GreedFall - Gold Edition - new colonial-themed action-RPG from Spiders

[purpleblob]

So, it this incline or decline? I'm still holding off until I get more impressions.

 

[Grauken]

Gender is a bigger choice than class in the game

Big if by class you mean like profession, not social class.
Can you chose social class during creation btw? Like sinecure degenerate nobility, bourgeois explotator or working class.

Eh no, I meant the initial choice of class (warrior, mage, third thing I forgot) versus male/female has a bigger impact long-term (romances, heh), because it's basically a classless systems and depends more on where you spent your points than what you choose at the begin of the game

 

[Ibn Sina]

https://kotaku.com/greedfalls-detailed-role-playing-cant-make-up-for-its-u-1837994750

Kotaku hates it, says game is not woke enough. Thats a stamp of quality if there ever was one.

 

[Grauken]

https://kotaku.com/greedfalls-detailed-role-playing-cant-make-up-for-its-u-1837994750

Kotaku hates it, says game is not woke enough. Thats a stamp of quality if there ever was one.

Popiel has a more valid point that he can't really roleplay a massive asshole (at least not in Selene) than the Kotaku writer who expected to end up a commie revolutionary by only following the nice-guy answers, and instead ended up as a centrist who didn't offend anyone and kept up the status quo. Hilarious

I've just left Sérène and I have some thoughts on this game.

What really struck me then was how mediocre agency I have as a player when it comes to roleplaying my De Retardet (who has no name mind you) (and who I made as Aryan lookin’ as I could, to make forthcoming colonising of natives more realistic and aesthetically pleasing). For example let’s consider aforementioned Bridge Alliance (what a name for a nation they chose for themselves indeed) embassy quest. When you confront the alchemist player character chooses for you the basic course of action: you are essentially lawful (De Retardet says outright without player’s input that alchemist’s play must end) and you can do jack shit ‘bout that. What if I would like to let the guy continue his practice? He after all says that he tests his “cure” on people to perfect the formula. Yes, people will lynch him in no time, but whatever, why should I care? Perhaps they won’t? Perhaps he would really find something out?

Yes, there is some choice as to how resolve quests, the one I’m describing included, but some fundamental decisions are premade and it shows in other cases as well. I as a player had no choice as to what to talk about with my character’s mother, my Aryan coloniser absolutely respects his former nigga teacher (“master”) and can’t talk no shit to him, I can’t shit-talk my retarded cousin who also absolutely deserves that, and so on and so forth.

 

[Life of the Party]

So far the biggest negatives seem to be:

• Combat lacks depth
• Combat is too easy / too difficult
• Animation/lip synch is poor
• Role-playing options in dialogue are limited
• Enemy variety is poor
• Assets such as houses/buildings are re-used a lot

A lot of these can be attributed to Spiders being an AA studio, but the limited dialogue is disappointing.

Also companions.

Although, to be fair, when Skill Up tried to draw an unfavorable comparison he gave examples of Wrex making a sex joke and of Morrigan making an oral sex joke.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Told you guys it would be mediocre like every other one of their fucking games.

 

[Grauken]

Told you guys it would be mediocre like every other one of their fucking games.

Agreed, its a great game and I enjoy every minute of it

 

[LESS T_T]

Interesting. Game is getting mixed reviews on Steam

It's now very positive (80%).

The first day peak player number is 11,264, much higher than all time peaks of Spiders' previous games (around 1.5K~2.6K), half of that of ELEX.

And it's still the #1 global top seller, above Gears 5.

Also Eurogamer recommends it: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...comings-are-overcome-by-an-abundance-of-heart

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/...comings-are-overcome-by-an-abundance-of-heart

Greedfall review - technical shortcomings are overcome by an abundance of heart
A shipload of adventure.

Taking notes from roleplaying greats, GreedFall makes up for its faults with a lot of spirit.

Right from the off, through something as simple as fulfilling some last-minute preparations for your big sea voyage to The New World, Greedfall shows you the lengths to which you have to go to fulfil a quest. Everyone wants to set off, but the governor still hasn't shown. You start asking around for hints on the missing nobleman and visit the places where he was last seen. In a tavern, you first have to either settle his tab or repair the furniture he broke in a drunken stupor before you get the next hint.

Having acquired information on a kidnapper, you need to pass the time until he will appear at the tavern next, from where you sneakily follow him to his lair. There you can poison the guards at the door with sleeping potions, sneak past them or attempt to kill them. Several hours pass this way. GreedFall may look like an adventure filled with dashing explorers wearing capes, but at its heart, it's a detective game - and a very, very good one at that.

Your character De Sardet - it's up to you whether they're male or female - is part of the Congregation of Merchants, one of three factions colonising the island of Teer Fradee. Together with the religious zealots of Theleme and the scientific-minded Bridge Alliance, the Congregation travelled to Teer Fradee to find a cure for a mysterious plague-like illness called the Malichor. As a legate, De Sardet does a lot of, shall we say, legwork for their cousin Constantin. As Constantin is the new Congregation governor on the island to establish diplomatic relationships, there's a lot of jogging from one end of the island to the other.

The short cinematics are enjoyable and convey a great sense of action.

GreedFall's world is composed of several locations with their own maps. None have the scale of Novigrad or the Hinterlands, though that's a plus - instead of aimlessly wandering in the hope of finding something of interest, here you will gradually uncover each map, discovering new locations as questlines guide you there. There are woodlands, marshes and caverns, all with ample branching paths that make them a joy to explore.

Combat takes some cues from The Witcher, having you duck and dive against your foe. You can choose between standard starting classes, but you earn enough skill points to give every category a go. GreedFall is less generous with the points you use for classic roleplaying attributes. Skills like endurance and agility determine what kind of equipment you can carry, and your proficiency in properties like charisma let you solve quests in a variety of ways. Unfortunately, GreedFall is also stacked with bugs. It's received a large patch since I started playing, but there's still a bit of everything: vanishing textures, lighting and colour bugs, AI glitches, bugs in the inventory, animation bugs, typos in the subtitles, loading lags, sound issues.

All of which is to tell you that GreedFall is very much a typical open-world RPG. If you have ever played one, you'll be familiar with all of this. Yet GreedFall, for its faults, improves upon most of the big-name games it wants to be compared to in a couple of choice ways. The quests are one. No task is ever complete in one journey, and fetch quests, while present, are always part of a bigger whole. While it can be exhausting to travel around to solve something as scintillating as a property dispute, no quest is quite like another - and that's an astounding feat.

Greedfall can be breathtaking...

I also highly encourage investing in a diverse skillset so that you can make use of a range of options for every situation, from diplomacy to acquiring hard facts to simply scrapping your way out. When you commit to a quest, you better follow it, because if you dawdle, the person in need of rescue may die, the culprit get away, or the conflict escalate. I usually don't like being told how to play my game, especially when a quest asks me to wait until nightfall and there's little to do to pass the time - especially annoying towards the endgame when you've filled most other quests. But the commitment to consequences shows a lot of love for good quest design.

On top of this, GreedFall has great crafting and inventory management. Since money is tight and wolves in the forest don't have coins falling out of their pelt pockets, you will need the skills to craft armour enhancements and potions. Loot drops are generous, but through crafting you can enhance your inventory in ways that are otherwise rare to achieve.

It's fun. It quickly sucks you in. And yet! My main criticism against GreedFall is character writing. Rather than having a personality, characters fulfil a function. Your party members are a representation of their factions, rather than actual people. They will chime in on quests, so if you are going to visit certain factions, you'll know whom to take and not to take, and each have personal quests and romance options, but it's all mostly bloodless. The voice actors are acting their hearts out, especially Jamie Blackley as male De Sardet and Ben Lloyd-Hugues as Constantin, the writing captures the atmosphere of each situation well, but something's always... missing. There's not enough background, not enough opportunities to speak to companions outside of quests, just a general spark missing that might elevate characters to something more than just their job description.

...and seriously buggy.

I also have to talk about the colonisation-shaped elephant in the room. When asked about it, developer Spiders was quick to point out the theme chosen for its visual aesthetic, but the narrative writers did put a little more effort into the theme than that after all. You mainly negotiate peace between Teer Fradee's native population and the settlers, and the more quests you complete, the better you get to know the different native clans and the dealings they've had with the newcomers.

GreedFall does little to escape the problem central to its storyline - that you are part of a nation that just started settling on an island without permission, auspiciously under the cover of looking for a cure. While it strongly encourages kindness towards the natives, that's not just out of moral concern. You need something from them, and in order to get it, you have to gain their trust first.

There's nothing to explain why several factions thought to build large-scale settlements over 15 years or why they started trying to convert the natives to their faith. You only step in when these actions go too far, because the story can't acknowledge the real problem, which is that it isn't on the natives to seek compromise in the first place. Siora, the native princess in your party, regularly tells her people that "there is so much to learn from these people", but she's met with the argument I can only echo while playing GreedFall: what you learn is that colonisers use their technical advantage to simply take what they want, an entirely one-sided definition of profit. As the hero, De Sardet has a crucial role to play, and some of GreedFall's endings are so clichéd in legitimising them as the chosen one that my only spoiler-free comment is heaving a gusty sigh. Suffice to say that simply leaving is not an option.

GreedFall has more than its fair share of faults, and its curious mix of the sweet and the sour is far from a roleplaying revelation. But the elements that matter have been imbued with such love and care - so much so that I quickly forgave this ambitious RPG its shortcomings.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Right from the off, through something as simple as fulfilling some last-minute preparations for your big sea voyage to The New World, Greedfall shows you the lengths to which you have to go to fulfil a quest. Everyone wants to set off, but the governor still hasn't shown. You start asking around for hints on the missing nobleman and visit the places where he was last seen. In a tavern, you first have to either settle his tab or repair the furniture he broke in a drunken stupor before you get the next hint.

Having acquired information on a kidnapper, you need to pass the time until he will appear at the tavern next, from where you sneakily follow him to his lair. There you can poison the guards at the door with sleeping potions, sneak past them or attempt to kill them. Several hours pass this way. GreedFall may look like an adventure filled with dashing explorers wearing capes, but at its heart, it's a detective game - and a very, very good one at that.

I managed to not encounter a single part of this.
I found a ransom note, snuck into the hideout, and freed him.

 

[Curratum]

I can literally see and smell the lack of funding and the shortcuts taken in a single low-res image.

 

[Popiel]

Several hours pass this way.

This suggests to me that the reviewer isn't a very savvy player. It took me 2 and a half hour to do everything there was to be ever done in Sérène and please take into account usual time wasted on chargen, offline, eating and so on. That's not several hours unless you don't know how to play a fuckin' game or you don't redo everything to see different quest outcomes.

 

[Technomancer]

Are all the companions just as annoying as the first one? Will he ever shut up about my health/energy being low and his fucking potions?

I'm getting Fable flashbacks, its like guild master all over again. I thought it was pretty infamous example for other devs to not repeat. Not spiders it seems.

 

[cvv]

so goys; is this gayme a meme like elex?

You are a meme and so is your mama.

 

[Grauken]

A major design flaw Greedfall shares with The Technomancer is that non-combat skills are divided into a seperate upgrade category.

Why bribe or sneak past enemies when your character is an OP god no matter what? There needs to be some trade off in order to give non-combat skills meaning.

Oh yeh of little faith, does roleplaying amount to so little in your worldview that you need an incentive for it

 

[frajaq]

Why bribe or sneak past enemies when your character is an OP god no matter what? There needs to be some trade off in order to give non-combat skills meaning.

Well from what I've seen so far in game some quests involve faction x faction problems, where bribing/charisma/stealth/disguises are better than flat out open combat so you don't receive reputation losses

 

[Alienman]

Done with tutorial city and I'm impressed. Dialogue seems good and not drawn out. It gave me some chuckles too from the banter. Backstory is fascinating so the world building has me intrigued. I'm playing on hard and the combat seems a tad easy, but it might be because I'm still in the tutorial phase I guess. Hope it picks up. Otherwise the graphics look really damn good and atmospheric. I'm a bit baised of course, I'm a Spider fanboy. Think the only game that disappointment me a bit was Bound by Flame with how short it was. Really looking forward to explore more of this world. Pleasant surprise so far.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Is this game only available in brown or can I select green / blue too?

 

[Lyre Mors]

I'm playing on hard and the combat seems a tad easy, but it might be because I'm still in the tutorial phase I guess.

I'd knock it up to "extreme." Still a bit easier than I'd like, but I still get my ass smacked down sometimes.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I'm playing on hard and the combat seems a tad easy, but it might be because I'm still in the tutorial phase I guess.

I'd knock it up to "extreme." Still a bit easier than I'd like, but I still get my ass smacked down sometimes.

Does it have enough deph in combat system to support hard difficulty?

 

[cvv]

Is this game only available in brown or can I select green / blue too?

Mars and Technomancer were all-brown too. You got something against games of color?

 

[Dodo1610]

After more than 4h I left Serene and I have already played longer than I could stand Technomancer. Really fun AA RPG with good quests and interesting setting so far.

 

[Yosharian]

I wonder why it is that game developers just can't figure out game difficulty any more. It's almost like they are desperately trying to pitch games almost exclusively to people who don't play games, but that can't be it...

 

[Alienman]

Have to ask though, do you get XP for killing stuff, or is it only quests?

 

[Lyre Mors]

Does it have enough deph in combat system to support hard difficulty?

So far, I think so. It's still tough, and I know they didn't do any level scaling, so I imagine it'll only get more difficult. Firearms are a bit OP, but still fairly nicely balanced. You can get fucked up pretty quickly if you don't know what you're doing.

Have to ask though, do you get XP for killing stuff, or is it only quests?

Yeah, as far as I can tell, you get XP off kills.