Pillars of Eternity II - Review @ Mortismal Gaming

I guess I'm in the minority: Although the combat mechanics of the sequel were superior, I didn't even end up finishing PoE 2 due to what I felt was a boring setting (and ship combat). Enjoyed the first game though - after White March patches that is.
 
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Carnifex said:
Pillars did the exact opposite of Original Sin. Where the latter severely decreased in quality from the first game to second, Pillars only got better. They kept everything great from the first game and just increased the second in all areas, in a profound and meaningful way. I sure hope we get a third!
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Sadly it sold poorly and Avowed is technically the third game. I could go into more detail but that stuff was posted a year or two ago. I'm also to lazy to search old threads.
 
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I'm possibly one of the few that liked the first game more. The combat simply had better, more memorable encounters, especially during the White March which was quite excellent. There's nothing that came close to the Siege of Cragholdt either in the second game; with the Concelhaut encounter being a true shade of the first.
The soundtrack for me was also better, seemingly more inspired - with less repetition, not relying on what had been composed before and generally containing more memorable melodies. Losing the sixth character in the second game to appeal to the masses arguably lost some dynamicism in the combat as well despite it being much more polished and accessible overall.

That said, the factional choices were fairly interesting and I will attempt another replay at some point to see how the stories and different choices play out. I think I've still got a DLC to complete as well, giving the game some fantastic mileage.

I'm not sure yet what to make of Avowed, but I'll certainly keep an eye on its development.
 
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bizorker said:
Maybe my post was a little too confusing. Here is my main point. Way, way back when I first backed as kickstarter I was really starving for a BG successor game, and the kickstarter billed it as such. I got PoE 1 and 2, both great games, but I would have preferred Forgotten Realms setting, and they could have spent more of their energy on story and maybe a nice adaptation of PnP rules, instead of creating this whole new universe and mechanic which aren't likely to survive beyond PoE2.

And in addition, it took many, many, many years after I backed the PoE kickstarter before I got Kingmaker (which hit closest to the mark for me as a BG-like, D&D 'sort of', PC RPG). And there were notorious disasters along the way - like that Sword Coast Adventures fiasco. And even looking at BG3 I'm not really digging the direction at the moment.

I haven't played a really fun PC-based, Forgotten Realms setting, RPG in a long long time. Solasta looks pretty cool and I have my eye on that one.
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I'm easily confused ;) Or too fixated on the ruleset. Yes, strange that Obsidian didn't use that, they did have some experience with the setting. Maybe the licence was too expensive.

Solasta won't be in the D&D setting but I hope that won't put you off, so BG3 is all we have in Faerun for now.

If you can overcome the liberty Larian took with D&D rules, forget how earlier D&D CRPGs felt like vs "Larian's style", BG3 should dig into the lore enough and they have very good narrative. I'm not trying to sell it, I do have some issues with their style, but I'm trying to take what's good in it. ;) To be confirmed of course, it's not finished yet.


I'm curious to see what Obsidian will come up with their next game, will it be a continuation of the same story, or just in the same setting?
 
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Shagnak said:
Dungeon Siege III was shite.
NWN2 was shoddy. It had its moments, but so much was awful. The MQ was a massive disappointment, and The Mask of the Betrayer was at best "goodish".
I liked Alpha Protocol, but in many respects it was as janky as fuck.
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First time in awhile I've seen anyone mention Dungeon Siege III or Alpha Protocol. DS III was indeed shit and is easily the worst game Obsidian has made imo. I didn't care for Alpha Protocol, but some people swear by it.

I didn't care for TOW either though. Maybe I was just overly hyped and expecting too much, but I thought it was major decline compared to something like FO: NV.
 
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Let me be clear, while I prefer the second game, I also adore the first Pillars of Eternity. Both are quality games, and ones that I'll be replaying many times in the future.
 
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I think it the second game had focused more on exploration and dungeons, and less on the god hunt and lame ship-to-ship combat, it would have been more enjoyable. Hence, I enjoyed playing the first game more (particularly with the White March add-ons), but favored the character build system of the second. The stat increments feel toned down too much compared to D&D so it feels a bit irrelevant, but the multi-classing approach is brilliant.
 
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I really, really wanted to like PoE1 back when I played, but despite many attempts I couldn't muster any interest in the aggressively boring writing. Sometimes, when in an RPG lull, I feel tempted to pick up the sequel which I keep hearing conflicting reports about (such as in this very thread), but it doesn't look all that compelling either and Obsidian's already burned me twice i.e. Tyranny.
 
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rjshae said:
I think it the second game had focused more on exploration and dungeons, and less on the god hunt and lame ship-to-ship combat, it would have been more enjoyable.
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To be honest, the ship to ship combat in PoE2 are totally optional. Even the few necessary ones, you can decide to turn them in a conventional combat.

For me, the big problem of PoE2, is its boring combat system. It end up feeling as if every battles feel the same, where you have to spam your skills with little strategic thinking.
 
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I think PoE1 was a far better game, but PoE2 was prettier and had better combat with turn-based mode. Honestly, I'd love to replay the first one with turn-based combat.
 
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I would be re-playing the first Eternity pretty darn quick if it received a turn-based mode upgrade. I'll still be revisiting it at some point, yet it would happen much sooner were that upgrade to happen!
 
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I enjoyed PoE 1 for most part, but combat was so painful ad chaotic I was in the end glad for it to be over. I have yet to spin up PoE 2, but when I do, it'll probably be in TB mode.
 
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I've never desired to play any of these games (PoE, Pathfinder, etc) in turn-based mode, but I can understand why it appeals to some people.

Personally, I like the chaos of RTwP. Plus you can always slow it down if you need to.
 
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For me, there were two things that hurt this game - the ship combat, and the precedent they set with the first one, where there's significant improvements over time, and a "patch roadmap". I just kept putting it off, and hoping they might sort out a half-decent ship mini-game. I wonder if a lot of people did the same, and hurt the sales.
 
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bizorker said:
I haven't played a really fun PC-based, Forgotten Realms setting, RPG in a long long time. Solasta looks pretty cool and I have my eye on that one.
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I agree, for this style isometric crpg, I'm much more interested in a traditional high fantasy setting vs the fantasy setting we see in the Pillars series. And with that updated Infinity engine (or whatever engine PoE2 has).
 
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mbuddha said:
I agree, for this style isometric crpg, I'm much more interested in a traditional high fantasy setting vs the fantasy setting we see in the Pillars series. And with that updated Infinity engine (or whatever engine PoE2 has).
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This is an earnest question: How is PoE's setting not traditional?
 
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Have you played Kingmaker? For me, it's the only thing that has ever come close to topping BG2 as far as an epic, party-based traditional fantasy RPG.
 
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It's true that kingmaker is closer. Too bad they felt the need to include an half-assed Kingdom simulator and imo, the story is a couple of notch below BG. But it's true that it is likely the closest thing to BG produced these last 20 years. More so than NWN or PoE.
 
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PoE2 is good game and since TB mode, combat is actually fun. But for me its nowhere close to BG1 and 2.

Also I liked Kingmaker more then PoE2. Even though I generally prefer TB combat in these games, I prefered Kingmaker played with RtWP combat over Pillars played with TB.

Have to find time to replay Kingmaker with TB combat. But these are long games, so maybe I will sooner get to play Wrath of the Righteous.
 
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