Review RPG Codex Review: Pillars of Eternity, by Decado

[Shevek]

Compare the writing in PoE to the majority of cRPGs ever made. Take a look at the RPGCodex top 75. Its in the top quartile and most likely in the top 10. Fuck, half the East Euro games read like freaking Balki Bartokomous wrote them. Most western rpgs read like The Beastmaster (or worse, Krull).

Again, if all you do is compare the game against a tiny subset of the genre, sure. Thats a dumb ass way to rate things though. If it is compared against the genre as a whole, the game is incredibly strong.

 

[Prime Junta]

Codex has jumped the shark.

The reviews are only any good at explaining why AAA titles are shit to people who already know it.

The most significant new cRPG in years comes out? An edgelord "everything is shit" non-review, followed by a fanboy "everything is awsum" non-review.

Fallout 4 gets announced? Instant dozens of pages of massive sperging, thread stuck to top of the stack. Go Codex, holding back the decline indeed.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

The most significant new cRPG in years comes out?

It's like games like D:OS, Dragonfall, W2, MMX or Expeditions: Conquistador don't even exist to some people. I would even argue that little gems like NEO Scavenger or Heroine's Quest are more significant than a mediocre-to-good Baldur's Gate clone.

 

[Prime Junta]

"Significant" is not a judgment on the game's quality. It's about its impact on the game industry. NEO Scavenger or Heroine's Quest are unlikely to make a significant mark, however good they are. The big-ticket Kickstarters already have. They've opened a new niche: mid-budget games with massive scope and decent production values, but without the AAA fluff that bloats their budgets.

I concede that W2 would be another contender for that honor though, so substitute "one of the most significant" for "most significant" if you like.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

The most significant new cRPG in years comes out? An edgelord "everything is shit" non-review, followed by a fanboy "everything is awsum" non-review.

Would hardly call the fanboy review a matter of "everything is awsum". He seems to agree with the edgelord review on everything of substance: he considers 80% of the game to be a monotonous slog of rote repetition. The main difference is that he argues that this is a very good batting average for a crpg, and so we should actually be ecstatic that it's not more than that.

 

[tuluse]

"Significant" is not a judgment on the game's quality. It's about its impact on the game industry. NEO Scavenger or Heroine's Quest are unlikely to make a significant mark, however good they are. The big-ticket Kickstarters already have. They've opened a new niche: mid-budget games with massive scope and decent production values, but without the AAA fluff that bloats their budgets.

I concede that W2 would be another contender for that honor though, so substitute "one of the most significant" for "most significant" if you like.

Divinity Original Sin has sold twice as many copies as PoE and it's turn based to boot.

 

[Stompa]

If we're going by "significance for the industry", clearly Twitcher 3 is dominating that category with its million in sales and 93 on Metacritic

Compare the writing in PoE to the majority of cRPGs ever made. Take a look at the RPGCodex top 75. Its in the top quartile and most likely in the top 10. Fuck, half the East Euro games read like freaking Balki Bartokomous wrote them. Most western rpgs read like The Beastmaster (or worse, Krull).

Again, if all you do is compare the game against a tiny subset of the genre, sure. Thats a dumb ass way to rate things though. If it is compared against the genre as a whole, the game is incredibly strong.

The majority of cRPGs ever made are dungeon crawlers, where the old Carmak's saying about plot in porn applies. Gameplay is primary, everything else is fluff . Now, if we compare PoE to story-driven cRPGs, like, you know, what Obsidian used to deal in, it comes up short.

It's funny that you chose to bring up Codex's Top cRPGs list though, where top 10 is dominated by narrative-driven games and even in top 25 there's a clear majority of them. Sure, PoE can win against ME or NWN2 and take their place on the list, but that's not exactly a challenge.

 

[Darth Roxor]

since the reviewer refuses to argue his points because he's a postmodernist cuntbag perhaps we should just close the comments under articles like all the cool sites do and be done with it

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

PoE has the best writing in fantasy RPGs since 1998. Period. People who claim otherwise are exaggerating positive sides of PoE predecessors.

 

[Bleed the Man]

PoE has the best writing in fantasy RPGs since 1998. Period.

Not that I don't agree that PoE has great writing, but didn't Torment release in 99?

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

PoE has the best writing in fantasy RPGs since 1998. Period.

Not that I don't agree that PoE has great writing, but didn't Torment release in 99?

My bad, since 1999 then

 

[Prime Junta]

If we're going by "significance for the industry", clearly Twitcher 3 is dominating that category with its million in sales and 93 on Metacritic

Fucking capitalists, think dollaz are everything. Do I really have to spell this out for you in really short words? Okay then.

Twitcher 3 was made like any other AAA title. With a massive investment, massive marketing, targeted to consoles, simple twitch combat, horse GPS, the works. Just like DA:I. The fact that it's a fucking awesome AAA title compared to DA:I is irrelevant.

The big-ticket Kickstarters were funded and made with a different model, that lets them make different trade-offs which are -- presumably -- far more to the rarefied tastes of the Codex, while having production values that are a great deal better than otherwise brilliant games made by some unemployed neckbeard in his mom's basement on a diet of Mountain Dew and tuna. This has already led to more such KS's, and publishers taking notice of this market niche, which leads to more, similar games made with similar budgets and similar trade-offs. Even if you think P:E (or WL2, or any of the others) is shit, you ought to be able to recognize this, and the much bigger likelihood that something to your monocled tastes will eventually emerge from the space opened by them. Hence, "significant."

Pillars deserves better than edgelord sperging or fanboy fawning. It deserves to be taken seriously, if only for being among the first games to be made this way.

 

[made]

How many Jews does it take to fit the Codex in Sawyer's asshole?

 

[markec]

PoE has the best writing in fantasy RPGs since 1998. Period.

 

[Cadmus]

One more thing I want to mention:

Ebert's reviews are mostly shit. If you didn't know who he was, you'd have no idea about what many of the movies he talks about are. His way of reviewing (to my knowledge, he wasn't always like that, he just degenerated into a pseudo-artistic ball-fluffing review style later) only works because you can align your tastes with his exactly because it's Ebert - you know what he thinks about what, which score he gave to which movie (or you can look it up). You can't align your taste with a random IGN retard or Decado for that matter, because he's made grand total of 2 reviews and doesn't plan on making more. This gives us as much data to align our tastes with as a random youtube commenter.

Another good example is TotalBiscuit. He provides a balanced opinion with plenty of facts, game-play footage and feelz. It works because you can plainly see he's a useless idiot who can't play the games he's reviewing and he tells you what his tastes are and why but also informs you about the facts and shows you plenty of footage. It's a combination that allows you to make an informed decision and his huge library of videos supports this style. A good counter-part is AngryJoe who has no idea about anything and half his videos are shit jokes in front of a green screen. It's much harder to be able to tell from his shit reviews whether you'd like the game or not.

Your review style, Decado, is a horrible farce that's been permeating the review industry? community? for a long time but it's still shit and relies on some other factors to be of any use to anyone. On the plus side, it makes the author feel like a real writer because they can cram in tons of useless shit and thinking-aloud.

Hey, it would also work if it were funny at least! That's like the last chance an author with this style has to provide any value at all. You failed at that as well.
I can't imagine a car reviewer writing a review while not mentioning the car only goes 60 km/h and then saying he doesn't feel the need to defend his article because it should stand on its own.
It clearly doesn't stand on its own because people are asking wtf were you thinking. What's worse is, that you don't feel you were right enough to even say anything about what you wrote and defend it.

Good job on Infinitron to be able to find somebody to write him a little fanboy pamphlet to stick on his curator wall. I get angry seeing these shit attempts to preserve the goodwill of Obsidian and other developers. It's dishonest and it's the reason why so many other websites are total shit. If I want a website with the goodwill of the developers where they are granted access to the big expositions and interviews, I can go to literally any big website and get that. I don't do it because this privilege always comes at a price.

 

[Western]

PoE has the best writing in fantasy RPGs since 1998. Period.

Not that I don't agree that PoE has great writing, but didn't Torment release in 99?

My bad, since 1999 then

Mask of the Betrayer?

 

[vivec]

PoE has the best writing in fantasy RPGs since 1998. Period.

Not that I don't agree that PoE has great writing, but didn't Torment release in 99?

My bad, since 1999 then

Mask of the Betrayer?

The secret world. Hands down. Best computer gaming story experience ever. Better than anything in the medium.

 

[One-and-a-half-Ivan]

PoE has the best writing in fantasy RPGs since 1998. Period.

Not that I don't agree that PoE has great writing, but didn't Torment release in 99?

My bad, since 1999 then

Mask of the Betrayer?

MOTB is great, I really enjoyed it, but it's an expansion, so we can't compare it with a full fledged RPG.

PoE has the best writing in fantasy RPGs since 1998. Period.

Not that I don't agree that PoE has great writing, but didn't Torment release in 99?

My bad, since 1999 then

Mask of the Betrayer?

The secret world. Hands down. Best computer gaming story experience ever. Better than anything in the medium.

It's not your typical fantasy. But it's awesome (Tornquist rules).

 

[Stompa]

It deserves to be taken seriously, if only for being among the first games to be made this way.

Why should it though? It's not the first big video game KS (that would be Double Fine's adventure), not the first big RPG on KS (Wasteland 2 would take that honor, as you yourself admit) and not the biggest commercially successful RPG coming out of KS (that's D:OS). Plenty of other games have already proven that the model works, PoE is nothing but a footnote on history's page as far as Kickstarter concerned, even for this site.

 

[felipepepe]

-Fantastic weapon system that has legitimately varied weapon types

 

[FeelTheRads]

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Weapon

Can't you see the variety man? Why... the tyranny of choice is mindboggling. What to choose to click and wait better?

 

[Cadmus]

http://pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com/Weapon

Can't you see the variety man? Why... the tyranny of choice is mindboggling. What to choose to click and wait better?

you fucking pleb, can't you see how amazing the damage difference is between 13-17 and 12-16 when they all get multiplied by x1.3 for STR and 1.15 for a passive bonus and 1.05 for a mastery, 1.0234 from one buff, 1.435 from another and get - 12 points from the DR x 28,16% from Deflection?

Spoiler

I have no idea what gets counted where because it makes zero difference in combat

It's so complex, so good, it's literally impossible to provide a better, cleaner and more nuanced system where the numbers actually mean anything!

 

[Decado]

Man cadmus sure is mad.

 

[Cadmus]

Man cadmus sure is mad.

I prefer being mad to being a flaccid cock who doesn't care about anything. Gotta get more raw meat. Eggs and bacon for the breakfast, Jack for lunch.

 

[Jools]

There is none of this "chosen one" nonsense in the beginning, and instead you are sent off exploring with a curt, grumpy Calisca . . . oh Calisca, what you might have been! It takes big brass balls to make the obvious investment in this character and then kill her 30 minutes into the game but Obsidian isn't horsing around.

This bit really confuses me. Serious or trolly? For real, or just sarcastic?

Because, you know, it's not like everyone dies BUT you within the first 20 minutes of the story, after all... Not the "chosen one" at all.

(And I'm utterly confused by the consideration about Calisca... I did not quite perceive much of an investment on her character, to be fair.)