Greedfall - Review @ Geek

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Review: 'Greedfall' Is a Western RPG With Style

It's been a while since I've played a Western RPG I could sink my teeth into. This is mostly due to the fact that Bioware doesn't release these types of games with the frequency they once did. Thankfully, developer Spiders is here with an RPG that hearkens back to the glory days of Bioware with Greedfall. While it lacks the polish and AAA presentation of high-profile Western RPGs, Greedfall is an excellent game that fans of the genre will love.

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I can safely say Greedfall caught me completely by surprise. While it contained a fair bit of bugs and glitches, they weren't enough to ruin my overall enjoyment. The combat system is robust and allows players a high degree of strategic planning. Each mission helps bring the world to life and players can complete them in a variety of ways. Greedfall is everything you could want from a Western RPG. It is an entertaining game that serves as a great base for future installments to build upon.

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I don't think of Spiders from France as a Western RPG maker per se. I'd call them a European developer. It doesn't change the fact, that outside of being ugly and a little clunky, this is a very meaty rpg. I don't even like party based games and I've played it much longer than most of that type. It's the layers that are so impressive. Almost everything you do impacts all of the factions in minor ways. Massive kudos from me; even if I never play another minute.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
I don't think of Spiders from France as a Western RPG maker per se. I'd call them a European developer. It doesn't change the fact, that outside of being ugly and a little clunky, this is a very meaty rpg. I don't even like party based games and I've played it much longer than most of that type. It's the layers that are so impressive. Almost everything you do impacts all of the factions in minor ways. Massive kudos from me; even if I never play another minute.

The term "Western RPG" is normally used for anything that's not of Asian origin (JRPGs), so Greedfall would be a Western RPG in that sense.

I'm surprised to see someone call Greedfall ugly. Other than the faces, I think it's one of the better looking RPGs I've played from an artistic standpoint.

Ugly: Faces and female bodies. Women have tits in real life. Most females have no shape at all, though the walking animation is decent.

Ugly: Companions look horrid. Almost like they're from Arcanum instead of something from this decade.

Ugly: Fake brown filter over everything.

Ugly: Horrid orange glow, especially on foliage.

Ugly: overly used art assets. Every leader building is exactly the same. Every noble house is exactly the same. Every camp is exactly the same, etc.

The outdoor areas are pretty nice and in general I like the layouts of the cities. It's just an opinion though. I'm cool with disagreeing.

I believe the game overcomes its shortcomings in the art area. At least it isn't cartoon-like. I'm very tired of that style.

While I agree with much of that, I think you're exaggerating a bit.

The companions look and animate about as good as those in recent Bethesda games, and I'm pretty sure the budget for Greedfall was nowhere near that of Skyrim or Fallout 4. Granted, Bethesda isn't known for great animations.

I don't know what this brown filter is you're talking about, but I'm not seeing it. I'd agree the cities have too many brownish textures, but I imagine 17th century frontier towns might not have been the most colorful places. I still think they look really good overall especially when viewing them from a distance.

No denying the overused art assets. I would liked to have seen a more distinct style between the different factions. Theleme vs Bridge Alliance for example or the different native clans.

The game was released only 10 days ago and there are already 45 mods! The very first mod posted was the removal of the brownish filter. Previously none of the Spiders games had any meaningful mods, I think Greedfall must be way more popular than its predecessors. Too bad font size cannot be modded easily, it's just too small for me.

The game needs only one mod desperately and that's quests progression locked due to "wrong" daytime removal.
The rest will be pretty much "cosmetics" and none will add hairworks for sure thus: meh.

Originally Posted by joxer
The game needs only one mod desperately and that's quests progression locked due to "wrong" daytime removal.
The rest will be pretty much "cosmetics" and none will add hairworks for sure thus: meh.

You know that you can sleep to easily progress time at any base camp?

Originally Posted by joxer
The game needs only one mod desperately and that's quests progression locked due to "wrong" daytime removal.
The rest will be pretty much "cosmetics" and none will add hairworks for sure thus: meh.

I can't play any new game these days without looking at hair and fur and thinking of your name now.

I thought the hair and fur in GF was well done, better than Skyrim for sure.

For that matter I find the graphics better in GF than Skyrim. If they had proper weather, real 3D (jumping), layered armor (i.e. an actual body underneath the armor, with skin, and ability to mix/match with more options, and less re-used assets I would consider it a AAA game.

For me story, lore, depth of quests, choices, and characters were better than many AAA games I have played.

The brown filter wasn't even noticeable to me till someone pointed it out. For me it works as many games and movies tint or use color grading to provide a certain atmosphere. Right now I am working on a strong brown/sepia vintage look so I prefer the brown filter as it adds to the feel of the game.

I consider the game good looking myself and it has better landscapes than Skyrim in many cases.

I would love it it if they could get a bigger budget and provide some competition in the modded open-world style of games like Beth while sticking to their far better story writing, quests, and better characters/companions that blows Beth out of the water (or Bioware at this point).

Is there a mod that lets you fast-travel from anywhere? If there's one thing that brings this game down for me, it's the ridiculous amount of backtracking.

I haven't seen one. Will probably be one at some point.

For me GreedFall is a suprisingly good game and I have a lot of fun playing it, despite its flaws.

Originally Posted by wolfgrimdark
For me story, lore, depth of quests, choices, and characters were better than many AAA games I have played.

Yes + outside locations, their layout and style.

3 things I dislike most:
- respawning loot in chests, crates etc. (I have not seen another game doing this)
- "every named thing is relevant for a quest" in combination with "without the quest those named things are literally lifeless or just empty in case of some buildings you can enter"
- boss battles (in comparison to regular mobs they are too difficult to unfair and totally not fun to play)

Graphics and animations are fine for me - but I have no eye for those things and I don't really care in most cases. As long it does not look cartoonish it's good for me.

Originally Posted by JDR13
…it's the ridiculous amount of backtracking.

There are some (major) quests where you really feel like an errand girl/boy, but in general for me it was not too much. You don't have to go back to the quest NPC every time and sometimes they teleport you to a location - but both things feel pretty random.

A bigger budget would have made this game really great.

Playing with my reshade I am making:

I would hope that GF would be better than Skyrim graphically. It is 8 years later after all. Engines have progressed and Gamebryo is ancient now.

For me, the biggest area that GF succeeds is in the layering of the quests with the world state. The game does a masterful job of this.

The graphics are acceptable. I also find most of the voice acting to be at least decent and some of it is very well done.

Originally Posted by Kylex
- respawning loot in chests, crates etc. (I have not seen another game doing this)

Chest don't respawn loot. Only crates holding minor loot (a few coins, ammo, etc) respawn. I don't think it's a big deal considering they don't throw tons of gold at you in this game. Fwiw, other games have done this. i.e. FO4, Skyrim, etc.

Originally Posted by Kylex
- boss battles (in comparison to regular mobs they are too difficult to unfair and totally not fun to play)

Get better ? Boss battles are tough, but I disagree that they're unfair. They take planning, and you can't tackle them before you're ready.

Originally Posted by Kylex
There are some (major) quests where you really feel like an errand girl/boy, but in general for me it was not too much. You don't have to go back to the quest NPC every time and sometimes they teleport you to a location - but both things feel pretty random.

It's far too much. Most RPGs contain some degree of backtracking, but I honestly can't recall another game where it irritated me as much as it does in Greedfall.

Originally Posted by JDR13
It's far too much. Most RPGs contain some degree of backtracking, but I honestly can't recall another game where it irritated me as much as it does in Greedfall.

I haven't played Greedfall yet, but The Witcher 1 had a huge amount of backtracking, especially during the second chapter, I think. Is it worse than that?

Originally Posted by GabrielMP_19
I haven't played Greedfall yet, but The Witcher 1 had a huge amount of backtracking, especially during the second chapter, I think. Is it worse than that?

It's like that except more consistent throughout the entire game instead of just one chapter.

Yeah, it's a bit much, especially combined with the fact that

Originally Posted by Maylander
Yeah, it's a bit much, especially combined with the fact that

Spoiler

there are very few gear or skill upgrades in the final 20 hours of the game, so the gameplay will stay the same unless you decide to try a different style of play.

I didn't find it that bad myelf. I played 45 hours and 20 hours is an entire second half almost. I didn't start to feel that till the last 10 or so. But granted I approach games pretty differently from most of the Watch with less focus on combat and gear. I also hadn't modded armor/weapons much earlier on so did a lot more of that near the end which added variety to me. I also switched around a few things gear wise.

Overall the generic loot wasn't impressive to me anyhow and because of my build most of the legendary items you get I couldn't use anyhow.

Originally Posted by wolfgrimdark
I didn't find it that bad myelf. I played 45 hours and 20 hours is an entire second half almost. I didn't start to feel that till the last 10 or so. But granted I approach games pretty differently from most of the Watch with less focus on combat and gear. I also hadn't modded armor/weapons much earlier on so did a lot more of that near the end which added variety to me. I also switched around a few things gear wise.

Overall the generic loot wasn't impressive to me anyhow and because of my build most of the legendary items you get I couldn't use anyhow.

I was in a similar situation regarding the legendary items: