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No game deserves to be this good. If you’re a fan of Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale, or any similar cRPG, Pillars of Eternity and its sequel (PoE II: Deadfire) are probably a good purchase for you. Sadly, both games still have their flaws, which is what I’ll be talking about for most of this review. Don’t let that discourage you, though – they are both solid Tier One material and you should buy them as soon as possible.
The System
Pillars of Eternity is built using lessons about mechanics taken from the Infinity Engine and lessons about story taken from Neverwinter Nights 2 and Fallout: New Vegas. Though I still haven’t played Fallout: New Vegas (partly due to my dislike of the setting and other games in the franchise), Neverwinter Nights 2 is one of my favorite cRPGs. I was almost tempted to include a section on Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights, but there’s already a quality YouTube look at both of those franchises that covers everything I could think of and more. As for Pillars of Eternity, there are so many quality of life improvements over the earlier games that it is difficult to play them any more. There are options for almost everything, granular difficulty tuning, and a “Stash” of inventory so you don’t have to worry about inventory management.
The Beginning
I’ll be looking at both games at once here, since the second one is highly dependent on the first. At the start of the first game, you are suffering from a fever that kept you unconscious as you traveled with a caravan. You wake and are introduced to your caravan-mates. Sadly, this is also where the problems start. After a lengthy character creation process using an entirely new system, you are dropped into a world and are immediately assaulted with statements about “Eir Glanfath”, “Adra”, “Animancers”, “Bîaŵacs”, and more. Let me tell you, it was not a pleasant introduction. Baldur’s Gate got away with many of their shortcuts because players were already familiar with the AD&D ruleset and the campaign setting of the Forgotten Realms. When Elminster shows up, you’re supposed to be aghast because you (as a player) know who he is. Pillars of Eternity, on the other hand, has to introduce an entire game system and the lore to go with it. It’s handled…clumsily, which I imagine has turned many people off of investing time into the game.
Once you get past all that, though, the tremendous amount of worldbuilding does become a boon. Towards the end of my playthrough, people were talking with half their words in a conlang, but I understood anyway because of what had gone before. The second game greatly increases both mechanical and linguistic transparency by allowing you to hover over a word for explanations.
The Combat
At first, the combat system can also be difficult to understand. As you would expect, the combat becomes more understandable with time and there’s a fantastic granularity to how you can fight. If you play on normal difficulty but pay close attention, you can usually defeat encounters several levels above your own. If you don’t want to deal with that, you can just work on lower level missions until you level up. It’s not a perfect combat system by any means, but it is serviceable and fun. There are plenty of opportunities to try new things, and it never really felt like a drag on progress. If you were in a lower level area, you can just set the combat to fast mode and grab a drink. If you’re in a higher level area, you can slow things down and pause every few seconds to check on everyone’s status.
I have very few complaints about the combat, but the few shortfalls are noticeable. For the most part, these shortfalls are in PoE II: Deadfire. There are many, many traps in the world which can cause serious injury and outright death. But even after discovering a trap, the AI won’t route your party around it. Party members blissfully walk across the red glowing section of the floor and end up permanently dead – it’s a strange and glaring oversight. In the same vein, there are combats with small pillars called Sigils. These are AoE debuff cannons…with effects that stack and don’t go away until you rest. Their effects are just a bit too powerful and a bit too annoying (+10% damage taken, for example) for this to work well with the rest of the combat.
The Story and Companions
This is where the game really shines. The companions are likable (even the intentionally grumpy ones), have intricate backstories, and are often insightful or funny. The sequel only improves on this by adding some less talkative sidekicks for those who don’t like their party members commenting on your every action, but don’t want the generic NPCs from the bar. One of my favorite sidekicks in the sequel was a dwarf gigolo I found in a brothel. I talked him in to an adventuring life; he gathered up his massage oils and followed me. Each companion has their own motivations and interactions with other party members, as well as the standard personal quest. These quests never feel out of place, and they often contribute to the overall story.
The story is equally impressive. At first, you’re just tracking down a mysterious man who tampered with your soul. The story is wonderfully told and deep enough that you can find new facets to explore on subsequent playthroughs. Even better, Obsidian is very good at letting you be evil – not “kill everyone for no reason” evil (though you can do that, too), but a truly self-serving Evil. Conversation options never seem limited – there’s almost always a third option (and a fourth and fifth). As the story continues in the second game, this level of detail is upheld. Unfortunately, the story also takes a decidedly power-fantasy turn around the second act of the sequel – not entirely undeserved due to your massive power at this point in the game, but still a little off-putting. Every character turns to you and you only, even when your companions have been there every step of the way. If the game were able to give your companions some epic moments and share your credit – just a little – I think this feeling would disappear entirely and the game would be better for it.
The Original
It’s hard to argue with the original – it’s still rough around the edges, but there’s massive amounts of content and fantastic combat. Things never feel stale, and you never reach the point of being overpowered. Other than the aforementioned info dump at the beginning, there are few complaints I have specific to this game. The one I can think of results from its provenance as a Kickstarter game. Scattered throughout the world are NPCs with golden outlines and tombstones at several cemetaries. Both the NPCs and gravestones are rewards to Kickstarter backers – as expected, these break immersion and are usually written in a very different style (for obvious reasons). It’s fairly easy to ignore these entirely, but it can be quite jarring the first few times you run into them.
The Sequel
The sequel (Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire) I have to take as both a standalone game and as a sequel, and many of its problems stem from its status as a sequel. The power-fantasy feeling is the most obvious, but there are less immediately noticeable problems which detract from the experience as well. The world, though seemingly large, is mostly centered around the capital city on a single island of an archipelago. About half my playtime was spent at the capital, which was only the second island I visited. Until I was well into the game, there was almost no reason for me to leave the island and go exploring. By that time, I had enough money to buy whatever supplies and ships I needed, eliminating all possibility of challenge. The sea-faring parts of the adventure were part of the main pitch of the game, so I found this mildly disappointing. This may be due in part to my experience with Sunless Sea, the king of dangerous sea-faring games. Compared to Sunless Sea, Deadfire contains practically no challenge and no danger. Even the ship combat becomes trivial once you have the resources, and hunting bounties becomes a chore rather than a challenge.
Looking at Deadfire as a sequel, these flaws make it almost unforgivable. A sequel should expand and remix the original (like Portal 2 or Legend of Grimrock II) – otherwise it should just be DLC. There are exceptions, like the Avernum series, since they are more like individual campaign DLC/continuations released on a single game system. Pillars of Eternity II, though a perfectly serviceable and enjoyable game, falls very fall short of being a good sequel. I judge it based on its merit as a sequel because it tried to be a sequel, rather than a continuation. It added sailing, an archipelago, and some of the best sea-shanty interludes I’ve heard in a game. But in all of these (except the sea shanties), it never quite lives up to its potential.
Still, you shouldn’t take this as a condemnation of the game as a whole. Some of the best moments in the duology (particularly the DLC) are in Deadfire, and the story and companions are just as good as the first game. There are many quality of life improvements in the second game, making the whole experience a little smoother. I nitpick because these are such fantastic games that fall just short of perfection. Though there are definite flaws, I can also imagine sinking another 100 hours into these games which took me 100 hours to beat (including DLC).