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Pillars of Eternity (RPG, 2015)
Hmm, a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale.
The main thesis regarding this game: Pillars is the same as Baldur's Gate, only worse in every way. While playing this game, I constantly felt like it contained all the negative aspects inherent in classic computer role-playing games and lacked any positive ones.
Classes and Stats
The main reason why I couldn’t start playing this game for a very long time. It’s not good to repeat ready-made concepts, so let’s make everything original. Everything seemed like some kind of fantasy from a random middle school student. I won’t go into details about the classes (ha-ha), but I will say this about the stats – nice idea when they all represent something abstract, based on nothing, and unrelated to anything.
Customization
2015, an RPG. Options: hair color/clothing color. A couple of ugly faces, two dozen completely ridiculous hairstyles.
Background
There are so many things you can choose from, races, peoples, past! You can be a slave, you can be an aristocrat, you can be from one country, or from another. But besides a plus to your status in the game, it doesn’t affect anything else, except maybe a few times in dialogues (although there are always alternative answers).
Style
I liked the pistols and arquebuses. The weapons, in general, also look decent. Armor and spells are just okay.
Setting and Plot
Machines controlling souls, past lives of souls, the ability to read other people's souls – very interesting. The plot of side quests was perceived no better; I only sighed heavily while reading all of this.
Text
It’s a pity that I didn’t immediately understand that characters with yellow nameplates are characters written by writers who, again, allow you to cheat on souls – fan fiction from some random people. When I realized what was going on, I stopped approaching them altogether. And I didn’t even read the tombstones.
Something similar can generally be said about everything else: the player is bombarded with irrelevant and uninteresting information, and considering the overall gloom I felt while playing this game, at some point I got tired of reading even ordinary descriptions in dialogues. Well, basically, I couldn’t care less who decided to twitch their shoulders or looked sideways.
Reputation
Here, you can solve problems in different ways, diplomatically, aggressively, kindly, and in many other ways, and then it will affect how people treat you! Yes, it will, as in the case with the background – a couple of times during the game, and again, with alternative options available. I think that if I had played with high perception, I would have received more unique dialogue options than all of this combined.
Characters
There simply aren't any.
There’s an uncouth inquisitor constantly ranting about arson, and there’s a seemingly pretty dwarven woman who does nothing. As do all the others. The only difference between these bastards and the companions you create is that they occasionally want to tell you something for a few lines, most often after sleeping, and almost always not very interesting. Other NPCs are either fools or empty shells, just like the antagonist.
Enchantments
I used them only a couple of times throughout the game. When I wanted to enchant something, I ran around the shops and found nothing. What else should I do? Run around locations clockwise looking for ingredients? No, thank you.
Money
It’s useless. At some point, I discovered that I had a lot of money from selling loot, but when I went to the merchants, it turned out that there was nothing to spend it on. I bought myself some boots and a hat that I liked (at least, I thought the concept of a warrior in heavy armor, with a two-handed sword in his hands, and wearing such a hat was amusing; one of the few positive moments in this game, and even then – humorous).
Stronghold
Ha-ha-ha, what is this at all? In its current form, it's unnecessary; 90% of the content consists of empty things without any real purpose.
Nice! But I have 40 thousand in my pocket, and as mentioned earlier, there’s still nothing to spend the money on.
And if this fortress were a necessary plot element, but no, even the episode about acquiring it is very contrived.
Grinding
Everything you do in this game (including the "role-playing" element in the form of reputation, backgrounds, etc.) is killing mobs and running around talking to NPCs. I played on normal difficulty; there were some difficulties at the beginning, but later all battles became simple grinding (due to repetitiveness) without any tactics, and what was required from the player was stupid micromanagement. Perhaps on higher difficulty levels it would be more exciting, but I didn’t want to increase the difficulty while playing this.
Mechanics
Downright bad artificial intelligence. Characters simply cannot choose a new target. It seems like hardcore combat, which means the player should control all characters themselves, but this only added more unnecessary micromanagement to various mindless and routine battles.
I don't even want to remember pathfinding. When my characters don't move towards the target UNTIL I MANUALLY CLICK ON A POINT NEXT TO THEM SO THAT THEY STAND CORRECTLY AND DON'T RUN/STAND STILL – 2015 YEAR.
Laziness
The developers couldn’t even bother to properly develop the mechanical part of dialogues in the game. If you tell a girl that you had to kill her family and THEN ask her "where is your family?", it suggests that the main character is not very bright. Or those who made this game.
Cities
Three and a half NPCs, two of whom are writer-created characters. Merchants, as mentioned above, can’t offer anything useful.
But they preserved the old good opportunity to search containers in houses! This is exactly what is most important in classic RPGs.
Stats in Dialogues
Same as with reputation. The exception is perception, which is required in almost every dialogue.
...
And what else? I’m already tired of remembering. I would have given it a slightly better rating if the game were just passable, but considering that it takes up a lot of time, I can’t give it more than that.
3/10
Hmm, a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale.
The main thesis regarding this game: Pillars is the same as Baldur's Gate, only worse in every way. While playing this game, I constantly felt like it contained all the negative aspects inherent in classic computer role-playing games and lacked any positive ones.
Classes and Stats
The main reason why I couldn’t start playing this game for a very long time. It’s not good to repeat ready-made concepts, so let’s make everything original. Everything seemed like some kind of fantasy from a random middle school student. I won’t go into details about the classes (ha-ha), but I will say this about the stats – nice idea when they all represent something abstract, based on nothing, and unrelated to anything.
Customization
2015, an RPG. Options: hair color/clothing color. A couple of ugly faces, two dozen completely ridiculous hairstyles.
Background
There are so many things you can choose from, races, peoples, past! You can be a slave, you can be an aristocrat, you can be from one country, or from another. But besides a plus to your status in the game, it doesn’t affect anything else, except maybe a few times in dialogues (although there are always alternative answers).
Style
I liked the pistols and arquebuses. The weapons, in general, also look decent. Armor and spells are just okay.
Setting and Plot
Machines controlling souls, past lives of souls, the ability to read other people's souls – very interesting. The plot of side quests was perceived no better; I only sighed heavily while reading all of this.
Text
It’s a pity that I didn’t immediately understand that characters with yellow nameplates are characters written by writers who, again, allow you to cheat on souls – fan fiction from some random people. When I realized what was going on, I stopped approaching them altogether. And I didn’t even read the tombstones.
Something similar can generally be said about everything else: the player is bombarded with irrelevant and uninteresting information, and considering the overall gloom I felt while playing this game, at some point I got tired of reading even ordinary descriptions in dialogues. Well, basically, I couldn’t care less who decided to twitch their shoulders or looked sideways.
Reputation
Here, you can solve problems in different ways, diplomatically, aggressively, kindly, and in many other ways, and then it will affect how people treat you! Yes, it will, as in the case with the background – a couple of times during the game, and again, with alternative options available. I think that if I had played with high perception, I would have received more unique dialogue options than all of this combined.
Characters
There simply aren't any.
There’s an uncouth inquisitor constantly ranting about arson, and there’s a seemingly pretty dwarven woman who does nothing. As do all the others. The only difference between these bastards and the companions you create is that they occasionally want to tell you something for a few lines, most often after sleeping, and almost always not very interesting. Other NPCs are either fools or empty shells, just like the antagonist.
Enchantments
I used them only a couple of times throughout the game. When I wanted to enchant something, I ran around the shops and found nothing. What else should I do? Run around locations clockwise looking for ingredients? No, thank you.
Money
It’s useless. At some point, I discovered that I had a lot of money from selling loot, but when I went to the merchants, it turned out that there was nothing to spend it on. I bought myself some boots and a hat that I liked (at least, I thought the concept of a warrior in heavy armor, with a two-handed sword in his hands, and wearing such a hat was amusing; one of the few positive moments in this game, and even then – humorous).
Stronghold
Ha-ha-ha, what is this at all? In its current form, it's unnecessary; 90% of the content consists of empty things without any real purpose.
Nice! But I have 40 thousand in my pocket, and as mentioned earlier, there’s still nothing to spend the money on.
And if this fortress were a necessary plot element, but no, even the episode about acquiring it is very contrived.
Grinding
Everything you do in this game (including the "role-playing" element in the form of reputation, backgrounds, etc.) is killing mobs and running around talking to NPCs. I played on normal difficulty; there were some difficulties at the beginning, but later all battles became simple grinding (due to repetitiveness) without any tactics, and what was required from the player was stupid micromanagement. Perhaps on higher difficulty levels it would be more exciting, but I didn’t want to increase the difficulty while playing this.
Mechanics
Downright bad artificial intelligence. Characters simply cannot choose a new target. It seems like hardcore combat, which means the player should control all characters themselves, but this only added more unnecessary micromanagement to various mindless and routine battles.
I don't even want to remember pathfinding. When my characters don't move towards the target UNTIL I MANUALLY CLICK ON A POINT NEXT TO THEM SO THAT THEY STAND CORRECTLY AND DON'T RUN/STAND STILL – 2015 YEAR.
Laziness
The developers couldn’t even bother to properly develop the mechanical part of dialogues in the game. If you tell a girl that you had to kill her family and THEN ask her "where is your family?", it suggests that the main character is not very bright. Or those who made this game.
Cities
Three and a half NPCs, two of whom are writer-created characters. Merchants, as mentioned above, can’t offer anything useful.
But they preserved the old good opportunity to search containers in houses! This is exactly what is most important in classic RPGs.
Stats in Dialogues
Same as with reputation. The exception is perception, which is required in almost every dialogue.
...
And what else? I’m already tired of remembering. I would have given it a slightly better rating if the game were just passable, but considering that it takes up a lot of time, I can’t give it more than that.
3/10