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. ErhanCeylan123
    Jul 17, 2020
    7
    This game have a general and unsolveable performance issues.This game universe is not interesting for me.
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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.
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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
  12. 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
  13. 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
  14. 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
  15. 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
  16. 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
  17. 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
  18. 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.
  19. 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.
  20. 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
  21. 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
  22. 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
  23. 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
  24. 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
  25. 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
  26. 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
  27. 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
  28. 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
  29. 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
  30. 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.
  31. 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.
  32. 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
  33. 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
  34. 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
  35. 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
  36. 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
  37. 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
  38. 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
  39. 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
  40. hileger
    Jan 19, 2023
    6
    (оценка графомания) от текста бошка болит какой он скучный никчемный и бессмысленный.
  41. 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.
  42. 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.
  43. 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.
  44. Barrage
    Apr 24, 2023
    6
    An homage to Baldur's Gate. I liked the ending, but the characters in the game are completely unmemorable.
  45. 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.
  46. 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
  47. 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
  48. 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
  49. 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
  50. 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.
  51. 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.
  52. 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
  53. 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
  54. 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
  55. 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
  56. 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
  57. 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
  58. 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
  59. 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 !
  60. 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.
  61. 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
  62. 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.
  63. 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.
  64. 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
  65. 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
  66. 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
  67. JustCriticiseIt
    Mar 28, 2016
    5
    "It's over?! I've played through this game for hours, waiting for something interesting to happen and all that you're giving me are some contradictory universe mechanics and some half-assed, mostly unexplored "noble lie" concept?" - my thoughts when I finished the game that say everything about my opinion
  68. KuriousJorj
    Sep 3, 2016
    4
    Yet another overrated game by people apparently desperate for ANYTHING in the RPG genre.

    Boring world, boring plot, boring combat, boring game. Long-winded walls of text. Pathetic combat (enemies that move away from your attacks, but if you do the same, you get a "Disengage" penalty. AND NO, just because it's a pause RPG does NOT mean it's supposed to be that way. Does NOT mean it    Yet another overrated game by people apparently desperate for ANYTHING in the RPG genre.

    Boring world, boring plot, boring combat, boring game. Long-winded walls of text. Pathetic combat (enemies that move away from your attacks, but if you do the same, you get a "Disengage" penalty.

    AND NO, just because it's a pause RPG does NOT mean it's supposed to be that way. Does NOT mean it gets a pass on being boring.    … Expand
  69. flexy123
    Apr 5, 2015
    4
    The comparison with Baldur's Gate is an insult. What made BG so great was being able to play with friends/roommates in the party over the network! PoE doesn't even have multiplayer - a shame since isometric RPGs IMHO are just the perfect thing for multiplayer! This is MEGA lame! Second...people rate the game highly because "it is a good read". If I want to read something I get my Kindle.The comparison with Baldur's Gate is an insult. What made BG so great was being able to play with friends/roommates in the party over the network! PoE doesn't even have multiplayer - a shame since isometric RPGs IMHO are just the perfect thing for multiplayer! This is MEGA lame! Second...people rate the game highly because "it is a good read". If I want to read something I get my Kindle. Sounds to me this is just another crappy indy game with crappy graphics and a complete lack of multi-player/co-op. Thanks. NO.… Expand
  70. notchedbandit
    Apr 4, 2015
    4
    I was hoping that PoE would have a story that would keep me interested, however the sad truth is that the story is very bland and generic. There is nothing that stands out. The way the story is told is bad as well, considering all they do is just throw a bookful of text in front of you to read. No visual suspense at all. Just read a book instead if you like a good story.

    I stopped    I was hoping that PoE would have a story that would keep me interested, however the sad truth is that the story is very bland and generic. There is nothing that stands out. The way the story is told is bad as well, considering all they do is just throw a bookful of text in front of you to read. No visual suspense at all. Just read a book instead if you like a good story.

    I stopped playing the game 10 hours in mainly because of the story, and secondary because how little environmental interaction there is. All the game does well for me is the combat, which is exactly what I was not interested in.    … Expand
  71. Bongo_clive
    Oct 13, 2015
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Having just completed Wasteland 2 and Divinity: Original Sin, I was very excited about trying another high quality RPG, but I cannot bring myself to finish this drudgery.

    The other 2 games had wit, humour and fun, with crisp, snappy dialogue, truly interesting characters and a quest you could relate to, Pillars had none of these things.

    It is clearly well made, it look pretty good, but it is just so boring.

    And don't even get me started on the number of bloody loading screens.

    I loved Baldur's Gate, but that was 15 years ago. Design has moved on. Wasteland 2 showed how it should be done. This is just a terribly boring game.    … Expand
  72. Xharlie
    Apr 3, 2015
    4
    My friends and I were gathered around a table, dice at hand. Our dungeon master gave the following advice: "Unless you are excellent at accents, talk normally." In Pillars of Eternity, every voice actor and every script writer could benefit from that advice. All of them sound like Americans trying too hard to force a "cool", nonchalant or wise accent and they all fail miserably. Even theMy friends and I were gathered around a table, dice at hand. Our dungeon master gave the following advice: "Unless you are excellent at accents, talk normally." In Pillars of Eternity, every voice actor and every script writer could benefit from that advice. All of them sound like Americans trying too hard to force a "cool", nonchalant or wise accent and they all fail miserably. Even the written text reads like it was carefully sculpted to give this very impression. The resulting level of immersion is nil and the story falls flat.

    The level of immersion remains bland, throughout, and there are frequent moments that break immersion entirely. Some conversation branches are voiced for one paragraph, not voiced for the next paragraph and then voiced again. All of the voiced sections are read immediately, regardless of the unspoken descriptions that appear in the same paragraph, forcing you to read the paragraph twice or out of order. The narrator is the weakest voice actor of the cast and you are often dropped onto a screen featuring nothing but a sketch and some text that this narrator proceeds to read.

    The game-play offered is also very unsatisfying. The old Infinity Engine games worked because of a simple principle: your party was truly powerful if you were truly cunning. Even if the odds were stacked against you, you could still win by careful planing and preparation, positioning and a bit of luck.

    In Pillars of Eternity, this is not the case. Min-maxing, use of dump-stats and certain party recipes will give you a stupidly over-powered party but, if you don't exploit these, you're actually very very weak and there isn't much you can do about it. You can't prepare for a battle because you can't buff your party outside of combat so reconnaissance is useless. The dungeon design does not really lend itself to ambushes and the like and positioning during the battle seems to have little effect. Even magic is rather unhelpful because nearly every spell is area-of-effect and nearly all of those inflict friendly fire. (In Bladur's Gate, a the perfect spell at the opportune moment could give you a victory in the face of certain failure and the satisfaction that brought was immense!)

    Nearly every encounter follows the same formula: line up your party, send in the tank to "draw" the mobs (being exceptionally careful not to draw more than one encounter-group because there's no way you can handle two at once if you aren't a munchkin), retreat, engage, fire a few uninspiring spells, watch and see.

    Stealth is not only useless, it is also incredibly annoying: you have to put your entire party into stealth-mode to detect traps and you have to do that in every room with containers in it.

    Lastly, be aware that the game has shipped with several disastrous bugs that will ruin your experience if you don't wait for them to be fixed. Even if you do play it, don't play it now!    … Expand
  73. losik
    Feb 13, 2016
    4
    There is one big issue with this game - the combat is a chore. I don't want to explore another location if I will have to defeat another group of lackluster enemies in this turnbased clickfest. I also think that developer tried to fill as much references/throwbacks to Baldurs Gate as possible to blind people with blind people with nostalgia and it looks like it worked.
    One more thing -    There is one big issue with this game - the combat is a chore. I don't want to explore another location if I will have to defeat another group of lackluster enemies in this turnbased clickfest. I also think that developer tried to fill as much references/throwbacks to Baldurs Gate as possible to blind people with blind people with nostalgia and it looks like it worked.
    One more thing - can we finally start CRPGs in cities? It is not fun to explore different possible approaches to game when I have to go through the same introductory area over and over. It is even worse here than in Wastelands 2, as most locations are out of reach until you complete quests.    … Expand
  74. ErobererZim
    Apr 1, 2015
    4
    Unfortunataly just an average game, a Baldurs Gate "light".

    I played Baldurs Gate back then, I loved the Forgotten Realm-Setting and the aD&D-Ruleset. PoE won't give you that. Obsidian created a new fanatsy-universe with its own rules and gamemechanics. PoE is Baldurs Gate's son, who did everything to fallow his fathers footsteps to make him proud, but simply hadn't the talent to begin    Unfortunataly just an average game, a Baldurs Gate "light".

    I played Baldurs Gate back then, I loved the Forgotten Realm-Setting and the aD&D-Ruleset. PoE won't give you that. Obsidian created a new fanatsy-universe with its own rules and gamemechanics. PoE is Baldurs Gate's son, who did everything to fallow his fathers footsteps to make him proud, but simply hadn't the talent to begin with to become what he was.

    Pros:
    -Overall good art design
    -Kinda good music
    -The story seems to be okey so far
    -Very aesthetic UI
    -You can only rest a couple of times in the wilds

    Con:
    -Tons of gamebraking bugs
    -German localization is a MESS. You have grammatical mistakes and misspellings in almost every single dialogue. Feels like they partly used a auto translater for this game, I'm serious right now. Or someone translated it who's motherlanguage isn't german
    -Therefore you are kinda forced to play in english
    -New Fantasy Universe with a lot of creepy races you don't give a **** about (no orcs, gnomes halfelves and so on, but some fishman and ... ratpeople? Or what are these little freeks supposed to look like? Also you can play as a alien in the game, called godlikes)
    -Only 8 (boring) follower to can recruit. All I encountered so far seem to be dull and boring, I don't really care about them. You can ask them tons of questions about their past, but other then that they don't seem to have much dialogues.
    -NO ROMANCES. You lazy asses. Sorry
    -Dialogues are strange, you can search in someones soul for information about is life he had before, which is A LOT of text, that doesn't have to to anything with the plot in the slightest. It's so interesting like reading a book in Baldurs Gate.

    -You have also a bazillion gestures and discriptions about what's your counterpart look like in the dialogues, or what he's doing at the moment, like:

    John walkes down the street, he scratches his kin. Then he notices you: "Oh hello there", he says.

    And **** like that, which is really annoying and uninteresting to read.

    Well, thats good enough for so far I suppose. It's a kinda good game, especially for 26€ you can't do anything wrong. But don't expect a second Baldurs Gate experiance. This game won't give you that.    … Expand
  75. nilleratus
    Oct 1, 2015
    4
    I'm very much a fan of this type of games, I've played them all.

    This games starts of extremely well, me and a close mate didn't talk about anything for the first few days. Act 1 is awesome. In act 2, you start getting a little bit bored because the fights are so easy, that could be countered by raising the difficulty though. In act 3 you steamroll everything and you reach max level    I'm very much a fan of this type of games, I've played them all.

    This games starts of extremely well, me and a close mate didn't talk about anything for the first few days. Act 1 is awesome. In act 2, you start getting a little bit bored because the fights are so easy, that could be countered by raising the difficulty though.

    In act 3 you steamroll everything and you reach max level late act 2 or early act 3 depending on how you play. That means the only exploration left is story and loot. This isn't diablo, so loot is only mildly interesting. So rule that out.

    The story then, it's ok, it's not bad and it's not great. I wasn't entirely captured by it but I wanted to get through it, and I did, barely because the gameplay is so **** boring the last act.

    I followed this game from the start and I'm super disappointed unfortunately :(    … Expand
  76. Wiebe
    Feb 27, 2020
    4
    I started this game 3 times, but I couldn't get in it. Maybe if it actually came out in 2005, but it was not engaging enough for me now.
  77. Voyou
    Nov 24, 2015
    4
    It seems that many bad reviews focus on bugs. Not mine. I play(ed) a bug free game. Well, with the exception of the memory management, which is so bad that the game can't work on a 32 bits system, making those programmers the laughing stock of the industry. Anyway...

    I give a less than average note because the inanity of the gameplay easily ruins any good aspect of PoE. Whatever our    It seems that many bad reviews focus on bugs. Not mine. I play(ed) a bug free game. Well, with the exception of the memory management, which is so bad that the game can't work on a 32 bits system, making those programmers the laughing stock of the industry. Anyway...

    I give a less than average note because the inanity of the gameplay easily ruins any good aspect of PoE. Whatever our favourite game is between BG2, Planescape Torment or other, most of us here enjoy the Infinity Engine. To me, the combat was their weakest point, but it was never an hindrance, and at times it was even very enjoyable. Every single fight in PoE is a pain and a bore; and there is a huge amount of bloodshed.

    Here are some of the worst and most ridiculous flaws of the game:
    - Stats and skills (the full 5 of them) are awful. The system was clearly designed by an all-too-geeky amateur.
    - Playing equals crunching numbers, complete with percentages and fractions. Not to mention that this numbers are ugly to read. This hobby feels like working.
    - Itemisation is everywhere. The looting system is as boring as in many games. What's more unusual, the spells are equally annoying to read and boring to use (e.g., AoE hobbled for 1.7 sec vs Will + dazed 2.016 sec vs For... or whatever.)
    - Fighting is nothing more than grinding, due to an accumulation of inane mechanics. You won't find here the large variety of play styles and tactics you had in an IE game.
    - To detect, you must sneak. You will then explore all maps at a turtle's pace. A terribly cheap and mean way to make a game last longer.
    - Thieves are sad. I'm the guy who plays BG2 with at least 4 thieves at once. I can safely say it's my favourite class in video games. Of course, I expected PoE to improve them (and everything else.) But you can't pickpocket, you can't backstab (well, technically you can, but you'll be dead in the next 2 seconds,) sneaking is clumsy, traps are a joke, and you can do nothing new compared to an IE game.

    This is not the place to mention and detail all the design flaws of the game, but the list goes on and on. The good sides, on the other hand, are quick to note: The game is gorgeous, and some of the companions are terrific. The only reason I'll keep playing, if sporadically, is to interact with a priest named Durance. The best NPC ever, so props to whoever wrote this geezer with such a level of maturity and intensity.    … Expand
  78. Athenryn
    Feb 11, 2016
    4
    Appalling dull, generic story and some of the worst RPG combat/level design ever devised! Just replay Baldurs Gate instead, since the only charm this game has is the BG nostalgia trip.

    I am totally done with Obsidian, no-one is better at draining the fun from an RPG, while leaving a miserable story, miserable characters and bizarre difficulty (the early levels are literally almost all    Appalling dull, generic story and some of the worst RPG combat/level design ever devised! Just replay Baldurs Gate instead, since the only charm this game has is the BG nostalgia trip.

    I am totally done with Obsidian, no-one is better at draining the fun from an RPG, while leaving a miserable story, miserable characters and bizarre difficulty (the early levels are literally almost all fights you need to come back and finish in 5 levels, it's So. Weird. To build a game like that).

    Also, YES, kickstarter is a menace with the jacked up player reviews, this is just not a fun product.    … Expand
  79. FKAsavage
    Mar 30, 2023
    4
    I really wanted to like this game, as a fan of Obsidian and the CRPG genre, but after 3 attempts this game feels a bit lifeless. I would say I held some hope for it after the intro sequence, where some interesting things do happen. Unfortunately this is not representative of the adventure that follows it.

    It reads as an inferior Dragon Age Origins, with less engaging characters,    I really wanted to like this game, as a fan of Obsidian and the CRPG genre, but after 3 attempts this game feels a bit lifeless. I would say I held some hope for it after the intro sequence, where some interesting things do happen. Unfortunately this is not representative of the adventure that follows it.

    It reads as an inferior Dragon Age Origins, with less engaging characters, cluttered lore and dry dialogue. It even feels a step back mechanically, which when considering this game is 6 years newer than DAO it's profoundly clear how dated Pillars of Eternity feels.

    I have gripes including, but not limited to:

    Antiquated mechanics and UI/interface
    Excessively long exposition dumps
    Flat, uninspired writing
    Companions that range from dull to obnoxious (Durance), but rarely likable
    Predictable enemy encounters which makes combat feel repetitive
    Complicated mechanics with barebones explanations
    Over rehearsed voice acting that lacks a feeling of authenticity
    Graphically ugly for a game made in 2015

    Despite the above, it is still a serviceable game in the sense that it does evoke the nostalgia + framework of an old school CRPG, and the combat is decent enough - I will admit that I struggle to play original BG1&2 because of how dated they are and this game is just enough of an update to be more playable, but that doesn't mean it couldn't be doing a lot better. Therefore if you enjoy those games and can frame PoE as if it was a early noughties release (along with all the shortcomings that come with that time period), and can see past the plain writing then feel free to disregard this review. I'm writing this however because it has been compared to other contemporary more dynamic, inventive, exciting CRPGs that I have adored, which is why it is disappointing to me that the drop off in quality is so apparent here. Buyer beware!

    Despite all of this, I will be trying PoE2 next, as I have heard that it corrects a lot of the mistakes of the 1st game, has more engaging combat, less monotonous writing and optimisation of its systems. Fingers crossed.    … Expand
  80. garhent
    Apr 7, 2015
    3
    If you like the suck, this is the game for you. The developers set up an old school system, completely ignoring 15 years of game progress. DO NOT MAKE A SPELL CASTER, again I repeat DO NOT MAKE A SPELL CASTER, they limited the times you can camp to reset spells and if you make a caster you will be running back to the Inn wasting 5 minutes after every battle. The game is just BAD.If you like the suck, this is the game for you. The developers set up an old school system, completely ignoring 15 years of game progress. DO NOT MAKE A SPELL CASTER, again I repeat DO NOT MAKE A SPELL CASTER, they limited the times you can camp to reset spells and if you make a caster you will be running back to the Inn wasting 5 minutes after every battle. The game is just BAD.

    Issues with the game:

    #1. Aggro. The tanks don't have a way to hold aggro so the mobs go wherever they want and one shot down your casters.

    #2. Resting. The developers decided to require you to bring camping materials (max of 2) to camp in a dungeon. If you use your skills, you have to camp to reset them. You basically are forced into playing a game with auto attacks. Loads O Fun there, might as well watch paint fly.

    #3. Forced to use Auto-Attack. Due to the limits on resting to reset skills you are stuck using auto attack. You basically end up needing to make a tank party to progress.

    All in all the art is beautiful but the game developers made some of the worst decisions I've seen in a very long time. Kudos to them, burn in hell.    … Expand
  81. ZippyZippy
    Aug 5, 2017
    3
    Honestly, this is a inconceivably overrated and generic game. The ancient mechanics receive no modernisation. The game is a sort of methodical map-clearing game, the like of which I thought I'd never have to trudge through again.

    But for me the worst thing is the writing. In a game where little else seems to spark interest, the writing is just so awfully flowery and poorly edited. As    Honestly, this is a inconceivably overrated and generic game. The ancient mechanics receive no modernisation. The game is a sort of methodical map-clearing game, the like of which I thought I'd never have to trudge through again.

    But for me the worst thing is the writing. In a game where little else seems to spark interest, the writing is just so awfully flowery and poorly edited. As someone else comments, every NPC seems to be a historian, which would be fine if the world had a credible past.

    Just awful.    … Expand
  82. monkeyking95
    Oct 11, 2016
    3
    I think there's a reason games like this aren't made anymore. It honestly didn't engage me, I never felt connected to the world or the characters. The gameplay felt stale and bland and I have no nostalgic bias towards isometric RPGs. I think those who have their nostalgic blinders on will enjoy this but if your taste in gameplay, game design and player engagement has evolved and 'moved on'I think there's a reason games like this aren't made anymore. It honestly didn't engage me, I never felt connected to the world or the characters. The gameplay felt stale and bland and I have no nostalgic bias towards isometric RPGs. I think those who have their nostalgic blinders on will enjoy this but if your taste in gameplay, game design and player engagement has evolved and 'moved on' then you won't find much here that will delight you. Pillars Of Eternity is a wilfully average game.… Expand
  83. ace99
    Mar 27, 2015
    3
    The game has very good writing, something that Obsdian always excels at, but the gameplay is extremely dull and shallow. The graphics are also somewhat bland (although the backdrops look very good) and the animations are amateurish at best. Obsidian copied the look and feel Baldur's pretty well, but they completely botched the gameplay and combat.

    This is not the Baldur's Gate 3 we were    The game has very good writing, something that Obsdian always excels at, but the gameplay is extremely dull and shallow. The graphics are also somewhat bland (although the backdrops look very good) and the animations are amateurish at best. Obsidian copied the look and feel Baldur's pretty well, but they completely botched the gameplay and combat.

    This is not the Baldur's Gate 3 we were promised and have all been waiting for. Pillars of Eternity has about as much in common with Baldur's Gate as Dragon Age: Origins does, at the core BG and PoE are radically different games.

    If I had to sum up this game in one sentence: Pillars of Eternity is a completely dumbed down Baldur's Gate 1.5. It is a huge disappointment.    … Expand
  84. Buzzerker
    May 30, 2015
    3
    Pillars of Boredom , that is what they should have called this merry go round , old retro game. Because that is what this overpriced copy of Baldur's Gate 2 updated game is. It's a pitiful game. Really I felt so stupid paying all that money for it. Since I got the Witcher 3 the Wild Hunt , I deleted Pillars of Eternity and I probably won't ever play it again for Eternity.
  85. Paulystan
    Apr 6, 2015
    3
    I think I understand why this game has scored so highly but I am still sad that it has as it was reviews on metacritic that firmed me up to buy it. It has all the elements of a good RPG in the style of Baldur's Gate but lacks a sense of... good.

    The characters are only interesting for a short while if at all. The combat is not really very good in my opinion, the music somewhat drab and    I think I understand why this game has scored so highly but I am still sad that it has as it was reviews on metacritic that firmed me up to buy it. It has all the elements of a good RPG in the style of Baldur's Gate but lacks a sense of... good.

    The characters are only interesting for a short while if at all. The combat is not really very good in my opinion, the music somewhat drab and the general feel of the game isn't deep, involving or balanced.

    It is also yet another game that has been assaulted by PC and liberal socio-political dogma which for me takes some energy out of playing it.

    It's games like this, that have so much to offer but for many reasons don't quite make it, that takes me one step closer to giving up on computer games once and for all.    … Expand
  86. BoredGamer42
    Mar 29, 2015
    3
    The story is cookie cutter and trite. A son of the Lord of Murder you are not.

    Your main character's a Watcher. You have no strong feelings about this. Your companions are dull, and generally unlikable. The effects of your choices are as profound as the Mass Effect 3 endings. The music sucks (not completely awful, but not stirring in any way). The predominant social model    The story is cookie cutter and trite. A son of the Lord of Murder you are not.

    Your main character's a Watcher. You have no strong feelings about this.

    Your companions are dull, and generally unlikable.

    The effects of your choices are as profound as the Mass Effect 3 endings.

    The music sucks (not completely awful, but not stirring in any way).

    The predominant social model in evidence is amazon lesbian (which could be so, so sexy, but plays out as women having facial hair and deep voices).

    They included a knockoff miniature giant space hamster, but not the lunatic who made it interesting.

    Screw this game.    … Expand
  87. ShawnD
    Jul 22, 2018
    3
    Very boring.

    There's just nothing to pull me into the game. Steam says I have played this game for 8 hours, but I still couldn't tell you what the game is about. It might have been stated in one of the thousands of pages of boring text, or maybe it wasn't. What is my character's motivation? Where was I going and what was I doing before any of this started? Why should I keep playing the    Very boring.

    There's just nothing to pull me into the game. Steam says I have played this game for 8 hours, but I still couldn't tell you what the game is about. It might have been stated in one of the thousands of pages of boring text, or maybe it wasn't. What is my character's motivation? Where was I going and what was I doing before any of this started? Why should I keep playing the game?

    Another weird problem is that maybe 10% of the dialog is voiced. I can understand not every character having voice actors, but the voice acting isn't even consistent with the same character. You'll be talking to someone where there is voice acting for 3 screens of them talking, and then there's no voice acting for the 5 screens after that.    … Expand
  88. Munkamunku
    Mar 28, 2015
    3
    I've played Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale etc and enjoyed them very much. It's a style of game that doesn't get enough attention these days and I was hoping that Pillars of Eternity would reignite the genre. I have to say that I think it misses the mark. Graphically Pillars is fine and I have no major issues with the gameplay. It seems to have all the elements I would want.

    The problem is    I've played Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale etc and enjoyed them very much. It's a style of game that doesn't get enough attention these days and I was hoping that Pillars of Eternity would reignite the genre. I have to say that I think it misses the mark. Graphically Pillars is fine and I have no major issues with the gameplay. It seems to have all the elements I would want.

    The problem is that the voice acting lets it down badly. I don't think that modern American accents work at all well in a fantasy / medieval setting. They're fine for sci-fi or superhero settings but sound jarring in this type of game.

    I had the same issue with Guild Wars 2 which was also an otherwise good game. I think European accents give these settings an air of authenticity which American one don't. And there are plenty of good American voice actors who can carry it off too. It's a shame, really, as I think this could have been something special.    … Expand
  89. genukz
    Apr 3, 2015
    3
    I feel like this game makes more disconcerting then fun generally, thus to me it became rly bo-o-ring in first 2 hours of play, however I've been fascinated with nostalgic impulses at first. Foes are stupid, combat is poorly controlled due to micro-management inside party, there is no real leveling but the player is compulsory has to run through the errands even if they aren't thatI feel like this game makes more disconcerting then fun generally, thus to me it became rly bo-o-ring in first 2 hours of play, however I've been fascinated with nostalgic impulses at first. Foes are stupid, combat is poorly controlled due to micro-management inside party, there is no real leveling but the player is compulsory has to run through the errands even if they aren't that generic... It lack a very Spirit that Baldur's Gate still has. How on the earth You could be able to break into the hireling creation? If this is ever possible to predict everything from totally strange person you just met at some forsaken tavern?… Expand
  90. Cathinon
    Apr 4, 2015
    3
    I really wanted to like this game. The IE games are the reason I'm a gamer, I've replayed the BG series more times than I can count and I still consider BG2 the best example of the genre. So I'm 100% the target demographic. Unlike a lot of that demographic, I didn't contribute to the kickstarter, as I'm wary of the concept, so I think I'm a little less biased than a lot of reviewers. II really wanted to like this game. The IE games are the reason I'm a gamer, I've replayed the BG series more times than I can count and I still consider BG2 the best example of the genre. So I'm 100% the target demographic. Unlike a lot of that demographic, I didn't contribute to the kickstarter, as I'm wary of the concept, so I think I'm a little less biased than a lot of reviewers. I bought the game based on the 9.2/10 it had at the time, and it falls dismally short of that number.

    It does have some things going for it. The character creation is fun/flexible, an interesting and diverse mix of races/classes/backgrounds and stat/spell/skill choices that will have IE players both right at home while feeling fresher than the straight D&D conversion of IE. The background environments are excellently drawn, and they've obviously put a lot of work into building the new setting from scratch - although it sadly still comes off as fairly generic medieval fantasy.

    Unlike the IE games, it's adopted the darker aesthetic which has taken over the genre since Game of Thrones became big, and so there's a lot of gratuitous swearing, contrived gore (the centrepiece of the first town is a tree hung with 18 rotten corpses) and the like that devs seem to feel is necessary lately.

    The IE games had dark plots and themes, but generally bright and inviting settings. Even PS:T, the darkest of the lot, was dark when it had reason to be, to drive the story, not just gratuitously to create a certain aesthetic which I personally don't feel matches with the "6 adventurers off on an quest" style. Whether you like this or not is personal taste, but as I bought the game to relive my BG experiences, I found it turned me off somewhat.

    Down to the specific issues. The first is relatively minor. The combat is somewhat clunky, enough to detract from the experience. Characters make stupid pathing decisions, sit there for a second or two before executing the commands you just gave them, spells/skills don't go off instantly after you finish casting them, and the transition in and out of combat (which controls which skills you can use) is awkward.

    The second is serious - it's riddled with bugs. A lot of people have had save games ruined completely by this - I wasn't so unlucky, but I encountered enough that they disrupted the game significantly. When a recommendation to play a game is accompanied by a list of dozens of bugs you should memorize to prevent destroying your save, you know something is wrong.

    The third is somewhat mixed. They've made some major gameplay alterations from the IE games beyond the move away from the D&D stat system (which is mostly positive). Some of them are well thought out and add to the game significantly - the ability to stealth as a group, or the ability to speed up or slow down the gameplay, so you can slow down to execute tactics in combat, then speed up to run back across another zone to town.

    Which brings me to some of the bad alterations. The first really detracted from the game for me. They've limited the number of times you can rest, depending on difficulty, 2/Hard, 4/Normal, 8/Easy. After this you have to find more of the (rare) "camping supplies" or go back to an inn to rest and restock them (for a high price). This leaves you stuck with three bad choices - utilizing your per-rest spells to their full potential and constantly running back to town and spending a lot of gold, using the minimum number of per-rest spells you can get away with each fight and leaving the classes which focus around these to spend most of their time autoattacking, or making a party around maxing per-encounter skills despite what you want to play.

    They've also (seemingly at random) made certain spells impossible to use outside combat, which is unrealistic, boring, and, combined with the clunkiness of the combat, frustrating.

    It's also very difficult to make a decent party from the NPC's, and those available (8, compared to 17 in BG2) don't have close to the inter-party dialogue and side quest content of BG2. You can create your own party members at inns for gold, but like the party members in IWD, they have no personality. You don't get your first permanent party member until an hour or so into the game, the second comes shortly after, but only if you pay attention or read a guide - if you run off to do the side quests, you'll miss him and be stuck with 2 characters until you continue the main quest.

    Lastly, the character models are plain and indistinguishable shapes in grey armor, the only way to distinguish one character from another is to mouse over them. The time spent on the different facial options was wasted, because character's faces are too small to see, and usually behind a helmet.

    In summary - it's a bad game which was released too soon, could become a decent game in 6 months with some patches and mods, but will never be the amazing game people are portraying it as. I can't in good conscience recommend it.    … Expand
  91. GreK4
    Jul 27, 2021
    3
    I so expect this game. I want play in 2015, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. But all the time just put out for my plan. And now I just take my balls in hand and buy this game. Ough.
    And... I disappointed. What is this game? I think this game only for geeks, who love played in Dungeon together with friends in a garage. So difficultly and not interested gameplay mechanics. And ok, if this one point,    I so expect this game. I want play in 2015, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. But all the time just put out for my plan. And now I just take my balls in hand and buy this game. Ough.
    And... I disappointed. What is this game? I think this game only for geeks, who love played in Dungeon together with friends in a garage. So difficultly and not interested gameplay mechanics. And ok, if this one point, that disappoint me, but not - in game bad a plot. The plot is boring and not interested me. Don't worry. I don't want get your angry and disappoint you. I just write my emotions on a paper. Don't worry.
    Game is not cool ever.    … Expand
  92. Storyteller
    Aug 14, 2016
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Let me begin this by saying I really wanted to like this game. I desperately wanted to. I tried in as many different ways as I could to convince myself that I just wasn't seeing Pillars from the right angle, that if I tried one more time I could get into it, but in the end I had to admit the truth to myself. Pillars of Eternity is garbage. This game falls flat on its face when it comes to important elements that make a great role-playing game.

    The first is the terrible cast of characters. In a game that revolves around a party of companions, they design an extremely limited (what, six, maybe seven total?) and bland cast of joinable NPCs that would never, ever travel together if you were looking at this from a story perspective. That might be forgivable if they were interesting with their own romances and side quests and intricate backstories, but they're not. The game designers seem to attempt an apology for this by shoehorning in some mechanic to design your own party of characters from the tavern, but for me that's just as half-ass as apologizing for the terrible magic weapons they designed by letting you enchant your own gear.

    The second is clearly the combat. From the basic system to the character classes to the way enemies behaved and battles generally went, it's a big gigantic mess that is not intuitive or fun to play. The basic concept of Pillars combat mechanics are confusing and annoying. Items you find are woefully inferior to the bland generic items you can enchant, and the way stats interact with your class is unbalanced and at times extremely confusing (physical strength dictates the damage wizards do with their spells -- WHAT?). Many enemies are given stunlock abilities or endlessly heal each other (such as the Paladins in Raedrics Keep), and all are automatically designed to rush your weakest characters. There's no real way to stop this, short of sending your fragile characters away from the fight at maximum range, but as soon as they move in to do anything to help, they will get rushed and die. The worst part is that after you finish that tough-as-nails epic fight, you realize you're not a damn step closer to the next level for it because of a pretentious XP system that only rewards quest completion and not body count of defeated foes.

    Third is the lack of immersion or replayability. The game makes a big deal about character race, background, culture and all that, but ultimately those choices have no impact on the actual events of the story. The 'reputation' system they tried to implement is confusing and poorly designed, so that by the time you finish the game, you will have a car crash of many different reputation types. This is made even worse when certain classes (Priest and Paladin) have class abilities whose strength depend on this broken reputation system. Quest lines allow the illusion of choice at some points, but the result is the same regardless of what you do.

    Fourth, and finally, is the story. It's not interesting. The main character can talk to dead people, and some Big Bad Evil Guy in a mask is stealing souls for some unknown, shallow and ultimately pointless purpose. The hook for even placing you where the events of the game take place is immediately revoked a couple hours in after Raedric decides to yank his offer, leaving you as some wandering nobody with no purpose other than to chase down why you have funny voices in your head. Being a Watcher is supposed to be this super-rare unique Kewl D00d power, but the most reaction I ever got out of anyone amounted to: 'You're a Watcher? Huh. That's funny.' As plot devices go it's really weak and I found myself struggling to give a single damn about magic rocks coming out of the ground, hooded people performing nefarious rituals, or my character's involvement in the whole mess at all.

    The fact that this game has gorgeous aesthetic and production value makes all of this worse. With such crucial design flaws, this is literally the RPG equivalent of a hot girl that won't put out. She'll tease you, but in the end you'll walk away with nothing but blue balls, resorting to your only option of finding some relief by drunk dialing your ex.

    That's it. Pillars of Eternity is a hot girl that doesn't put out. End of review.    … Expand
  93. Gette
    Jun 2, 2019
    3
    Another game I backed for $100 and got massively disappointed.

    The game is supposed to be a spiritual successor of BG, Icewind dale, Planescape yet the game felt more like morrowind in ie. The characters have no emotions, but only serve as info dump. You got this A god and B god over that C and bicker for D but none of them matter in the game, you won't see them. The whole game feels    Another game I backed for $100 and got massively disappointed.

    The game is supposed to be a spiritual successor of BG, Icewind dale, Planescape yet the game felt more like morrowind in ie.

    The characters have no emotions, but only serve as info dump. You got this A god and B god over that C and bicker for D but none of them matter in the game, you won't see them. The whole game feels like you're reading a 40k supplement fluff books on computer screen.

    In torment you only got Morte first and later most companions are linked to the nameless one.
    In IW everyone is generated so you learn the world by interacting itself.
    In BG characters are kept simple and you experience the world most by the player, with a few extra info from your comrades.
    In POE the super convoluted lore comes from companion dialogues that don't really matter in the story, gameplay, nor the world.

    Combat is also boring with trash mobs blocking way all the time it eventually wears off any patience left.

    While some argue New Vegas is the same, I'd say it's totally different. In NV you start with being shot and woke up exploring the world.

    In the start of POE you already got thrown away characters that I cannot remember of, and ingame myth and lore and gods and occupations and curses and names I just don't care about.

    Not recommended. Reading newspaper is more fun than this game.    … Expand
  94. bobbymcd
    Mar 24, 2018
    3
    I don't get it. I've played tons of RPGs over the years and I don't understand why people like this one.

    - Very fiddly. Neither the flow of an action RPG, nor the strategy of a turn based RPG. It falls in the worst kind of middle. - I played about 10 hours and the weapons and equipment seem almost meaningless. I don't see very many interesting choices in this regard. - It seems    I don't get it. I've played tons of RPGs over the years and I don't understand why people like this one.

    - Very fiddly. Neither the flow of an action RPG, nor the strategy of a turn based RPG. It falls in the worst kind of middle.

    - I played about 10 hours and the weapons and equipment seem almost meaningless. I don't see very many interesting choices in this regard.

    - It seems like they allowed the writers to go write to their heart's content. Wayyyy more lore and story than is interesting or appealing.

    - Really odd and esoteric formulas for basic things like hitting an enemy. I had to spend 30 minutes online looking through combat system explanations just to understand how to play it at a very basic level. I don't mind complex systems in an RPG, but this one seems needlessly weird and overly complicated.

    The difference between this and Divinity Original Sin are like night and day. One is fun, relatively easy to pick up, but has incredible strategic depth and POE seemed like a drudge to even get through 10 hours. I didn't play Baldur's Gate, judging from the other reviews I wonder if that's a prereq for enjoying this game.    … Expand
  95. PenetratorGod
    Jan 16, 2023
    3
    It's a game for the tasteless and nostalgia obsessed. It's a terrible copy of Baldur's Gate.
  96. ShinsFortress
    Oct 12, 2016
    2
    The game itself was fine, and is the second best of it's ilk to come along since all those old Infinity Engine games. Visually I liked it, sound was fine and the party system was fine. Quests and story? Fine. What's wrong with it?

    Minus a few points for very poor encounter design & planning in certain locations. Minus a few points for overdoing it with the backer placement stuff.    The game itself was fine, and is the second best of it's ilk to come along since all those old Infinity Engine games. Visually I liked it, sound was fine and the party system was fine. Quests and story? Fine. What's wrong with it?

    Minus a few points for very poor encounter design & planning in certain locations.
    Minus a few points for overdoing it with the backer placement stuff.
    Minus a zillion points for there *still* being serious bugs (e.g. entire character inventory disappears).    … Expand
  97. steddye
    Apr 10, 2018
    2
    Lost opportunity, that's what comes in my mind playing pillars of eternity. The combat system is terrible. U never know if the action you have set for a character will be performed. When you use a spell you don't know if you're close enough to cast. Companions ai is inexistent.........chaotic unsympathetic and irritating. PLS gimme back dex wisdom strenght intelligence charisma and constitution !!
  98. Irxy
    Apr 6, 2015
    2
    Graphics are nice, just as expected.
    Music is dull and unmemorable.
    Writing is average, quests are nothing special, few characters with any depth to them. Decent amount of different diolog checks is nice, though they mostly just a flavour and don't effect anything. Combat is fun but seriously lacks polish and balance. Stronghold is useless and boring, as is crafting. Overall an ok    Graphics are nice, just as expected.
    Music is dull and unmemorable.
    Writing is average, quests are nothing special, few characters with any depth to them. Decent amount of different diolog checks is nice, though they mostly just a flavour and don't effect anything.
    Combat is fun but seriously lacks polish and balance.
    Stronghold is useless and boring, as is crafting.

    Overall an ok IWD-style dungeon crawler, but not quite on the BG level.

    p.s. too sjw.    … Expand
  99. mothballs
    Apr 24, 2015
    2
    My experience of the game is so at odds with popular opinion that I am writing a review on this site for the first time ever.

    Somewhere out there on the internet are a set of composite images featuring the blended, averaged faces of thousands of different humans, male and female. Unsurprisingly, the composite faces are extremely plain and forgettable - placid eyes, neutral semi-smile,    My experience of the game is so at odds with popular opinion that I am writing a review on this site for the first time ever.

    Somewhere out there on the internet are a set of composite images featuring the blended, averaged faces of thousands of different humans, male and female. Unsurprisingly, the composite faces are extremely plain and forgettable - placid eyes, neutral semi-smile, medium-brown unblemished skin.

    The writers appropriated and reused many stock fantasy tropes in creating the world for this game, but they didn't do it in piecemeal fashion - a daub of Tolkien here, a splash of Forgotten Realms there. Instead, it feels like they grabbed every fantasy setting they could get their mitts on, crammed them into a Blendomatic, and hit Frappe. The result is sort of like those composite photos. Everything's been so averaged and smoothed over that you can't even recognize the specific source material any more. All you can tell is that you're in a fantasy setting. That's it. You can tell because there are tall people and short people, and a lot of them have names you've never heard before, and some of the people have swords and shields and others of them cast sparks out of their fingers sometimes.

    There are a lot of words in this game. A lot of lore, a lot of history, a lot of dialogue. Reading is great! I love reading, generally. But reading in this game is like reading the ingredients list on a packet of saltines, or like reading a patent for a new kind of chewing gum wrapper, because the source material is just as bland. I've played for over 20 hours (trying to squeeze my money's worth of fun out of this particular stone) and not once did an element of the world strike me as interesting; not once did I want to explore any more of the dialogue or of the in-game texts than I had to. Compare this to a game like PS:T where I was hooked from the moment I woke up on a cold slab in a transdimensional mortuary and a floating, foulmouthed skull started gabbing at me and I stayed hooked until the credits rolled (and I've played that game again, quite recently, and it's still as compelling as the first time I played it).

    It was said in another review that the game feels like it was made by people who hate the genre and hate its fans. I have to concur. They say never to attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence, but I feel the blandness of this game goes far beyond anything anybody could come up with on accident - it genuinely feels orchestrated, premeditated. A bunch of **** in a board room somewhere drummed their fingers together like Mr. Burns, cackled a dry, rasping, collective cackle and set themselves to the business of creating the biggest **** you" of a fantasy setting that the genre has ever seen.

    There are negative things to be said about the combat, the music, some other miscellaneous gameplay and HUD elements... but why bother? The soul of the game is missing: who cares if the body is flawed as well?

    The only positive thing to say about it is that the prerendered backgrounds are very pretty. I think that's about it, and it's actually amusing that most of the positive reviews start out by warning people who want sexy graphics to seek out a different game. In reality, the graphics are the only thing PoE has going for it.    … Expand
  100. Soupgoblin
    Dec 6, 2016
    2
    Not sure if anyone that has reviewed here actually played Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter, Icewind Dale and the other CRPGs...

    At best this game is lackluster, sure it has good graphics, and the dialog between the companions is great but IMHO as an old time P&P D&D player, Obsidian has failed by not using any recognizable CRPG game mechanics, and instead dumbing the game down for the    Not sure if anyone that has reviewed here actually played Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter, Icewind Dale and the other CRPGs...

    At best this game is lackluster, sure it has good graphics, and the dialog between the companions is great but IMHO as an old time P&P D&D player, Obsidian has failed by not using any recognizable CRPG game mechanics, and instead dumbing the game down for the LCD's... Using endurance and heal mechanics, but failing to include a way to actually heal... The lack of really interesting armor stats or gear stats (all armor is pretty much the same. dr and recovery). The abilities and talents choices are horrid, basicly just forcing you to chose the ones that suck the least... They know the genre, yet they decided to make the game player feel as though they have been given a blue ribbon for participation. I'm just glad that a friend loaned me his copy so I didn't have to pay for the game to find out that Obsidian, a company I trusted, would vomit this perversion of a crpg out...

    I say this after re-playing Baldur's Gate 2 last month, this game is a mere shadow of what they did with the D&D mechanics, Obsidian can do better, they have done better, and anyone who gave this game a better score than 5 should feel ashamed that they went fanboi instead of actually telling the truth.    … 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]
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