So is this game actually good?

[Volourn]

This is no spoiler section. If you played the game to finish you should know why he main story is  a ODS 'copycat' (I don't think it's a copy cat because the games were made during the same time period basically but theya re fundamentally the same).

 

I'm 100% right on the other issue as well. That should be disucssed there.

[Killer_Power]

So... I don't like this game. I really tried (and wanted) to, but it doesn't work for me. "Why?" you ask? Well, I haven't read the whole thread and I'm sure I will write what a lot of other users already wote, but nevertheless I will answer your question:

 

1. I dislike the combat mechanics. I mean, everything is ok with RT with pause function but I would expect at least some sort of AI behind a combat system like that!

Even if there isn't a huge and complex system like in Dragon Age: Origins (still one of the best combat systems I played by now!) I would at least expect that my chars don't stop auto attacking after I ordered them to activate one of their (offensiv) abilities.

For example: That mage you can get early in the game has an ability which he can use twice per encounter. I encounter some baddies, I set everyone on auto attack and then I activate my per encounter abilities. After he used his ability he just stands around, doing nothing... Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against micromanagement, but telling every party member to attack again after he used one of his special abilities is just a bit too much for me!

 

2. I also disliked the fact, that they mixed easy and hard (up to impossible) encounters not only in the same dungeons (which I'm ok with if there is a lower dungeon level with harder enemies, or if there is an enemy, which I can't defeat now) but also the same overlandmaps! Sure, I started my playthrough on hard, because I wanted a challenge, but after several tries at some points during the part I played I had to realize, that it is impossible to defeat said enemies. I don't know if that is because they are too strong or because of the before mentioned point...

 

3. I don't like the character stats and talents. One stat, which raises damage for both, melee and caster chars? That just doesn't "feel right". Sure, this can be just me, trapped in stereotype thinking and it wouldn't bother me that much, if all the other points weren't there... but so it is added to the list.

Same goes for the talents. There aren't that many and two or three (can't really remember) seem to be useless... So there is no diversity between characters!

 

4. Recruitable NPC's aren't important for the story! Or at least they can't be if I can create enough cahrs myself to fill up my party... So, why should I hire NPC's? Or, if they are important to the story: Why should I create a custom party?

 

5. Voice acting: The acting we have is quite ok. I mean, I heard a lot more worse (and I don't get why people complain about the quality of the actors... never listened to german voice actors, have they? ;o) ). But: There are no pauses so that you can read the "emotiontext" between spoken text. And what bugs me even more: Some parts of a conversation have voice acting and others don't. Even that won't bugger me that much, but if a conversation begins and the first two text boxes are spoken, the third and maybe fourth isn't but then again there is voice acting just doesn't help the flow.

Maybe it's me again, but I think, either so have no voice acting, have voice acting at the start of a conversation (and you have to read the rest of the text yourself) or full voice acting!

 

6. The maps: I only played like a couple of hours and I only saw a couple of maps (I would tell you, how far I played, but it says no spoilers here...) but I already remembered, what bugged me the most with BG: All maps are the same size and wilderness maps are just boring. You explore them, kill everything in it and venture on to the next one. There is no flair to the wilderness maps (or at least the ones I saw and I can imagine, that there are a couple more of them). I can live with that, but that they are all the same size (which is partly because you can't scroll the map).

 

7. Story: The story get's on reeeealy slow. I do hope, that it paces up a bit later.

But the start already left me confused (I hope that this doesn't count as a spoiler, as it is the very beginning of the game!): There is this man which is quite sick, so that you have to get medicine for him. Maybe I got it wrong, but to me it seemed like he is really sick, so that they can't go on any more. And then that man has to look for it himself, has to fight a couple of threats and is suddenly healthy again? If there are moe plotholes like this I'm glad that I stopped playing it....

 

So, after I realized all these points and the fact, that I have other games I want to play (and so little time...) that I won't play PoE any more. Which is pity, really! I backed this game on Kickstarter and really was looking forward to play it!

 

On the other hand there were a couple of things I liked:

 

1. Graphics: Even if not high state of the art I really liked the graphics. I liked the style and how it is presented!

 

2. Story: It seems like the story could be interesting (at least from what I experienced of it), even if I read otherwise in some reviews...

 

3. "Cutscenes": I liked that the solution to some cutscenes were just pictures with written text and some possibilities how to react. If you can't realize what you want to tell / show with the InGame graphics / mechanics then you need another solution. And this is quite good!

 

So, in the end, this game is not for me. I'm although happy for everyone who likes it and I hope, that the next thing from Osidian, which I'm eagerly waiting for (PACG) will be more for my taste...

[Jimmious]

Honestly the only thing I don't really like in this game is RTwP. It's just that after many games etc, I've decided nothing beats turn-based in RPGs. Everything else feels too hectic and imbalanced.
But that's only a personal preference and I know IE was THE RTwP engine so I live with it

[wickermoon]

 

 

Now what has Sarevok going for him: He killed your father. You're not going to go after him. Instead you're trying to solve the mystery of brittle metal, which, on a cursory note, has nothing to do with your situation. The plot thickens, I agree, but the pacing is off right from the start. It feels less personal and more like a mystery scavenger hunt and takes quite a while until it connects with you personally again. As the BG1 main char you would have to be very very benevolent and good-hearted to go on the quest of BG1's main story.

 

Don't forget the bounty hunters that attack you at every turn. Some one is gunning for your life in BG1, and there's good reason for the player to want to know who.

 

Which would be another cliché motive. I mean, Morrowind had it, even Kana is being hunted by bounty hunters and there are much much much more examples. Someone's gunning for my life? Well whoop-di-****in'-doo, I knew that the moment Gorion sacrificed himself to stop Sarevok from killing me. The bounty hunters didn't actually add to that. Plus, those bounty hunter mechanics are a pain in the ass and even PoE has them. SO annoying!

 

 

...compared to PoE, who kept every main quest motivation personal.

 

First: You try to get to Gilded Vale because you wanted to settle.

Second: You try to find out what is happening to you and the only person capable seems to be Maerwald.

Third: You try to find whoever did this to you, because you do not want to go full Maerwald.

Fourth: The guy seems to not only have ulterior motives, but his whole organization seems to have something against you.

Fifth: He attacked you

Sixth: He just killed off DB-Duke and Lady Webb and you still need to get to him

Seventh: He tried to get you killed, again!

Eighth: He actually is on a madman's plan.

To these eight points comes the fact that throughout the whole game you get fed the information that you grew pretty close to this guy in a previous life and that he most probably lied to you in order for you to betray your (player-choice).

 

.

The problem is step 4 -- you don't learn that the antagonist is part of the mysterious organization, until /after/ you've already started to investigate said organization. It isn't a fatal flaw because, as some one pointed out in this thread, a protagonist of a cRPG who /isn't/ curious isn't a valid character type (such a character would never start an adventure in the first place, or would end it ASAP), and therefore it is reasonable for to expect the protagonist to investigate a "mysterious organization" simply because it *is* mysterious.

 

But nevertheless, it is a defect (in my opinion), which could be closed by having someone (the Steward being an obvious choice) to provide more concrete guidance to the PC. After all, she's lived a very long time, and many interesting characters have passed through the Keep -- there really isn't any reason that she couldn't provide guidance pointing towards either Lady Webb and / or identifying the mysterious organization as someone who might be capable of the acts that the PC has witnessed -- either would tighten up the plot considerably.

 

I'll have to confirm that, but I'm pretty sure you learn rather early on that he's part and/or the leader of the organization.

[Namutree]

 

Don't forget the bounty hunters that attack you at every turn. Some one is gunning for your life in BG1, and there's good reason for the player to want to know who.

 

 

 

Which would be another cliché motive. I mean, Morrowind had it, even Kana is being hunted by bounty hunters and there are much much much more examples. Someone's gunning for my life? Well whoop-di-****in'-doo, I knew that the moment Gorion sacrificed himself to stop Sarevok from killing me. The bounty hunters didn't actually add to that.

It's not about what it adds to the story; it's what it did to me as a player. I didn't give a hoot when Sarevok killed Gorion, but when I was attacked by what was at the time pretty dangerous enemies; I got mad. I was thinking, "I hate this armored guy! He's always givin' me trouble. I need to kill him so these fools will leave me alone." It was personal and sucked me into the story.

 

PoE only really gives you the exposition to justify why you need to pursue the story, but I personally was never given a reason to care.

 

I've already noted that BG1/BG2 stories are too cliche. It was however, done well. PoE is more original and is more thematically interesting, but is presented poorly as it doesn't cultivate player motivation very well.

 

 

 Plus, those bounty hunter mechanics are a pain in the ass and even PoE has them. SO annoying!

Bounty hunter mechanics? What mechanics?

[Doug]

Short answer......

 

Can't wait for Witcher 3!

[gunman78]

The game is good but nowhere near the classics (BG, Arcanum, Fallout).

 

The combat system is ok, not much better than BG's. The disengagement system only matters at the lower levels, when your party becomes powerful it devolves into the classic BG select all, have one tank at the front and all shooters in the back. Your tank also has so much health than you can disengage him at will.

 

The spells are quite poor, with only several of them worth using. The majority of them are uninspired and copy pasted with a minor increase in effect or damage. When picking new spells sometimes I was struggling to pick the one that seemed most useful.

 

The skills are also a major letdown. It is well known by now that only mechanics and a little athletics matters, the rest are dump. At least they could have added the crafting / smiting as a skill instead letting any character enchant weapons and scribe any kind of scrolls.

 

The writing and the lore of the realm feels like meh. At the beginning it appeared interesting, by chapter 3 I wasn't paying much attention to conversations, just skipping them as fast as I could.

 

Overall this game feels like jack of the trades, master of none. It tried to balance everything but there is nothing memorable or innovative about it. At the opposite, look at Arcanum: ****ty combat system (****ty x10 if you play in real time) but the character development and how it blends into the game world in terms of reactivity is mind blowing.