Pillars of Eternity
I haven't done a review for a while because I've been playing this for a while. I'm near the end of Act 2 and think I'm going to take a break from it until the expansions are discounted and then play through those and act 3 and 4.
Anyone who has played Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale will find the look and feel of the game very recognisable. Instead of playing the child of a God you are (or become) a Watcher- one who is able to look into the souls of the dead and living and get a glimpse of their past. The story is set in a time where for some reason children are being born soulless (hollowborn) and usually die soon after. You are trying to discover why you have the powers you do and also what is causing the hollowborn problem.
Pillar of Eternity doesn't use the DnD rules so had to create their own classes, spells, rules etc. Like most modern crpgs they use a d100 rather than d20 system and I think the choice to use grazes- 50% damage and duration on spells at hits of 50 or above (diceroll+accuracy-resistance) and criticals (150% damage and duration at +100 hit) makes the fighting feel less random than just hits, misses and crits of x2/x3 damage.
The classes seem fairly well balanced although you are somewhat constrained as to how you set up the characters. Fighters and Paladins are best suited to be tanks and not focussed on damage. Wizards are better at crowd control than Damage and Druids and Ciphers the best at DPS. You also have the obligatory healer (cleric). The only class I haven't used is the rogue. Sneaking around and killing enemy casters sounds fun. My main character is a ranger which gives the dual role of being decent at damaging and interrupting enemy casters in the back row and having a animal companion which can help keep enemies from getting to your squishy casters. It also has a takedown similar to that of the fighter- knocking a dangerous enemy prone for a few seconds at key times is very important. There are a large variety of skills and spells and most seem useful in different situations.
The gameworld is not just interesting but also fairly large. There are a number of areas and each one has quite a lot of enemies to fight, loot to find and stories to discover. There are also 8 companions to find who each have their own quest line. The max party size is six but you can have the others stay at your upgradeable stronghold and do occasional quests for xp and loot.
For the most part the game is non-linear and there is no level scaling which means you can end up in areas where the fights are too difficult for your party. Sometimes there is no way of knowing how difficult a battle is going to be so unless you go into all using your best spells from the start and then having to rest/sleep a lot you may find yourself reloading a bit.
I found life pretty tough at level 6 but as soon as my party hit level 7 and got access to level 4 spells everything since then has been very easy. Others have said it become even more of a cakewalk once you reach level 9 and get the level 5 spells. This was less of the case with Baldurs gate because you get access to less higher level spells when you level and also you didn't have your whole party level at almost the same time (different classes had different xp requirements for leveling and they joined the party at different times and xp levels). The fights also require a bit more pausing- I think on the whole you use more spells and skills than you did in the old Bioware games.
So far I'm enjoying the game and look forward to playing through the expansions and the rest of the game. I'd give it a 8/10 so far. I got it on discount for around $15 dollars so good value for money for a game that should take you over 40 hours to get through and has some replay value.
Anyone who has played Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale will find the look and feel of the game very recognisable. Instead of playing the child of a God you are (or become) a Watcher- one who is able to look into the souls of the dead and living and get a glimpse of their past. The story is set in a time where for some reason children are being born soulless (hollowborn) and usually die soon after. You are trying to discover why you have the powers you do and also what is causing the hollowborn problem.
Pillar of Eternity doesn't use the DnD rules so had to create their own classes, spells, rules etc. Like most modern crpgs they use a d100 rather than d20 system and I think the choice to use grazes- 50% damage and duration on spells at hits of 50 or above (diceroll+accuracy-resistance) and criticals (150% damage and duration at +100 hit) makes the fighting feel less random than just hits, misses and crits of x2/x3 damage.
The classes seem fairly well balanced although you are somewhat constrained as to how you set up the characters. Fighters and Paladins are best suited to be tanks and not focussed on damage. Wizards are better at crowd control than Damage and Druids and Ciphers the best at DPS. You also have the obligatory healer (cleric). The only class I haven't used is the rogue. Sneaking around and killing enemy casters sounds fun. My main character is a ranger which gives the dual role of being decent at damaging and interrupting enemy casters in the back row and having a animal companion which can help keep enemies from getting to your squishy casters. It also has a takedown similar to that of the fighter- knocking a dangerous enemy prone for a few seconds at key times is very important. There are a large variety of skills and spells and most seem useful in different situations.
The gameworld is not just interesting but also fairly large. There are a number of areas and each one has quite a lot of enemies to fight, loot to find and stories to discover. There are also 8 companions to find who each have their own quest line. The max party size is six but you can have the others stay at your upgradeable stronghold and do occasional quests for xp and loot.
For the most part the game is non-linear and there is no level scaling which means you can end up in areas where the fights are too difficult for your party. Sometimes there is no way of knowing how difficult a battle is going to be so unless you go into all using your best spells from the start and then having to rest/sleep a lot you may find yourself reloading a bit.
I found life pretty tough at level 6 but as soon as my party hit level 7 and got access to level 4 spells everything since then has been very easy. Others have said it become even more of a cakewalk once you reach level 9 and get the level 5 spells. This was less of the case with Baldurs gate because you get access to less higher level spells when you level and also you didn't have your whole party level at almost the same time (different classes had different xp requirements for leveling and they joined the party at different times and xp levels). The fights also require a bit more pausing- I think on the whole you use more spells and skills than you did in the old Bioware games.
So far I'm enjoying the game and look forward to playing through the expansions and the rest of the game. I'd give it a 8/10 so far. I got it on discount for around $15 dollars so good value for money for a game that should take you over 40 hours to get through and has some replay value.
Comments
Post a Comment