Things are about to get dicey!
There was a time long ago where my entire world of RPG games was eclipsed and ruled by the catalogue of Bioware. Theirs were the very first 'in-depth' RPGs I'd ever played, with Mass Effect, and thus I held them to the top of the pack whenever it came to considering Role Playing Games as a genre. I always defaulted to the standard that Bioware set whenever I played mediocre 2010 games with their piddly 'RPG Lite' mechanics and sad 'choices without consequence' design model; because in my mind Bioware was the best at all those mechanics those games regularly disgraced. Of course, the years have not been to kind to the old king. Their staff has changed to be unrecognisable and the talent has not readily rubbed off onto the new team. It seems like Western RPGs have either moved entirely to the much more intricate, and intimidating, CRPG model, or surrendered entirely to the more creative and varied example of JRPGs. Only one Western company seems content bridging off the example of gold-era Bioware to bring high quality action RPG games to the western world.
Unfortunately, they have a name that I keep forgetting for how generic it sounds. Who would name their video game studio 'Spiders' and think it's a good memorable title? I mean, maybe I'm biased given my general loathing of the eight-legged cretins themselves, but I don't particularly think 'good' thoughts when I imagine Spiders, until I connect them with the game developer and then I can smile. Starting their life off as a solidly B-Game developer, I don't think anyone could have predicted their rise to the the upper tier of Western RPG developers like they're known for today. Back in their infancy they worked on some of those Sherlock Holmes games and a title about 'Faeries' or something. But then, in 2016, they made a game called 'Technomancer' which earned quite high praise amidst the action RPG faithful that actually managed to discover it. A typically fun and engaging RPG just like Bioware used to make, coming from a French studio who just seemed to get it.
Where I came to be interested in their work, however, was with the intriguingly oddball premise of 2019's Greedfall, for it's potential and scope being a fantastical world grounded in a fanciful depiction of European colonialism across a magically charged land. "How interesting" I remember thinking; "What a curious one-off smash together of topics perfect for a company that bills itself on these single-story worlds that wow you for an adventure and then drizzle off, completed." Of course, in 2019 Spider was also acquired by a company, which means that Greedfall is now a franchise with an upcoming sequel for whatever reason. (Ah, the predictable throes of the industry.) Still, I've always wanted to try the original Greedfall out for myself, and it was only very recently that such an opportunity opened up for me.
First off, I feel the need to say that Spiders isn't a particularly huge or big-budgeted studio; their talents lie in the substance of the games that they make, not the size or presentation. Several ways of me quite frankly saying that even though Greedfall is visually dated, particularly for a 2019 title, (a year which bought as Death Stranding and Resident Evil 2 in it's best moments) I don't believe the level of fidelity is a detriment to the game. Yes, the character models are all somewhat ugly and later on in the game faces start to blend together and you'll stop remembering who is who after the multitude of similar disquieting faces begin to overlap in your recollection; but even with those less-than-appealing character models, the art style of the world Greedfall presents always manages to stand out to the player on it's own special merits.
The pre-industrial revolutionary-France style architecture of Sérène stands out immediately as a visually memorable landmark, even within it's grim straits as a land on the verge of collapse thanks to the scourge of 'the Malichor' plague. You'll find the city of Sérène lost in narrow grimy streets and clumps of burning bodies, the ground level of a truly sprawling city that weeps of a lost splendour. It's all very well designed and portrayed, the art team sell the narrative beautifully. And, of course, the setting is rich from a narrative perspective as well, with Sérène balanced as a Merchant Congregation mediator betwixt the scientifically inspired 'Bridge Alliance' and the religiously devout 'Thélème'; both major faction players throughout the course of the narrative. They all carry strong visual distinctions, with the Bridge Alliance carrying an Ottoman Empire design trend and Thélème favouring a Spanish Reconquista motif.
Where the game truly begun to shine in it's artistic delights for me, however, was when it came to the land of Teer Fradee and all which hails from there. Whilst on paper is sounds pretty by-the-books and cliché, a land of natives who revere a fantastical 'nature magic' which fuels their sacred land and abilities, the specifics through which Spiders went to realise that side of their world imbued an individuality into the concept that makes it their own. On it's face alone, Teer Fradee is a visual wonder, purposefully taking advantage of wide breathable vistas to stand in contrast to the claustrophobic Sérène prologue, and the overwhelming powerful might and scale of nature seems ever present, what with the endless massive yet gorgeous trees and that towering black volcano constantly dominating the continent skyline. Even the built up and colonised sections of Teer Fradee come alive with a tangible majesty. Hikmet particularly stretches across several rolling hills with an architectural style reminiscent of medieval Acre with those iconic cupola rooftops and thick stone sea-walls. Even New Sérène carries a similar architectural style to it's old world counterpart, but is covered in scaffolding and building material, conveying a newly budding promise rather than a slow decaying death.
And of course, that art powers through to the design of the Teer Fradee inhabitants too. The various animals and Nádaig 'Guardians' are designed as a conflux between the wild uninhabitable ferocity of untamed nature and magical nature-creativity that clearly borrows from mythical European legends like the Wendigo and the Banshee. That level of care carries on to the culture of the natives who worships that nature. The speak a language said to be derived from a variant of proto-Celtic created with the help of a linguist for authenticity; there's a real dedication to making the world of Greedfall feel more substantial than a list of written codices describing a wider and more interesting world. Bridging a disconnect I've even criticised masterpieces like 'Pillars of Eternity' for getting stuck behind. I simply adore the world of Greedfall, which helps me as the player retain that interest in it's wellbeing even as the narrative itself begins to drag and fray; which it ultimately, inevitably, does.
Another key pillar of any action-RPG is, of course, the combat, seeing as how that is typically a player's key-most method through which they interact with the game world. And for Greedfall the best way I can describe the systems at play here is 'fiddly' and at times even a bit 'janky'. It's quite basically a very rudimentary Witcher style set-up of stabs, parries and dodges, occasional spells shackled to a recharging mana bar and a plethora of bombs, traps, firearms and potions which all act as largely un-essential 'power ups' if ever the fairly straightforward combat becomes just that tad overwhelming. There isn't much challenge to figuring out how each enemy fights, especially not when you discover how forgiving the timing on the parry is. And the way that damage types come into the game is not overly important either. You have the option to spec your gear in counter to specific damage types, but there's never any need to actually do so. Which is fine, of course, I would rather play 'fashion show' with my gear anyway.
Much like other action RPGs, Greedfall has an RPG web of progression split between skill points, talents and attributes. Skill points effect combat with mostly incremental damage buffs between bigger 'technique power-ups' or spells if you work your way along a certain web far enough. Talents count towards contextual actions such as persuading a character in dialogue, picking locks or climbing up cliff faces. (Yes, being unable to take map shortcuts is the punishment for neglecting those stats) Attributes are largely 'requirement checks' for certain equipment. (Endurance 4 to wear this certain armour piece, etc.) Every point is spread out careful upon a traditional EXP based levelling scheme, and you'll be likely to have at least dabbled in most different styles of play before the final quest. There's not a whole breadth of build variety to try out here beyond actual playstyle shifting.
Crafting supports the progression with a surprisingly fun system wherein you gather materials from the world or at shops or from broken down pieces of gear and use them to create consumables or armour and weapon improvements. The surprising element for me came in the fact that those weapon and armour improvements actually visually represent on the character, meaning that you can design a set of armour to look how you want. The stat differences between different styles is largely negligible, so it's more just a fashion statement. And I really appreciate a single player RPG recognising how fun it can be to seek out the materials or talent points to get a piece of gear looking just right, even if it's just to show it off to ourselves. The team did not need to go to that extent but I'm certainly glad that they did.
As any open world RPG might, Greedfall features a plethora of Side Quests and Companion quests to bring us closer to the team we're lumped with throughout the play time. Every single one of these side quests I found to be narratively interesting, with some of them being genuinely cleverly placed for how they functioned alongside the narrative. The prologue, for example, features two side quests offered by ambassadors of the two major land factions, both of which function as their own short stories whilst contextually involving you in the tenants and ideals that those factions represent. Deft and smart world building. I quite often found that many quest started out as conceptually dull, only to blossom into intrigue and intricacy once you dug a little deeper into them. I can't pretend that every side quest is a homerun, and the general design choice of 'go back and speak to the faction leader' can drag, but largely I came away impressed that Spiders never went for the sub-standard boring side quest model of 'collect this for me' or 'kill this guy because he did a crime'. Every quest was designed to a standard of substance.
Of course, that standard of substance stretches to the core of the main narrative as well, which unfolds in such a narratively-driven fashion that I could not help shake the feeling that this game feels like a good fantasy book adaptation, which as far as I can tell it absolutely isn't. Perhaps that's just the sense I get from the obvious Dune parallels within the set-up. What with the Royal Merchant Congregation colonising a land of distrustful natives, wherein the protagonist clearly has deeper ties to that land than is readily apparent and so on. The story does go it's own direction, though; this isn't just an unofficial Dune adaptation by any stretch of the imagination. But I do not draw those parallels as an insult, by any stretch. I quite enjoyed a lot of the story presented.
What I did not so much enjoy, as much as it sucks to say, is the voice acting. For a vast majority of the cast, the voice acting largely lacks in presence and command of their scene. Several voices don't even seem to fit their character models at all, such as that of De Courcillion. Also, the main protagonist (note I played with a male protagonist, the female might be better) seems decidedly flat noted and lacking in character. Some of that is due to the writing lacking spice and personality, but the performances do not bridge any gaps. Of course that isn't the whole cast I'm deriding. In particular I thought Inquisitor Aloysius was great; I only wish that particular character had a greater role to play in the story. I think maybe a solid rewrite of dialogue to leave more character in the script would have served the general performance standard a little better. Or maybe I just need to play the game in French, I haven't tried that yet.
Mass Effect Andromeda has a curiously similar premise on it's face, but I find the way that Greedfall handles slowly uncovering a foreign culture through the lens of 'colonisation' to be more realistic and engaging, not least of all because Greedfall does a better job conveying the struggles and setbacks inevitable in this sort of story. I only bemoan that fact that the player's job as a diplomat between two warring nations on foreign soil to be a little too easy. Unlike a similar role in 'Tyranny', there's no 'give and take' to consider as you go about treading between the two nations also occupying Teer Fradee, despite the fact that they are supposed to be bitter enemies in the old world. In fact, after playing every side quests I found the player to have good relations with literally every faction on the island, which seems to draw back from the 'consequential actions and consequences' idea you'd expect not just from an RPG but specifically for a story about colonisation with these exact pressure points.
And that is not the only place where I found that the scope of Greedfall's narrative fell a bit short of expectations. The early story arcs of the game are fuelled by intrigue and investigation as you search for a cure to the terrible plague that ravages the old land in a world where 'anything is possible.' Quite a lot of the investigative paths of those early chapters seem to, in kind, lean towards deep secrets hidden in the past, curses and crimes of the ancestors all colliding in a conspiratorial cover-up the likes of which has the potential to rumble the foundations of the entire aristocratic class back home. At least that is the set up. Come the third act and all the wind is soundly popped from those sails when the budding mystery deflates into a simple, if pertinent, cause. And then, with the concept of a third act confrontation simply forfeit, the game slips a surprise final act villain who seems to come out of nowhere with twisted character drives so shaky that even the main cast themselves seem to have trouble explaining it to one another.
It's as though the script was written in such a way that necessitated a final act return to Sérène with a significate set-piece there only for the team to realise that there was no way they had the resources to create another new landmass just for the final few missions and so they defaulted to keeping events on Teer Fradee with a rushed third act surprise villain. Those last few missions contain all the hallmarks of 'rushed plan B finale'. Two repetitive 'kill the mini boss' quests that grind the progression of the story down to a snail's pace during what should have been the home stretch, followed by another pair of badly contextualised grind quests. And a finale showdown that feels largely suspense-free against a final boss that, crucially, is not the final foe themselves. It's just a lacky. There really is no way to slap these disparate elements together in a way that isn't disappointing, and if it was not for the strength of the story that bought the game up to it, I'd have found the ending to Greedfall hugely disappointing.
There is not much of any 'choice and consequence decisions' to be made throughout the course of the game, and all routes lead you on largely the same path. Luckily the richness of the narrative means that the only choices that are present, typically with individual stakes, still have some significance on a strictly personal level. I actually felt the desire to favour certain specific native tribes over others, a hallmark of a world built and laid out with genuine depth. Also, the optional romance subplots are almost hilariously stringent. Completing companion quests is only the requisite to open up the real test, as each potential companion romance lives and dies on a procession of three after-quest dialogues that all must be responded to exactly, else the relationship will be scuppered. I find something deeply funny about how much of a landmine that approach is, compared to the much more "show any interest whatsoever and you're in" idea that Bioware used to employ.
In summation, Greedfall bedazzles it's audience with a gorgeous and detailed game world ripe with enough intrigue to keep players interested and immersed, and backs that up with a serviceable, if somewhat janky, combat system supported by basic RPG mechanics. I would pair up Greedfall to the sorts of good and memorable RPG standalone titles that just manage to etch out a purpose for themselves based on their unique propositions alone, such as Jade Empire. There's a final layer of polish towards the script and narrative that feels missing from the game, and I think there's a distinct lack of replay value for a title that is ostensibly an RPG, but apart from those hang-ups we've got ourselves a solid and worthwhile Western RPG that kept me invested throughout it's span. As such, I simply have to recommend this game to Bioware lovers of yesteryear with a score of an arbitrary B grade to slot onto my list of meaningless review scores. It is simply a fun and worthwhile experience that I think Western RPG lovers have to find value in. Now whether or not that necessitates a prequel be made, we can only wait and see...
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