RPGWatch - Pillars of Eternity Review

Corwin gives his take on the latest release from Obsidian Games.

It was late 1998 when those immortal, and for some, life changing words were first uttered: “You must gather your party before venturing forth.” The game was Baldurs Gate and the PC RPG was back.

Now, nearly 17 years later comes BG 3, …er, Pillars of Eternity; if nothing else, a definite spiritual successor to the original BG. It even has those famous words. As I played the game I continuously felt transported back to those wonderful IE engine games from Bioware/Black Isle, which is not surprising considering many of the same people were involved.

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More information.

Thank you very much for this review. Not only for doing it but for writing almost exactly what I thought of the game in a way I would not be able to do as well.

Thanks, Corwin. Minor correction: Mechanics governs finding secrets, not stealth.

Nice job, Corwin. Thanks for the review!

Just one minor point: you don't actually have to reach the level cap before finishing the game.

No, you don't, but it sure helps if you have when you come to the endgame!! The problem is that some people rush through and don't reach it, while others get there very early in Act 3. If you want to zerg, fine, but I remember stalling on possibly up to half of Fallout 3 because I reached the initial level cap very early. Fortunately, later DLC allowed me to continue when the cap was raised. I know a lot of people who slowly stop playing once a level cap is reached; what's the point they say if you're getting no experience points. That's why I don't like a hard cap; it restricts how people want to play.

But it generally makes expansions the better experience.

In addition it de-incentifies min-maxing xp if you know that there is a cap.

Good review Corwin!

I hope that the next game in the series evolves like BG2 to BG1.

I agree with your review. I would add that I'm missing world interactivity/manipulation/change and NPC schedules in PoE. The world feels frozen in time because of that.

C&C are there, but mostly they happen only on a minor level and are no game changers.

The tactical aspect of combat was for me (on the hard difficulty setting) only existent in chapter 1. Later most of the fights became boring, because my party was way too overpowered and I could change to standard tactics using the same tactics over and over again. The PoE combat developers should play Telepath Tactics for 1 month to learn how proper tactical turn based fighting can be challenging and fun.

For the interested reader:
I have also done a full CRPG analysis.

Great review!

Great game i liked 3act quests even when i was lvl 12 because of great writing an CnC

Now... There are two achievements - only 10 rests/ killing less than 175 monsters/npc that contradicts your review(a little bit) did someone tried to complete POE without combat/resting?

I think no xp for monsters added to roleplaying aspect of POE

rad_ical said:

I think no xp for monsters added to roleplaying aspect of POE

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It would have added to the roleplaying aspect if you could avoid combat with bribing, talking, sneaking etc. , but in most combats you simply don't have these options.

Thank you very much for this review. After reading it, I guess it is wise to wait a bit longer to play this game. Act 3 seems a letdown after reading this review. Hoping for a cap limit increase or XP decrease mode.

ikbenrichard said:

Thank you very much for this review. After reading it, I guess it is wise to wait a bit longer to play this game. Act 3 seems a letdown after reading this review. Hoping for a cap limit increase or XP decrease mode.

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Actually Act 3 is probably the best part if you didn't overlevel before that. And best way to not overlevel is to not do any bounty quests and not go deep into Megadungeon (just go far enough to do one of the companions quest). Keep both for when you are getting close to lvl 12.

Good and balanced review, though it also reveals a somewhat shallow relationship with the mechanics and intricacies of the systems.

I say this, because while they DO seem rich and diverse, they're not really. Once you delve deeper, you'll find your decisions have less impact than it would seem at first glance - and skills are less useful than they appear to be.

The wealth of racial options also turn out to have little impact on your quest through the world - and dialogue options are mostly shallow flavor sentences.

You see, I was very excited about this game when I first started creating my characters - and for several hours afterwards. But the more I've played, the more I've found the system to be disappointing and my decisions feel somewhat irrelevant. Stat distribution is much less important than I'd like - and many abilities are too obviously pointless.

They wanted no dump stats, but they gave us a system without much impact instead. They wanted to get rid of rest abuse - and they gave us an annoying supplies mechanic instead. They wanted to implement a complex endurance/health system - but it ended up being redundant. They wanted to stay true to BG with RTwP - but they neglected to make 6-player combat comfortable to control.

On and on.

I get that they don't like a wealth of things about D&D - but they simply don't have the design talent to improve it without breaking more than they fix. They really should have gone with an established system, or invented one from scratch, instead of binding their own hands trying to "emulate" the feel of an archaic system like 2nd Edition AD&D.

Still, it's a nice game - but it's just not that good.

IMO, obviously.

DArtagnan said:

I get that they don't like a wealth of things about D&D - but they simply don't have the design talent to improve it without breaking more than they fix. They really should have gone with an established system, or invented one from scratch, instead of binding their own hands trying to "emulate" the feel of an archaic system like 2nd Edition AD&D.
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They didn't set out to emulate AD&D but 4th edition D&D (Sawyer considers that the best D&D version). But they did even that badly.

Archangel said:

Actually Act 3 is probably the best part if you didn't overlevel before that. And best way to not overlevel is to not do any bounty quests and not go deep into Megadungeon (just go far enough to do one of the companions quest). Keep both for when you are getting close to lvl 12.

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Ah, thank you for that tip !
After tactics this will be the next game in line.

That is the problem when the designer thinks that every character build should be viable and players should not need to think about what they do at character creation.

You end up with a system where nothing has any significance. Really, you could distribute your stats randomly and would still end up with a working character. Why even have stat distribution then? JRPGs do it better by just doing it automatically instead of pretending a valuable choice.

Spells that do not deal damage have no value as buffs as well as debuffs just slightly increase/decrease some values, which ends up a total mess as you lose track of what is going on with many effects at once. Healing spells have an even worse fate as everyone just heals fully after each encounter, making them totally worthless.
There are very rare spells that actually change strategies or - god forbids! - even the tide of battle. Except the cipher who can charm, all non-damage spells just slightly turn some cogwheels (a bit more deflection, a little less accuracy, etc.). There are almost no real spells with actual impact that would force you or the (incapable) AI to change something. Where is the sleep cloud that forces me to not walk into it? Where is the fear spell that makes my party run away? Where is the immunity to fire that forces me to do something else than throwing a fireball until everything drops dead? Where is the swarm that prevents mages from casting? Where is….
And if a spell does something else (like paralyze), it is for such a small time that it becomes irrelevant.
Of course, it is impossible to prepare for an encounter as most spells mystically don't work outside combat. Which is something I consider extremely immersion breaking - makes no sense within the setting. It is an arbitrary measure to prevent players from making the easy encounters even easier.

As much as I love the story, characters, art and soundtrack, everything else is not bad, but "meh". Except the encounter design, which truly is bad.

I honestly hope they improve that with a second part. At least more significant spells and encounters one does not simply breeze through. It would not be that hard to do.

Only time those small debuff spells do something interesting is when you got a Rogue in your party. And it become even better when the rogue is high level and can get deathstrike (not sure if that is the name, but it is an upgrade on Sneak Attack). You need to get right debuffs on enemies that you plan to attack with a rogue so he can sneak attack and later you need to get 2 such debuffs and he gets his deathstrike bonus.

Also in addition to Petrify, Charm, Domination and Confuse also are different but also pretty irritating. There are defense spells vs those but they don't work once your party member is affected as the game thinks they are of enemy faction. You cannot suppress affection on them as that also only works on allies and you cannot use wizard "dispel magic" on them as that only removes Buffs of enemies.
Conclusion: failed design.

Archangel said:

Actually Act 3 is probably the best part if you didn't overlevel before that. And best way to not overlevel is to not do any bounty quests and not go deep into Megadungeon (just go far enough to do one of the companions quest). Keep both for when you are getting close to lvl 12.

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That is all fine and good to say that after you have played the game. Though if you are like myself where you do almost everything before moving on.

I just found act 3 to be a big let down.

I also do everything but yea I was lucky enough to read about bounty quests ruining leveling so I skipped them. I am not saying it is a great design but still once the players know the power to make the game better for them is in their hands.

Superb review with just one flaw.
Music? The good, the bad or the ugly?