Pillars of Eternity II - RPG Codex Review

"To summarise, I honestly think there isn’t a single competent writer left at Obsidian anymore, which, considering the company’s history, is about as funny as it is tragic. Meanwhile those that remain are not just bad, which wouldn’t even be that aggravating, but also very obviously unaware of their incompetence, which results in them overreaching and producing tripe that they should have never attempted doing in the first place. How sad."

What a wonderful crowd! I stopped reading after this line. It's one thing to say stuff like that on a forum, if you believe it and accept your loss of credibility, but to put that in an official review is unnecessary.
Why is it unnecessary?
Because we have by now arrived in a culture where you are only allowed to speak some uncomfortable truths (and sorry, but the lack of competence in a lot of the PoE2 writing is very obvious for anyone with standards above sea level) behind closed doors and be super nice to each other no matter your actual thoughts when talking "publicly"? THAT is unnecessary.

There is good and bad writing, just like there are good and bad game mechanics, things that just objectively work or don't.
Everyone can see the challenge of the game completely drops after some point, no matter the difficulty setting, for example. Or the utter overabundance of swords vs other types of weapons.
Nobody in their right minds would argue that any of that is good.

The same can be applied to writing, and PoE2 writing, exactly as good ol' Roxor put it, drops the ball repeatedly with messing up own lore, completey forgoing any logic, making every character sexually interested in you as if all was just one big fan fiction, detaching the main story entirely from the rest of the game, having factions not interact, etc, etc.
All of this can and should be objectively rated.

The fact that some people liked it has nothing to do with it other than showing what low standards some people have.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 13, 2010
Messages
620
Pretty Alright is Candy Crush Saga and Tetris.
Eternity2 is more than Pretty Allright.

A game needs to be completely retarded if it wants to be liked at Codex. Read: clone Neo Scavenger and Codex will be all over it.

That aside, Codex sometimes makes highly detailed reviews with pointing both at weak and strong parts of a game but without taking sides as strength of those depends on one's taste. This review doesn't have that level of quality.
 
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
23,459
Does not matter, soon Pathfinder Kingmaker will come out and everyone will forget PoE 2 exists.
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2014
Messages
3,819
In the future, can we not have theirs reviews on the news page?
 
Joined
Jun 1, 2018
Messages
866
Codex reviews overcompensate and are full of bias, hyperbole, and edginess.

The news should be a place for respectable critic reviews in my opinion. These low quality reviews should be reserved for the general RPG subforum.
 
Joined
Jun 1, 2018
Messages
866
I agree the review is overwrought. Anyone can dissect and criticize ANY piece of entertainment to this degree, then do what he does, which is oddly… turn around and say you sort of liked it overall.

I dunno. So many small things bothered me about this game, like it was trying to annoy me. Even the names of people and places felt like they were being purposely confusing. I had some fun playing it, I don't hate it. But nothing about it grabs me or gets me wanting to play "just a little more". I just started D:OS2 and it has already intrigued me and drawn me in in just a couple hours, which I never got from POE2 (or POE1).

His screenshot with the multiple buffs/debuffs on a cluster of a battle really sums up why I just wanted to get battles over with. Also: my issue with ship battles extends beyond the text based part. Positioning and combat on board the ships was always a clusterfuck and not fun.

Sometimes games miss their mark and end up feeling like homework. This is one of them for me. Doing homework can have its own rewards, but in a game? It's like I was being pushed away from playing rather than drawn in.

Just my opinion, and I can see why some people would really like it.
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
Codex reviews overcompensate and are full of bias, hyperbole, and edginess.

The news should be a place for respectable critic reviews in my opinion. These low quality reviews should be reserved for the general RPG subforum.
Not gonna happen. If the Codex have a review on an RPG, I don't see why we should not make a news topic out of it.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,223
"Nearly every companion is a flaming homo who wants a piece of your butt."

Have to admit, this really made me laugh.

Roxor and Infinitron walk into a bar:

 
Joined
Jun 5, 2015
Messages
3,898
Location
Croatia
"Nearly every companion is a flaming homo who wants a piece of your butt."

Meh... it's stuff like that that's unnecessary and out of place in a review. I understand the point (everyone... EVERYONE wants a piece of you... just silly) but "homo" jokes are 3rd grade stupidity.
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2010
Messages
1,561
Location
Downtown Chicago, IL
Ah, but it's levels of meta irony, doncha know? It looks dumb, but in fact it's pretty darn smart.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Pretty Alright is Candy Crush Saga and Tetris.
Eternity2 is more than Pretty Allright.
I fail to see what's wrong with something being pretty alright, such games can still be a fun time even if you never remember or replay them again. Unless you subscribe to that old meme of "7/10 or GTFO."
 
Joined
Aug 26, 2018
Messages
25
Location
Novo Slava
I fail too see what's wrong with something being pretty alright, such games can still be a fun time even if you never remember or replay them again. Unless you subscribe to that old meme of "7/10 or GTFO."

Personally, I kind of do, but not because of being painfully discerning. Just that I don't have that much gaming time, and a long backlog of some very promising games, so anything that's in "pretty alright" territory is just never likely to make it to my desk.
 
Joined
Nov 8, 2014
Messages
12,085
Not gonna happen. If the Codex have a review on an RPG, I don't see why we should not make a news topic out of it.

As I said, their reviews are low quality crap. Not worth the spotlight.
 
Joined
Jun 1, 2018
Messages
866
Codex reviews overcompensate and are full of bias, hyperbole, and edginess.

The news should be a place for respectable critic reviews in my opinion. These low quality reviews should be reserved for the general RPG subforum.

Just because you don't agree with what it said it does not mean that review is bad.
On average codex reviews are better than 99% of mainstream review sites, you can be sure with codex that writer would have played the game to the end, not copy someone else's review and would cover all parts of the game. Also there is always some humor involved.
 
Joined
Oct 3, 2014
Messages
3,819
I wont go into detail about what makes a good review, but the garbage that passes for reviews at the codex are not among them. They're infested with bias, misinformation, and enough edge to slit your wrists with.

Also there is always some humor involved.

What passes for humor at the codex would of made me laugh when I was 13.
 
Joined
Jun 1, 2018
Messages
866
I wont go into detail about what makes a good review, but the garbage that passes for reviews at the codex are not among them. They're infested with bias, misinformation, and enough edge to slit your wrists with.



What passes for humor at the codex would of made me laugh when I was 13.
Good thing you are 15 then. We would not want you to laugh for a change.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Oct 3, 2014
Messages
3,819
Just because you don't agree with what it said it does not mean that review is bad.
On average codex reviews are better than 99% of mainstream review sites, you can be sure with codex that writer would have played the game to the end, not copy someone else's review and would cover all parts of the game. Also there is always some humor involved.

I agree, as long as you take them with a grain of salt the reviews on the codex are interesting to read. They often highlight things that mainstream reviewers miss. And if a Codex review is positive (Like this one actually is once you look past the raving) I'm pretty sure I'll freaking love the game. The same can not be said for more mainstream sites.

And biased? Of course a review is biased, objective facts are always nice but in the end a review is a subjective sharing of opinions.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Dec 20, 2010
Messages
3,216
Location
Sweden
Reading codexian review is like going through diary of autistic edgelord teenager: for every good observation, there's a mountain of infantile snarling and hyperbolic, one sided nonsense.
 
Joined
Jun 5, 2015
Messages
3,898
Location
Croatia
Back
Top Bottom