Pillars of Eternity

 PC
User Score
8.3

Generally favorable reviews- based on 2683 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,104 out of 2683
  2. Mixed: 308 out of 2683
  3. Negative: 271 out of 2683
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  1. JonnyBigBoss
    Mar 27, 2015
    7
    As someone with little to no cRPG experience I felt I should make the jump with this game. Lesson learned. I got very little from my experience. Though, if you know you're a fan of cRPGs, especially Baldur's Gate, I suspect that you'll love it.
  2. Phintias
    Apr 11, 2015
    7
    I could blithe on about my history with Baldur's Gate 1&2, Icewind Dale, etc... but this isn't about them and really comparing a game today to a classic game, which was a part of my youth isn't really fair anyway; good memories are hard to beat. And that is how I am judging Pillars. Do I get that, "this will leave a good memory" vibe. If i'm honest, I knew this answer pretty fast andI could blithe on about my history with Baldur's Gate 1&2, Icewind Dale, etc... but this isn't about them and really comparing a game today to a classic game, which was a part of my youth isn't really fair anyway; good memories are hard to beat. And that is how I am judging Pillars. Do I get that, "this will leave a good memory" vibe. If i'm honest, I knew this answer pretty fast and it's no. But it does have most of the components for it.

    Pillars is a fun game; I'm enjoying myself and having fun playing. But what holds the score down for me is the writing. The story line is pretty good, and the quest lines are ok, but it feels more often than not, they used writers who went out of their way to create a civilization and it's cultures with very little knowledge how these things work. The history, the various dialects, the ways of life, all seem so forced. All the user created mods can't fix this fundamental flaw. And then there is the user created "back stories" and epitaphs. Most of them needed an editors hand to help clean up their story, and it doesn't seem this happened. The idea is great, in my opinion. But the application should have been vetted more thoroughly. And the books, with history and lore in them, are bad. I want to read them, and do, but it hurts every-time.

    Additionally, I don't think it's worth the 45 on up, US dollars. But money is a fluid thing, and if you have means to spend that kind of money without worry, then your thoughts will be different. So this is more personal opinion. Still...

    Ok, that out of the way, Pillars is still a lot of fun. The game play is quite fun, and I like the combat system a lot. It requires you play your game based on your party. It also gives you enough choices when leveling up to make a character feel somewhat unique. You also get some unique options how to respond depending on your class, build, and choices you've previously made in the game. To me, that's awesome.

    Overall, this is really fun for me. The writing hurts, but it's not horrible. Probably not nearly as-bad-as I make it seem. That said, it does affect immersion in my opinion and lasting appeal. Still, the game play, battles, interactions, ambiance, etc... all more than make up for it. If you like a good D&D style turn-based game, I would be surprised if you didn't enjoy this. There is so much that is fun and enjoyable. If you're a reader, or lover of a good back-story, you may have issues but reading so many other reviews, I think the majority found the writing just fine. So take my criticism with a grain a salt, I suppose.

    Either way, if you do get it, I hope you find it worth the time and money spent. I know I am.

    Happy gaming.    … Expand
  3. Skulb
    Mar 31, 2015
    7
    This game is good but it is not perfect by any stretch. All the tens are vaguely ridiculous. Since everyone else is comparing Pillars of Eternity to Baldur`s Gate I will as well. There are a couple of glaring weaknesses which should become apparent when one does this to prevent giving a 10. A 10 means a perfect game. PoE is not perfect.

    The single biggest problem with PoE is this: In    This game is good but it is not perfect by any stretch. All the tens are vaguely ridiculous. Since everyone else is comparing Pillars of Eternity to Baldur`s Gate I will as well. There are a couple of glaring weaknesses which should become apparent when one does this to prevent giving a 10. A 10 means a perfect game. PoE is not perfect.

    The single biggest problem with PoE is this: In Baldur`s Gate you had a whopping 25 NPCs scattered around the game you could include in your party. PoE has 8. Not only does it only have 8 of them but there is no rogue and no barbarian. This almost forces you to play as a rogue if you want to avoid eating traps and not being able to unlock things. And you can forget about ever playing a barbarian. I didn`t start as a rogue, not being aware of this lack of companions, and now have an ill-suited priest disarming traps and unlocking chests. To me this is more than enough to drag the score of this game down to an 8 or a 9 all by itself. It is just not good enough and in comparison to Baldur`s Gate, the "spiritual predecessor" to PoE, it is embarrassing. Yes you can make your own party but it will not be interactive or have any stories or side quests. And you could do that in Baldur`s Gate too. Just a loud "where the hell are the NPCS?" from me on this issue. The other big problem with this glaring lack of NPC companions is that it severely reduces the replayability of the game - a huge strength of Baldur`s Gate precisely because it had so many of them. You could start over and over again and never have the same party. You could try gimmick runs and only recruit the mages available or any other sort of wild scheme you could cook up. In PoE you will necessarily always have nearly the same party if you start over because you only have three more than you need to fill the group. I see at most one possible replay of this game for this reason. And it is not good enough. Not good enough at all.
    There are a few other minor annoyances as well, although nothing major. The loading screens are all over the place and last for far too long, whatever the reason is. Exploring towns becomes a huge pain the the butt as a result. "Omigosh I hope there isn`t a second floor! That will mean four loading screens of 30 seconds each and what if there`s not even anything interesting up there?" Five districts in Defiance Bay of this will have anyone staring in dread at any building they see.
    I do miss some of the AD&D stuff, and multiclass/dual class in particular. The combat and class system they have replaced this with is alright though. Some things I like and some I don`t. But that`s probably too subjective and not really something that will be likely reduce most people`s enjoyment of the game, unless they are AD&D fanatics. There is a lack of scripting options for the characters you control though and an abundance of required micromanagement as a result. Some associated annoyances ensue from this because you don`t get any indication of spell range and a few other things. Make a mistake and your caster will barge into melee range and get splattered when he tries to move back out again. And you will make mistakes because you will have to tell your characters what to do in every single fight because of the lack of scripting options.
    The final issue I have with PoE is simply that it is not better than Baldur`s Gate, which was released in 1998. It should be better but it is not. Perhaps it`s just a tall order. BG is a classic that has stood the test of time remarkably well. But it still feels disappointing that PoE falls short of its inspiration, which I think it clearly does. And the conclusion to draw from that is that PoE works fine as a nostalgia trip but not quite as well as a game in its own right. It is still good, don`t get me wrong. But it just shouldn`t be worse than a 17 year old game in the same genre. And it is. And this alone MUST lower the score by at least one point. Baldur`s Gate is a 10. Therefore PoE can not be a 10 because it isn`t as good.

    Other than these points, PoE is a well made and highly enjoyable CRPG with a lot of positive aspects. There are colorful characters (The few you`ll find that is), the graphics are mostly good, although somewhat bland at times. The music, VA and sound effects are for the most part also nice, if not exactly groundbreaking. And of course there is tons of dialogue, a nice story and a compelling game world to explore. There are also some new developments, most notably the stronghold feature, which is interesting without being great.
    In most respects PoE is an enjoyable throwback to the days of the IE engine. But a 10 it is not. If it had a few more NPCs it would probably qualify as an 8. But it doesn`t.
    If you want the cutting edge of this genre go play Divinity: Original Sin. If you fancy a retro romp through the beginnings of it then PoE is for you. But you`re better off playing the original IE games if you haven`t already.    … Expand
  4. Kelu
    May 20, 2015
    7
    A very good quality product of crowdfunding isn't something you see every day, but this it. Delivered what it promised, perhaps even surpassed the expectations. In the first act of the game, that is, after that the game goes downhill and ends prematurely in an anticlimactic 'poof' of a rushed, pathetic boss fight.
    Would be 10/10 if the game managed to keep up the quality it shows in the    A very good quality product of crowdfunding isn't something you see every day, but this it. Delivered what it promised, perhaps even surpassed the expectations. In the first act of the game, that is, after that the game goes downhill and ends prematurely in an anticlimactic 'poof' of a rushed, pathetic boss fight.
    Would be 10/10 if the game managed to keep up the quality it shows in the beginning throughout the experience.    … Expand
  5. Avadon
    Mar 26, 2015
    7
    As a 32 year old guy who grew up playing the Infinity Engine RPG's, I was really looking forward to this. It is a love letter to a type of game that I had missed. Or at least thought I had missed.

    PoE is full of flaws, just like the older games. The limited budget is constantly obvious. Most of the dialogue is not voice acted, and the different locations are tied together by "story    As a 32 year old guy who grew up playing the Infinity Engine RPG's, I was really looking forward to this. It is a love letter to a type of game that I had missed. Or at least thought I had missed.

    PoE is full of flaws, just like the older games. The limited budget is constantly obvious. Most of the dialogue is not voice acted, and the different locations are tied together by "story cards" that narrate the cool things that happened in the meantime, rather than cutscenes that show them. I wasn't surprised, I expected that much.

    So, is the story any good? The characters? The lore? The answer in my opinion is that they are... adequate. The story has enough to keep the player going, but is not nearly as epic as Baldur's Gate 2. The characters are ok, they have backstories and everything, but they never transcend the norm to become truly special and memorable. There is no Morte or Ignus here. The lore tries to offer a lot, but without the rich established DnD background to back it up, it often devolves into a confusing mess.

    The combat feels fine at the start, but as the game progresses, the amount of micromanagement that is required to not die becomes quite ridiculous, even on medium difficulty. Icewind Dale did a great job of streamlining that combat system and making it feel more impactful, but PoE throws most of that work out the window and obfuscates the combat through hidden rolls and mechanics that I think most players won't have the patience to fully research.

    It is obvious that Obsidian tried their absolute best with the means they had. PoE is a beautiful game, and also a surprisingly polished game. A lot of planning, a lot of writing, a lot of drawing and countless sleepless nights went into this game. That much is clear. It's a shame that their best is not enough to deliver something truly spectacular, something that you can't wait to come home from work to play.

    If you want to call it "Baldur's Gate 3", be my guest. There it is. Baldur's Gate 3. Warts and all. It's good. But it's not great.    … Expand
  6. Amazing
    Mar 31, 2015
    7
    It was great fun until the bugs started coming in one after the other. Stat bug, companions inventory deletion bug, load and save times going from 3 seconds to 40. I really like this game but its doing everything it can to brick my save.
  7. adff500
    Jun 18, 2015
    7
    + + + Pros + + +
    1. Very long campaign with plenty of maps and side quests.
    2. Nice graphics,great level design and amazing soundtrack. 3. Smooth gameplay,interesting characters,writing and dialogues with lots of choices. - - - Cons - - - 1. Plenty of unnecessary loading times (even when you are on the same map). 2. No voiced dialogues (text only). 3. The combat rules,casting and    + + + Pros + + +
    1. Very long campaign with plenty of maps and side quests.
    2. Nice graphics,great level design and amazing soundtrack.
    3. Smooth gameplay,interesting characters,writing and dialogues with lots of choices.

    - - - Cons - - -
    1. Plenty of unnecessary loading times (even when you are on the same map).
    2. No voiced dialogues (text only).
    3. The combat rules,casting and survival handicaps the player greatly (and the A.I. is one of the worst I´ve seen in a while).

    Classic RPG with modern graphics and some annoying old-school and technical flaws. Overall an enjoyable experience.    … Expand
  8. dinin70
    Aug 3, 2015
    7
    Don't look at people saying the combat is boring or the game is buggy. Those are people playing on a Commodore 64 and that unfortunately don't have any finger on their hands.

    The combat is good, the graphics are great, the gameplay is very intuitive. I really enjoyed playing it, however I can barely recommend it. You are looking for an old style RPG, ok go for it. You are looking for    Don't look at people saying the combat is boring or the game is buggy. Those are people playing on a Commodore 64 and that unfortunately don't have any finger on their hands.

    The combat is good, the graphics are great, the gameplay is very intuitive. I really enjoyed playing it, however I can barely recommend it.

    You are looking for an old style RPG, ok go for it. You are looking for a new Baldur's Gate? Nope...

    I don't think that I enjoyed BG because I was a teenager and now I grew old, the game is just not playing in same league.

    - Epicness of BG2 - Forget it. Are you saving the universe, thanks God no. However, are you following such an interesting story as to replace the Lord of Murder himself? No... Or are you seeking who you are and are throwed in a story you don't know where it will end (PST)? Not really... The story is just average.

    - Variety of BG2 or even Icewind Dale - Forget it. In those games you were exploring so many places, each of them being extremely different than the previous. Here... No, the World map is just too small... The cities are empties and few things to do. You are in the capital, you feel alone. In BG2, only in Amn (representing a very small part of the game) you had so many quests to do, so many things to make. Every neightboorhood had plenty of zones, plenty of people to speak to...If you were playing a fighter you could your castle, and it was feeling alive. Here in PoR, you are in your castle, stupidly you think that as you are upgrading it people will come, you'll see farmers, bartenders, a court... No... There's just no one throughout the entire game... Feels extremely empty on that side.

    Apart from that the game as serious other flaws of which the MOST AWFUL one: loading time... This is just horrible... You cannot camp as many times as you want. Which is a good idea in theory, but practically you just want to quit the game... "Ok, limited camp supplies, I have to watch out, play strategically, cannot screw up". Good, but... You can play as good as you want, your mage-retarded psycho elf is tired after having done 300 meters... So, you are in the Endless Paths, 3 screens away from the surface. 3 loading screens. Then walk up to the tavern, enter the tavern, loading screen. Walk on the first floor, loading screen. Sleep, go away and again 5 other loading screens to go onto battle... Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus...

    So all in all... The game is good, and any people who like occidental RPG will like it and should go for it, but it's not even 50% as good as Baldur's Gate or IceWind Dale. In every point it's just below...    … Expand
  9. Mandulum
    Oct 13, 2016
    7
    Five Word Review: Modern RPG, classic look/feel.
    Favorite Thing: An epic adventure with plenty to see and do.
    Least Favorite Thing: Really dislike the progression system. Levels are few and far apart and you don't feel much more powerful with each advancement.

    Playtime: 80h (includes White March I & II)
    Enjoyment: 7/10
    Recommendation: Yeah, if you have copious amounts of time to spare.
  10. Klewer
    Sep 19, 2017
    7
    Having played BG 1 & 2 and enjoying them, I found this a little more of a struggle to get in to. While overall it is very similar in many mechanics I could not get in to the overall story and found it a drag after 20 hours of gameplay.
    Fans of Baldurs Gate style games will definitely enjoy this, if you after more of a Diablo type experience maybe stay away.
  11. giskarduk
    Apr 1, 2015
    7
    What we have here is a graphic novel with interactive areas and a bolted on RPG system, leveling seems to take place once every blue moon and I have found characters with a 7 in lore could not use scrolls that needed 2 in lore, so the RPG side is simply not working.

    It relies heavily on text based story telling to create game play, combat, exploration, all seem secondary to this one    What we have here is a graphic novel with interactive areas and a bolted on RPG system, leveling seems to take place once every blue moon and I have found characters with a 7 in lore could not use scrolls that needed 2 in lore, so the RPG side is simply not working.

    It relies heavily on text based story telling to create game play, combat, exploration, all seem secondary to this one part of the games design. Unfortunately the story just is not that interesting, I have put books down that have been more interesting than this.

    If you check the steam stats and achievements for the game, you will notice a trend, most of the advanced features of the game are not getting used, most folk use the creator an adventurer feature, only 25% have actually finished act 1. This should tell you a lot.

    It actually reminds me of a computerised version of the old paper and pen RPGs where the dungeon keeper tells you what you are looking at. Trouble is, this is computer game where we can see what we are looking at and half the time it does not match the text.

    I have seen this compared to Baldurs gate a lot, honestly, it is not Baldurs gate, its not even in the same league as Baldurs gate but the game does have its charms if you sit back and treat it like an interactive book with pretty average if long winded story line.

    If I was to give it a score it would be 7 out of 10. Worth owning but not for £35. I would say pick this up when the price hits £22 which is closer to its truth worth.

    I would ask obsidian one question though, where did the $4 Million dollars from kickstarter go because this game is not worth $4.

    Worth buying but wait for the sales.    … Expand
  12. owen445x
    Apr 6, 2015
    7
    I'm digging it so far, I just have 7 hours under my belt, but I am liking the graphics ad the story so far.

    Combat is fluid and fun, a little clunky with path finding or guys not attacking when something is smashing their faces in. Level design so far is really good and I am a big fan of the infinity engine from baldurs gate and icewind dale series. Having a hard time with certain    I'm digging it so far, I just have 7 hours under my belt, but I am liking the graphics ad the story so far.

    Combat is fluid and fun, a little clunky with path finding or guys not attacking when something is smashing their faces in.

    Level design so far is really good and I am a big fan of the infinity engine from baldurs gate and icewind dale series.

    Having a hard time with certain classes though, like having a cleric with me in the middle of my group. I send in my warriors first to get initial agro, then they just switch to my cleric and literally rape him... over.. and over again.. I just got to the point of replacing him with another warrior.    … Expand
  13. TimW001
    Apr 10, 2017
    7
    It's pretty good. It has some really cool stuff about it, great graphics and great ability of story telling. But at the same time it's very much how you expect it to play. If you've played any of the original Fallout games or Baldur's Gate or even shades of Diablo II.
    So it is a good game, but that's all I would say on it, that's it's good. Worth a purchase in a sale.
  14. PowerGamer
    Jul 3, 2016
    7
    At first I really liked the game. A lot of variety in character choices, etc.
    At lot of fun at first but frankly the game just gets monotonous.
    The game doesn't scale well, and you will hit the level cap before the end of the 2nd act (out of three). The whole thing get monotonous. It's the same thing over and over, and over again. I would play the game for a while and fall asleep.    At first I really liked the game. A lot of variety in character choices, etc.
    At lot of fun at first but frankly the game just gets monotonous.

    The game doesn't scale well, and you will hit the level cap before the end of the 2nd act (out of three).
    The whole thing get monotonous. It's the same thing over and over, and over again.
    I would play the game for a while and fall asleep.

    I feel now it was a mistake to get the expansion. If it were not for the expansion I probably would have made it to the 3rd act.

    For some reason most game developers, who's ever in charge, seem to think well if I don't put 100+ hours of play in a game people will complain that it's too short.
    It's as if every new movie had to be six hours long. Most people couldn't sit through it and with this game like most it's just too drawn out.

    I even used Cheat Engine hacks to supercharge my characters to roll through the battles thinking I would make it through the 3rd to finish the game.
    To boring, couldn't do it even then.

    The game is fun for a while, but take my advise and don't bother getting the expansion unless you finished the game and really want to add many hours of the same thing..    … Expand
  15. curzon_dax
    Apr 5, 2015
    7
    The game started on Kickstarter which explains why it's overrated. I find the interface cumbersome. And generally the whole interface lacking.........
  16. WaytoomanyUIDs
    Apr 1, 2015
    7
    Is this game as good as it's proponents say it is? No, despite superficial similarities it isnit the second coming of Baldur's Gate.

    Is it a bad game? No, despite mechanical peculiarities and Obsidian's obligatory bugs, its actually good fun. Not great fun, it's a little too grindy for that IMO, but it has an interesting if clichéd world and story, and some solidly written NPC's, as you    Is this game as good as it's proponents say it is? No, despite superficial similarities it isnit the second coming of Baldur's Gate.

    Is it a bad game? No, despite mechanical peculiarities and Obsidian's obligatory bugs, its actually good fun. Not great fun, it's a little too grindy for that IMO, but it has an interesting if clichéd world and story, and some solidly written NPC's, as you would expect from an Obsidian game.

    Not a great game but a good one, well worth picking up ones the obligatory Obsidian bugs are ironed out.    … Expand
  17. blade01
    May 21, 2015
    7
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. If you think Baldurs Gate is today a 10/10 stop reading because Pillars of Eternity is a 10/10 for you too.If you think Baldrus Gate is still a great Game but you think in 2015 that formula needs improvements read my review.I compare Pillars to Baldurs Gate 1 and2 , its really close and that game is the spritual predecessor.Before i go into detail i think i should mention that i think a game in 2015 need more then just what Pillars delivers.

    Visuals:Its ok.Visuals are not that important to me.The backrounds are hand-drawn as far as i know, you can see that.Some backrounds are really nice, others not so much.Its a mixed bag.What i miss is more variety.Most maps are pretty generic i think.I miss lightning effects that impresses me, but thats because of the engine they use.Its an enhanced version of the old engine that runs Baldurs Gate.And its ok, the game is not bad looking.The artdesign is something that i dont like.The armors for example, even the "special" ones dont look that impressive.There is nothing special.

    Sound:I miss great music.There is SOME music but its not really special.Thats a little moodkiller for me.The voiceacting is for the most part ok.Not everything is great, some characters are not that good.
    What i really dislike is that sometimes one part of a discussion is voiced, others not.That happens often in the conversations with your partymembers.That is distracting and disrupts the flow of the conversation.
    What i miss too are sounds when you fight.Music is playing, fine, but what about some weapon-sounds?
    Like in KOTOR?In KOTOR you have sounds when weapons are used, you even see little flashes.Here?Nothing!

    Gameplay:I think the gamplay is a mixed bag too.There are some great ideas.For example that the game explanis in a text what happens and you can choose with a click what you want to do.That is really fun and you need to pay attention and sometimes you need to know the abilitys of your partymemebers.Unfortunately this feature is rarely used and sometimes the best choice is so bluntly presented that its is boring.A giant letdown is the combatengine.In combat the pathfining AI is terrbile.In houses and dungeons you will get stuck.Even when there is enough space to go your companions will just stand there and watch.This can kill off your entire party.That is something the game inherritted from BG and that in 2015!!!For that, ill substract 1 point from the endscore.What is a letdown too is the character development.Its to simple.You can choose some paths but i tried different stuff with the adventureers you can hire.Most skills are too weak.I chose my rogue so that she crits nearly with EVERY strike, 2 weaponstyle with sabers.At the end of the game, she was maxed out and 85% of her hits were crits while she killed more enemys then the entire party without her together.I think i broke the combatsystem with my build because even on higher dificulty the game was far too easy.When i read some reviews and hear about "challenging combats" i can just laugh, im sorry.Its unbalanced as hell and if you understand how the engine works that can be work in your favour.A problem i see is the selection of possible companions.The cast is uninteresting at best, there is no real dynamic in the group.They wont leave you, they wont turn against you.No love interest, i miss that when i think back to BG2!There are other not so great points, ill not go into detail, most of them are just minor points.

    Summary:I played BG1 weeks prior to the release, so i can compare pretty good.Pillars is on par with BG1.Weak points and strong points are nearly the same.In the end, BG1 is a better game for me.The cast of possible companions is more interesting, the mainstory is more interesting and there is even some dynamic when you are good and some members of your group are evil for example.Where is all that in Pillars??Baldurs Gate 2 is a 10/10 for me, even today.BG1 is a 8/10 for me, cause that game is missing some of the great parts from BG2.Pillars is weaker when it comes to story, even the sound is weaker, so its a 7/10 for me.That makes it a good to great game.Something for comparison:The highest score i ever gave was a 8/10 for last years surprise "This war of mine".Maybe Pillars 2 will be better.....    … Expand
  18. everin
    Oct 2, 2015
    7
    Tier 2
    + Interesting story and side characters, a lot of nice expository details
    + A pretty world with a lot of spectacular details and environments
    ? Pacing of the story is a bit slow and all over the place
    - Combat feels messy and unrefined, real-time gameplay is very chaotic
    - Character items and models are visually unimpressive and immersion breaking
  19. Greywolf2001ca
    Dec 11, 2015
    7
    Good game, but I really hate those stupid pseudo real-time turn-based combat crap. Makes the game look really dumb. Aside from combat, which you cannot avoid at all in the game, you have a good story. It does not seem that your choices matters in the game. I've done like 25% of the game, and my choices have made no difference and had no impact on the story.

    There are some nice and    Good game, but I really hate those stupid pseudo real-time turn-based combat crap. Makes the game look really dumb. Aside from combat, which you cannot avoid at all in the game, you have a good story. It does not seem that your choices matters in the game. I've done like 25% of the game, and my choices have made no difference and had no impact on the story.

    There are some nice and unusual options in the options menu of this game. You can actually hide metagaming information, which increases replayability... well, it would increase it alot if the choices you take would change the story like in Age of Decadence, which is a much better game overall, especially in the storyline department (you live according to your choices. Went through half the game without fighting a thing, just talking, plotting and manipulating people into doing things for me.)

    Pillars of Eternity is not really worth the price tag it currently has, but it's worth paying 20-25$ though. More if combat was better.    … Expand
  20. FirestormZero
    Apr 10, 2015
    7
    As a longtime fan of CRPGs, JRPGs, and with hundreds of hours of Fallout 1, 2, Baldur's Gate, etc, I came to this game with very high expectations and perhaps they were a bit too high. While this is definitely a good game, there are aspects which hold it back from being great.

    First, the art assets and graphics. They are very inconsistent in quality and I feel like the early design    As a longtime fan of CRPGs, JRPGs, and with hundreds of hours of Fallout 1, 2, Baldur's Gate, etc, I came to this game with very high expectations and perhaps they were a bit too high. While this is definitely a good game, there are aspects which hold it back from being great.

    First, the art assets and graphics. They are very inconsistent in quality and I feel like the early design choice to go with a Semi-Realism art style really hurt the game. I think it would have been a better use of their resources to stylize it, as style can make low graphics much more appealing. Most of the characters look similar to Taric from League of Legends. While he's fabulous, he's also a bit blocky. Since the first thing we are thrown into is the character creator, it also puts a bit too much emphasis on one of the poorer parts of the game. That said, the team is very imaginative with area designs. If you want some very cool places to explore, they are here, there are many of them.

    The lore and history are a strong point. Many people have low standards when it comes to these things and confuse shallow/broad/vague lore with deep lore. A lot of love was given to story telling and history and it pays off in a big way. A minor gripe is that you can take certain actions in the game and their consequences are ignored. For example, within the first 15 minutes of the game, you get the option to throw your weapon in a text choice. However, even if you make that choice, you will still have your weapon.

    The actual game-play feels fairly unimpressive, clunky, and not intuitive. Most of the time I was playing I thought-- there has to be a way to make this more satisfying. The class designs are also a bit stacked-- some classes are absolute monsters, others feel entirely unimpressive even in the area they are supposed to be good at. The stat system is extremely weird, with a stat like Might that improves spellpower and physical weapon power.

    Strategy feels a bit limited since the ideal setup seems to be 2 strong front line people who tank, then 4 damage dealers. I don't think anything else would really work that well. The blunderbuss is also perhaps a bit too powerful.

    There's loads of bugs but I don't really mind that, since I've played CRPGs that are basically made of bugs. It comes with the territory.

    Overall, the gameplay is the weakest element when it should be the strongest. The art could be better-- it feels like so little progress was made since Arcanum. However, if you want a long and enjoyable game and are willing to learn the systems in place, and you can look past the graphics, it's a great experience.    … Expand
  21. justanhonestguy
    Aug 8, 2015
    7
    Not that good for me. Loved BG1, BG2, and the Icewind series. This game is extremely faithful to the old iso rpg's, and I suspect that that's part of the problem in my case. It's so faithful to them, it's like a reapeat of your favorite tv show. Not bad, but not as good as the first broadcast. Really solid programming and wonderful efforts on all technical fronts, but these don'tNot that good for me. Loved BG1, BG2, and the Icewind series. This game is extremely faithful to the old iso rpg's, and I suspect that that's part of the problem in my case. It's so faithful to them, it's like a reapeat of your favorite tv show. Not bad, but not as good as the first broadcast. Really solid programming and wonderful efforts on all technical fronts, but these don't contribute to the magic as much. as they did in the old days. It was all new in the old days, and BG! was wayy ahead of the competition. I don't think that you could reasonably expect BG1 to thrill you these days either, so maybe absolute fidelity to the "old school" systems is not such a great thing after all.Technically, everything is as good or better than BG1 or BG2, but the fun factor isn't there for me as much. I think if you haven't ever played a top-down CRPG before, this might prove to be a unique and challenging game, but in my case right from the start I felt that I was going over old ground again. Way back when, BG1 was my introduction to CRPG's, and I flat out loved it., so much so that I actually ditched work over it and used it as the benchmark to compare rpg's to it for years. But that was 17 years ago, and things have changed. This isn't a new idea anymore, no new ground is broken in the game, and it all feels really "used" somehow. Nowhere is that feeling more apparent than in the overly used cookie cutter combat music and sounds. Each new combat starts with what seems to be the exact same sound bytes and effects, regardless of the monster or actor being challenged. This is the single biggest technical gaffe in my opinion, but it's not a show-stopper by any means. I feel that technically the game is very good to excellent, but that isn't what makes a game fun as we all know. I think that it meets the bar set by BG1, but that is old and somewhat tired standard. Things change and the idea of a good game must change also. Kudos to the developers for the excellent job, but sadly, for me, the magic just isn't there. I'm going to 7 out of 10 for respectable design and programming, excellent art and mechanics, but the 3 missing points are for the "fun factor". Not much innovation here, feels like an expansion to BG1 would , and in 2015, it's somewhat anachronistic. Also, I totally agree with dinin70 and his description of the loading screen runaround. You ARE at all times at least 5 or 6 loading screens away from getting any movement done, and it takes away from the fun factor IMMENSELY when you have to go to a certain town or area from a distant one. I would have shaved 10 hours from my over 120 hour total if I could just have avoided all the loading time. Not so much fun. I may sound like I'm saying this isn't a good or great game and I don't want to take away from the great work the devs have done, but it is what it is. If i could go into the high 70's i would, but somehow I just didn't experience the BG magic this time around. It IS very much an experience that feels a little too nostalgic. Like they say, "you can never go home again". I feel that this is a deeply admirable, capable, and polished effort to recreate the magic of the originals, but because we HAVE been here before, it's never as good the second time around. First timers may have a completely different experience, so i would tend to recommend this game highly to newcomers to the genre. Veterans, not so much.… Expand
  22. Hack
    Jan 15, 2018
    7
    An enjoyable story in a wondrous land that's spoiled by engine choice and technical problems. Pillars uses the Unity engine which is known for having performance issues and it's no different here, during combat the frame rate swings wildly on hardware that far exceeds the recommended specifications, beyond that the game also suffers with a tremendous amount of load screens which are alsoAn enjoyable story in a wondrous land that's spoiled by engine choice and technical problems. Pillars uses the Unity engine which is known for having performance issues and it's no different here, during combat the frame rate swings wildly on hardware that far exceeds the recommended specifications, beyond that the game also suffers with a tremendous amount of load screens which are also quite long even on a SSD. There's even a delay before you can loot after a fight, everything in Pillars just feels a bit clunky and it all comes down to picking Unity for this project.

    The highlight of the game is the story and voice acting which is absolutely top notch, it's just a shame only about 50% of the dialog is actually voiced which results in a ton of reading which did get a little overwhelming at times. Where the game collapses is the gameplay, the combat is unsatisfying and quite awkward, with really awful pathing issues that prevent your party from attacking.

    Overall the game was good but let down by technical problems and a fairly janky combat system, if you're a fan of RPGs of this type I'm sure you'll enjoy Pillars, I did but I was left a little disappointed.    … Expand
  23. marc5477
    May 31, 2015
    7
    If I had 2 words to describe this game it would be "Repetitive micro-management..." or is that three word? How about 2 words and a hyphen...

    EDIT 5/30/15: This game has gotten extremely monotonous and boring. I jumped straight into the hardest difficulty and once I understood the system it became extremely boring. Every battle is exactly the same and there are so many useless trash mobs    If I had 2 words to describe this game it would be "Repetitive micro-management..." or is that three word? How about 2 words and a hyphen...

    EDIT 5/30/15: This game has gotten extremely monotonous and boring. I jumped straight into the hardest difficulty and once I understood the system it became extremely boring. Every battle is exactly the same and there are so many useless trash mobs to kill that it really does get old very fast. by the time I hit level 8, all battles became trivial because all you need to do to win is have 2 tanks and they can hold anything back forever. Then its a matter of whittling the enemy down. I restarted and tried playing as a rogue and tried to play with no tanks but it turns out that without tanks the game is basically impossible. So you are stuck with either boredom or impossible (requiring cheese strategies to win). I deducted 1 point and I stopped playing the game. I did not finish it but I might come back to it some other day.

    I have to admit that this is a good (above average) game; and this is coming from someone who absolutely hates Obsidian (their lazy backsides mucked up some of my favorites like KotOR II and especially NWN2). The story is fine, and characters are ok and gameplay is above average however it really gets dragged down by lack of companion AI. I really got tired of casting the same thing over and over and over in every single encounter and the short timers on skills and spells make it that much worse. They really needed to implement some better automation to take care of repetitive tasks.

    I did not like the itemization in this game... gear in this game is unbelievably boring. I can tell that they wanted to maintain a tight grip on game difficulty but seriously... its a single player game... what is the point? They keep wasting time re-balancing classes and spells in patches as if there were some sort of competition to be had when there is not... They should spend that time to add more items, spells, skills and feats to the game to give it more flavor and add fun to the game.

    The game is satisfactory in difficulty. I played it out of the gate on "Path of the Damned" and was happy to see that the game actually managed to kill me a few times while I learned the ropes. The bad news is that it seems that on that difficulty, you pretty much have to resort to cheap tricks to get through the 1st 4-5 levels depending on what class you pick at the start. This does not bother me very much because I enjoy the progression from being weak to becoming something that no longer needs to resort to cheap tactics but clearly the beginning of the game needed better balancing. I assume on "normal," this game is a cake walk.

    The game tries a few odd gameplay methods such as doing away with healing hit points and making it so that you can only heal endurance (fatigue) during combat. Endurance essentially becomes a second form of "hit points" and you can use spells to replenish it during fights but you dont die entirely unless your hit points go to 0. When endurance hits 0 you simply get knocked out but if your party wins, you will get back up, recover your endurance, and carry on with however many hit points you had left. You can only recover hit points by resting outside of combat. It sounds more complicated than it really is and frankly, it is just a convolution of the original system we are all used to and I dont think it adds much to the game (it also cheapens the value of hit points significantly).

    The one thing I dont like is how easy it is to reduce endurance even on tank built characters since many spells and abilities target it directly though other resistance (like reflex and such). I've frequently see my warriors knocked out while still having more than 90% of their hit points in tact... its a bit silly when you see that happen and it completely negates the value of hit points.

    There are other nagging issues like the need to walk around a lot due to lack of camping supplies (you have to return to town to rest instead) and other minor things but overall id say this is a good game. Characters are well written although not much humor in this game. Story progression is good. I wish they spent more time on the keep but it was not bad either. A solid above average 7 (recall average is 5 on these online sites due to how the statics play out with more people voting).    … Expand
  24. Ydun79
    Feb 11, 2019
    7
    I tried to play this game twice. Twice around thirty hours of playtime. Just can't sink my teeth into it though I'm an avid rpg gamer. It just never gets online for me, never really gives me the feeling that those characters are mine, doesn't suck me into the story. No doubt I will try again in some years.
  25. KAtallah
    Apr 5, 2015
    7
    IE Game #6. Remove the passage of time from the equation and this game will feel as if it was made by Black Isle, and released just after Icewind Dale 2. It's *that* faithful of a successor. It has many of the things that we loved about the BG games, the IWD's, and even Planescape Torment. You can totally control a party of up to 6. The class, race, spell, ability, buildIE Game #6. Remove the passage of time from the equation and this game will feel as if it was made by Black Isle, and released just after Icewind Dale 2. It's *that* faithful of a successor. It has many of the things that we loved about the BG games, the IWD's, and even Planescape Torment. You can totally control a party of up to 6. The class, race, spell, ability, build choices/combinations are almost as vast as they were in Baldurs Gate. The dungeons drip with atmosphere. Many of the quests are quite good. Level advancement is old-school slow, rewarding and allows you to choose how you advance your build in a way I haven't seen in any RPG in a really *really* long time. The UI is slick and intuitive - gloriously designed for PC. The bestiary is suitably large and varied. The attention to detail *everywhere* is unmatched..

    It's just a flat out solid game.

    ...With a few glaring flaws (at least in light of the very games the Kickstarter pitch name-dropped and claimed to take cues from).

    --Loot itemization is bland. and soulless. And unmemorable. Remember when your party found The Wolf Talismen in Icewind Dale? or Carsomyr in BG2? Or Bassilus's Hammer in Bg1? Yeah. That doesn't happen in this game. The labor of love simply isn't there with the magic loot.

    -Combat is dull. I get what they were trying to do by eliminating the ability to pre-buff, and incorporating an engagement mechanic, as designing spell and ability durations to last 2 or 3 seconds. But it just doesn't fit. The IE games weren't action RPGs. But this game tries to be.

    -I don't have much to say about the story, because I didn't understand it. I'm sure it was excellent (this is an Obsidian game we're discussing), but the way the game dumps its lore on you, and the overly cryptic delivery of its narrative resulted in me not understanding what's going on, and consequently not caring about it.

    -The pacing. Ok this is the reason I'm giving PoE a 7 instead of a 9 or 10. The pacing in this game was terribly amateurish. You're either tirelessly engaging in combat every time you take a step, or else exploring whole districts of a city without engaging in any combat whatsoever. There's no in between. The plot delivery is, again, also wonkily passed (is that a word?) There's no slow dip to the lore and plot (like there was in the BG games and in Planescape torment). Instead, It's dumped on you at an incomprehensible rate....and then it's not. There's no in between.

    Overall though, this is a *good* game. And a long one. (took me 100 hours to complete). Probably the best game Obsidian's ever made. I'll take another!    … Expand
  26. Idiota150
    Jun 19, 2015
    7
    I like it, but there are so many flaws. The one thing that keeps me playing it, is the story/stories, even if it can become very confusing at times. I feel combat has been ruined by confusing terminology, math, and mechanics. Too much magic which you never can use, too few meaningful weapons/armour upgrades. Many things in the game prove to be practically meaningless, but then there areI like it, but there are so many flaws. The one thing that keeps me playing it, is the story/stories, even if it can become very confusing at times. I feel combat has been ruined by confusing terminology, math, and mechanics. Too much magic which you never can use, too few meaningful weapons/armour upgrades. Many things in the game prove to be practically meaningless, but then there are some things you can miss which makes it very difficult. This game could have been so much better, so it's clearly not a 10.… Expand
  27. Korax
    Apr 4, 2015
    7
    As everybody who marks this lower than an 8, I feel I must justify my taste - I grew up on Infinity Engine cRPGs. All of them, from the first Baldur's Gate to Icewind Dale 2. Hell, just last year I re-played a heavily modded Baldur's Gate 1 TuTu and BG2 and I loved every second of it. I'm also a huge fan of Obsidian. So, when I got this game and "New Game", I was a giddy as a kid in aAs everybody who marks this lower than an 8, I feel I must justify my taste - I grew up on Infinity Engine cRPGs. All of them, from the first Baldur's Gate to Icewind Dale 2. Hell, just last year I re-played a heavily modded Baldur's Gate 1 TuTu and BG2 and I loved every second of it. I'm also a huge fan of Obsidian. So, when I got this game and "New Game", I was a giddy as a kid in a candy store. After years of waiting, I'll finally see two of my favorite things in gaming make a tag-team comeback.

    As it turns out, my enthusiasm didn't last long. The very first dialogue in the game is almost a case study in how not to begin your 60-hour epic that requires nerve and commitment from a very specific player-base. You are immediately bombarded with custom-made fantasy geographical, historical and societal terms that make almost every wall of text a humorless front-loaded slog to read through. A big part of why a classic fantasy setting is so ubiquitous is that familiarity which allows us to immerse ourselves into a new setting with ease. Unfortunately, Obsidian has mashed together a relatively straight-up port of D&D, full of dwarves, elves, sword and sorcery, with a high-fantasy Tolkien-esque attempt to reinvent the wheel in every regard - a new continent! New languages! New histories! New races (if you can count Avatar's Na'vi as new)! New terms for everything - Legacy! Skean! Hollowborn! Woedica! Watcher! Engwithans! Galawain! None of it is too hard to digest, mind you, but when taken in its totality, the game's constant attempts to flesh out its daunting backstory and terminology, rather than its characters and plot kills any immediacy in the game. At about the 30-hour mark, I stopped, read the journal, reviewed everything I learned and realized that I had only the faintest idea why I was on the quest, what my character's motivation was or why I had just tracked half-way across the continent. And that feeling kept coming back, catapulting me out of the experience and making every other new wall of text feel like a history class I walked in on by accident. The story itself, which I won't spoil, is serviceable, but one that I won't remember in T-minus one week. The villain, in particular, is not memorable, only made slightly more interesting through his connection with the player. Planescape, Mask of the Betrayer or Baldur's Gate, this ain't.

    What about the gameplay? It's quite good - the combat is fluid and tactical, with huge replay value. Every class has its own dynamic and the fact that at any point in the game you can create your own party in an inn leads to the fact that no two play-throughs will be the same. I personally rolled with two custom made characters and had a blast. I have two gripes with the combat though - there are no experience points per kill (only per bestiary entry), making it hard to motivate yourself to kill your 300th troll that day. The level of micromanagement is high, and the number of encounters is enormous. If Baldur's Gate 2 had this many fights per square meter, you'd barely be able to leave the first dungeon! It doesn't help that very few encounters can be done on auto-pilot, meaning that you'll have to think about every fight, with no experience rewards and mostly junk loot.

    The art direction in the game is stunning. Incredible detail has been paid to every cobble-stone and bush. You can look for hours and hardly ever notice "assets" being used - only details on beautiful, painstakingly drawn objects and backgrounds. The music is...fine. Nothing to write home about. Same goes for the voice-acting, as rare as it crops up.

    In the end, it was the combat, variety and presentation that made me last through till the end, weirdly enough. The two elements that I routinely praise in Obsidian games - character and story, turned quickly into obstacles to my enjoyment, rather than center-pieces. I finished the game's campaign more out of a sense of obligation and an appreciation for a well-crafted game than a feeling of intrigue or immersion. I can recommend it and Obsidian deserves your support, but I cannot shake the feeling that I lost more time with Pillars, than I got back in true enjoyment.    … Expand
  28. ArchonSaar
    Apr 9, 2015
    7
    After just finishing this game I am giving it a solid 7/10 - which means it's a good title, there's just some areas where it falls a bit flat.

    Strong points: - Great atmosphere, immersive world. - Overall good quests - Most companions have an interesting background and personality Weak points: - UI is not on par with 2015. While this is a revive of the genre, it doesn't have    After just finishing this game I am giving it a solid 7/10 - which means it's a good title, there's just some areas where it falls a bit flat.

    Strong points:

    - Great atmosphere, immersive world.
    - Overall good quests
    - Most companions have an interesting background and personality

    Weak points:

    - UI is not on par with 2015. While this is a revive of the genre, it doesn't have to bring back the frustration of the 1990-s UI! Also it loves to bug a lot (for example you equip an item that grants you a spell, but you don't see it in your bar until you reload)
    - Stealth options are minimal and bland. Yes, you find the odd hidden object or door, but too rare. Most of the time you use stealth mode only to detect traps, which in itself doesn't make much sense - traps should be detected by a high PER char regardless.
    - Due to the isometric view, the combat can get difficult when you can't see your guys because of a tree/rock/ruin in front of them.
    - While the story is interesting in act 1 and 2, it really falls flat in act 3 - I personally was disappointed and kindof rushed the end just to get over with it.
    - The stronghold ends up being just a Copper Sink, with no other real influence over the world or quests or anything meaningful.
    - Lackluster Skill System - out of the already few options (5!), only 3 make any real difference.
    - Cosmetic dialogue choices - even though there are many skill checks, few of them alter the outcome in any way. What's even more disturbing is that only your main character's stats matter towards these skill checks, which doesn't make much sense in a party based game...    … Expand
  29. TPETb
    May 11, 2015
    7
    Let's face it, we were expecting so much more from this game. Unless this was so long awaited dearest child of Obsidian, the successor of BG, this game would easily worth 10, not question about it. If it wasn't...

    The game would always give me this feeling "oh, this was such a great idea but they just ruined it halfway": + new IP, new world, new races, so much to explore! - main    Let's face it, we were expecting so much more from this game. Unless this was so long awaited dearest child of Obsidian, the successor of BG, this game would easily worth 10, not question about it. If it wasn't...

    The game would always give me this feeling "oh, this was such a great idea but they just ruined it halfway":

    + new IP, new world, new races, so much to explore!
    - main story line is so abstract from the world — it could just happen in any other world without any changes
    - to feel and live this world, you are to read the books and companion quests give very small glimpse on the world, otherwise world doesn't unfold, no immersion
    - the whole world is like a dull countryside. where are immense cities? where are wizard academies and stuff? where is something magical, charming, fairy, inspiring?
    - the story... well I must admit that unfurls the right way, I was "guessing", imaging and "inventing" how it should end till the last scene. and this last scene was nowhere near my expectations.

    + weapons are quite realistic: there weapon types and there multiple levels of quality
    - there is nothing really special about any weapon type
    - some weapons are just crappy in every situation, others are good in all situations. doesn't matter too much if you fight a goo or a skeleton, your choice stays the same. you are a fan of dual-dagger slinky shady rogue? tada, daggers do no damage in this game no matter what!
    - artefacts are a complete bummer. almost all of them are sold by merchants in towns... unique artefacts are sold by generic merchants, Karl!!! more on it, there is almost no way you acquire an artefact out of a boss/location/quest, you generally buy them. and almost all of them are rubbish. there's maybe 2-3 artefacts in the game that actually a bit better then normal items

    + new deep mechanics, health/endurance mechanism is damn awesome! I mean it!
    - while races carry new names, acute observant will easily find matches with canonical races
    - non-restricted class choice is somewhat ridiculous from lore perspective. tanking elf monk? fragile Aumaua (half-orc) druid? sensitive dwarf cipher? oh come on, this is crippled.
    - intellect allows barbarian to make wider swipes... might improves spell damage... facepalm
    - race choice makes no difference with it's +2 to attributes comparing to 75 attribute points to distribute without progressing "price"
    - there should be more spells!

    + many checks against attribute/skill/race in dialogues
    - totally no impact. doesn't affect the story, doesn't allow to avoid bloodshed (except for 2 or 3 minor occasions), doesn't change anything but the text of next phrase by NPC
    - party member skills do not help. my party with 12 lore skill mage couldn't read a simplistic writing that required 4 lore because my main character had no lore leveled
    - dialogues are reduced to meaningless chatter and some checks vs skill/attr. no branches and varying outcomes. you don't need to think what you are saying, pick random options and you end up with totally same story/behaviour/attitude
    + punishment for not having skill for party members
    - in practice this only relates to athletics and worst thing you may face out of it is like 6% damage reduction till next rest

    + there were such nice stretch goals: stronghold, 2nd big city, crafting...
    - stronghold is nothing but cosmetics. no noticeable bonuses
    - crafting is something you will use once or twice during whole game
    - 2nd big city... there is actually no even single big city to be honest.

    Looks like I can continue all night. And it's so sad that the game "encourages" so much whimper and complains.

    Main positive thing: it looks like there will be PoE 2 and it will actually become a master piece. After all, BG 1 was nothing close to BG 2.    … Expand
  30. philb74
    May 29, 2015
    7
    I am a huge fan of Baldur's Gate and other D&D games so was excited when I heard this was coming out. There are some things that are great about this game and some things that are not so great.

    First up is character creation and this is done well. Different races have different strengths and different classes need points put into different stats as expected. The gameplay has    I am a huge fan of Baldur's Gate and other D&D games so was excited when I heard this was coming out. There are some things that are great about this game and some things that are not so great.

    First up is character creation and this is done well. Different races have different strengths and different classes need points put into different stats as expected.

    The gameplay has moved on a lot from the original D & D games and I think it works well. You will get a different experience tactically playing as a druid compared to a mage. I played this through as a mage, druid, rogue, cipher and warrior. All great fun especially the cipher and the mage. The ranger is dissapointing and I haven't tried the monk. The priest class isn't that exciting either.

    Most of the experience in the game comes from doing the quests, and it is therefore strongly recommended to do as many side quests as possible. You have to do the quests to level up. There is plenty of interesting loot to collect and I strongly recommend doing all the dungeon levels under your keep as well as all the bounties if you want the best loot.

    I would have given this game a 10 except for two things. The NPC's are not great companions and the main story is a massive let down. I was particularly annoyed at the story for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it was somewhat inconsistent and contradictory, and secondly, it reeked of an agenda.

    I'm not going to spoil the plot for anyone who hasn't played the game, but the ending seems to go against the experience of much of what you had to do in the game. I also think a lot of games are strongly but subtly pushing various political, anti religion messages through their games. Constant references to inquisitions etc. Can we have some games that are just fun and don't try to influence our thinking either way please?    … Expand
  31. Artur_
    Dec 6, 2015
    7
    It is a good alternative to so called "AAA games", worth 70 hours of playing. Freedom of team buiding, comfortable equipment management, good crafting, reasonable battle running. Nice 2D graphic, sound, isometric perspective and a very stable game. Story is ok, although I didn't feel involved, so minus 2 points - it is RPG game after all. Third point deduction for one insta-kill beast.It is a good alternative to so called "AAA games", worth 70 hours of playing. Freedom of team buiding, comfortable equipment management, good crafting, reasonable battle running. Nice 2D graphic, sound, isometric perspective and a very stable game. Story is ok, although I didn't feel involved, so minus 2 points - it is RPG game after all. Third point deduction for one insta-kill beast. Overall - play and have fun ;-)… Expand
  32. reavor
    Oct 9, 2015
    7
    A solid attempt to revitalize the genre of pause and play RPGs, but with a lot of strange mechanics regarding resting etc. The world in general felt kind of lackluster, less bright colors, and without some of the humor permeating the BG games. But the effort to make something original and craft a story trying to tackle some deeper questions is appreciated.
  33. Wineneeder
    Sep 2, 2022
    7
    I like it, an Infinity Engine type game updated. The combat is good and the mechanics make sense (a nice change from third edition's THAC0, and other quirks). The paintings and art and design is alright, but the character models aren't great. Jagged, boring, lower quality, even too much so for a PC game from 2015.

    There's also way too much pointless writing... I know some of it is    I like it, an Infinity Engine type game updated. The combat is good and the mechanics make sense (a nice change from third edition's THAC0, and other quirks). The paintings and art and design is alright, but the character models aren't great. Jagged, boring, lower quality, even too much so for a PC game from 2015.

    There's also way too much pointless writing... I know some of it is optional backer reward stuff, but it makes my eyes cross where other RPGs don't. Walls of text, and there's some weird desync in how text is formatted and how the spoken lines come out. I'm not sure I can describe this at the moment, I'll come back when I've finished the game.

    Anyway, I'm not very engaged in the story, but not dead bored and lacking direction, like in Baldur's Gate post mines. The world isn't exactly to my tastes, a bit high fantasy generica, with the big crystals, etc... it's hard for me to be engaged in that kind of setting, if I'm not actively roleplaying. I'm not immersed. A more involved story and mechanics that tie into it might have helped, but perhaps there's time, I'm not very far.

    On the flip side, you couldn't pull me away from Disco Elysium. Anyway, I'll come back to this and surely rewrite it when I'm done.    … Expand
  34. Wrathzo
    Mar 21, 2022
    7
    Pillars of Eternity is a role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Paradox Interactive. The game is a spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series, along with Planescape: Torment. Obsidian started a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for it in September 2012. The game uses the Unity engine. The game takes place in the fantasy worldPillars of Eternity is a role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Paradox Interactive. The game is a spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series, along with Planescape: Torment. Obsidian started a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for it in September 2012. The game uses the Unity engine. The game takes place in the fantasy world of Eora, mainly inside the nation of Dyrwood. The infants in the Dyrwood are plagued by a recent phenomenon in which they become "hollowborn" upon birth, meaning they are born with no soul. During the beginning of the game, the protagonist experiences an awakening of power due to a disastrous supernatural event, discovering they are a "Watcher": a person who can see past lives and interact with souls. The objective of the game is to find out what caused their awakening and how to solve the hollowborn problem.… Expand
  35. ErhanCeylan123
    Jul 17, 2020
    7
    This game have a general and unsolveable performance issues.This game universe is not interesting for me.
  36. ErayTellezi
    Apr 5, 2023
    7
    40 saatin sonunda bitti. Divinity Original Sin serisini büyük keyifle oynamış birisi olarak bunu pek beğenmedim. Tam anlamıyla sıra tabanlı olmaması, kendimizin durdurmak, turları ve süreleri takip etmek zorunda olmamız, ekranda oluşan kaos nedeniyle combat'ı takip etmeyi zorlaştırıyor. 6 tane parti üyesini, üzerinde durum etkileri, canları vesaire takip etmek çok zor.

    Oyundaki    40 saatin sonunda bitti. Divinity Original Sin serisini büyük keyifle oynamış birisi olarak bunu pek beğenmedim. Tam anlamıyla sıra tabanlı olmaması, kendimizin durdurmak, turları ve süreleri takip etmek zorunda olmamız, ekranda oluşan kaos nedeniyle combat'ı takip etmeyi zorlaştırıyor. 6 tane parti üyesini, üzerinde durum etkileri, canları vesaire takip etmek çok zor.

    Oyundaki yetenekleriniz tekrar yapabilme açısından ikiye ayrılıyor, çatışmadan sonra yenilenenler, dinlenmeden (kampta veya handa uyuma) sonra yenilenenler. Yeteneklerin büyük çoğunluğu dinlenmeden sonra tekrar kullanılabilir hale geliyor. Hal böyle olunca bu yetenekleri kullanırken iki kez düşünüyorsunuz. Bu da savaşlarda tüm gücünüzü kullanmamanıza ve bu nedenle kısır ve keyifsiz bir oyun tecrübesine neden oluyor. Bir de ben oyunlarda ekstra cimri birisiyimdir. Aman belki sonra ihtiyacım olur diye güçlü şeylerimi kolay kolay kullanmam. Bu oyun bu yüzden mahvetti beni. Lan yeni büyü edinmişim, dağı taşı oynatacağım, sonra kullanayım diyorum. Şu mekanik olmasa oyundan aldığım keyif iki katına çıkardı.

    Dinlenme mekaniği bence çok saçma olmuş. Adamlarınız zamanla yaralanıyor, canları azalıyor vesaire. Bunları gidermek için ya ebesinin nikahına gidip bir handa uyuyacaksınız ya da yanınızdaki kamp ateşiyle hemen oracıkta dinlenebileceksiniz. Daha da saçma yanı kamp ateşinden maksimum 4 tane taşıyabiliyorsunuz yanınızda. Bu da uzun zindanlarda daha stratejik oynamanız demek oluyor. Kısacası oyun sizi bir türlü salmıyor. Kendi ayağına sıkarak, kendine bu kadar zarar veren bir oyun daha oynamadım.

    Oyunda ilk sıkılmaya başladığım yer şehre geldiğimiz kısımdı. Saatlerce full diyalogla, neredeyse hiç savaşmadan oynuyorsunuz. Oraya git ona bir şey de, şuraya git ondan bir şey al. İki dakika salın da beni bir yerler keşfedeyim, yok maalesef. Oyunun hikayesinden falan orada koptum zaten.

    Çoğu yan görevi yaptım. Ama sonlara doğru sıkıldığım için bir kaç tanesini salıp direkt ana göreve daldım.

    Neticede comat'ı karmaşık ve kısıtlayıcı olduğu için sevemediğim bir oyun oldu. Dos serisi gibi adam akıllı sıra tabanlı olsa daha çok keyif alırdım. Bu konuda çok eleştiri gelmiş olacak ki ikinci oyunu isterseniz bu modla oynayabiliyorsunuz. Belki bir ara bakarım.    … Expand
  37. Woolee
    Jul 11, 2023
    7
    ivinity looks better but lacks the writing, both are my most recent favorite RPGs in recent memory. This will go down as the game that broug
  38. JackPlack
    Feb 2, 2022
    7
    Good/not great. Still i like more BG1 and BG2. Good idea with improving castle. Main disadvantage - u can easily make bad team and skill set. Its difficult to finish the game with that case. Another thing - so many magic/healer spells - without good auto AI or programming its very too much reading, browsing,... I dont at all idea remembering spells - dumb. Maybe good for board game. ItsGood/not great. Still i like more BG1 and BG2. Good idea with improving castle. Main disadvantage - u can easily make bad team and skill set. Its difficult to finish the game with that case. Another thing - so many magic/healer spells - without good auto AI or programming its very too much reading, browsing,... I dont at all idea remembering spells - dumb. Maybe good for board game. Its little like unused potion skills section in Witcher 3 (by almost everyone)… Expand
  39. codsworth
    Dec 3, 2022
    7
    Not as good as its predecessor Baldur's Gate, but a strong contender when it comes to updated visuals and gameplay. The narrative is weak and plodding at times, which is problematic in such as story-driven RPG, but there's definitely enough to keep your interest here, especially with the White March expansions.
  40. sclark13
    Mar 30, 2015
    6
    So I enjoyed the game, but I found it just as tedious to play through as the old infinity engine games. I did not enjoy micromanaging 6 party members through each and every battle. I've been spoiled by the functional AI of games like Dragon's Dogma, where I don't have to babysit each and every action, and I could just tell the AI what personality it should follow.

    Now I really enjoy    So I enjoyed the game, but I found it just as tedious to play through as the old infinity engine games. I did not enjoy micromanaging 6 party members through each and every battle. I've been spoiled by the functional AI of games like Dragon's Dogma, where I don't have to babysit each and every action, and I could just tell the AI what personality it should follow.

    Now I really enjoy D&D; I play it every week, but I also don't use more than 1 or two characters in a session for the same reasons. If PoE had integrated co-op to help with the micro-management, I think I might have managed to enjoy the game. It is just too much effort to juggle 6 character actions and still be an effective adventuring party.    … Expand
  41. iamthespark
    Apr 3, 2015
    6
    19 Hours in.

    The good: Character Creator: The level of detail when it comes to choosing race, class, background and social status is outstanding. I enjoyed the creation of my unique character (and others) very much. Animations: There is a lot of detail when watching the characters fight, I really enjoy that. Story: Even after 19 hours in, the story has not yet fully unfolded,    19 Hours in.

    The good:

    Character Creator: The level of detail when it comes to choosing race, class, background and social status is outstanding. I enjoyed the creation of my unique character (and others) very much.

    Animations: There is a lot of detail when watching the characters fight, I really enjoy that.

    Story: Even after 19 hours in, the story has not yet fully unfolded, so I can't comment on it, other than its slow and steady.

    Inventory: The party chest is very helpful and the loot variety is good. Crafting is fun too -- I'm a sucker for finding all the ingredients and seeing what they can make.

    Voice Acting: I am very glad it exists at least; reading walls of text was something I was afraid of doing in this game, and thankfully the gist of the dialogue is voiced.

    Difficulty: The game really wants the player to be careful with each battle; resting is very important, so you'll find yourself camping and buying camping supplies quite often. On Normal, I found this game difficult, only because I'm used to blasting through levels and dungeons with other games.

    Levelling: So much fun! The abilities add strategic value!

    The bad:

    Lack of engaging companions: Hard to say because I only picked up my second companion and I am at the start of the game. The NPC companions don't have much to say yet.

    Lack of Romance: This is a big one for me; travelling around the big world with no romantic interaction is boring. For me the concept of romance has become a core desire in epic RPGs. Playing for 100 hours without it has become tedious.

    Battle after Battle: Expect tons of battles, all the time. Apparently no one just lets you go by and all the animals are out to get you. This also becomes tedious after awhile.    … Expand
  42. Ayreos
    Mar 29, 2015
    6
    The game is a faithful follow-up to the spirit of the classic Infinity Engine games. It improves a few things and makes a few things worse(which is debatable), but it *is* a faithful throwback to an older model of cRPGs without unbearable defects. For some people that is enough. For me, though, the actual lack of improvement, progress or especially, the failure to become the pinnacle ofThe game is a faithful follow-up to the spirit of the classic Infinity Engine games. It improves a few things and makes a few things worse(which is debatable), but it *is* a faithful throwback to an older model of cRPGs without unbearable defects. For some people that is enough. For me, though, the actual lack of improvement, progress or especially, the failure to become the pinnacle of the genre is pretty damning for this game. What happened to game journalism? A mediocre Infinity Engine game is now rated on par with classics on Metacritic. It does not even approach Planescape Torment, and it only teases the heights of Baldur's Gate 2. Walls of pretty decent writing at every turn do not make up for the non-existent party AI, or the lack of direction. The plot can be literally summed with "I see dead people...", which goes far beyond cliche in 2015.
    When the first Baldur's Gate was released, it was a pleasant trip. The second was more of a roller coaster. Pillars of Eternity is something like the former. It can serve as a somewhat bland introduction to the genre, but it should not become its apex. I cannot rate it higher because BG1 does that already, and it does it perhaps slightly better. The modern engine and revamped graphics alone are not worth the price, or the hype.    … Expand
  43. Asmodias
    Mar 26, 2015
    6
    Feels like a horrible cash in on early 2000/late 1990 nostalgia. Fundamentally the game is an isometric party based system with a strong plot, but certain flaws drag it down, and the inclusion of a kickstarter only achievement (this coming from a guy who kickstarted) is a bunch of bull.
  44. Mike_M
    Feb 15, 2017
    6
    This game is now much--improved by patching. Normally I'd give this a 9, but I have to downgrade it to a 6 because of the condition in which it was released: completely unfinished.
  45. Sidian
    Apr 8, 2015
    6
    Pros:

    + Good writing. Nothing amazing and it hasn't impressed me as much as Planescape: Torment regularly did, but it's certainly a cut above the vast majority of games. The equivalent of PST's memory unlocks are generally well written, but the story and setting itself holds them back, making them a chore to read instead of being an exciting discovery like memories were. +Decent    Pros:

    + Good writing. Nothing amazing and it hasn't impressed me as much as Planescape: Torment regularly did, but it's certainly a cut above the vast majority of games. The equivalent of PST's memory unlocks are generally well written, but the story and setting itself holds them back, making them a chore to read instead of being an exciting discovery like memories were.

    +Decent reactivity. There are many skill checks in dialogue throughout the game which I like a lot. The problem, however, is that they almost never make any difference, the person will give a quick purely cosmetic response and then return to what they were saying anyway. As an Aumau you might expect to have good conversations with Aumau you come across, but no; if the Aumau even notices you are also an Aumau which is unlikely, they'll just say 'Oh you are also of my race, hi. Anyway, as I was saying, I want you to do this dull quest for me that involves collecting things a few meters in front of me for some reason."

    + Pretty. The backgrounds are often beautiful and scenic.

    Cons:

    - Poor combat. Dull, finicky combat that is far too chaotic and leaves little room for much strategy beyond trying to block enemies in a doorway so you can take them out one or two at a time. The fact it's real time makes it significantly worse. Also, like all games like this, there is far too much combat. There's no respite; just killed a giant spider and 10 of its spiderlings? Cool, here's a million more enemies right around the corner. And the next. And the next. It's tiresome, and considering how difficult the game is, many of these fights will require constant reloading. It's exhausting. Even worse is the inconsistency. "Hmm, these last 3 fights have been very easy, maybe I should turn up the difficulty? Hey what's over here a few feet away? Ah, an impossible fight with 10+ enemies (the hallmark of well balanced fun combat design is always to just dump a screen full of enemies in an area) where my main character with a bunch of good gear and high constitution and resolve dies literally as soon as the fight begins. Hmm, well, good positioning might help - oh, it's a cramped room and the enemies can teleport and they always choose the most inconvenient target to destroy first. Maybe their level is too high for me, let me see... oh that's right, you can't see the level of the enemies in the game. Bravo, Obsidian.

    - Boring, generic fantasy setting and story. Oh nice, dwarves and elves! Oh well, the story will be good I'm sure. Let's see; yada yada, chosen one with special powers. Yada yada, find the mysterious evil villain that you come across at the start. Yawn. It unravels absurdly slowly as well; I've played for 30-40 hours at this point and the story STILL hasn't gone anywhere.

    - Terrible skill system. You have an unbelievably small amount of them (5) and you simply give all characters points in athletics and then have one specialise in mechanics for lock-picking and give spell casters points in Lore. There's the occasional check in dialogue based on them, but that's really all there is to it.    … Expand
  46. CoolDadTx
    Oct 19, 2017
    6
    Had potential to be a good RPG but just left me depressed and unimpressed. Overall the leveling system is weak. Skills supposedly interplay with conversations but pretty much every conversation ends with a fight no matter what you choose. This is especially frustrating with the main and side quests. Almost every one acts like you have a choice but ultimately the choice is always eitherHad potential to be a good RPG but just left me depressed and unimpressed. Overall the leveling system is weak. Skills supposedly interplay with conversations but pretty much every conversation ends with a fight no matter what you choose. This is especially frustrating with the main and side quests. Almost every one acts like you have a choice but ultimately the choice is always either kill someone or leave them in a bad situation. There is never a case where you can actually do what you want to do (short of ignoring the quest). In one case you have 3 different options to prevent an innocent person from attacking you. But all 3 options eventually lead to that very conclusion irrelevant of any skills or abilities you have. This isn't roleplaying at all. This is a numbers game which ultimately make the entire RPG aspect pointless.

    The stronghold, which is hyped up early in the adventure is a complete waste of time. No matter how much you upgrade and how many mercenaries of any quality you hire, ever time you earn money bandits take at least half. There is absolutely no way to prevent it. None. Who thought this was a good idea. Ultimately the stronghold adds no value to the game or your character. The minimal amount of XP and money you could earn is irrelevant by end of game.

    Combat itself is a little flaky. There are some balancing issues. Late in the game you can pretty much roll over everybody but there is an encounter or two that, for no other reason than the devs decided to, you basically cannot win without luck even at max level. And some of these are tied to either irrelevant side quests or just random encounters. It makes saving often necessary, just in case.

    Overall this is a disappointing game. The quests are just one depressing encounter after another, the leveling is lackluster at best and the combat really boils down to a numbers game.    … Expand
  47. daftshadow
    Mar 26, 2015
    6
    Simply put, if you're one of those old school type of RPGer (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale), you'll love this game like those giving it a 9 or 10. If you're like me and prefer more modernized RPGs like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic to Dragon Age Inquisition, this game probably isn't for you. As for me, I can endure it somewhat to the point of continuing to play it to the end as I'veSimply put, if you're one of those old school type of RPGer (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale), you'll love this game like those giving it a 9 or 10. If you're like me and prefer more modernized RPGs like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic to Dragon Age Inquisition, this game probably isn't for you. As for me, I can endure it somewhat to the point of continuing to play it to the end as I've grown past of these type of old school 1990's graphic RPGs.

    What more did you expect from a Kickstarter backed game? For what it's worth as a Kickstarter game, it is pretty impressive but at the end of the day it's just not my type of game. This feels more niche than anything.    … Expand
  48. Klarum
    Apr 8, 2015
    6
    Need to curb the enthusiasm of the kids here. Yes it is a good game but not deserving of such high scores as it basicly is a modern graphic update of all the ideas used by previous titles, plus some shortcomings.

    Storywise BG2 still is more complex, enganging and interesting. This one is full of overused cliches and tropes and has waaaaay to much text. Voice acting is bland. The D20    Need to curb the enthusiasm of the kids here. Yes it is a good game but not deserving of such high scores as it basicly is a modern graphic update of all the ideas used by previous titles, plus some shortcomings.

    Storywise BG2 still is more complex, enganging and interesting. This one is full of overused cliches and tropes and has waaaaay to much text. Voice acting is bland.

    The D20 rule set adaption they did is weak. Basicly they just changed some names and removed some things to pretend it is a unique system but it is not. It is D&D just poorer and with less class specialization. Your warrior can have more lore than your mage and the cleric can be the trap master.

    Party management is bad. You have to micromanage every action except for auto-attack. BG2 had character AI that cast spells/abilities.
    All the "unique" ideas are copies, like the stronghold being a copy of NWN2.

    Again it is a good game and welcomed because the Infinty engine rocks but lets keep the score at a realistic level please.    … Expand
  49. FlamesoFF
    Dec 6, 2022
    6
    Let’s describe it briefly.

    Advantages: Interesting lore, profound character scripts and story. Disadvantages: pretty much everything else. Graphics: was outdated even at its release. Looks like Sacred 1 game with better resolution. Sound: it exists. Nothing special. Music: couple of ambient tracks and very annoying only one single battle music track. Absolutely generic. Controls:    Let’s describe it briefly.

    Advantages: Interesting lore, profound character scripts and story.
    Disadvantages: pretty much everything else.

    Graphics: was outdated even at its release. Looks like Sacred 1 game with better resolution.

    Sound: it exists. Nothing special.

    Music: couple of ambient tracks and very annoying only one single battle music track. Absolutely generic.

    Controls: gamepad controls are terrible. Every time when it’s need to switch from one character to another camera moves to this character. Why it’s so? Super inconvenient. Environment is also difficult to explore due to disappearing pointer. Unable to map commands queues. Basically everything is super primitive.

    UI and interface: poor usability, lack of information, requires lots of repetitive actions to do a simple thing, and some parts are simply ambiguous.

    Gameplay: Fight is nothing special, primitive point and click. Loot system is disgusting: exploration is not motivated, because usually all cheats contain random trash, and enemies most of the times don’t drop anything useful. Almost no random quests. Basically your “journey” will look like: read some dialogs - fight, fight, fight tons of similar enemies - repeat.

    In conclusion: Pretty solid CRPG, with lots of unfortunate flaws. Could be way better. But feels like only script writers were motivated, but not the developers of core mechanics.    … Expand
  50. Fimbul
    Sep 11, 2015
    6
    Well there is nearly everything said about this game but what bugs me the most is that such a combat heavy game doesn't give you Exp for defeating foes. That's fine if you can avoid most of it and you have other options to fulfill your quests, but you are constantly forced into. NO EXP FOR COMBAT!!!!

    and it's long and everything needs so much time. that's just painful if your time is    Well there is nearly everything said about this game but what bugs me the most is that such a combat heavy game doesn't give you Exp for defeating foes. That's fine if you can avoid most of it and you have other options to fulfill your quests, but you are constantly forced into. NO EXP FOR COMBAT!!!!

    and it's long and everything needs so much time. that's just painful if your time is limited.

    So for me is it just mediocre.    … Expand
  51. Voukras
    Jun 5, 2017
    6
    Pillars of Eternity is a pale shadow of what Baldur's Gate 2 once was. The story-writing is vastly inferior and I'm baffled by how most people don't really notice it at all. As long as it moves and quacks like a Baldur's Gate, it's a Baldur's Gate, right? Wrong.

    The villain is poorly characterized and their motivation is weak. The climax of the plot is weak and unsatisfying, I could    Pillars of Eternity is a pale shadow of what Baldur's Gate 2 once was. The story-writing is vastly inferior and I'm baffled by how most people don't really notice it at all. As long as it moves and quacks like a Baldur's Gate, it's a Baldur's Gate, right? Wrong.

    The villain is poorly characterized and their motivation is weak. The climax of the plot is weak and unsatisfying, I could barely will myself to care about anything in this universe at all.

    The actual gameplay is decent. I found the combat system dreadfully boring and repetitive, but hey, that's how I feel about almost every RPG from this genre. It's not bad if you're into experimenting and finding op builds.

    The exploration and ways of solving quests were acceptable. Almost, but not quite good, with quality varying from area to area. Essentially once you get passed what feels like it should be the half of the game, you're actually 20% away from finishing the game. Not that the game is short. The length isn't the problem. The problem is that the pacing goes completely out of whack and gives you a feeling of unsatisfaction through the remainder of the progression.

    The universe is as cookie cutter as it gets with nothing special in its presentation and not much to make you feel attached to any particular area. I'm torn between feeling like "I'm being unfair, the Devs really tried and it just wasn't up to my unique and weird tastes" and "The Devs knowingly recycled the Baldur's Gate formula with a mediocre plot and universe." I still feel the latter characterization is highly uncharitable but after finishing the game I can't shake off that feeling.

    If you really want another RPG from the Old Bioware/Black Isle style, you should certainly check it out, but otherwise I would suggest playing any of the other RPGs from this genre: BG2, Planescape Torment, Numenera, Tyranny.    … Expand
  52. dimitrii_ss2
    Apr 4, 2015
    6
    they decided to cop-out, when crazy person went on tweeter and decided to spew non-sense . Thanks Obsidian as a backer on Kickstarter that made this game happen, now i need to go and pirate the game to get the full original/ non-edited experience. What i meant to say is **** you, you shouldn't change the game with the majority of 77,000 backers agreeing.
  53. orctown-troll
    Apr 24, 2016
    6
    The game itself is good enough. It does however have one BIG problem. It will waste the MAJORITY of your play time with loading screens. I guess you should definitely have an SSD hard drive. Will that actually fix this? It is 2016. 'Old school' games should load before we fall asleep waiting.
  54. Indissentient
    Mar 28, 2015
    6
    + Story seemed to be good
    + Characters are fairly interesting
    - Combat is extremely poor - Visuals are terrible - Interface is inconvenient and ugly Overall, it feels like the game wants to feel old for no reason whatsoever, and that developers didn't learn anything in last 20 years. Yes, the game lacks a lot of annoying cliches of newer RPGs, but it also lacks their improvements    + Story seemed to be good
    + Characters are fairly interesting

    - Combat is extremely poor
    - Visuals are terrible
    - Interface is inconvenient and ugly

    Overall, it feels like the game wants to feel old for no reason whatsoever, and that developers didn't learn anything in last 20 years. Yes, the game lacks a lot of annoying cliches of newer RPGs, but it also lacks their improvements over old ones.    … Expand
  55. Eibon
    May 13, 2015
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This game is good, yet the scenery is only a bit of meh. Such powerful concept could be used to:

    1. Use watcher's souls-manipulation skills to gain unique skills from consuming souls of villains.
    2. Create some kind of additional reality where souls dwell and where watcher can peek through walls and other obstacles and force other people do something you need. Imagine some prison escape using this tech.
    3. Ability to awaken souls of companions/npcs to grant them some unique abilities(even non-combat). Would be nice to awaken a legendary smith's soul to forge you some OMG weapon, no?
    4. Infuse your equipment with souls to avoid casual and boring "+1/+2" 100500 armors and weapons.
    5. Transfer souls of your powerful allies from the old times into some hollowed bodies to get some unique help and dialogs in final battle.
    6. Absorb the souls from soul-harvesting towers for yourself to confront gods and other higher beings.
    etc... etc...

    But all we got is a - "Chase some evil guy who is just a servant for some evil god while doing some casual quests like - kill that guy, bring that scroll, save those guys, etc...". Obsidian, really? That's all?    … Expand
  56. SanctumRevel
    Mar 27, 2015
    6
    to set some things straigt sure for players who know their way around this games is ok for newcomers the lack of quest track enemies level hint or something expierence lack of defeating enemies it s like the game is pushing you to do other things no matter if u want to do it or not the easy dificulty can be frustrating for new commers to this game it s clear that this game was intended forto set some things straigt sure for players who know their way around this games is ok for newcomers the lack of quest track enemies level hint or something expierence lack of defeating enemies it s like the game is pushing you to do other things no matter if u want to do it or not the easy dificulty can be frustrating for new commers to this game it s clear that this game was intended for veterans of D&D and baldurs gate and thats is sad for me… Expand
  57. UnorusJanco
    Apr 3, 2015
    6
    This is not a bad CRPG, and is certainly better than Dragon Age. It has very good graphics, good sound and music, good controls and feels very polished... But it lacks originality, immersion, interactivity, or even fun. There is little player agency and few tactical options, and its boring plot and characters don't help either.
    It just fails at what I like about role-playing games, even    This is not a bad CRPG, and is certainly better than Dragon Age. It has very good graphics, good sound and music, good controls and feels very polished... But it lacks originality, immersion, interactivity, or even fun. There is little player agency and few tactical options, and its boring plot and characters don't help either.
    It just fails at what I like about role-playing games, even if as a game it's rather good..    … Expand
  58. SherlockHolmess
    May 24, 2015
    6
    Starts of great but gets lost pretty quick. Battelsystem is this realtime with pause key, which i find pretty ugly.
    Even worse, most of the harder battles are very undeterministic and forces to lots of quicksave/load with totally different results.
    Well anyways the story is not that bad at all, you can see into other peoples souls which is funny at first but then you realize that it has    Starts of great but gets lost pretty quick. Battelsystem is this realtime with pause key, which i find pretty ugly.
    Even worse, most of the harder battles are very undeterministic and forces to lots of quicksave/load with totally different results.
    Well anyways the story is not that bad at all, you can see into other peoples souls which is funny at first but then you realize that it has no impact on whatsoever... so it becomes unnecessary pretty quick. The end is good again but during the game the storyline just idles...
    The Characters you meet and can group up with are most of the time very good designed but are too few to really select between.
    So all in all the game is a newer version of Baldurs Gate which is not bad at all but far form being a great RPG.    … Expand
  59. PrincessRose
    Feb 19, 2021
    6
    I like exploring and seeing where the story takes me.
    I dislike the combat of CRPG's and since Iam in it just for the story and exploring there is an option to make combat very easy for those that want to get through the combat as fast as possible and just focus on the story and exploring. But even on very easy I was not able to beat the Adra Dragon as I found it extremely difficult. Iam    I like exploring and seeing where the story takes me.
    I dislike the combat of CRPG's and since Iam in it just for the story and exploring there is an option to make combat very easy for those that want to get through the combat as fast as possible and just focus on the story and exploring. But even on very easy I was not able to beat the Adra Dragon as I found it extremely difficult. Iam sick of how ridculously hard it is and hate not being able to defeat it
    I find talking to NPCs with the reach into the soul thing pointless as it doesn't lead anywhere, it's annoying and I just choose the leave option as soon as it happens.

    At times I felt bored and just wanted to rush it though. Doesn't feel like it has enough depth.
    I can't recommend as I hate frustrating fights and just want to be able to get through it.    … Expand
  60. kharnikhal
    Mar 27, 2015
    6
    Its basically a 15 year old game published in 2015. If thats your thing, then by all means bump my score up by 2.

    I played on Normal difficulty, no expert-mode and no trial of iron (permadeath). First things first: The graphics are horrible. Zoom in and it actually looks like a game from 2000. There is no anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, graphic options are severly lacking and    Its basically a 15 year old game published in 2015. If thats your thing, then by all means bump my score up by 2.

    I played on Normal difficulty, no expert-mode and no trial of iron (permadeath).

    First things first: The graphics are horrible. Zoom in and it actually looks like a game from 2000. There is no anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, graphic options are severly lacking and the overall look of the game is blurry and muddy. Not much color to it, its made from shades of brown and grey.

    The battles are alright at first, but when you play further in to the game you will soon realize that you have to be constantly pausing, micromanaging abilities and movement to stay alive, and its pretty tedious. This is especially true with caster classes (wizards, ciphers etc). One little mistake (like your own guy running into your aoe-spell) and you can expect a party wipe. Its essentially a trial and error way of playing. Venture somewhere where the game doesnt want you to go (yet), get killed, load and go do something else. Your own skill has nothing to do with, but some people enjoy this type of stuff. I don't.

    The exploration and enemy level mechanics are archaic, meaning that it constantly puts impossible enemies and quests near your area. This means only one thing: Backtracking. Lots of it. You will have to ignore like half of the quests in the area, move to the next area and take the easier quests there (and you wont have any idea which are easier), level up, buy gear. and backtrack to finish those quests (if you wish). And the problem then is that the rewards for finishing those quests aren't gonna do any good to you since you're already overleveled for that area. Its stupid and I hope it gets patched.

    The story, as far as I could play this game before I got bored (about 5-6 hours), is filled with your standard fantasy-tropes. Evil wizards, ancient evils and all that jazz. The voice acting is quite dull and predictable, nothing good but not unbearable either. Also expect to reads walls and walls (and I mean WALLS) of text. All the time. Every time. You will probably spend more time reading than doing any other activity. At that point I'd rather pick up a decent book than play this game.

    I didn't run into any noticeable bugs or glitches, and the AI pathfinding worked fine for me.
    The best time I had with this game was when I fired it up the first time, and spent maybe an hour figuring out what kind of character I want to create.

    Its not a bad game, it just feels old. Outdated. If this was released 10 years ago, it would've been amazing.    … Expand
  61. Thombie
    Mar 28, 2015
    6
    I've not completed the game but I've played enough to give it a fair non-spoiler review. The story is above average, the graphics is easily below average but all in all good enough to tell a compelling story. People who generally like these kinds of games will most likely love this one, as it's a very good RPG.

    Now, over to more concerning stuff. The combat system, class system and    I've not completed the game but I've played enough to give it a fair non-spoiler review. The story is above average, the graphics is easily below average but all in all good enough to tell a compelling story. People who generally like these kinds of games will most likely love this one, as it's a very good RPG.

    Now, over to more concerning stuff. The combat system, class system and attribute balance is among the weakest I've ever come across in a RPG ever. The classes themselves are interesting enough but it seems kind of moot to specialize your character in any way since the difference is so small that it doesn't matter in the end. I actually wonder why they bothered having the attribute system at all. Skills and abilities on the other hand does make a difference but it's kind of stupid and very rigid.

    Overall the game is above average and gets a well deserved 6 from me.    … Expand
  62. sotnhs
    Nov 18, 2018
    6
    Years later, I'm giving this a try. To be brief, this isn't in the same class as the old Bioware games. Pros, the battle system I like. Maybe more so then the strict D&D2.5/3 rules of old. Cons, if certain missions are done in a certain order, the story kind of breaks. e.i., you trigger an event, go back talk to an NPC with a specific party member which triggers a different event thatYears later, I'm giving this a try. To be brief, this isn't in the same class as the old Bioware games. Pros, the battle system I like. Maybe more so then the strict D&D2.5/3 rules of old. Cons, if certain missions are done in a certain order, the story kind of breaks. e.i., you trigger an event, go back talk to an NPC with a specific party member which triggers a different event that doesn't really make sense to be happening after the previous event. It's a poor man's Baulder's gate as far as story is concerned. I felt like the stakes weren't high enough for the main character. It's like why the hell should the main give a **** about going through all this? To get some information? You're killing people and going on this wild goose chase for some information. You need something more concrete than that. Amateur hour devs who aren't smart enough to learn from the past, other games and other industries (movies) and apply it to the game. e.i., inciting incident, high stakes, etc.… Expand
  63. TheJudgernaught
    Apr 12, 2015
    6
    I have mixed feelings about this game. I'm not going to list the pros since the game seems to be well received, so I'll give my opinion on the other side of things:

    - Voice acting is souless and immersion-breaking. The actors didn't quite 'catch' the feeling of their characters or didn't act them out well. Also, when you interact with characters, you must also read the text for the    I have mixed feelings about this game. I'm not going to list the pros since the game seems to be well received, so I'll give my opinion on the other side of things:

    - Voice acting is souless and immersion-breaking. The actors didn't quite 'catch' the feeling of their characters or didn't act them out well. Also, when you interact with characters, you must also read the text for the narrative details, but the voice acting runs faster than the humane ability to read text. so I played the game with the voices muted.

    - Ambient sound/game music is boring and uninspired. You' re better off listening to your own music while playing this game.

    - There isn't a proper action bar, but a quick-bar of sorts. where you can assign the desired button to the ability. Even though this sounds as a great idea, it ends up causing more headache than it should, since when you hover your cursor above the spell level (spellcasters are the problem) it pops up all the spells of that level, so you have to close it again before choosing a different level of spells. Also, if you press a key by mistake on an ability it will change the activating key for that ability.

    - Combat is boring and repetitive. (Endless Paths experience): Send tank in the front in a choke point/Pull creeps with the tank back to a choke point -> Buff group -> Kill priests/spellcasters with ranged group members/ Use crowd control with other group members/Heal in the meantime -> Kill the rest, starting with the weaker creeps. Rinse and repeat. That's all there is to it. There isn't a fight where you have to do something radically different.

    - Group setup is inflexible. In Endless Paths difficulty, a tank (fighter, maybepaladin), a healer (priest), a dps (rogue/ranger), and a crowd controller (wizard) are almost madatory (I say almost, because I haven't experimented with other setups, but it seemed impossible to do so).

    - Class specializations/braching/path is minimal e.g. you can't be a melee oriented wizard/cleric/druid. Wizards don't have schools. Multiclassing does not exist.

    - There isn't a way to determine the difficulty level of your enemies, except than trying and dying too many times and finally realizing that you are maybe too low level for that area.

    - The resting-supply system is a headache. You have to rest to refresh your spells and some abilities, but you also need to have supplies to do that. In Endless Paths you can carry only two supply packs with you and you WILL have to travel all the way from that multifloored dungeon to a city, so you can buy supplies and resume which will progressively become tedious to do.

    - Scouting is nearly useless. You can't buff before a fight, so there's no point to see watch ahead of you (you can pause). Also, at best you'll be able to see two or three enemies before you are seen. It isn't telling of the other 10 waiting behind them.

    - You have to use scouting to see hidden objects/traps. Traps also give XP when disabled. Oh, you didn't know that? Have fun running back to all those areas you left behind searching for hidden stuff and thinking about all the traps you triggered and the XP you missed.

    - Characters and uninteresting and generic, except maybe Durance.

    - The world has too many tedious details

    - Now about the plot... The story has so, oh SO much potential. It is compelling and interesting and I might say very relatable to a person of our days and age... However, the plot isn't well written, well developed, or enough complicated. The turning point of the whole game was delivered in such a straightforward way that it leaves you perplexed by it's obviousness, instead of shoking and shaking you!

    My thoughts:

    An over-hyped game, as it seems to be the trend nowadays. It certainly gives the feeling of those older RPG's, but it fails to deliver in so many ways that it's good qualities bearly redeem it. It gave me the same impression that Divinity: Original Sin gave me: a game that could be so much more, but was left underdeveloped/unpolished for monetary reasons.

    Should you play it, then? Well, I guess for anone night stand, it's ok. It doesn't have re-play value though.    … Expand
  64. Topfpflanze
    Jan 4, 2022
    6
    I am facing a problem. Pillars of Eternity is certainly one of the best RPG games I know. But: it is indispensable to read and understand the lengthy texts that are displayed to you, because they contain important hints. Depending on the hardware (resolution and display), this is an imposition. And that's why I think this is one of the best games that are unplayable.
  65. supercagan
    Nov 17, 2018
    6
    Bland story, combat got very boring and repetitive after killing the same thing for 44535 times. It has that good old soul of Baldur's gate though. I enjoyed TYRANNY way more than i enjoyed this game. Do not really worry about your stronghold in the game, just keep playing the main quest, you will get bored way before than...on the plus side it has good graphics and environments.
  66. coconner
    Apr 5, 2015
    6
    Decent, but inferior to its predecessors.

    This game is being horribly overrated because the genre is so rare these days that people want to support it. Thats fine, but understand that this game is a very average western RPG, and inferior to its predecessors such as Planescape Torment or Baldurs Gate. If you like this kind of game, i have no doubt that you will enjoy Pillars, as i am,    Decent, but inferior to its predecessors.

    This game is being horribly overrated because the genre is so rare these days that people want to support it. Thats fine, but understand that this game is a very average western RPG, and inferior to its predecessors such as Planescape Torment or Baldurs Gate.

    If you like this kind of game, i have no doubt that you will enjoy Pillars, as i am, but im not going to delude myself.

    The art direction, music, story and character development are all very weak sauce compared to the likes of PST. Nothing is memorable. I am about 25 hours in yet lack a firm grasp on what the story is even meant to be.

    The combat annoys me, you can't loot until about 4 seconds after the last enemy has died, often the character models and unit collision is so bad, you cannot possibly identify your party members in battle. There is far too much irrelevant writing, such as dozens of NPCs in every map who you can "read the soul" of, to learn their story, but you can't talk to them, there is no interaction, their story is irrelevant, and because there are so many, you just end up not bothering for any of them which, rather than engrossing you in the game, achieves the exact opposite.

    The overwhelming sense i get from this game is that the creators are like old men, trying to recreate the former glories of their prime, but they've been out of the circuit so long they are clumsy and cack-handed, needing far more practice to get back to speed. I hope they get that practice, and we see more ISO RPG's, perhaps eventually reproducing something as awesome as PST was, but this is far away from that.    … Expand
  67. beldurax
    May 4, 2015
    6
    Obsidian's homage to Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and all of the other Infinity Engine titles comes across as a bland romp across a bland world. The lore is overdone and soulless in and of itself. The fact that Obsidian chose to litter immersion-breaking NPC's and tombstones throughout the game, knocks at least two points off the rating of this game to begin with. Not the big dealObsidian's homage to Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and all of the other Infinity Engine titles comes across as a bland romp across a bland world. The lore is overdone and soulless in and of itself. The fact that Obsidian chose to litter immersion-breaking NPC's and tombstones throughout the game, knocks at least two points off the rating of this game to begin with. Not the big deal everybody is making it out to be.… Expand
  68. Shamansdrum
    Jun 29, 2015
    6
    Pillars of Eternity stands out. I didn't have so much fun with RPG since Dragon Age Origins (and I did play most pc rpg's inbetween those titles). It's also sort of a disappointment and here's why...

    Although being a beautifully realized BG clone, or how they like to say it "a spiritual successor" it doesn't necessarily carries all the beauty inherent to the original. Way too often I    Pillars of Eternity stands out. I didn't have so much fun with RPG since Dragon Age Origins (and I did play most pc rpg's inbetween those titles). It's also sort of a disappointment and here's why...

    Although being a beautifully realized BG clone, or how they like to say it "a spiritual successor" it doesn't necessarily carries all the beauty inherent to the original. Way too often I felt torn apart by two ambivalent tendencies of the game, that is storytelling and hack'n'slash. I bow before Obsidian for filling all those immense dungeons with fair amount of content, creatures and treasure. It's the good type of hack'n'slashing - sandboxed, handcrafted and polished. The thing is that for "a spiritual successor to BG" I expected more story-driven content, something interesting and meaningful to get me through all those stale, repeatable combats. The main story-line is pretty good, which is extraordinary, taking into account how badly written some critically acclaimed rpg's are (remember Dragon Age 2?). Dialogues between your teammates are also poised and funny. After playing more than 24 h I started realizing that the game somehow lacks a consistent direction. The lore and immersion in it seems a bit half-baked. The script, how good wouldn't it be, is still incomplete. For me, this game is constantly on the verge of delivering the experience it so loudly aspired to deliver. I'd even say : They almost did it. I hope they will make the sequel better.    … Expand
  69. hag9600gt
    Nov 23, 2015
    6
    I'm a big fan of the genre, I played most of the similar games. Since my english is not perfect, I sum up the good and bad in short sentences:

    Good: Nice graphics, well written text, good atmosphere. Bad: Below average UI, broken character and party selection, camera does not follow the characters (seriously?!?), constant problems with font sizes (too big in the chat window, too small    I'm a big fan of the genre, I played most of the similar games. Since my english is not perfect, I sum up the good and bad in short sentences:

    Good: Nice graphics, well written text, good atmosphere.
    Bad: Below average UI, broken character and party selection, camera does not follow the characters (seriously?!?), constant problems with font sizes (too big in the chat window, too small everywhere else).

    I can't believe this game has so muc updates and patches, and the developers didn't fix the obvious gameplay settings. They should take a look at Divinity: Original Sin.    … Expand
  70. nitorita
    Dec 25, 2017
    6
    (This review was written back in '15, when the game was first released. It doesn't factor in any DLCs released since then.)

    I've played the game for a good amount of time so far. Unfortunately, I didn't really get the thrill that I had hoped to get from it. Putting aside all the hype and background with the game, from an unbiased, ordinary gamer's standpoint, this game is pretty    (This review was written back in '15, when the game was first released. It doesn't factor in any DLCs released since then.)

    I've played the game for a good amount of time so far. Unfortunately, I didn't really get the thrill that I had hoped to get from it. Putting aside all the hype and background with the game, from an unbiased, ordinary gamer's standpoint, this game is pretty "boring." And I shall elaborate.

    First off, it's quite evident that the game is story driven. There is a heavy emphasis on story, and you're constantly driven into situations where you must make conversational choices that could potentially affect your gameplay later on. And that sounds wonderful! But, just because a game has a great story base and intriguing lore doesn't necessarily mean that it's a great game to play, especially if you're not much of a reader who prefers walls of text (believe me, you're given pages and pages of text in this game).

    The main issue which caused me to give this game such a low rating was because I found the combat rather uninteresting. If you're looking for the thrill of fast-paced gameplay, you're better off looking at other RPGs. This game was developed solely for the patient gamer.

    Throughout the game, due to the difficulty of the fights, you're forced to always utilize the pause feature to issue commands to each individual character every 2-5 seconds. The AI in the game is pretty poor on your end; it can't seem to figure out how to make educated decisions during combat (even if you have auto-pilot (anti-idle) enabled in the game's settings), and often causes characters to just stand still and do nothing. This can become a bit of a chore if you have some one-dimensional characters you'd prefer to just do whatever while you control the more important characters that have many abilities.

    Another major issue is the lack of character progression and improvement. You characters do not change much over the course of several (real-life) hours. What that means is, the game forces you to use the same set of abilities for an overly long period of time. This can bore the average gamer pretty easily.

    Not only that, but for whatever reason, the developers decided to eliminate "healing potions" by replacing it with a health and regenerating armour system, which is familiar to those who play shooters. The game also incorporates a "Final Fantasy cooldown" feature for attacks and skill usage, as well as unrestricted movement while it's happening.

    This could make or break the game for you, depending on if you can work with this new system of gameplay. "Hit and run" tactics would work, if not for the "issue" where enemies can "back attack" you while you're running. And this happens because there are stats in the game that involve dodging attacks, and allowing you to avoid attacks physically would remove the point of said stats. Most enemies move quicker than you do, which makes attempting to run pointless unless you are a distance fighter.

    Levels don't come often, but that's because progression doesn't come often either. Ironic how that works. Regarding equipment, you're generally stuck with the same set of starting weapons and armour and won't find any better ones until much later on in the game. Unfortunately, you probably already be bored by that point in time.

    You earn pennies selling the junk you don't need, and the equipment sold in stores are impossibly expensive. The stores aren't tab based, which makes finding items a chore. Especially since your sold items are shown as well.

    I think all of these "cons" exist solely because the developers wanted to create a realistic role-playing game and strongly believed that in a real fantasy world, this is how you would progress. Basically, no progression at all for long periods of time.

    Anyway, in terms of what I like about the game, I can't really say much. There's a strong emphasis on decision making and story, but that's about it. If you aren't much of a fantasy lover or a book reader, you probably won't like this game. It becomes a chore really early on. I suggest buying it only after it hits sub-$20.    … Expand
  71. nik_balani
    Feb 13, 2019
    6
    I played Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights and loved them both. Pillars of Eternity, whilst being of a similar genre, was too heavy on the story (with excessive amounts of reading), but very unoriginal and unchallenging in its gameplay. I played for a good 40 hours as I am the type of person who like to finish anything I start, but in this case simply had to give up as the gameplayI played Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights and loved them both. Pillars of Eternity, whilst being of a similar genre, was too heavy on the story (with excessive amounts of reading), but very unoriginal and unchallenging in its gameplay. I played for a good 40 hours as I am the type of person who like to finish anything I start, but in this case simply had to give up as the gameplay simply had nothing more to offer.… Expand
  72. RevUBrah
    Apr 14, 2022
    6
    The entire reason this game exists is to serve as a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, one of the greatest CRPGs of all time, but it greatly falls short of the mark. Tyranny copied its combat system from this and it's just as bland here as it was there, and Chris Avellone was barely involved (even he says the story is too linear and uninspired). A good RPG doesn't need two hoursThe entire reason this game exists is to serve as a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, one of the greatest CRPGs of all time, but it greatly falls short of the mark. Tyranny copied its combat system from this and it's just as bland here as it was there, and Chris Avellone was barely involved (even he says the story is too linear and uninspired). A good RPG doesn't need two hours to draw the player into the world, and I can't give this game any more time than that.… Expand
  73. Baltifru
    Apr 19, 2020
    6
    I think many people love Pillars of Eternity and rightfully so.

    I didn't like the game though, for one main reason: it is uselessly complex, and both words in "uselessly complex" matter. First of all, the combat system is quite atypical. While it can be played easily for someone who plays the game in easy mode and doesn't care about tactics, it can rapidly give headaches given the    I think many people love Pillars of Eternity and rightfully so.

    I didn't like the game though, for one main reason: it is uselessly complex, and both words in "uselessly complex" matter.

    First of all, the combat system is quite atypical. While it can be played easily for someone who plays the game in easy mode and doesn't care about tactics, it can rapidly give headaches given the number of possibility offered: there are (too ?) many classes within the group each having its own gameplay. For each them, too many choices are offered. For instance, the mage has like 30 spells, that can even be customised (maybe there are hundreds of possible spells in the whole game ?). Status are also too numerous. Can't count now but it looks like there are at least 20 of them, which end up being very difficult to sort out for people like me who don't have the patience to learn them all.

    The statistics are yet another example of this useless complexity: the game relies on a system of a double set of statistics. One set can be directly customised at each level up and determines the possible interactions of your character during dialogues and off-combat sequences. The other one determines the strengths of your character in combat, but you cannot tune it manually: each stat is computed based on the first set of statistics in a non-changeable fashion. This makes the RPG aspect of the game "uselessly complex" is the sense that this additional layer of complexity doesn't, in my opinion, serve any purpose. Complexity in a game can be welcome if, through it, you can extend the possibilities offered by the gameplay. That is not the case here.

    I am sorry to drop this game midway, because for the rest the lore is very interesting, the world and atmosphere imagined by the devs are great and the decision mechanics make this experience very customisable. But the truth is I was forcing myself to play this game up to now. Giving up.    … Expand
  74. hileger
    Jan 19, 2023
    6
    (оценка графомания) от текста бошка болит какой он скучный никчемный и бессмысленный.
  75. Antictra
    Mar 10, 2021
    6
    Being from Baldur's Gate / Planescape: Torment generation had played Pillars of Eternity with open mind, yet I finished having a "meh ..." attitude. Simply in the end I did not feel engaged by either story or the characters, which I have not found memorable. In my opinion it is a dud, probably will be forgotten in the future just like Torment: Tides of Numenera.
  76. Tabbou
    Dec 20, 2021
    6
    Could have been better :
    There are lot of choices and consequences + a cool story and lot of quests
    but the building a team and fighting part are not well made, battles are mid turn by turn and mid real time wich made them both slow and hard, I didn't have much fun except for the firsts ones.
  77. BananaSurf
    Jul 20, 2022
    6
    Some good parts, but the story is very..soulless, ironically enough for a story about souls being stolen. It starts out OK but about halfway through it becomes a bit of a slog.
  78. Barrage
    Apr 24, 2023
    6
    An homage to Baldur's Gate. I liked the ending, but the characters in the game are completely unmemorable.
  79. HydrophobikFish
    Jun 9, 2023
    6
    Overall a miss for me. Too reliant on dense lore exposition, a setting that is dreary and not particularly interesting, and a story that is overall forgettable.
  80. TemplarGR
    Sep 9, 2016
    5
    Let me tell you kids, as a gamer who "was there" when Baldur's gate launched: This is nothing like it. Terribly overrated for no reason, this is a mediocre Baldur's gate clone that has no place in the modern era. I suppose it was cheap to make, and people are starved for meaningful RPGs, so they take what they can get, hence the overinflated scores, but still...

    The original Baldur's    Let me tell you kids, as a gamer who "was there" when Baldur's gate launched: This is nothing like it. Terribly overrated for no reason, this is a mediocre Baldur's gate clone that has no place in the modern era. I suppose it was cheap to make, and people are starved for meaningful RPGs, so they take what they can get, hence the overinflated scores, but still...

    The original Baldur's gate had a much better story and richer world, a far better rpg system (obviously due to D&D second edition), great graphics for its time, and better designed gameplay. This is just a horrible immitation. For its budget, not bad, but we as gamers don't judge budgets, we judge the experience, and in 2015 this won't cut it.

    If you exclude the graphics, if this was released side by side with Baldur's gate, it would have flopped. No reason to play it, unless you really want an old school RPG and you have already played BG to death.    … Expand
  81. Vasot
    Mar 26, 2015
    5
    Typical RPG with an outdated gameplay system from the 90's if you are still living in the past this has its merits but for me it is just a very poorly designed game and i am not exactly a big fan of reading big texts and messages if feels like reading a book than playing a real game.. As about the plot-story it becomes a drag really fast it has a lot of cliche moments from other RPGTypical RPG with an outdated gameplay system from the 90's if you are still living in the past this has its merits but for me it is just a very poorly designed game and i am not exactly a big fan of reading big texts and messages if feels like reading a book than playing a real game.. As about the plot-story it becomes a drag really fast it has a lot of cliche moments from other RPG games that i have played in the past so i was not exactly amazed by this. If you are into the old outdated RPG gameplay and pixel graphics from the Intel Pentium 4 period and you do not mind reading big texts all the time well you should not have a problem with this as for me i was expecting something better and something more pleasant… Expand
  82. BlueBangkok
    Apr 14, 2015
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. PoE is a difficult title to review.
    It claims to be a spiritual successor to old infinity engine games but that couldn't be further from the truth. The truth is that it doesn't compare to Baldur's Gate series on any possible level. As a standalone, isometric RPG, it is okay (some signs of brilliance here and there) but the developers are claiming it is a BG successor, so I will review it as BG successor.

    Story: bland, run-of-the-mill story with interesting moments connected through hours of boredom. Nothing special. Just run to a guy who can help you - oh, he's dead - run to the next guy - oh, he's dead too - run to the next guy - oh, he dies too - find final boss - kill final boss. Save a few exceptions basically no character development at all.

    Graphics: good, albeit generic. Some spell effects are quite pretty.

    Music: oh please don't get me started on this one... Obsidian didn't realize that 50% of BG epicness was music. One boring combat track for the entire game really just doesn't cut it, guys.

    Combat system: clunky and tiresome. Absolutely no automatic AI at all (even BG 1 had AI scripts for those who didn't want to micro manage every single member of the party) - they don't even auto attack by themselves. Waves and waves of the same, generic combat sequences. And the best part - when you complete Bestiary entry for an enemy, you STOP earning XP for that enemy kills. Oh, yes, Obsidian, we completionists really want to get punished for playing our way. Literally go re-play Fallout 1&2 right now to see how non-combat choices should be implemented without gimping combat-oriented approaches.

    RPG system: basically an altered version of DnD 4e. Setting aside the fact that 3e would be far superior, absence of any immunity stats is just hilarious. Dragons killed by fireballs, frightened spectres, oozes slipping to the ground from local version of Grease spell, and so on and on and on. Innovative? Maybe. Immersive and intuitive? Nope. Changes for the sake of changes, not for the sake of system improvement or logic.

    Companions: few glimpses of good writing here and there (Durance and Sagani), otherwise little more than generic drones standing in combat drooling, waiting for you to right click on the enemy.

    All in all, very poor example of classic CRPG games' successor. This game wants to look "old school" so badly but fails to deliver. It is nothing like the old IE games. It wasn't developed by people who loved the old DnD games.    … Expand
  83. Schuback
    Feb 26, 2016
    5
    We all know this is a low budget game. But it's not a bad game at all. Just can get pretty repetitive and boring because there's no voice acting. So you'll be reading the whole game through which gets tiring after 10 hours in. No cutscenes and not much character animations. And the combat isn't that good too. Lack of immersion and story can get boring cause of more reading. Yeah..... WithWe all know this is a low budget game. But it's not a bad game at all. Just can get pretty repetitive and boring because there's no voice acting. So you'll be reading the whole game through which gets tiring after 10 hours in. No cutscenes and not much character animations. And the combat isn't that good too. Lack of immersion and story can get boring cause of more reading. Yeah..... With so many RPGs out there with voice acting, good story, better combat gameplay, I don't think Pillars of Etternity is that good. I enjoyed Dungeon Siege, Neverwinter, and some other top down text-filled rpgs. But it isn't the 90s it's 2016, act like you care. Put some effort to evolve or innovate the top down rpg genre. Not stay entirely and not improve at all. Oh but you have a low budget? Doesn't mean a thing. If the game isn't good, it isn;t good.

    Play it if you're into old-scool rpg. Many who are stuck in past (oh it reminds me of the 90s wow...) Otherwise, play something else. It's no 10/10 like many people are saying that it is. Alright at the start but after about 8 hours it collapses.    … Expand
  84. Skipper
    Feb 5, 2016
    5
    I don't exactly know how to describe how I feel about this game. I like the idea of it more than I actually like it. Maybe it's the comparison to Baldur's Gate. The game itself feels hollowborn. It has all the moving pieces, but the soul seems to be missing.
  85. Khitchary
    Apr 3, 2015
    5
    This makes me sad. The difficulty curve in this game is broken. The combat gets so boring. My first 10-15 hours in the game led me to giving it a 9/10. Now that I have played a bit more I have to change it to a 5. It is mediocre at best. BG2 and IWD2 are where its at sadly.
  86. raporgi
    May 18, 2018
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. boring and extremely generic. the races and classes are copy pasted from DnD but lack the interesting mechanics or lore behind them. Story is sleep inducing drivel you'll find yourself going from trash mob to trash mob while be dropped the most pathetic bits of story. Choices have no consequences that really matter. the tacked on stronghold minigame is basically facebook level crap. Encounter design is annoying and unfun. crafting is crappy. stick to playing the original IE games. I backed this game when it was first came out. Ai scripting was not even present. Your characters would just stand idle while being beaten to death by the enemy. Josh Sawyer needs to get a slap on the head.… Expand
  87. BSim500
    May 20, 2016
    5
    If the intention is an "old school nostalgia" BG clone, then it sort of succeeds. But it's not without annoyances:-

    Engine - The game engine is horrible. They used Unity and it's clearly more suited to FPS / horror games than isometric RPG's. Large chunks of the game has severe slowdowns (down to 18fps) in major city areas caused by the way Unity Engine layers assets when rendering    If the intention is an "old school nostalgia" BG clone, then it sort of succeeds. But it's not without annoyances:-

    Engine - The game engine is horrible. They used Unity and it's clearly more suited to FPS / horror games than isometric RPG's. Large chunks of the game has severe slowdowns (down to 18fps) in major city areas caused by the way Unity Engine layers assets when rendering groups of people. This isn't due to lack of horsepower as both CPU & GPU usage are only 30% loaded (and VRAM a mere 600MB) when the slowdowns occur. I've seen this before on other Unity games where fps drops into single digits despite the CPU & GPU being not even half loaded. In contrast, post-IE RPG's like NWN, Dragon Age Origins, or Divinity Original Sin, with RPG-specific engines are all proper 3D and run a solid 60fps on hardware half as powerful. On top of that, 15s load times (even on SSD's) on every minor area transition get very old, very quickly. At least 4-5hrs will be spent staring at loading screens. These problems can't be fixed as they're internal to the Unity Engine and walking through areas like Copperlane or backtracking through several zones is not enjoyable.

    Combat - It's just "OK". In theory it's tactical. In practise, you'll be repeating the same "put 2x tanks in a choke-point then get the other 4x party members to spam blunderbuss ranged attacks" MMO style weak-tank / healer / DPS setup over & over. Most trash-mobs are the same. Spells are too weak. Fighters have weak attacks since heavy armor virtually halves attack speed. Sneaking & backstabbing in combat were clumsy. Traps are weak. No pickpocketing. Can't buff outside of combat (there goes half the tactics in countering certain types of mobs). It didn't actually feel that D&D-ish to be honest. I also found the game doesn't convey what's going on in combat visually too well when too many very tiny people all look the same even wearing different armors.

    Bugs - Broken journal entries, damage penalty bugs, quest bugs. I got stuck in combat mode more than once (which prevents you from travelling or saving). Sound randomly cuts out when speeding up game in a crowded place (needed a lot due to not being able to run - you will walk everywhere at a snails pace). Bug in White March where chars slide forwards slowly instead of walking. Dexterity checks not properly applied in scripted events, etc. Lots of minor things.

    Poor design decisions - The devs seem to blindly copy everything with BG without thinking why some stuff has evolved since. One major gripe I have (with both BG & PoE) is the abnormally small "fog of war" where your 6 world saviours cannot see a large 50ft high windmill from across the street. The only reason this was in BG was because those games were written in the late 90's when everyone had 4:3 1024x768 / 1280x1024 monitors and the short view distance sort of naturally fit the low res screens of the day. On modern 1080p and higher resolutions, the 1/4 screen vision bubble looks ridiculous. Even by 2002 (NWN1), D&D style RPG's had the "fog" made far larger, more realistic and widescreen friendly and eliminated the "blind as a bat" claustrophobia and "narrow strip lawnmower pattern" 'exploration' irritations, (as has virtually every other high rated popular modern "old school" RPG, eg, Dragon Age Origins, Divinity Original Sin, etc). Baldur's Gate 1-2 were great games, but their UI wasn't infallibly perfect and is one of the first things someone playing it for the first time today with no "nostalgia anchor" picks up on.

    The writing is OK but only 2 chars out of the game ever seemed to be personally affected by "Hollowborn" reducing the sense of urgency. Very little humor. "Banter" felt weak & forced. Pacing of lore feels off (too much too early, then goes flat mid-game). The game caps your level halfway through rending the DLC and late sidequests reward-less. The stronghold and its constant attention seeking timed quests that pop up when you've just started something elsewhere was more annoying that immersive. I wouldn't have missed it if they had scrapped it completely. Crafting was mostly pointless (I didn't use it once) as were 90% of Stronghold upgrades. And whilst I understand the need to reward Kickstarters, many in-game comments / tombstone memorials were flat out distracting / childish. Instead of putting in a loading screen warning of how "4th wall breaking" immersion-shattering they are, the Devs could have "curated" a lot or gave better submission guidelines that required they actually fit the game rather than end up resembling your average Youtube comments section. All Kickstarters are mentioned in the credits anyway.

    In short, the game isn't bad but they picked the wrong engine to use, and I think there was too much obsession with "over-trying" to be Baldur's Gate 3 that caused some questionable design decisions. I really wanted to like this, but I simply didn't enjoy this anywhere near as much as I originally expected.    … Expand
  88. eelegendo
    Mar 26, 2015
    5
    Not a bad one, but over 90%? Are you serious? 10 years ago I would have drooled over it, but now? A bit better than the Enhanced Editions. No translations of voices? Really? 2015?
    Otherwise it is a classic one in any ways: the same old song. A Baldur's with sharper textures. So 0% is also stupid, it isn't that bad.
    With these ratings of 10 here I only see the marketing machine in work.    Not a bad one, but over 90%? Are you serious? 10 years ago I would have drooled over it, but now? A bit better than the Enhanced Editions. No translations of voices? Really? 2015?
    Otherwise it is a classic one in any ways: the same old song. A Baldur's with sharper textures. So 0% is also stupid, it isn't that bad.
    With these ratings of 10 here I only see the marketing machine in work. The first few "reviewers" on top have only 1-2 ratings/reviews. And the negative ones are going to the bottom as always.
    Good for some nostalgia, but FOR THE SAME PRICE AS AN AAA GAME? Oh, I see: they need the money for the marketing...    … Expand
  89. mijxero
    Jun 21, 2015
    5
    This game tried really hard to bring new life to this genre. I have to give them props for trying new things. Unfortunately for me a lot of these changes don't work for me.

    XP: You only get this from quests and some other things like finishing a bestiary log (10 skeletons). I see how this could be good, the rogue who used stealth instead of farming all the enemies. For me I find    This game tried really hard to bring new life to this genre. I have to give them props for trying new things. Unfortunately for me a lot of these changes don't work for me.

    XP: You only get this from quests and some other things like finishing a bestiary log (10 skeletons). I see how this could be good, the rogue who used stealth instead of farming all the enemies. For me I find doing a lengthy dungeon run and walking away with no progression makes me mad.

    Items: They tried to have interesting items and you can even enchant them with extra abilities, but I never found that "Whoa!" item. I was constantly calculating stats that have been renamed. Do I need +2 Reflexes or +1 Perception?

    Combat: All characters get more abilities that they can use more frequently, great! Unfortunately with a party of six I am constantly clicking 6 sets of abilities to fight wolves, because automated AI is for softcore players I guess.

    Story and Writing: Its sooo much. They have good writing but it quickly overloads you and I began to just skip through it because I was getting frustrated at the incredibly slow pacing.

    Quests: A lot of the sidequests are very basic and unimportant. Combine this with no compass or marker (Which older games did too) and I found myself wandering around a lot. Also a lot of these are really a let down. *Minor Spoiler* I fought my way through the castle of a corrupt king and killed him. I saved the land and took over a castle ... except some guy came up and said "Thanks, we'll take it from here." Take it for what you will, this game is trying and I hope it brings back the genre, but I just can't call it BG3.    … Expand
  90. fazi
    Mar 30, 2015
    5
    Finished game in 30h done almost all quests, my thoughts
    First 2h I where just WOW ater next 4h its great! and after 12h till the end I was mehhh.
    What I don't like - no romances :( - plot holes - level 12 cap (wtf got this level after 16h and still lot of ex got waste) - not many places to go or revisit - very long load times (small houses load like 1-2m... ) - items are not sum    Finished game in 30h done almost all quests, my thoughts
    First 2h I where just WOW ater next 4h its great! and after 12h till the end I was mehhh.
    What I don't like
    - no romances :(
    - plot holes
    - level 12 cap (wtf got this level after 16h and still lot of ex got waste)
    - not many places to go or revisit
    - very long load times (small houses load like 1-2m... )
    - items are not sum up to stats but only talking higher value
    - no EPIC items
    - fortress management sucks and is boring after 2-3h times, what you build don't do much diffrence, no epic fights/defences etc
    - bugggggggsssss (meh)
    - average story (little like planescape torment or bg1 but not so epic)
    - boring fight music (its like 3 or 4 music loops )
    - transaction not finished
    - stealth and search mode connected (search mode should be based on perception in "normal mode")
    - hardcore, almost impossible "Adra Dragon" ;)

    I played bg trilogy where you have multiple fortress depending on your class, v.long story, plot twists, romances, GREAT party members, epic items, epic ending I can go on and on.... and I will always compare games to BG and Planescape . PoE feels like Bg1 its ok but, what people done in year 2000 you what similar or more.    … Expand
  91. ScienceAdvisor
    Apr 20, 2015
    5
    Quick review for those not interested in the deeper details: This is Baldur's Gate II with better graphics, except that you have a level 12 cap, the writing is far worse, and the gameplay tries to achieve a more tactical aspect, but ultimately fails to do so due to poor design. For those that played them, this is Icewind Dale not BG2.

    Full Review This is an utterly derivative re-hash    Quick review for those not interested in the deeper details: This is Baldur's Gate II with better graphics, except that you have a level 12 cap, the writing is far worse, and the gameplay tries to achieve a more tactical aspect, but ultimately fails to do so due to poor design. For those that played them, this is Icewind Dale not BG2.

    Full Review
    This is an utterly derivative re-hash of better games (BG2 for the most part, with a little Torment thrown in), with a meaningless, and meandering story. The mostly static enemies, with only two or three pre-fab groups per map, are quite predictable and easy to defeat when not cheating (towards the latter game).

    A particularly critical failure are the story & gameplay elements that are made out to be so important, yet are not developed over the course of the game. The "inspect soul" that can be performed only many NPCs, turns out to be one of these. There is no reason aside from OCD to do this on anyone that is not associated with your missions. Upgrading you weapons also falls into this category. They are so limited, and better weapons found so regularly, there was little benefit to crafting anything in the game.
    Then there is the stronghold, which you would expect to see developed into more than just a random encounter genenerator as the game progresses, especially due to story driven elements, yet it does not. It is not even as engaging as the original version in BG 2, where you had to dispense high justice. Like most of Pillars of Eternity, is it a pale reminder of better games.

    You will also notice a distinct reduction in quality and map size as the game progresses as they were forced to rush to get the game finished. If you have even a mediocre memory, you will be quite shocked at the level of discrepency between the initial maps (used to sell the game), and the latter ones. While not new for Obsidian (Alpha Protocol, FNV, heck every one of their games dating back to KOTORII), it does not bode well for them. They could not find outside funding for their projects, and nearly went bankrupt for this very reason.

    Claims that this is a "RPG based on their own intellectual property" is laughable, given how much of it comes directly from D&D games. Obsidian would not be able to prosecute a copyright infringement case, as they could not show the elements someone else was using did not come from the earlier D&D games. So 'reviewers' repeating Obsidian's PR line should be summarily ingored in your pre-evaluation of this game. If they cannot be bothered to know the history of these games, they will not be able to review them reliably.

    There also seem to be a lot of fanatic fans/haters, which seem to plague metacritic these days. I suggest filtering out anyone claiming PoE is a 9-10 or 0-3.    … Expand
  92. Lostframe
    Apr 18, 2015
    5
    the game is paradise of bugs.w nwe veags is polish game for this garbage. this is just robery , not a game.
    obsidian.    the game is paradise of bugs.w nwe veags is polish game for this garbage. this is just robery , not a game.
    obsidian. buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu    … Expand
  93. Akraven
    Apr 3, 2015
    5
    the story is good , characters are good but the overwhelming information is killing me ! English is not mt native language i must say . the fighting system so boring , the wizard and druid and monks have tone of skills that i never used ! it is not a bad game but not so great !
  94. rohk
    Apr 19, 2015
    5
    Could have been excellent, but at the moment combat lacks tactical depth. The engagement system and no pre-buff limit your options during fights. Basically every fight is : sneak, position characters, tank and nuke. The story is also a bit lacking, I don't feel as grabbed as in a BG or Planescape Torment.
  95. Gamer_Joe
    Apr 7, 2015
    5
    PoE is a game for old IE fans. While they do deliver on the story telling, quests and zones, the developers could not stay away from trying to reinvent pretty much every aspect of combat. The resting system is an arbitrary challenge design with no actual affect other than being annoying. Engagement mechanic caters to a static fighting system. The loot and stat / character progression inPoE is a game for old IE fans. While they do deliver on the story telling, quests and zones, the developers could not stay away from trying to reinvent pretty much every aspect of combat. The resting system is an arbitrary challenge design with no actual affect other than being annoying. Engagement mechanic caters to a static fighting system. The loot and stat / character progression in PoE is very bland. Instead of getting gamechanging abilities and stats changing characters, we see 1-3% more damage etc. per stat and same for loot. It's not very interesting. It's sad really, because the story writers, zone creaters, quest creaters did a very fine job. There is also no real reason to choose a companion over a custom made one, as their stats are all messy. I don't expect perfect stats, but at least somewhat ok stats. Unlike Baldur's Gate 1 + 2, which I've replayed many times, I will never replay this game.… Expand
  96. Balabhadradas
    May 27, 2015
    5
    Too many bugs.

    Check the forum for the latest on bugs:

    forums.obsidian.net/topic/79258-common-recurring-bug-list-patch-105/ (No HTML so I broke the link.)

    And for anyone who hates buggy releases please vote YES on this poll:

    forums.obsidian.net/topic/79882-should-poes-final-release-have-been-called-ealry-access/page-2

    Would have been great, but the bugs killed it for me.
  97. DarkEagle969
    Jun 23, 2015
    5
    Could have been excellent, but it just stays a bit too old-school.
    It could have done with things like fully spoken dialogues, the engagement system is mediocre. Every fight is the same. The story is also not up to par with for example Planescape Torment or more modern games.
  98. Batbamb
    Aug 24, 2015
    5
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Well, I did not expect Pillars of Eternity to be such a failure in terms of world-building and writing.

    First of all, let's recall that Obsidian's main selling point on Kickstarter was to draw inspiration from Baldur's Gate and the likes. So,to some extent, PoE had to use an imaginary world full of magic and wonders: you will find no small amount of mighty heroes, spells, adventures and exotic races in the world Obsidian designed.

    But these are just cosmetics. The true themes are dark and serious: soulless children, obscurantism, death of gods, and so on. It seems like Obsidian was more attracted to dark fantasy (a genre where the magic world falls into chaos/horror).

    As a consequence, humour and delight are close to nonexistent in the world of PoE. That alone doesn't necessarily makes it a bad game: grim worlds can be interesting too. The problem is that the dark fantasy themes are severely underdeveloped. Indeed, Obsidian could not stray too far from high fantasy: they had promised a game similar to Baldur’s Gate, after all. So, compromises had to be made...

    The main storyline is a good example of it. After the first hour or so, your avatar is supposed to be gradually losing his/her sanity.

    You never, ever feel it. Apart from some casual ghosts apparitions. Boo!

    In this instance, the gameplay does little to support the story (Mask of the Betrayer did that better). The consequence is that you are not invested at all in your character’s specific state. But this is only one of the main topics of the game, so what’s the point of developing it, hey?

    Another key feature of the story, the Hollowborn curse, did not convince me either: its concrete presence and influence on the population is hugely overlooked. I can only recall two characters who seemed psychologically affected by the situation: Raedric and the Grieving Mother. It’s as if the game was not at ease with its own main topic.

    So, PoE refuses to be only a high fantasy game, while not really daring to be a dark fantasy one. The result is that this game hugely lacks vision. Ironically, you could say its world has no soul.

    I also think the game suffers from its attempt to reproduce the style of Planescape: Torment, whereas the world of PoE is not quite as inspiring. Torment had an exotic, surprising and mysterious world, full of sense of wonder: an ever-burning corpse in the middle of a tavern, an alley giving birth… Such motifs supported the imaginative, philosophical writing very well. The writers of Torment could constantly show what they meant: the words and graphics merged to create intricate and delightful images.

    In PoE, the writers’ mantra turned into “telling rather than showing”: since the universe lacks vision, the narration mainly embroiders emptiness.

    And it does so in large quantity: the texts seem even longer than in Torment… but they are far less compelling. The descriptions are constantly bloated, trying to inject depth into a world that severely lacks it. For example, the dialogues give systematic descriptions of the characters’ physical attitude (“she frowns”, “he purses his lips”, etc.). Sometimes it can be amusing to read. But a lot of it doesn’t add anything, which dilutes the relevant descriptions into an indigestible mess. I concede that the vocabulary is rich (I certainly improved my English a lot while playing this game). And some passages are genuinely beautiful, as in the dialogues with the gods. But often, the writing is just uselessly verbose.

    A word about the fights: the combat system is nice… but the encounter design is atrocious. 90% of these encounters consist of trash mobs. Only a few fights will make you change your tactics. Too bad. The most challenging fights are entertaining, though.

    Apart from that, there are a few instances where PoE deserves praise.

    Firstly, I liked the roleplay options and the variety of dialogue choices in general. Consequences lack, but at least you can create a personality for your avatar.

    Then, the construction of the secondary quests was mostly excellent. You generally have several options to conclude them, all of which are morally defendable. And the few FedEx missions (the bounty quests) included most of the more interesting fights in the game, so that’s a good compromise.

    Moreover, the companions were well executed and varied. They have a history and a personality, which are not forced upon you: it’s up toyou if you want to know more about them. I found Durance to be particularly fascinating. The Grieving Mother’s tremolos and melodramatic tales, less so.

    And of course, the graphics are stunningly beautiful. The icy tones of Noonfrost are breathtaking.

    So, there are some good points in PoE. But the narrative aspects and the fight design ruined this game for me. At least, PoE provides a valuable warning for the future attempts at building imaginary worlds with depth and soul. Nowadays, a lot of RPG do not even show us mistakes worth reflecting upon.    … Expand
  99. T4l0n
    Sep 13, 2016
    5
    I really wanted to like this game, sadly it has too many issues.
    The game presents itself with a really good dark theme and with the complicity of the visuals and musics it really delivers a great atmosphere. Sadly the first think you discover has many problems is the combat: it has the typical crpg style of combat but there's no mana only a limited amount of usages for any spell, the    I really wanted to like this game, sadly it has too many issues.
    The game presents itself with a really good dark theme and with the complicity of the visuals and musics it really delivers a great atmosphere. Sadly the first think you discover has many problems is the combat: it has the typical crpg style of combat but there's no mana only a limited amount of usages for any spell, the interface doesn't let you properly understand enemies hp/weakness or your chars positions and there's a really weird gear system: the better the armor the slower you attack (yes, for real), so the optimal way to play at higher difficulties is to have a big tank in the front and all the other characters naked in the back casting spells or throwing arrows ...
    The leveling system disencourages combats and exploration, everything is quest related, after you killed a certain type of enemies a couple of times you won't get any more exp from killing them, it's a really weird system that seems stupid and dumb to implement in a high-fantasy "classic" crpg, maybe it will work better on their next game "Tyranny" but in this game is a disaster. You will end up getting 99% of your experience just by completing quests and the loot you find in dungeons is mostly trash, now join this to the combat system and it ends up it's not only worthless but a bad idea to explore dungeons after you complete the quest.
    Also this game railroads you into making certain choices just because you're not powerful enough to do what you want, it's not that it's hard, it's plain out impossible, for example you have a choice "with me" or "against me" if you choose to go against the enemy he double shots your team, can i go back later ? yes, but why all the dungeon is easy and only the final boss is impossible ? This doesn't make any sense ...
    There's a lot of bad optimization, even on high end pcs everytime you open the map or inventory the framerate drops and the game itself is filled of long loading screens everywhere (and i have a ssd, i can only image how long they are on magnetic disks).
    The world is filled with stupid backers nps : there are tons of npcs that will "tell" you a vision about themselves, all these visions are stories made by the backers and they are so long and extremely boring, completely trowing you out from the immersion of the game.
    I literally had to stop playing because of a bugged quest, i killed a character i had to talk to because it bumped into me earlier and triggered a fight, when i talk to her "side" i can only fight both the sides together all against me, i have no chance of surviving this, and yes, it's a main quest ...    … Expand
  100. pythag0ras
    Feb 18, 2016
    5
    pros: sort of Balrur's Gate style content
    cons:
    -You can only use items that are equipped in battle and you cant move items from your bag to active use during combat, so this means you have to already know what kind of damage your enemy is weak toward before you go into the battle, or keep reloading until you guess correctly. -no pick pocketing npcs -fatigue /athletics system isn't    pros: sort of Balrur's Gate style content
    cons:
    -You can only use items that are equipped in battle and you cant move items from your bag to active use during combat, so this means you have to already know what kind of damage your enemy is weak toward before you go into the battle, or keep reloading until you guess correctly.
    -no pick pocketing npcs
    -fatigue /athletics system isn't needed and just slows you down and adds annoyance . if you wanted reality you wouldn't be playing a video game. hunger fatigue systems like this are just a developers cheap way to keep people from completing content faster then they want, instead of making enough content that it wont matter. This system reminded me of getting hungry in minecraft..
    -Tons of TL;DR .. I am not trying to read a book here
    -combat is pretty boring . basically just click on the enemy and wait for your char to kill them,
    -fast mode needs to be toggled constantly instead of just being an option in the gameplay options
    -no markers to show quest objectives , forcing you to read adding to more of TL;DR in the game
    ultimately I'd say a pretty weak version of Baldur's Gate.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

6
#6 Best PC Game of 2015
7
#7 Most Discussed PC Game of 2015
25
#25 Most Shared PC Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
89

Generally favorable reviews - based on 71 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 70 out of 71
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 71
  3. Negative: 0 out of 71
  1. RPGamer
    Jul 7, 2015
    70
    Pillars is a title that should make old-schoolers happy while still offering a solid core game, story, and a rich setting for new-schoolers.
    Read full review
  2. LevelUp
    May 25, 2015
    93
    Pillars of Eternity stands on its own merits without resorting to nostalgia too much. Truly a CRPG masterpiece, the game offers old school, real-time strategic combat, and a vivid world to explore. Not only do you get an overall well-made experience, but also a challenge you haven't seen since the 90's.
    Read full review
  3. Games Master UK
    May 24, 2015
    82
    A sprawling game in a familiar setting, and a clever tune-up for the cRPG. Just what the backers hoped for. [June 2015, p.74]
See all critic reviews »