Prime Junta
Guest
Every once in a while, a game comes along that just clicks. You become willing, even eager to overlook its flaws. Cynicism melts away as you fall into its world, to emerge at the other end starry-eyed, a little like being in love. We've all played such games. That's why we're here. There's Bloodlines and its shit combat. There's Torment and its trap attribute choices and, uh, shit combat. There's Fallout and it's monotonous shoot-it-in-the-eyes "tactics." There's Mask of the Betrayer and its camera that's about as much fun as sticking splinters under your fingernails. There's Baldur's Gate 2 and all the shit about it I won't go into here because that's not the point.
And now there's Pillars.
I'm a storyfag. Or more like lorefag really. If a game gives me a world that's coherent, believable, and lived-in, I can forgive a lot. Pillars has that in abundance. It's far better in this respect than any IE game other than Torment. We have nations fighting wars for reasons which make sense, with power relations changing, alliances shifting, fortunes reversing, and reversing again. We have technological, scientific, and social progress. We have people with complex relations to their gods, whom the follow -- or hate, or resent, or wrestle with -- for human reasons. We have -- finally -- put to sleep the Scots dwarf, with subraces no longer forming only their own cultures. In fact we have a range of cultures that's far broader and more interesting than anything I remember seeing in any cRPG, and drawing from a much broader range of historical cultures than just about any other game I've played. Eora exists for its own reasons, not just as a sandbox for you to play in.
The writing and story were really good as well. We had a compelling, memorable, and really well voiced antagonist, equally compelling allies like Lady Webb, and a general flow that kept a lot of freedom without losing momentum. Not flawless, mind: like most games with a blank-slate protagonist, the main story had some problems with character motivation and acknowledgment of character choices or background (what if I thought being a Watcher was the coolest thing evar?) and the companion writing was somewhat uneven, but I was only disappointed with one of them, and there only a little. The companions' motivations for hanging out with me made sense, for the most part and with relatively minor exceptions, and they had distinct and interesting personalities, even the not-so-likeable ones. We've come a long way here from "For Shar!" and "For the Balance!"
I also dug the pacing. It picked up speed as it went. Twin Elms didn't have nearly as much stuff in it as Defiance Bay, but that felt right: by that point, I didn't want to get bogged down in faction politics or the like.
And... I loved the way the game was an obvious parable of the stuff that's going on in our world right now. Also the way nobody's appeared to pick up on it, despite its obviousness.
Story aside, with Pillars, though, there really wasn't all that much to forgive. I loved the character mechanics. I loved the writing, quests, and companions. And I loved the combat.
The character classes and their development are, by and large, really well thought-out and fun. The classes are genuinely differentiated: playing a fighter isn't like playing a ranger or paladin -- not quite -- and despite their superficial similarities, the wizard and druid are actually quite different when you look more closely.
There's also a quite a bit of wiggle room within the classes. In my playthrough, charname was actually built "against type" -- a fighter where I pumped Dex, had high Res and Per, above-average Mig, and dumped Con and Int, and then only picked offensive talents on levelup. The result was very different than tank-and-spanking: I built Edér and Pallegina much the same way, and ended up with a front line that was both durable and devastating, but had to deal with creatures getting past it due to the engagement limits.
When I changed my party composition, I had to change my tactics as well. The only character who stayed with the party almost all through was Durance; I switched everyone else in or out as the spirit moved me (or as companion quests required), and consequently had to adjust the way I was doing things fairly frequently. That was a lot of fun.
I also really dug most of the combat encounters, and combat itself. The difficulty was just about in the sweet spot for me; it felt challenging but not frustrating. Some of the boss battles were a little underwhelming though; the dragon fights were not like any of the dragon encounters in the IE games. Other than that, the fights were varied, fun, and interesting, and I had to work to keep my lines straight and stop the battlefield from turning into chaos and ruination. Success felt extremely rewarding: it wasn't so much about winning a fight -- most of them were easily winnable -- as winning it with minimal expenditure of resources. Pulling out all the stops when I was starting to run low on health or fatigue was hitting was fun too. But yeah, the game could've used some more hard boss battles -- as it is, I only had to reload a couple of times with the final battle, and with one optional late-game challenge which I took on one level "too early" (the counter to the main danger came one level later).
And, of course, the damn thing is gorgeous, with fantastic sound and music really creating a feeling of time and space.
(Also, guns. BOOOM! hahaha)
Okay, so much for the gushing. What could use improvement?
The stronghold. That felt tacked-on and superfluous. The should've put less stuff in it, but done more with it. Would it have killed Tim Cain to think of something more evocative than "Major Adventure" for Christ's sake?
The crafting and enchantment system. It made items feel same-y, and was way too easy. "Add Corroding Lash. Click!" At the very least, I would have made Fine/Exceptional/Superb properties of the base item rather than something you can add later, and required you to go to a workshop to craft. I would also have had a skill or talent requirement for it, even if that's all it's used for.
"Assembly-line" feel that shows through in some respects. The way the item effects are broken down into specifics, or the way many monsters are clearly put together from available parts. Understandable given the scope of the game and limited time and budget, but jarring nevertheless.
The spell FX and camera angle. They made things really hard to see in combat sometimes, and some of the FX slowed framerates to a crawl.
The lack of depth in the spell system. No hard counters yadda yadda, but I would have liked some approximation of back-and-forth spell battles. The only counters I ended up using were Prayer against Fear and Suppress Affliction, and the only hostile effects that were nasty enough to require special attention were Petrified and Charmed. Why not fold in counters into the spells themselves?
The fragility of enemy casters. They were only threatening en masse. If there's a single caster, it's like he has a huge bull's eye painted on his forehead and is really easy to murder.
Boss battles. As mentioned above, they were usually underwhelming, with no special tactics or thought needed. Especially dragons which were just overgrown lizards really.
Level 8 of the Endless Paths. That was dull. I left the rest of the dungeon unexplored. Hit the level cap just before the endgame anyway, even with all my party switching.
That voice actress with an S that sounds like fingernails on chalkboard.
(Version played: 1.05. Before that, I ran through the first part of the game several times with several different characters built different ways, as well as putting about 75 hours into the backer beta. Difficulty setting Hard, with auto-level companions Off but no other major difficulty changes.)
And now there's Pillars.
I'm a storyfag. Or more like lorefag really. If a game gives me a world that's coherent, believable, and lived-in, I can forgive a lot. Pillars has that in abundance. It's far better in this respect than any IE game other than Torment. We have nations fighting wars for reasons which make sense, with power relations changing, alliances shifting, fortunes reversing, and reversing again. We have technological, scientific, and social progress. We have people with complex relations to their gods, whom the follow -- or hate, or resent, or wrestle with -- for human reasons. We have -- finally -- put to sleep the Scots dwarf, with subraces no longer forming only their own cultures. In fact we have a range of cultures that's far broader and more interesting than anything I remember seeing in any cRPG, and drawing from a much broader range of historical cultures than just about any other game I've played. Eora exists for its own reasons, not just as a sandbox for you to play in.
The writing and story were really good as well. We had a compelling, memorable, and really well voiced antagonist, equally compelling allies like Lady Webb, and a general flow that kept a lot of freedom without losing momentum. Not flawless, mind: like most games with a blank-slate protagonist, the main story had some problems with character motivation and acknowledgment of character choices or background (what if I thought being a Watcher was the coolest thing evar?) and the companion writing was somewhat uneven, but I was only disappointed with one of them, and there only a little. The companions' motivations for hanging out with me made sense, for the most part and with relatively minor exceptions, and they had distinct and interesting personalities, even the not-so-likeable ones. We've come a long way here from "For Shar!" and "For the Balance!"
I also dug the pacing. It picked up speed as it went. Twin Elms didn't have nearly as much stuff in it as Defiance Bay, but that felt right: by that point, I didn't want to get bogged down in faction politics or the like.
And... I loved the way the game was an obvious parable of the stuff that's going on in our world right now. Also the way nobody's appeared to pick up on it, despite its obviousness.
Story aside, with Pillars, though, there really wasn't all that much to forgive. I loved the character mechanics. I loved the writing, quests, and companions. And I loved the combat.
The character classes and their development are, by and large, really well thought-out and fun. The classes are genuinely differentiated: playing a fighter isn't like playing a ranger or paladin -- not quite -- and despite their superficial similarities, the wizard and druid are actually quite different when you look more closely.
There's also a quite a bit of wiggle room within the classes. In my playthrough, charname was actually built "against type" -- a fighter where I pumped Dex, had high Res and Per, above-average Mig, and dumped Con and Int, and then only picked offensive talents on levelup. The result was very different than tank-and-spanking: I built Edér and Pallegina much the same way, and ended up with a front line that was both durable and devastating, but had to deal with creatures getting past it due to the engagement limits.
When I changed my party composition, I had to change my tactics as well. The only character who stayed with the party almost all through was Durance; I switched everyone else in or out as the spirit moved me (or as companion quests required), and consequently had to adjust the way I was doing things fairly frequently. That was a lot of fun.
I also really dug most of the combat encounters, and combat itself. The difficulty was just about in the sweet spot for me; it felt challenging but not frustrating. Some of the boss battles were a little underwhelming though; the dragon fights were not like any of the dragon encounters in the IE games. Other than that, the fights were varied, fun, and interesting, and I had to work to keep my lines straight and stop the battlefield from turning into chaos and ruination. Success felt extremely rewarding: it wasn't so much about winning a fight -- most of them were easily winnable -- as winning it with minimal expenditure of resources. Pulling out all the stops when I was starting to run low on health or fatigue was hitting was fun too. But yeah, the game could've used some more hard boss battles -- as it is, I only had to reload a couple of times with the final battle, and with one optional late-game challenge which I took on one level "too early" (the counter to the main danger came one level later).
And, of course, the damn thing is gorgeous, with fantastic sound and music really creating a feeling of time and space.
(Also, guns. BOOOM! hahaha)
Okay, so much for the gushing. What could use improvement?
The stronghold. That felt tacked-on and superfluous. The should've put less stuff in it, but done more with it. Would it have killed Tim Cain to think of something more evocative than "Major Adventure" for Christ's sake?
The crafting and enchantment system. It made items feel same-y, and was way too easy. "Add Corroding Lash. Click!" At the very least, I would have made Fine/Exceptional/Superb properties of the base item rather than something you can add later, and required you to go to a workshop to craft. I would also have had a skill or talent requirement for it, even if that's all it's used for.
"Assembly-line" feel that shows through in some respects. The way the item effects are broken down into specifics, or the way many monsters are clearly put together from available parts. Understandable given the scope of the game and limited time and budget, but jarring nevertheless.
The spell FX and camera angle. They made things really hard to see in combat sometimes, and some of the FX slowed framerates to a crawl.
The lack of depth in the spell system. No hard counters yadda yadda, but I would have liked some approximation of back-and-forth spell battles. The only counters I ended up using were Prayer against Fear and Suppress Affliction, and the only hostile effects that were nasty enough to require special attention were Petrified and Charmed. Why not fold in counters into the spells themselves?
The fragility of enemy casters. They were only threatening en masse. If there's a single caster, it's like he has a huge bull's eye painted on his forehead and is really easy to murder.
Boss battles. As mentioned above, they were usually underwhelming, with no special tactics or thought needed. Especially dragons which were just overgrown lizards really.
Level 8 of the Endless Paths. That was dull. I left the rest of the dungeon unexplored. Hit the level cap just before the endgame anyway, even with all my party switching.
That voice actress with an S that sounds like fingernails on chalkboard.
(Version played: 1.05. Before that, I ran through the first part of the game several times with several different characters built different ways, as well as putting about 75 hours into the backer beta. Difficulty setting Hard, with auto-level companions Off but no other major difficulty changes.)
Last edited by a moderator:
Metacritic 90+ GOTY game for Hipsters and SJWers. 
forbid fun as game. Frack this AA- shit only games recently which were fun to play were titles like Starsector, AoD, Grim Dawn, Underrail... build by people with pation for games and gaming not artists, posers or social justice ideolologies.
