Airboy Reviews Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire!

Started by Jarhead0331, January 26, 2019, 08:35:40 PM

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Jarhead0331

Grogheads Uber Alles
Semper Grog
"No beast is more alpha than JH." Gusington, 10/23/18


Sir Slash

I agree almost totally with your review Airboy, my experience also. I'm about 75 hours in but nowhere near the ending I think and the game is great. But somehow it seems less of a game than the first one, kind of a smaller world to play in.

The Naval Combat is interesting but takes so many turns to get close enough to be decisive, I usually just avoid it especially as the loot isn't, so far, epic. But I applaud the developers attempt to try something new and different and, it might grow on me as time goes by.
I also don't care for the 5-party set-up versus 6 which I prefer. The changes to combat are designed to give you more choices, and they do. But they make it more complex and I usually just have my guys wade-in and whack everything with their biggest weapons and that works too. I find the Party Combat AI to be pretty good however on it's own and when totally off, sometimes my party won't react at all in a fight unless I tell them to. So I use it.

The rest is pretty much the same as the first game, which isn't a bad thing at all. But I'm getting kind of tired of the dysfunctional Deities in this world and their petty bickering. I wish I could just go kick some Tyrant's butt for him or clear-out un-dead or chase dragons around for a change. I don't need to save the world every day or two.

What I do like is, as you mentioned, the music, voice acting, and graphics are MUCH improved. This is a beautiful game and I love the details in fire, water, and shadow effects. Many dungeons now are really dark requiring you have a torch to see where you're going and this makes the game much more spooky at times. The game's also funny in places and creepy( The Bath House in Nerataka). And some elements are distinctly 'R' rated so watch it if you're playing around little ones.  ::)
Overall, if you liked the first game, you'll like this one too. If I had to give 1-10's, I'd say Pillars 1 is a solid 8 and Pillars 2 a 7.5 or maybe 7.7. My 2 cents.
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

airboy

Oops!  I meant to say the game is R rated.  I'm going to update the review on my blog.  Thanks for pointing this out.

Sir Slash

And I should have mentioned that the latest patch for the game includes an option to play combat Turn-Based instead of Real-Time what they call combat now. The bad news is it's Beta only yet so you have to sign up for it and.... start a new game.  >:(   Could be worth a look but to play the whole game through again, I dunno.
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

JasonPratt

Quote from: airboy on January 28, 2019, 02:23:32 PM
Oops!  I meant to say the game is R rated.  I'm going to update the review on my blog.  Thanks for pointing this out.

Are you going to mention what for?  ???
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

airboy

Gratuitous f-bombs, prostitution, drugs, etc.....   

JasonPratt

 :o

I can understand the prostitution and drugs, but for some reason gratuitous f-bombs always seems worthless as a stylistic choice to me, regardless of how realistic it may be in some circumstances.

Thanks for the warning.  O:-)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

airboy

This was in my review notes, but it got left out of the review by accident.  Some of the material was reasonable for the plot (slavers, smuggling, piracy, prostitution for the pirates), but some of the dialogue was unnecessary.

Sir Slash

Yes, the language can be very rough at times, same as the first game. Somehow the game always seems to know when someone's close by that's either young or my wife to shout-out MF or SOB at me. Also the Luminous Bath House in Nerataka has full frontal nudity, very small nudity but clear enough if I posted screenies here we'd probably get shut down.  <:-)
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

airboy

This is updated content on my blog about this review:

Content Warning:
Pillars 2 has some normal RPG content issues: drug use, slavers, prostitution, etc....   There is nudity (tiny figure on the screen) in the bathhouse and a couple of other places - but the nudity fits the locations where it is used (prostitutes, bathhouse, etc....).

But Pillars 2 has content that is pretty far out there for a RPG game.  The game is rated "M" (17+) for a reason.  Some language is unsuitable for those under 18.  How unsuitable?  Think "f-bombs" and more.  Most of the language is utterly unnecessary for the plot.  Vulgarity just for the sake of vulgarity is sloppy writing and game design.  A little more creativity would both ease the concerns of some purchasers while broadening the vocabulary of other users.

[Again, Thanks to Sir Slash for reminding me of this].

Sir Slash

Happy to help and again, your review gets the game just like it is as far as I'm concerned.  O0
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

Gusington

I never really enjoy salty language in games either...doesn't bother me in movies, really. Weird.


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