Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

The most polished isometric CRPG of all time, and given the direction of the gaming industry, probably never to be superseded as such. Like in any CRPG, the gameplay occurs within the dialogue box, and combat is a minigame on the side. What sets Deadfire apart is that it understands this, and its attention to the details of information delivery smooths away any of the traditional flaws of the format. You never miss important information because you got lazy and skimmed a dialogue box-- in fact, you never skim dialogue boxes, because of their meticulously economical language and the well-delivered voices accompanying them. You never forget a jargon term, because you can mouse over them for a reminder. The story has a subtlety of theme that allows the player to choose between endings in a way that reflects a believable worldview, rather than the classic CRPG foible of presenting the same save-the-world story in a few themed colorways. The game breathes with life without needing to use simulation as a party-trick; its characters live on the strength of the game's writing. All of the skeletal elements of the CRPG art form are done better here than in any other game before or since*.

The rest of the gameplay, while not especially crucial to the experience, holds its weight well enough. The RPG character creation has enough variety to encourage multiple playthroughs, and the combat does its job in creating high moments for each character archetype. Travel and ship combat are weak, but don't detract from the game where it matters.

*If there is one other game which displays an equal understanding of the mechanics of a CRPG text box, it has to be Disco Elysium. And it's a matter of taste, but Deadfire includes the player in its world far more thoroughly, while Disco Elysium treats them as a voyeur to a character study. Like Deadfire, it will never be replicated.

Well damn, I expected grand things out of of Pillars of Eternity II but it actually blew away my expectations. I thought the first game was great (even if I didn't finish it) but it's easy to see how the developers have learned a lot from the first game and managed to improve just about every aspect of it. It's too bad that the game was not a huge success, perhaps it was just bad timing being released shortly after Divinity Original Sin 2 and Pathfinder: Kingmaker which are also both huge RPGs that people were a little burned out on those by the time this came out and perhaps also a reason it took me nearly 3 years to finally get to it.

So the game picks off after the end of the 1st one, and it even allows you to upload your save file to continue with the moral choices you had done before. I don't think it's mandatory to have played the first one, but it does help understand the concept of the Watcher who speaks to dead souls. If you don't have a save file, the game does offer you some of the basic PoE endings to choose to start with. Throughout your new journey, you will explore a big open world with your boat, speak to gods, fight all sorts of monsters and humans, gain reputations with different factions and decide the faith of the rest of humanity. Pretty big RPG stuff, but this is also accompanied by great writing and a fully voiced cast this time around.

With Patch 5.0 the game introduced Turn Based Battle Mode which is the way I played the game. While I don't have anything against Real Time With Pause (it's a system with its ups and downs), I'm just a much bigger fan of turn based battles since it allows you for much more precise actions and decisions. I think this is one of the things that greatly improves the game. The game has a big skill tree for each character class, so no matter you who choose to play with, you'll have to make some key decisions on how to build your team. You'll meet up with up to 9 other companions, but you can only form a group of 5 at a time. Aside from your companions, you'll also have to enlist sailors which all have different specialties in order to make your ship run (navigator, deckhand, cook, surgeon and so on). You can also upgrade your ship, or just buy other ones too... there's definitely many things to do in the game.

The game has tons and tons of quests. At the game gets going and you get to main city of Neketaka, you'll average around 25 active quests at the same time. The game gives you a lot of freedom on where you want to go next, but it will also warn you if a certain quest is too difficult. As you sail the seas you'll also have naval battles with pirates and certain factions... like is there something this game doesn't do? The exploration is great as the map starts it will be all fogged up and it's for you to discover everything. The cities are pretty big to explore, each split into different areas with tons of people to talk with. The quests are rich in dialogues and aren't meaningless, and gaining reputation is important while trying to not piss off too much opposing factions. Of course no RPG would be complete without a rich set of equipment and treasures to discover. Sailing costs money (well food and drinks), so you have to plan your voyages correctly in order to hopefully turn a profit or gain some reputation.

The graphics are pretty good, the art style is great and the game definitely expands on its lore of the 1st game. This is a nice set up for Avowed as they have a great base to work with, there's lot of history built on in this franchise now and it could lead to more great things. It feels weird to me that The Outer Worlds was such a big success and this one was a minor flop, when Outer Worlds while fun is kinda simple, shallow and limited with Pillars of Eternity 2 is rich, complex and innovative. Like this is really pure RPG stuff all around, there's that strong Baldur's Gate influence still lurking around but it builds on it and pushes the genre further. Certainly one of the best ones I've ever played. So yeah I would recommend this game to RPG fans, but be warned you will have to be deeply invested in it because it's really damn long (68.5 hours for me without touching the expansion content) and requires lots of mental energy from all the lore to soak up and all the decision making.