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[JumpingJack]

So, the game's come out today... Anyone here played it yet? I'm thinking of getting it myself, but I'd like to hear what others have to say before I go trying to make space for it on my small drive.

[ein]

game is fun, i enjoy it

[umiman]

I've played a few hours.

I'm not sure whether I enjoy it or not. Then again, I did kinda get bored of PoE about halfway through because of the same reasons as Retropunch and lolcats. This is kinda the same, though to its credit I find the subject matters to be far more relatable than PoE's caustic gibberish. Here's it's a shittonne of words as well, but about stuff like general politics and wartime agendas. So more relatable stuff instead of some kind of supernatural completely fabricated lunacy.

The combat is still boring as all fuck. I don't understand why Obsidian is so insistent of having such stilted and stupid "waiting periods" between attacks. At least the AI in this one works so you don't have to babysit your characters as much as the release version of PoE. You've still got a lot of the MMO-style wail-at-the-air-while-numbers-float-around combat that most of the other Unity engine isometric games have. I heavily despise it.

The decisions and thought you have to put into your choices are good though. I'd say this is around the Witcher 3 level, but with more gravitas. I highly recommend you take the conquest rout of your character creation seriously, as it makes your experience very tailored to you. To give you an example, I'm basically called Queenslayer by every single person in this game because of what I did in there. It's glorious. All the enemies hate me immediately because of it and every single soldier knows who I am. There are a lot of choices and actions in the conquest section, so I can imagine how much work they must have put to add all the variety.

Mmm... other than that it's basically just PoE but with a different skin. The character customization is the same boring, almost-no-customization-at-all shit as PoE. You know, the one where you have to choose a premade portrait. Your companions all have an obscene amount of writing put into them, same like PoE. Maps are pretty but linear and in terms of actual shit to do in them, they're kinda limited. I'm not a fan of the time limit, just like I wasn't a fan of it in Fallout 1.

I think, at the end of the day, I'm just not a fan of these Obsidian Unity Engine Isometric games. There's something about these style that really annoys me and I'm not sure why. It's not like I dislike isometric games since I am a big fan of the Fallouts, Tactics, Divinity Original Sin and so on. There's just something about these ones that just pisses me off. Maybe it's the UI or the lack of customization, or the shitty combat or whatever.

In any case, that's all I have to say on it really. I'm not sure if I'm gonna continue playing. Not really compelled into it. I mean, the plot is interesting but I'm kinda like at when I was reading the Simillarion. I'm REALLY hesitant to force myself to read all this text, even if I know the text is interesting. Your mileage may vary.

[JumpingJack]

game is fun, i enjoy it

[insert exposition here]

Given these thought-provoking reviews, I think I'll give it a go.

In all seriousness, its reported similarities to PoE are irksome to me, but not unexpected. I tried playing PoE shortly after it came out, but it didn't take me very long to lose interest; weird combat and a novel's worth of seemingly heavy-handed dialogue was enough to put me to sleep in the first fifteen minutes. I had heard of Tyranny's time limit some time ago, and it certainly does seem woefully reminiscent of Fallout in that regard... Nevertheless, I'll see if this game resonates with me more than its spiritual predecessors before passing lasting judgement.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I've been playing it for about two hours. Character creation really really matters, it is an enjoyable first hour and the choices branch in interesting ways: you'd be surprised how much, I reloaded because I wanted to make a different decision and saw that events develop both identically and very differently in terms of the reputation you inherit. You also end up knowing the world much better.

The morality system is hilariously self-conscious: literally Chaotic Evil or Lawful Evil both represented at their most cruel and charming, or tread the difficult path of Neutral Evil.

It reminds me of Torment more than Baldur's gate. A lot of very interesting conversations, fewer fights.

Companions seem to have loads and loads and loads more good writing in them than in Pillars. The game does too. Again reminds me of Torment, where you unlock conversation trees for experience, depending on the respect or terror they feel of you.

The character customization is also much improved from Pillars, with tattoos, body types etc.

The combat is nothing to write home about, not because it is bad, or anything (my build of multiclass ice magic/martial arts is working fine, and it seemed ill-advised in terms of optimisation, I'm playing on hard so can't complain), but because it is just cookie-cutter world of warcraft style abilities on cool down. Having a companion adds encounter abilities where you act in unison.

However, you pick your (very limited) pool of abilities, so plenty of room for customization.

Really digging it so far, much much more than Pillars of Eternity.

[Malus]

The three companion limit is really rough, not because the combat is difficult (it's not, particularly) but because the characters and their interactions are interesting and I want to see as many as possible. Oh well, more replayability I guess.

One thing that's not really clear to me, with the companion stuff -- you have your "Fear" and "Loyalty" with them on different bars, they raise/lower independently, and you can unlock some skills once they reach certain milestones. Now, I've been playing with the assumption that it's better to be loved than feared, but it actually seems like it's probably better to be loved and feared, at least mechanics-wise. I'm not sure if being feared has any negative story/dialogue consequences -- I haven't seen any yet, but I'm a little worried there'll be some point in the story where I max out their fear gauge and they betray me or run away or something. It doesn't seem like that kind of game, but I guess I don't really know. I'm stuck with a guy who hates my guts and is only placated because I keep persuading him that what I'm doing is actually part of some genius, machiavellian plan (it's not) and I just know sooner or later there'll be an encounter where the facade falls apart and he takes off.

The conquest stuff is super cool. I already have my next four characters planned out (probably won't finish the game with all of them, but there are some key story bits and characters I'd like to talk to having done things differently). I'm just really hoping it doesn't suffer from the Telltale syndrome where none of the choices actually make a difference.

[ChairmanPoo]

. Now, I've been playing with the assumption that it's better to be loved than feared, but it actually seems like it's probably better to be loved and feared, at

Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, is much safer to be feared than loved,

From The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

[Retropunch]

Interesting stuff. Any more thoughts would be appreciated as I'm on the edge with this.

Would you say it's more polished mechanically than PoE? PoE sort of had a bit of a sheen of 'first kickstarter from new company' which grated on me a bit.

What is the time limit thing about? is it a sort of 'only can do so many 'world actions' before you get to the finale' or a real time ticking clock? I *hate* being forced to skip quests and rush stuff that I wanted to do, just because the game decides that it's end of the world time.

[Isdar]

Interesting stuff. Any more thoughts would be appreciated as I'm on the edge with this.

Would you say it's more polished mechanically than PoE? PoE sort of had a bit of a sheen of 'first kickstarter from new company' which grated on me a bit.

What is the time limit thing about? is it a sort of 'only can do so many 'world actions' before you get to the finale' or a real time ticking clock? I *hate* being forced to skip quests and rush stuff that I wanted to do, just because the game decides that it's end of the world time.

At the start, there is a 8 day time limit before GAMEOVER. I finished all the sidequests, mainquest and talked with everyone, and still had 6 days left. Of course, I only needed to rest once, so your mileage might vary.

Edit: And the timelimits seem to be area based, and not through the entire game, so you need to finish the starter area within 8 days or DIE. There might be more timelimits for some areas of the game, but i'm not sure.

[umiman]

Interesting stuff. Any more thoughts would be appreciated as I'm on the edge with this.

Would you say it's more polished mechanically than PoE? PoE sort of had a bit of a sheen of 'first kickstarter from new company' which grated on me a bit.

What is the time limit thing about? is it a sort of 'only can do so many 'world actions' before you get to the finale' or a real time ticking clock? I *hate* being forced to skip quests and rush stuff that I wanted to do, just because the game decides that it's end of the world time.

At the start, there is a 8 day time limit before GAMEOVER. I finished all the sidequests, mainquest and talked with everyone, and still had 6 days left. Of course, I only needed to rest once, so your mileage might vary.

Edit: And the timelimits seem to be area based, and not through the entire game, so you need to finish the starter area within 8 days or DIE. There might be more timelimits for some areas of the game, but i'm not sure.

So since you beat it, can you tell us if it's a good game?

[lordcooper]

What is the time limit thing about? is it a sort of 'only can do so many 'world actions' before you get to the finale' or a real time ticking clock? I *hate* being forced to skip quests and rush stuff that I wanted to do, just because the game decides that it's end of the world time.

Time only seems to move while you rest or are en route to a new location via the world map.  The time limit in the first act seems very generous so far.

[Greenbane]

It's unfortunate that this game is so similar to Pillars of Eternity, another example of clinging to obsolete, cumbersome systems just for nostalgia's sake. Literally every genre has evolved in the past 16 years, and it makes little sense to stay primitive, reinventing not-D&D mechanics, just as convoluted, and insisting on an obscure, dull combat system.

I appreciate the twist of the story, and the effort they put into the lore. It's unfortunate to see all that potential wasted on an archaic, rusted golem of a game structure.

[Wiles]

I feel like I'm in the minority here but I do enjoy the combat system used in Pillars and older Infinity engine games...

[ein]

it's clunky sure, but i enjoy it more than, say, dragon age

it could definitely stand to be improved, but the crpg formula works well for what it is

innovation purely for innovation's sake is how we get shitty gimmicks that don't stand up to the test of time

[umiman]

I played a few hours more of this.

I'm starting to enjoy it more. The combat system gets less moronic the longer you go, simply because you don't actually have to fight all that much (kinda like Planescape Torment). And with better gear, fights just end faster so you don't have to subject yourself to this trial of lethargy. Also with the AI at least in some semblance of function this time around, you can just go get a cup of tea or watch Top Gear instead of playing it while the combat is taking place, as the AI will just take over for you.

Aside from that, I'm actually kinda enjoying being a traveling judge. It's fun. The cases are all interesting from what I've seen and there aren't any true clear paths to success. So I found I have to think about my decisions somewhat, though I've been playing it like I'm actually Tunon's lackey so I pass judgements like Judge Dredd basically. I haven't actually given a shit about the main story. I kinda feel like Deadpool at this point. Kinda like this: https://youtu.be/R2ee85buPiE?t=41s

I'll probably continue later. I want to be Judge Dredd some more.