Recent reviews by DisturbedSwan

My fingers are bleeding.

10/10

Simply one of the best games of all time.

For a very long time, I’d heard about the CRPG glory days of the late 90s/early 00s where games like Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment and Baldur’s Gate were keeping PC gamers in raptures around the world, I used to watch the old Game Network channel on Sky and see them playing through all these games, always in awe of how amazing they all looked and how incredible it would be to delve into these vast, dense worlds of beauty and danger.

Unfortunately, however, I never owned a gaming PC until 2004, so I missed out on a lot of these experiences growing up, sure, I was happy with my consoles at the time but I always felt that the world of the CRPG, and the world of PC gaming was shrouded in mystery, an exclusive club for those that didn’t want to bend to the will of the console manufacturers and preferred the openness and highly customisable nature of the PC universe, these games were incredibly intriguing to me, and there was nothing like them on the consoles of the age.

The beauty of Pillars of Eternity is that it allows a now fully-grown 25 year-old to experience an old-school isometric CRPG fresh for the first time, all the classic-CRPG tropes are in there for the most part, but Obsidian have tweaked the formula, modernised it and made the experience more pallet-able, more relate-able for the average 2010s gamer. An example of this is the rest system, in the old CRPGs you used to be able to abuse the rest mechanic, killing one tough enemy in a dungeon, resting, then killing another and repeating the formula until you cleared an area of enemies or successfully concluded your mission, with Pillars, Obsidian have made it so you can only do this 4-6 times (dependent on difficulty) when you’re out exploring, by having you use ‘camping supplies’ every-time you want to rest, there are a finite amount of these and once you’re out, you’re out, so there’s no abusing the system.

I always feel that RPGs live or die by their ability to pull you into the world. A good RPG should make it believable and make you feel like this is a living-breathing world filled with individual personalities and different factions with their own warring agendas, and this is where Pillars succeeds the most.

The first 1 hour 30 minutes of the game pull you into the world so forcefully its almost impossible to escape its hooks, it is possibly the most impressive opening 2 hours to an RPG that I’ve ever seen and if you’re not hooked and wanting to play more by the end of it then I’d be incredibly surprised, it does such a nice job of introducing the world, the mechanics of the game, the controls of the game etc. in an incredibly fluid, non-intrusive manor, there’s twists and turns and when you come out of the other end you’re left reeling and trying to suss out the mystery that the game has presented you. It is an incredibly beguiling, mysterious world that you are left to explore after the opening, and makes you want to wander out and see every part of it you can.

Eora (Pillars’ fantasy world) is an incredibly interesting place to inhabit, and just exist, you get lost in the world, and want to explore all the various nooks and crannies you can, this is helped by the varied nature of Eora’s different environments scattered throughout the landscape and the loot. The loot in Pillars is endless, you can never fill you inventory, you just have one endless chest that gets magically filled with all the loot you can find, it is fantastic, and means you never have to worry about sorting out your inventory, or being over-encumbered at any point during the game, the only time you’ll need to delve into it is to find out information about a new weapon/armour piece you just got or to sort out a few items that you wish to sell at a merchant, all the rest of the time you can just let it fill up to your hearts content and the game will not serve any penalties upon you.

The make-up of Eora, is essentially, two main city’s (Twin Elms and Defiance Bay) with a few towns (Gilded Vale, Dyrford Village), Villages, Wooded areas and Ruins with a sprinkling of Dungeons, Caves, Enemy dwellings etc. that are just ripe for exploration and adventure. Easily the most impressive place in Eora is Defiance Bay, it’s a sprawling city with 5 distinct districts that all feel different to one another, it feels like an incredibly busy, believable city with a hubbub of people milling about, tons of quests to do, a lot of mysteries to solve and various factions vying with each other for power and influence, it feels like a living-breathing city and I loved every second I was here. The areas in-between the city’s aren’t as impressive but they’re still all unique in their own ways, and interesting in their own different ways.

Early on in your adventures in Eora you discover the old ruin of Caed Nua, this becomes your Stronghold in the game. You are free to upgrade your Stronghold as you see fit, increasing the Prestige and Security of it, hire adventurers, manage your party-members, send party members off on missions and explore the depths of the Ruin known as the 'Endless Paths’, which are 15 levels of increasingly-difficult enemies with an incredibly difficult boss at the end of it. You will get notifications throughout your adventures keeping you updated of the progress of certain builds to your Stronghold, what missions are available and what mercenaries you can hire, these notifications are also used to keep you abreast of any bad situations that happen as well, letting you know if a Bandit party or a few Ogres are on the way to your Stronghold to try to batter down the walls, a few cohorts also come and go that will increase or decrease the prestige and/or security rating of the Hold, which you can either escort out, wait or pay off if you so choose.

Like many other RPGs, you meet various NPCs along the way that you can recruit into your party (your party can hold a maximum of 6), all these characters have all their individual personalities, motivations and reasons for banding together with you on your journey, like the rest of the game they’re all incredible well-written and in Bioware style you get specific side-quests that deal with their own journey’s in Eora that you can deal with if you so choose. You pick these party members up on your travels, but you can recruit more and keep them at your keep to send off on side-quests if you choose.

The story itself starts off very strong with the incredible opening mentioned above, keeps things interesting until the last 1/3 and then goes a little flat and the ending feels incredibly rushed. I won’t say too much about the story, but it can be a bit confusing at times, and I definitely feel it could’ve been balanced slightly better but it is still mysterious, intruiging and beguiling in equal measure and you’ll want to know how things conclude by the end of your time with the game. I usually enjoy side-quests more than the main-questline in RPGs and its no different here, the story is good enough and serves its purpose of getting you hooked into the world, but the true star of Pillars is the incredible side-quests and the quality of the writing.

The quality of writing throughout Pillars is absolutely astounding, almost every side-quest feels meaningful, characters are each given their own distinct personalities and the various factions and tribes you rub shoulders with throughout are all unique and interesting in their own different ways. Obsidian also throw a lot of moral dilemma’s in there, not good v evil kind of choices, but choices that are morally grey, these are incredibly clever and keep every side-quest feeling unique. Unlike other recent games such as Dragon Age: Inquisition, absolutely none of the side-quests feel throw-away, there’s no collecting shards or anything like that from RPGs, every side-quest feels unique, and most importantly, interesting.

It is my Game of the Year of 2015 so far.

Absolutely amazing game.

Took my time and finished it in just over 4 hours.

The story really was absolutely amazing.

Hauntingly beautiful and moving. Cannot recommend this game enough.

Just completed it. Have to say I had to use a guide for 80% of the game as it was tough as nails without using one.

Amazing artwork, graphics, music and a great feel good story, highly recommended.

Such an awesome game, super addictive.

Highly recommended.