I know... I seem to remember some hyping of how DOS writing is going to be awesome during / after the kickstarter, though.

Can't say I remember any such hype. It's the classic hit-and-miss Larian writing. Maybe you recall the hype around the written out co-op dialogues and arguments, that was a bit of a hype topic, yes.


Regarding the review: Sadly, I agree with it. Not with the tone, and not with all of the content, but overall spirit. After the beta (yes, I paid to play the beta) I didn't have too much in the way of expectation, endless cultist/beetle grind dulled my expectations to the title, so I was actually pleasantly surprised at the start, Act 1 felt genuinely nice in a lot of ways - and revisiting Dyrford with a few new companions and the zone being completely developed felt nice. But then the game began losing steam, throwing "trash" combat over and over, and I've seen a lot of trash encounters in my life, so seeing less of them would've been a really nice thing. Well, unfortunately they were all over the place anyway, with next to zero reward and next to zero ways to avoid them at times (except, I guess, not exploring that section of the forest at all, which I guess is fair enough).

The story managed to hook me at first, with the local lord going insane due to the local curse having kids be born without souls, that was something I felt would work to lead through the game, except for some unfathomable reason the writers decided that the far more interesting hook was the "chosen one", "past lives" and "shit you can't actually affect but paints you as a giant moron in your past life, oh, and a traitor too" story angle, plus apparent insanity and great power of a Watcher. The past life never hooked me, because it hardly ever made a difference in the present, the background of the hero only made me feel annoyed with my avatar (or rather, the writers), and the insanity and power barely manifest. Greatest power of the Watcher is being able to read backer NPC texts, you know. Not revealing secrets from backs of others' minds, or influencing their opinions. That'd be so dull, after all! Nobody liked it in KotOR, VtMB and Div2.

Quest design is both nice and simplistic at the same time. Quests don't branch or intersect, mutually exclusive quests are rare and don't make actual sense. Too much fedexing, too many loading screens between quest givers. Reputation system seems to be mostly unused, personal reputation is just weird - people be like OH YOU ARE HONEST MAN I BELIEVE YOU even if you've never been to the city yet. Sure, glanfathathathans know that I'm an honest dude, right you are!

Combat I found dull, but with a potential for improvement with some refinement, less filler and more hand-crafted fights that would account for AI's weaknesses would go a long way. Crafting, once more, dull, but with the foundations in the right place. Add complex recipes and you have yourself a scavenger hunt quest that you can gate with quest progression. Itemization... Items sorely need unique effects and abilities. The laziest way of doing it? Giving a passive trait from another class to weapon wielder. Axe of Cleavage +5, a weapon that lets you do minor AoE damage to everything like a Barbarian. OP? Sure. But it's a single player game, not a DOTA, so who cares? Also, have it be used by the enemy until you take it off their corpse. Hooray!

Visuals and music are top-notch though, and I really liked Grieving Mother's stuff.

 

[Franny Frogpill]

How strange. I find myself happily nodding along to Super Bunnyhop's praises - and sadly nodding along reading this harsh review as well.

I was extactic during Act I ! Plain text for story-telling instead of stilted cutscenes! Bliss! Encounters that required some brain work! A complex system not yet fully grasped...
Then I somewhat suffered through Loading Bay. I never liked big cities, so I thought things would pick up again. But they didn't. Read, "Select all -> mouse click", wait for quicksave/loading screen - rinse, repeat. Right now I can't even be bothered to finish my second playthrough as a solo cipher.

So yes, PoE has its flaws - but being a nostalgic, mild old hag (and comparing it to the trash I've been playing the last couple of years) it's still GOTY material to me.

 

[thesoup]

LOL @ "Review"

Just replay your "flawless classics". Until you all die, because you will never like a new game again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC0_7-U_BP4

Some of you are realy like in video from FelipePepe.

"Battlebrothers who know the true definition of an RPG" :D

BSN is that way >>>>>>>>>>>

 

[Darth Roxor]

oh hey you only edited this in later

Really, aren't you taking this review (and yourself) a little too seriously now?

Funny of you to just put in that fragment, and that fragment only from that entire conversation. Maybe I should post some more?

 

[Trash]

Just invite the entire codex. It would make for more hilarious exposure. That might be my past as a GD mod speaking however. Let's make myself clear, I dig your review. It's funny, well written and fits the codex perfectly. All the drama surrounding it is a perfect example on why it should be written and why it belongs on the front page. The codex is about discussion. Personally I however think it is also trying too hard and see the way you portray yourself lately in the same vein.

And regarding decline, doritos and mainstream. Remember that in the end it is DU and DU alone who decides shit. And he's been pretty consistent in his views since the very beginning.

 

[Black]

Roxor, personally I think you didn't try hard enough.

 

[thesoup]

oh hey you only edited this in later

Really, aren't you taking this review (and yourself) a little too seriously now?

Funny of you to just put in that fragment, and that fragment only from that entire conversation. Maybe I should post some more?

Reveal everything. Make them pay.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

I agree with most of the review besides he conclusion. It's not really inferior to Baldur's Gate, if only because of solid writing in some places and because BG didn't have all the cool abilities high level DnD has. I also disagree with what you've written about the classes. Wizards are actually more useful than ciphers in hard encounters. Ciphers can cast few short-duration abilities that may or may not work while wizards have slicken and blind. Slicken can stunlock the final boss pretty easily, even after the debuff,blind gives enemies a great penalties to everything that matters and can be cast on top of your guys. All mind-control abilities of the ciphers are barely useful because it a mere confusion changes his allegiance, which means that your buffs (including auras) will work on him, while enemy-only AoE will not.

 

[Lady_Error]

+3 whip of edginess

I imagine that's what Darth Roxor has equipped all the time.

 

[Ovplain]

Jesus Christ, what a behemoth of a review.:S Just finished, nicely done Darth Roxor!

 

[ZagorTeNej]

I agree with most of the review besides he conclusion. It's not really inferior to Baldur's Gate, if only because of solid writing in some places and because BG didn't have all the cool abilities high level DnD has. I also disagree with what you've written about the classes. Wizards are actually more useful than ciphers in hard encounters. Ciphers can cast few short-duration abilities that may or may not work while wizards have slicken and blind. Slicken can stunlock the final boss pretty easily, even after the debuff, and blind gives enemies a great penalties to everything and can be cast on top of your guys. All mind-control abilities of the ciphers are barely useful because it a mere confusion changes his allegiance, which means that your buffs (including auras) will work on him, while enemy-only AoE will not.

Somewhat true, though Charm also gives enemy penalties to the similar degree that Blind does (you can just force attack charmed enemies) and once Ciphers get Amplified Wave it's mostly lights out for enemies, it has a huge knock down radius (for enemies only) and you have enough focus to cast two in a row. Of course by that time Wizards' 1st level spells (which are some of the most powerful ones actually) turn into per encounter so hard to say.

Cipher's another advantage in theory is ability to regain focus during combat and use her spells/abilities over and over but in practice fights just don't last that long.

 

[J_C]

OK, now when will the real review come from VD, because this cynical vomit of words is not it I assume.

 

[Angthoron]

It's as real as VD's review will be.

 

[Haba]

Meh, a 'trying too hard' review by a guy who has been calling the game 'shit' since way before release. Another day at the codex.

Followed by one-line fly-by by a poster with no valid arguments to provide. Another day at the Codex indeed.

You're going to need a bigger rug if you still want to hide PoE's faults. And maybe some wunderbaums to cover the stench of bullshit.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

OK, now when will the real review come from VD, because this cynical vomit of words is not it I assume.

+State of the art RTWP combat and crafting system.
+Very balanced.
+Better writing, roleplaying and character creation than Baldur's Gate.
+C&C !
+Best RPG since Wasteland 2.

-Could have had more C&C.
-Not Fallout.


Happy?

 

[J_C]

It's as real as VD's review will be.

I can't take this review seriously because Roxor thinks this is Obsidians worst game. Now I know he is right in some things, but that last bit invalidates a huge chunk of his opinion. Also, suddenly BG1-2 had great story and combat, and PoE has a bland one. Meanwhile a few years back only PST's stoy and the mage combat of BG2 was taken seriously. Anything else was hated.

OK, now when will the real review come from VD, because this cynical vomit of words is not it I assume.

+State of the art RTWP combat and crafting system.
+Very balanced.
+Better writing, roleplaying and character creation than Baldur's Gate.
+C&C !
+Best RPG since Wasteland 2.

-Could have had more C&C.
-Not Fallout.


Happy?

No.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

I am terribly sorry for writing an article that might intrude upon your ideas of making this site the 2nd rock-paper-shotgun, and that, in fact, posting this review on the main page may stop the flow of doritos that you so desperately crave. All them tweets with thumbs up from Obsidian, all gone. All them upcoming exclusive interviews and retrospectives, all gone. The rpgcodex official stream of PoE 2 (or expansions), first in the interwebs!!! all gone.

Funny of you to just put in that fragment, and that fragment only from that entire conversation. Maybe I should post some more?

kek, all dat recent behind the scenes internet drama. Codex is truly serious business now.

 

[thesoup]

Buttmad obsididrones ITT.

 

[Athelas]

People on this forum unironically think the Codex is in the pocket of game developers?

 

[Angthoron]

It's as real as VD's review will be.

I can't take this review seriously because Roxor thinks this is Obsidians worst game. Now I know he is right in some things, but that last bit invalidates a huge chunk of his opinion.

The fact that you disagree with something doesn't make it a not-real review, though. This isn't Obsidian's worst game in my opinion either, but it's on the lower part of the list. And that opinion alone doesn't invalidate the point. Hell, perhaps the 7 or whatever pages of A4 he spent time on filling out with text might reveal why he feels that way, and maybe it's a plausible - if not necessarily agreeable with - write-up.

 

[InspectorRumpole]

Good review. I only played a couple of hours of PoE, but your review convinced me i did the right thing, in not buying it. Game was simply not fun or interesting.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

It's actually pretty fun, Roxxor exaggerates a bit in many places. Buy it when it's on sale.

EDIT:
Though I must admit that I had more fun with Stick of Truth than this.