After playing through Tyranny, my mind was ruled by one tantalising deduction; if Tyranny was that good, just think about how great Pillars of Eternity is going to be! Because as it just so happens, Pillars of Eternity is the CRPG that put Obsidian back on the map as a serious contender in the field of role playing games. It reintroduced people to what a classic RPG could be and is credited often as one of the great revivers of the genre in the popular eye. It rode a successful kickstarter campaign and blew away people so much that it was constantly praised as a must play title in the year of it's launch and often since. So if I played their very next game which failed to be given the adoration it so deserved, then I could hardly guess how unimaginably superior the game must be which did get all the love and attention. That was my thoughts, my hopes, my dreams, going into Pillars of Eternity, and now that I'm on the otherside of that journey... I'll admit that I might have overhyped myself a bit.
To be fair, Pillars of Eternity is in no way a bad game, don't get me wrong, it's just an entirely different beast to Tyranny in ways that might seem subtle to an outsider. Having played them both I can pretty conclusively assess that I am much more inclined to the style of game that Tyranny was, but I did start to come around on POE's style. However I'm getting ahead of myself, let me present you first with the style with which I've decided to attack this review. (Oh, this is a review, by-the-by) I've already shared my thoughts on Tyranny and thus you know how I feel; (I've linked that blog above if you want a refresher) so seeing as how this is another same-genre title from the same developer, I've decided to use Tyranny as a baseline to compare and contrast. From there I can branch off into the things that I like about Pillars and those that I didn't like so much, summing up my ultimate feelings by the end. (Okay? Okay, let's get into a completely separate world of magic and might, but with an entirely different tyrannical force ruling over the world.)
Gameplay
To start with, we have that most important of aspects; the raw game itself. Obvious enough is that POE is a isometric RPG party based game with skills, equipment and levelling trees, but what makes it a CRPG worthy of note is in it's approach to these elements. You see, Pillars of Eternity is Dungeons and Dragons, and it's actually quite the lucky coincidence for me that I've been getting into D&D enough recently to recognise that. What I mean by that is whereas other RPG's have simplified themselves to the point where the progression systems becomes largely about comparing 'armour ratings' (whatever that means) POE puts weight every which where, in it's class selection, picked skills and raw equipment stats. A great weapon from the beginning is actually quiet likely to be a good weapon by the endgame, provided you invest correctly in the right trees. Thus spawns Pillars of Eternity's most rewarding mechanism and biggest barrier to entry.
You see, in other RPGs, including Tyranny, there comes a sort of relief in creating you character and levelling them up because you always know that no matter what wall you come up against you can eventually become strong enough to pass it. Pillars isn't necessarily different, but it feels different. Every single point you put in towards an attribute is significant, because outside of the character creator you won't really get a chance to add to them. Skills are selected once every couple of levels, so picking something you're unlikely to use can become a real detriment that you'll remember. Nailing a class that feels effective in combat, that hits those crits when you want them and makes those all important saving throws when it's necessary, feels spectacular; but going in with the wrong set-up, putting weight behind a level up option you find yourself regretting, that feels like an almost unassailable impediment. I can't recall another game in which I've actually dreaded the level-up process quite as much as this one, (Both in a good way and a bad way) so I'll call POE unique in that fashion. 
Of course, the important question is how all of this levelling actually shapes up in the gameplay. In a vein similar to Baldur's Gate and Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity features full action combat wherein there's no turn based mechanism. You can, however, still pause the game in order to make individual choices, and that becomes incredibly important as the you get deeper into the game and the range of spells and abilities to you opens up. As some of the more martial classes, your Paladin, Ranger and Monk, you'll find things mostly manageable even in the advanced levels, but as a spell caster the number of abilities at your disposal can get out of hand fast. Priests, Druids and Wizards, for example, all get granted access to a plethora of abilities when levelling up to the next spell-class threshold. (Spells are divided into class levels for how powerful they are, similar to D&D) On first play you will absolutely proceed with using your support mages with absolutely no idea what half of their spells do, and that's because you'll be juggling about 5-8 complicated abilities per class. At first it seems pretty overwhelming, but with some practice you'll learn to just give up and remember the spells you want to use, because there's just too many to recall. (Remember the problem I had with getting too many spells by the end of Tyranny? That sort of helped me get to grips with this game's system.)
But whilst I'm talking about abilities, and they are worth the lengthy discussion for how they shape the flow of combat, I want to mention the other major aspect POE took from D&D; spell uses. You see, there's no mana bar to juggle dictating how many spells you can cast. (or lengthy cooldowns like in Tyranny) instead there's a limited amount you can cast between battles. Either these are 'per Encounter' uses, which means that for every separate combat situation you get a refill on uses, or it's 'per Rest' in which case you need to actually find an Inn and sleep or use a campfire. (Campfires, of course, being a limited resource due to how much more convenient they are in extended dungeon crawls.) This is a rule right out of the D&D playbook, and it extends to some magic items too so that every single major power move in combat is a resource management game. It lends this importance to everytime you throw a spell, and makes it so that you'll really be weighing up the utility of the ability with the situation that you're in, as well as feeling the fatigue during those extended explorative bouts. It's an extra weight to the gameplay that takes some getting used to, but I appreciate the added value it ended up making me attribute to combat.
Another big change from most RPGs out there, although something I'm starting to learn is hugely desirable for CRPGs fans out there, is the way in which this game features 6 party slots instead of 4. Typically four party slots take up a Tank, a healer and two free slots to do with what you will. That's universal, almost every single RPG with party-systems that I've ever played work out like that. (Even when you're brute forcing the classes to fit the roles you want to assign) It never really occurred to me how two extra slots, and a game balanced to work with that, would change up party composition so drastically. Choosing between utility party members, damage dealers and tanks evolves into so much more with all these options at hand, to the point where some of the bigger endgame bosses had me genuinely going into who would be best for what situation, rather than who I preferred to play as. Throw ontop of that the way in which many classes are flexible enough to be multiple roles, and the fact that there's no taunt in the game, and you have a fairly complex party framework to contend with. And yet a decent balancing job has left it so that I could still play favourites for most of the critical story path. So, surprisingly, and after many hours of being supremely overwhelmed by it, I ended up preferring POE's Party system over Tyranny's.
The heart behind this, of course, comes from the class system which completely disregards the 'adaptive every class' concept which seems to be doing the rounds in every triple A game nowadays in favour of old school hard limits. And that may sound like a negative, but more and more I'm learning how much better this way of doing things is. When classes are designed with so much individuality to the point where you're literally juggling unique resource bars depending on your class, (Chanter's handling Phrases, Monks juggling Wounds and Cipher's dealing with Focus) it genuinely feels like a whole new game depending on what class you're controlling. The amount of diversity in classes here is genuinely nuts, and to think that Obsidian managed to unite them all to work in a party together is nuts to me. Tyranny had elements passed on from this, but it was very much more sanitised like a lot of Tyranny's core systems were in comparison to POE. On one hand Tyranny is much easier to pick and play, but on the other POE's complexity is enthralling.
Where I have a problem, however, is with the whole 'maiming' issue. You see, whereas Endurance is restored upon the end of combat or by restorative spells, Health can only be regained by Resting. But seeing as how you can only be 'maimed' by losing all health, that makes it so that when you are maimed you end up with literally 1 hit point, from which any source of damage will permenately off you. Thus, all this really achieves, rather than add some life-and-death tension to the battle, is forcing you to turn back from whatever you were doing because this character is now functionally useless until you rest. It's a system that feels like it's designed to catch you out in the two or three times that you might accidentally jump ahead in a dungeon without a way to quickly retreat again; but such situations feel like you're being backed into a corner rather than getting pushed to the wire and being forced to play your best. I just think there might have been a smarter way to go about things, because as it is perma-death is only really going to occur if you callously allow it to, and I think there should be a greater risk of genuine unexpected loss than that.
The World
The setting is another important matter to consider when talking about POE, because the world of Eora is one completely of Obsidian's own invention and baring their eye for detail. No working within the confines of other people's canon, this is all Obsidian's baby with which they can do whatever they so please. For Tyranny this resulted in what I'm sure will live on to be one of my favourite fantasy worlds of all time, that was so dripping with comprehensible prestige and promise that it's an unending shame we'll likely never see it again in the future. For Pillars, it's created a world that I think is fine, but which hardly breaks my list of top fantasy settings in the slightest. It doesn't arrest me with distinction like Tamriel did, didn't worm into my heart with real-life parallels like Thedas does, but it doesn't drown me in clichés and unpronounceable jargon like... did that game's world even have a name? Oh, 'Amalur', duh; it's in the title! And considering this Eora is going to be the setting of Obsidian's upcoming action RPG 'Avowed', I really was hoping to be more blown away.
I suspect my problem might be in presentation married with overfamiliarity of concept. As for presentation, we are told a lot about the world of Eora and a lot of it actually does sound pretty cool. The crazy Living Lands with deadly beasts everywhere, the ominous sounding 'The White that Wends', the exotic 'Vailian Republics'; it all sounds like the possible backdrop for a simply stunning adventure. And yet we're stuck in the Dyrwood. A patch of crappy land in the arse end of nowhere, caked in filth, cursed by poverty, and notable only for fact that there was a peasant revolt in the only human city in the area. It's like Fereldan without any of the nobility or pretentious self-aggrandising. It feels like the setting of The Witcher, only without the self-awareness of being a place so pathetically ordinary, rustic and unappealing that the fantastic both stands out and, paradoxically ,blends in. Quite simply, it fails to spark the imagination and that doesn't really change as the game progresses.
The wider world is spoken of mostly through personal accounts and read in books, but I constantly found myself wishing I was out there rather than stuck here. The Dyrwood never grew on me, throughout the entire story, and I was often to the point where I didn't care which faction liked or disliked me, because this entire standard-looking bog of a country could all fall into chaotic upheaval and still end up looking the same. It certainly means something significant when I find it a genuine struggle to scrounge an ounce of sympathy for anyone here, and it really highlights how good of a job that Tyranny did with a strangely similar concept. The Tiers in Tyranny is presented as the edge of the world where nothing of import should reside. It's only significance is that it is the last territory that Kyros needs to conquer, at least that's what you're told. Yet when you go there, every land you touch and every faction you meet is imbued with this righteous passion, this heart to them, that I defy you not to feel something for them. Whether that's begrudging respect or a burning desire to break them; you came away feeling something.
The Dyrwood and everyone in it lacked any of that passion, and the Glanfathan Elves on the otherside of the land were much too close to the stereotypical deception of 'Wood elves' for me to see them as anything more than a trope. Sure they had their sleight deviations, but it was still the same old thing at the end of the day of ' sacred land about which we got hostile if the human's races are involved. It belongs to us and we'll fight for it!'. The only difference being that this time around the Elves refuse to touch the land too out of some odd 'preservation pact' their entire race apparently made. Yes, I recognise the Native American parallels, same as I do every time this identical faction is presented in fantasy stories; but it doesn't make them anymore unique or compelling. If anything, it just reminds me how much more interesting the stories of the Native Americans are. (I'm really sick of this cliché) Additionally, I found some of the more defining elements of the world to be underexplained. I'm still, after completing the game, not 100% sure what Adra is ('Organic mineral that's good for soul-work' is pretty barebones) and the various Gods were both too many number and focused on too specific of aspects for me to recall them all that distinctly.
Turning to the art style (Something I forgot to cover in Tyranny) brings with it this mostly positive note again. Pillars of Eternity uses 2D pre-rendered backgrounds that are lovingly crafted (even when depicting the general drudgery of the Dyrwood) with 3D sprites modelled on top of that. Remembering how this very formula ruined the art of Beyond Divinity triggers something in me, but I'm glad to say that it worked great here, really encompassing all that they needed thanks to the high angles of the camera. Models are small, but detailed, and the descriptive work of the narrators and the portraits. Tyranny tended to work with more stark palettes that were more bold and evocative, and that lent a style I think stands out more than Pillars of Eternity's does, but POE did nothing wrong in this department at all. I think POE looks good, and in some of the dungeons with Adra sticking out the walls (Whatever that glowly rock stuff actually is) I found myself rather interested in my surroundings. Although the visuals never took my breath away, whilst Tyranny certainly did some times.
The Story
I've been going very back-and-forth so far, and prepare for that to persist as I tackle the actual narrative. This, I'll be honest, was not my favourite part of Pillars of Eternity by a long shot. As it goes, the hook which tacks the player onto the story, having their reincarnated soul be attacked with knowledge of it's past selves (an act known ingame as 'Awakening') sounds more interesting on paper than it ended up being in the story. Plenty of times you're told of people going crazy under similar circumstance, as multiple personalities converge into one, but the game only ever presents you with one past life, and it's the one exactly pertinent to the antagonist. Flashbacks aren't mindbending like the game sells you, but more just resemble the 'bleeding effect' from Assassin's Creed. (Blue shader with ghostly figures. Been there done that.) I'm focusing so much on this aspect, because for the majority of this game that's all the main narrative is driven by. You see a man, remember that you knew that man in a past life, and just sort of follow behind him and solve other problems in the way. Rarely did I feel like I was actively working towards something my character cared about, nor did I really feel like I was sleuthing any great mystery. You're presented with tracking down some super secretive fellow who has evaded being penned in for untold years, but in practise it's not any real hassle. Barely an inconvience. You just go to some places and do your own thing and he'll just kind of turn up here and there. In summary, the first 2 acts of this game lacked any serious drive.
Role playing is another important aspect of RPGs, obviously, and this is a department in which Obsidian did not let down. I don't think it's within their bones as RPG creators to lack in Role Playing, so I wasn't surprised. Atop of an interlaced faction system, there was a supremely well detailed reputation system, in which the manner that you act paints how the world sees you. (I.E. If you tend to pick honest answers in quests then you can cite your reputation for being honest in certain situations for free credibility) There are also skill checks galore that really empower your stat decisions at the start of the game, as well as knowledge of your companions stats because some times come when you need to rely on them. I particularly loved sections wherein you'd be faced with some heavy role-play action, such as scaling a cliff face or diving in a freezing lake, and the game would give you a whole choose-your-own-adventure style minigame which always made huge use of skill checks. My only gripe is a personal one, and it's that skill checks you can't hit aren't always shown to you so that you might buff up in the meanwhile to try again. (Also, I spotted, like, 4 spelling mistakes. But seeing as how we're on this blog; I can hardly kick up a fuss about that, now can I?)
Another huge part of Role Playing games, at least for me, are the Companions with whom you share your journey; and with Pillars of Eternity having such a huge cast I wouldn't be surprised if this part of the game was somewhat lackluster for me. Fortunately, that wasn't the case at all. No, every single companion in POE was well designed, acted, written and bought together; I'm honestly quite impressed. Eder, Pallegina and Aloth was personal favourites, but I seriously liked Sagani, Zahua and Maneha too. Grieving Mother was supremely interesting as well in her story and the way it was told, although I can't help but feel as though we never quite got to know her as well as I wanted to. (Which I think was somewhat intentional.) Whatsmore, unlike with Tyranny we're looking at an RPG wherein every single character has their own character quest which significantly affects who they'll become. That's the sort of thing that I love to see in my RPGs and Obsidian bought their A-game in all of these character stories. With one exception.
Yes, I had to find a gripe, and this time it's Durance. Okay, I as much as anyone appreciate a character who is designed to make the audience not like them. It takes as much skill as the alternative and I love to hate someone as much as the next guy, but Durance seems so utterly detestable at times that I almost concluded he was irredeemable. Not because of any great catastrophe he orchestrated (although he's not exactly clean in that department) but because oh-my-god is he annoying. And crass. And mean spirited. And ugly hearted. I hated having him in my team. I literally only learnt his story out of duty to experience all this game had to offer. I hate him. I'm genuinely amazed at the fact that Obsidian managed to write someone who affected we that strongly, that's actually rather unique by any RPGs standards. Although, on a more serious note; his quest is awfully designed, requiring the player to exhaust all of his dialogue options through trees that prematurely darken themselves (falsely implying that you've already gone through that branch) all whilst every third topic Durance gets angry and decides not to talk to you again until you rest. So he's both the most annoying companion to get to know and the most annoying companion to be around. (At least he's a decent Priest.)
And before I wrap this up, I think it's at least important for me to cover the DLC 'The White March', specifically because almost all the issues I had with the story and setting of the base game were completely solved here. In evidence that Obsidian actually know how to fix upon their flaws, 'The White March' takes us out of the frightfully boring woods of the Dyrwood and into the snowy mountains, around a town called Stalwart that I found myself instantly more attached to. The people here were more affable, the plight of the town quickly became my own, and I cared when I made decisions that effected it. Whatsmore, the passive storytelling of the base game is completely gone in favour of a direct (and simplified) tale that I found so much more engaging the whole way through. The stakes felt meaningful, the journey felt worthwhile. Plus, this DLC bought along three more great companions. So be sure to get the full package if, for some reason, you haven't pulled the plug on Pillars of Eternity yet.
Summary
In conclusion, Pillars of Eternity is a remarkable Role Playing game built in the style of old guard but modernised just enough to make us wonder why we ever stopped playing those old games to begin with. It's gameplay, whilst certainly a lot tougher to come to grips with than more forgiving RPGs out there, I found to be hugely rewarding by the endgame and it's raw role playing potential, both in writing and character creation, simply exuded replay value. The largest issues for me lied in a somewhat passive narrative and a setting which built an exciting world more than it presented one, but seeing as how Eora is a world that Obsidian seems eager not to put down (What with Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire and Avowed) I suppose it's worked out for them in the long run. I'm hardly the first to say it, but as an CRPG fan this simply is a must play; but RPG fans who are worried about potentially being overwhelmed by overcomplicated systems might want to err toward Tyranny, at least as a introduction towards this more rigid style of Role Playing gameplay. This is an easy recommendation with a B Grade rating that could have easily been A grade if only the whole game was built more like 'The White March' was. I've got the bug for CRPGs now, and I'm likely bound for the Deadfire archipelago someday as a result, but there are certainly a few other choice exemplars of the genre that I want to try out first. See you back here on this blog if any of them make a great enough impression to warrant a review.
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