The Community Blog

As someone who generally found PoE games not being great in practice despite being very good for me on paper (which somewhat disturbs me because I have an issue in articulating just what about Poe and Deadfire I dislike), I have to say that Hawke64 is absolutely right about the endgame of Deadfire. It's refreshingly short (in terms of real time spent, not in terms of content) and is less of a test of just how much players can cheese the game system (Kingmaker/WotR) or an uncharacteristically dense series of combat encounters that just does not work well with established mechanics (BG3) than it is a thematic cap of the game you've sunk at least 50+ hours into for a single playthrough. Which is quite nice, The Guardian would have been a one-off endgame boss like in some many videogames but in Deadfire it is just what you have to get through to get in the gate, the real boss is the decisions you've made along the way both in the form of your conflict with one of the factions (which I believe can be kind of weak, given the way you can theoretically not pay special attention to any given one enough to explain just why the hell they would come to stand off with you in El Dorado Ukaizo) to the last dialogue with Eothas himself. It's a very nice ending to a game I otherwise felt was unfortunately disjointed (the curse of a multi-game protagonist imo) and should be studied and tried to learn from instead of forcing us into yet another series of EPIC battles that have all the heft of a comic book superhero death.

Quote

while the fact that all of the possible romances were bisexual successfully avoided cis-heteronormativity and made the story more immersive and engaging for the LGBTQ+ gamers.

This is the one part I disagree with strongly enough to talk about, the romances felt very much slapped on and applied with the cis-hetero eye in mind. It's better than Bioware or Owlcat (other than the throuple in Kingmaker) but that's a very low bar to cross. I may get some guff here, but largely I felt that BG3 did a much better job at romance generally and feeling less relentlessly heteronormative.

But that's all minor quibbles and the opinion of a meanie zucchini. Maybe I'll get myself together and crank out some incomprehensible nonsense about gaming and dialectics/trialectics.

Thanks for this, @Hawke64. As we anticipate Avowed, I am wondering what you might add from this piece regarding hopes and expectation in the shift to the different platform and such?

On 7/8/2024 at 3:59 AM, Fionavar said:

Thanks for this, @Hawke64. As we anticipate Avowed, I am wondering what you might add from this piece regarding hopes and expectation in the shift to the different platform and such?

While I am trying to avoid significant spoilers for the game, Avowed seems to be more combat-heavy and less flexible in terms of the story (e.g. all companions are mandatory). I would hope Avowed to be closer to immersive sims, considering the first-person camera perspective, with their detailed level design and multiple ways to resolve quests, and Pillars of Eternity II, which supported the player's agency in terms of narrative and consistently high-quality writing, but I am unsure at the moment how it is going to be. In terms of sustainability, the lower system requirements, the better (<20GB storage space, <4GB VRAM would be ideal), which is even less likely to happen.

Still, it is an Obsidian game and I am looking forward to it. I also hope to be able to purchase it on GOG on release (highly unlikely) to prevent any updates that can significantly worsen my experience.

Thanks, Hawke64. I appreciate the challenge and shared hope :). Some of the Devs have referenced that Avowed will be akin to Outworlds in regard to story-style and gameplay: does that comparison help with some of your wonderings?

Thank you. I loved that in The Outer Worlds helping an NPC or a faction was a conscious choice and not the default reaction, while ignoring them or murdering everyone was always an option and the game acknowledged it as well. Also, the companions were well-written, relatable, and sympathetic.

The itemisation and enemy encounters, on the other hand, looked like there was significantly less intent and effort put into it, with the guns with levels being a strong negative.