Hi everyone, Hope its ok to post my own review of the game here, I hope the devs can get some decent insights from it Disclaimer: I was a backer for the game. The game is no doubt an improvement over the previous game, mostly in terms of mechanics and game-play but it does fall short in other areas. The good: ---------- - Graphics have improved and spells look much nicer this time around even those that were brought back from POE1 - The interface has been improved, it starts in the character creation screen where it allows you to better understand how to build your character according to what you want it to be. It continues with useful tip tools in various aspects of the interface such as an indication if a certain quest is beyond your level and might be too hard for your characters current level. - As mentioned previously, you can now WALK instead of running everywhere (assign a key to it in the settings) which allows you to enjoy the scenery, and there's plenty of it to enjoy. - The voice acting is better and includes all characters that play an active role in the game, descriptions of scenery and other "cutscenes" are not voiced but that's ok since most of the text is shown during character interactions. - Combat is now slower allowing you to make better decisions and come out of a fight alive as opposed to the previous game where you might die because you were misinformed in how to handle or continue a certain fight. - The free travel map makes exploration both at see and on land fun and intuitive, no doubt a much improved system over POE1. - Plenty of space to be either a good guy or an **** that only works for his own goals. The bad: ---------- - Too many references to the first game, this is the perfect way to throw off and confuse new players since so many things are referenced back to POE1 you often get confused. And since these games are so long you often forget what you did and why a certain character likes/dislikes you without a proper explanation. - Character spam, the game throws new characters that can join your party way too early and often its a couple of characters in one location. Personally I didn't like this since it doesn't allow me to properly get to know the characters I already have in my party and build any kind of a connection to them before I am offered to replace them with a new one, and since your are limited to 5 characters in your party you HAVE to make the decision to kick one of your "old timers" who were in your party for a couple of short hours. Seemingly, you could say that I can just decide not to switch them but many of the characters you are offered are presented as key figures for your upcoming quests without whom you could not continue or would miss out on information they hold, this makes it seem like you MUST put them in your party instead of a character who has joined your party just an hour ago. In my opinion this is a bad design decision on behalf of Obsidian since the main point in these games are the characters and if I am not given enough time to get to know them, use them and decide whether I like them or not they lose their meaning and once that is gone your desire to keep playing goes with it. - Quest/mission spam, personally I would tone it down at the beginning of the game and increase it as the player progresses, its not a major issue but sometimes you feel like you are in over your head and some missions are thrown in your face without your ever realizing your accepted a mission. - A very limited draw distance, in the first city your arrive in you will hear one of the characters say "I wonder whats that crowd over there is going on about?" The problem is that your don't really see a crowd until you move MUCH closer to the area the character was talking about and this problem persists with characters appearing "out of nowhere", its very immersion breaking and in combat is a real problem. I was attacked by 3 looters, the first 2 I saw but the third one since he was "too far" I did not see and he was shooting at my characters without me knowing where he was... And just to be clear I'm not talking about insane distances here, I am talking about at max 10 steps from your nearest character. The ugly: ---------- - Over dramatized writing, this was mentioned by a couple of people already and I must agree... The writing is often too dramatic and after a while feels more cliche which completely destroys your immersion or emotional capacity to keep listening to the dialogue. Seriously Obsidian, just because something is said or described in exaggerated pomp it doesn't mean that it will get the player excited again and again. It very quickly turns from real drama and excitement to a soap opera sort of excitement. For references its the same mistake that was done with Star Craft 2 Legacy of the void, where you had an ENTIRE campaign at 200% drama and epicness... Its unsustainable and at the moment your realize that this roller coaster doesn't have any straight rails it loses its effect. If every section of the game has drama when will my I have a chance to relax? A big lesson for the developer to learn for future titles: Keep the drama down until it is necessary, don't try to fool us that the world hangs on the balance EVERY SINGLE MINUTE. Also, some sections have swearing in them which feels out of place, like a dialogue option saying "f**k you" ... Having that beside the whole epicness and gods and stuff feels weird. - The main story is weak, at the beginning you aren't given information about who is EOTHAS and why you should care about him so much to go chasing after him for 40 hours, ok he destroyed my keep (which I didn't see or experience in this game so...whatever) The player doesn't even receive a proper explanation for the connection between the player, the god who sent him to chase down EOTHAS and without this connection it doesn't succeed in making this story feel personal enough. The biggest disappointment with the plot is that its something that cannot be fixed with patches and we will have to live with its weakness and lack of luster. - Character portraits during dialogue sections are meh, as opposed to their normal portraits shown outside of the dialogue. Its an odd decision but I can live with it.
