Review RPG Codex Review: Pillars of Eternity, by Decado

[meanwhileInPoland]

shitty review for shitty game. just another day on codex

 

[serch]

The first message after a review thread is initiated by staff should be mandatorily posted by the content creator so we can properly brofist or boo him/her/it.

 

[Serious_Business]

Shit game, man. Played it for 500 hours, still not getting any less shit. Why. Maybe another 100 hours and I will finally find my answer

 

[Durandal]

Only 4 paragraphs for the story in PoE, two of which are jacking off Durance, and one (rightfully) complaining about the backer characters, leaving only one for the actual story, with some scattered paragraphs here and there talking about the setting (and Durance).
I'd usually expect more OPINIONS about a story in a cRPG, but since combat is like you said, 80% of PoE, I can't really complain there, but I still wish you would go a little more in-depth about the story and lore which PoE has no trouble getting balls deep into.
What about the characters besides Durance? It's not like I can create a party of 5 Durance's and a tank.

 

[Night Goat]

Reaches for nice things to say about PoE while downplaying the bad parts. I get the impression that Decado didn't actually enjoy this game, but his fanboyism kept him in denial.

Let's see what he has to say about the worst part of the game by far, encounter design:

Encounter design is another area in which there seems to be some profound . . . agitation. I do not agree with some of the Codex complaints that encounter design in PoE was uniformly terrible, though I will say that my above formula with Eder up front made most encounters start -- and end -- the same way. It also doesn’t help that the guy is nigh unkillable. Anyway, sometimes you will stumble into a horde of enemies completely unprepared, but there are also some instances where a careful reading of the terrain will announce an upcoming fight (say, the sewers under Raedric's Hold), and you are rewarded for positioning your party and dropping down (the limited selection of) pre-fight buffs. The two fights against Raedric, and the two dragons in the Paths of Od Nua, are examples of tough encounters that will really test your mettle; on the other hand, fights against the game's main antagonist organization are frequently underwhelming, if not completely cheesy. And sometimes the game is guilty of simply throwing enemies at you in a way that feels lazy. But overall, encounters rarely left me me bored, and they were frequently exciting and challenging, which is the best I can declare about any video game combat, really. I have to say, I don't get all the disgruntled grumbling about the game's encounter design.

He praises the game for having four good fights (wow!), and admits that the game lazily throws encounters at you that start and end the same way. THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE DOING FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE GAME. But then he says that they're exciting and challenging (no examples except the 4 boss fights he mentioned), and that he doesn't get the disgruntled rumbling about it. 10/10 it's okay!

 

[jagged-jimmy]

(Check out the honest review by Darth Roxor here.)

Fixed.

Nice examples of scripted interactions - the only one in the game that did not suck.

 

[markec]

In PoE you have to actually care about party placement

You mean you should always remember to have a tank walking in front.

though I will say that my above formula with Eder up front made most encounters start -- and end -- the same way. It also doesn’t help that the guy is nigh unkillable.

Sounds like a game in which you spend watching your unkillable tank tanking yet another group of enemies while other shoot from the distance.

sometimes the game is guilty of simply throwing enemies at you in a way that feels lazy. But overall, encounters rarely left me me bored, and they were frequently exciting and challenging

Its really exciting to play a game in which 80% of the content is fighting in a completely the same way.

 

[Athelas]

What about the characters besides Durance? It's not like I can create a party of 5 Durance's and a tank.

Mods will fix it.

 

[Kz3r0]

Guys, here my definitive review of Pillars of Eternity:
Avellone's characters are the best part of the game, Durance and Grieving Mother.
The worst parts are made by Sawyer, everything else.
/thread

 

[Decado]

fanboyism

 

[Cowboy Moment]

PoE obviously is a spiritual successor to IE games. Problem is, when compared to said games, it doesn't really stand out. Even more so, it lacks in the areas IE games tended to shine in, like the design of combat encounters, dungeons and loot.

I'm playing Witcher 3 at the moment, and find it baffling that a 100+ person AAA+ popamole Skyrim-killer has more personality and colour to it than a small team crowdfunded isometric RPG. Similarly, say what you will about D:OS, but the game was clearly a product of passion and a strong creative vision. PoE feels like it was made by people who didn't particularly want to make this kind of game. It lacks soul and doesn't sing the blues.

 

[Weirdstuffinspace]

And shows jewish melnorme for what they are.

They faked all their love for these games to get the cash so no wonder too. linking this as official review is pathetic too. What makes this review more official codex then darth roxors?

 

[King Crispy]

To the jaded grognard who is suspicious of everything made before 1989, some disconcerting cracks may begin to appear.

If you guys ever need another proof-reader I'm fucking awesome at this job... At least when it's in German but still.

I had pointed out this glaring error in Admin about two weeks ago BUT DOES ANYONE EVER LISTEN TO CRISPY? NO.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I had pointed out this glaring error in Admin about two weeks ago BUT DOES ANYONE EVER LISTEN TO CRISPY? NO.

Should've tagged me or something. I overlooked your post (oops )

 

[DeepOcean]

grumpy Calisca . . . oh Calisca, what you might have been! It takes big brass balls to make the obvious investment in this character and then kill her 30 minutes into the game but Obsidian isn't horsing around. I was momentarily upset, especially when I realized I would have to finish the dungeon with Heodan, but thankfully he also gets brutally murdered. Anyway, it is this kind of commitment that makes PoE stand out from a lot of other games: the willingness to go all George RR Martin on your ass and kill a character you actually like, in a pretty petty and meaningless way.

Man, don't want to start a butthurt war with you Decado, my energies of "basement dweller, shitlord, grognard, Neanderthal that only like golden babies flying" (that people so charmly claim those who don't like PoE are) are spent and I don't have more will to drama but I think you exagerated a little, little bit here, don't you think?

 

[naossano]

That Calisca thing seems pretty Biowarian. That is a nice tribute to BG...

 

[Ulminati]

Zorba the Hutt I still wish we'd gotten that review. Maybe later, after the expansion packs, we can get something similar to what that review was aiming to be.

Paid advertising?

 

[crawlkill]

I managed to feel noble by dumping my Might and Constitution to 3, which let me have 18s in every other stat and be shit for anything but dialogue options and crowd control in a fight (which fortunately my cypher was actually pretty good at). I do have to admit I often felt like I was avoiding fights or forcing NPCs to be sensible with my stat-based dialogue options. Never in important circumstances, though.

So, like, the dude who's hanging everyone in that first town because he blames them all for the Hollowborn. There's so much goddamn (boring-ass) text in this game--and there was really no way to get him to relent, maybe abdicate and go live in exile as he realizes What He's Done? I can't bring him the Grieving Mother and some NPC from the clinic in Defiance Bay to try and get him to understand that he's being irrational? Nonconventional narrative solutions that aren't instantly obvious are some of the coolest things in RPGs, but no, just a big fuckoff fight I had to cheese with a doorway to handle at the level I'd gotten to it. C'mon. That's such a disappointment.

 

[Turok]

Nice review.

 

[Arthandas]

Crooked Bee you look different, new hair?
Speaking of avatars, ERYFKRAD, I think this one fits you better now:

 

[Decado]

grumpy Calisca . . . oh Calisca, what you might have been! It takes big brass balls to make the obvious investment in this character and then kill her 30 minutes into the game but Obsidian isn't horsing around. I was momentarily upset, especially when I realized I would have to finish the dungeon with Heodan, but thankfully he also gets brutally murdered. Anyway, it is this kind of commitment that makes PoE stand out from a lot of other games: the willingness to go all George RR Martin on your ass and kill a character you actually like, in a pretty petty and meaningless way.

Man, don't want to start a butthurt war with you Decado, my energies of "basement dweller, shitlord, grognard, Neanderthal that only like golden babies flying" (that people so charmly claim those who don't like PoE are) are spent and I don't have more will to drama but I think you exagerated a little, little bit here, don't you think?

What is it you think I'm exaggerating? That I liked Calisca, or that Heodan was a worthless whiny toobox? I actually thought it was pretty cool of them to kill her off, just like that. I 100% did not see it coming.

 

[crawlkill]

What is it you think I'm exaggerating?

She had, like, a total of two minutesworth of exposition about herself, which was actually just a frame for exposition about your character (which of course the player can't understand, because the setting so loves to use goofy words and we're not familiar with its geography at that point, if we ever do manage to become so). Seems like a pretty significant exaggeration to suggest it was in some way bold.

 

[Decado]

What is it you think I'm exaggerating?

She had, like, a total of two minutesworth of exposition about herself, which was actually just a frame for exposition about your character (which of course the player can't understand, because the setting so loves to use goofy words and we're not familiar with its geography at that point, if we ever do manage to become so). Seems like a pretty significant exaggeration to suggest it was in some way bold.

Well it's my opinion, based on my subjective feeling that I liked the character. Boldness would be in the eye of the beholder, I suppose.

 

[Tigranes]

Um.

Why do we have a Codex reviewer who plays the game on Normal? Who thinks Normal in any RPG is a reasonable difficulty? Most Codexers play on harder difficulties, and more importantly, RPGs are traditionally so easy that you get a distorted view of mechanics on such a low difficulty.

Why do we have a Codex reviewer who clearly has such a limited experience of the game mechanics that he blurts out nonsense like "Mages are are almost pure damage dealers" (hahahahahaha)? We have many people here who have an excellent grasp on the mechanics - and would still offer a balanced account. Instead the first paragraph on combat is just "hey gais this is my party isnt it cool lah"

With that in mind, one thing you cannot say about PoE is that it fails to accurately mimic playing an IE game back in the late 1990s. If you think PoE isn't a real spiritual successor to the IE games, there is a good chance you are misremembering how the IE games actually played.

Why do we have a Codex reviewer who is using the same kind of non-logic that Gamefaqs morons might use to tell you how old games suck and everyone on the Codex just has nostalgia? I'm not even opposed to the defense: I've been telling everyone for weeks that all this "IE was entirely different lol POE sux" stuff was often unfounded. But it's a stupid and ineffective argument to just tell people they don't remember IE games properly.

Where the review touched on legitimate points, like build balance, significance of attributes or poor itemisation, it doesn't even make any substantial arguments. I suppose it's a useful review for... um... people who never bothered to read any Codex threads? Not that it's exactly selling the Codex Standard to non-Codex readers, either, which some reviews tried to do.

I love POE but I have no idea what this review was meant to achieve at any level. With respect / apologies to Decado I'd like to learn what he was trying to even communicate.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Crooked Bee you look different, new hair?

One of my older haircuts actually.