I think a lot of the changes made in Deadfire were a response to the criticism directed at the first game. For example, PoE1 was heavily criticized for the slow pacing and weak hook. So Deadfire tries to solves this with a more bombastic and epic opening sequence that gets the player invested. I think the faction side of things is well-written, but I do agree that parts of the main story are kind of meh, though I liked Eothas as a main antagonist and enjoyed the interactions with the Gods. I also liked some of the companions in Deadfire better than the ones in the first game, such as Tekehu, who I'd take over Maneha any day. Though I wish sidekicks like Rekke, Ydwin, and Vatnir were made full fledged companions. They were all great and added so much to the lore. Especially Rekke. Anyway, glad to see you cover this game as well, and I can't wait to for your review of the expansions.
Weird that people felt that way about PoE1. I think a secret cult that uses a machine to cause a storm that rips the soul out of people’s body in a world where souls go to the wheel and get reborn is a pretty cool hook.
About portraits in conversations: it was a way to give every NPC a face. Doing detailed portraits takes a lot of time, so it would be unfeasible to do a fancy portraitfor everyone. So they came up with those simple scratches that if I remember correctly took about 30m to make. Personally I love them - they compose well with UI, and they did the job for me.
"Doing detailed portraits takes a lot of time, so it would be unfeasible to do a fancy portraitfor everyone" --> Tha is NOT what I was suggesting. They could've perfectly used the portrait version from the inventory screen with a different size, not a sepia filtered scratch version.
@@YeOldEntertainment for companions yes, but not for other NPCs as such portraits don't exist. So for consistency sake everyone got a scetch version of a portrait.
@@wormerine8029 I'm not sure that's the case. Clearly there are NPC portraits. Actually many portraits are repeated. The sepia-scratching effect is a filter applied over an existing image. That's why companions' portraits during dialogue sequences look just like they do in the inventory screen/character screen, just smaller and with the spedia/scratch. It's probably the same with Furrante, Benweth and every random less important NPC you encounter. And if there weren't regular sized portraits... then they should've made them. It's not like there are that many faces. And many of them are repeated. Given the amount of work put into so many details in this game, I don't think it would've been that costly or difficult to make them (specially since there was already a blueprint with the sepia miniatures). To me it was a clearly a style choice and I didn't like it.
I don't know which game is better since i adore them both but i will never forget my first PoE1 playthrough. Two of the best rpgs i have ever played , the fact that they didn't sell well enough breaks my heart.
That's an Obsidian/Interplay life story in general. They're not sell-outs but at the same time, their games don't make a whole ton of money. Because at the triple-A scale, CRPGs just aren't that attractive to mainstream consumerbase, which is unfortunate.
@@samuelevander9823 I believe The Outer Worlds was a financial success but i also believe it is the weakest game Obsidian has developed. In the case of PoE , the marketing was lacking. You have the Divinity series selling millions , Wasteland 3 also probably sold 1 million copies at this point , the Pathfiner series also sold very well. It's sad because my view is that the PoE games are superior to any of these other titles but PoE 2 released and nobody talked about it , very few / small youtubers and a few trailers was all we got. So unless you are a lifelong rpgs fan AND have played PoE 1 , you wouldn't even know about the sequel. In contrast , The Outer Worlds is an average at best rpg but benefited from a well managed marketing campaign.
@@dylanbell268 ironically my first crpg w no prior crpg knowledge was poe2 like 3 months before bg3 release... it awakened an itch for crpg and i gotta say after 150+ hrs of bg3, i still reminisce on my poe2 playthroughs. At first it was a big learning curve but i loved the art style and music of poe2. Dont think bg3 topped that.
35:13 I have to say that this moment, in the dlc, where you get to know more about that war was a really special moment from someone who comes from Poe1, even better if u bring Eder w/ u. 10/10 moment 46:15 Poe2 has lost some of that "dark side" of the story that was brilliant in the first game. (I don't remember much of the first game, but I do remember that the Watcher we meet in Caed Nua was "stuck" in some horrible past memories of a man and woman with a very mature story to read.) 50:41 hell yeah \m/, more games need that damn search filter! 56:21 YES! the music in the ship is amazing, my favorite is "Its Crash Could Not Be Denied | Justin E. Bell" it's really repetitive but I can't get tired of it, that means it's a real gem! ! ! 58:15 true, as well if you only have women in the ship, the voices will only be with women, the same if the crew is 100% male, again, the voices only change to male voices 1:02:40 oh, you said very well, the Vailian language is a mix of Spanish (Catalan) and Italian, and since I'm Italian I love THAT SH1T so much x'D, but some characters I think have a strong African accent, at least as far as I can understand, Pallegina also made her accent very heavy compared to the first game, a little too much, it's not bad because it's really well done in that sense but, yes, it's really very "heavy"... Belfetto Aimico \^O^/ (or as italian i should say: Benfatto amico!)
A truly under appreciated masterpiece. I didn't like the game when I first played it, but going back yesterday I could not stop playing for HOURS. The games visuals are high art, the story is subversive and the CHOICES are so intriguing balancing between factions
it cant bbe a masterpiece when the story is shit, the writing is questionable, no good story direction. Ship battles are shit. This game is 7/10 at best.
@@robosergTV Story being shit is highly subjective. If you don't got a university degree, I question you are really smart enough to judge story content consistently.
I love PoE2 so much. It has some rough edges but man I feel like with its theme and the story structure it was specifically made for someone like me. It's definitely my favorite CRPG of the CRPG Renaissance. Fantastic video and thank you for making me rediscover my love for that game.
As for any game I like, I love this one with his flaws too. I watched some videos about Obsidian and Larian’s dev process and boy, developing games is a freaking nightmare and a work of art.
This needs to be said more! I know that some games press all the wrong keys, to the point that we become frustrated because we paid 30, 40, 60$ for a game that we didn't like. But the amount of effort that goes into these productions, even in the most modest indy games is just staggering.
I consider PoE2 a good game, a straight up improvement over PoE1, especially as the combat is more fun and I like the setting more. Unfortunately for that game it had the "luck" of getting sidelined by Divinity Original Sin 2 which for me was a masterpiece, and I never really got around back to PoE2.
Great video as always. In general I thought that PoE2 improved on every asect that was weak in PoE1 - better combat, better content, no padding, worldbuilding through quests and interactions, rather then reading books. I had more fun playing PoE2, but it left me wanting more, while I felt satisfied after every PoE1 playthrough. Gameplay wise, I have really only few complaints: XP gain is too much - one starts overleveling content in the game very early making encounters boring. Luckily that can be fixed with mods. Then there is PEN, which just didn't quite work for me. I somewhat agree with your complaints about changes to classes, but the trade-off in variety in subclasses, and clarity of multiclassing I think out weighs what was lost from PoE1. I still like a lot of the story of PoE2, but it has some major issues - narrative hook for the protagonist doesn't feel good. I felt it would be better to have a new character with closer ties to the events in Deadfire - with how big of a chunk of the story revolves around Deadfire's political conflict, I feel it would make more sense to be someone with stakes in what is happening, with Eothas' actions being gradually revealed during the campaign. For Watcher to work, I think the opening tutorial area, should be the island, but Dyrwood - interact with our castle, meet Eder and Aloth there, get some reactivity to our action in PoE1, and then get the castle smashed and ship off to Deadfire. Even though I forged connection with Caed Nua in PoE1, a cutscene really failed to engage me. I like a lot of ideas and characters in PoE2, but game's non-linear nature means that story lines and characters don't really get developed - they don't get arcs. If there is some amount of linearity, then devs can write a nice story - develop characters, react to our earlier choices etc. Returning companions just don't work for me - and new companions have potential, but they don't get properly developed. There are glipses of great characters, in few scenes they get in the game's underwhelming finale, but it's too little too late. Relationship mechanic was a disaster. I miss the subtlety of the PoE1. I heard people praise Beast of Winter as having far better writing then the base game - and I don't agree, at least no that PoE2 issues were writer's fault. It's just that a more condensed and linear nature of Beast of Winter gives writiers more to work with. In general, once again the three DLCs are brilliant. I wonder how much the wonky writing pops out because of rushed full VO - while full VO is welcome, I did feel it was lower quality then lines on offer in PoE1. Some of the PoE1 content is some among my fav in cRPG history - some of PoE2 does feel a bit like it was done in a rush. Somewhere between PoE1&2 there is one of the finest RPGs ever made. Too bad there likely won't be PoE3 for the series to really reach its full potential. Oh well, maybe one day.
Ive put a lot of time into the game and only finished once, forcing myself through. There's a lot I love but the game slogs itself down, especially in the major hubs. The design is missing something and while the encounters are fun, the whole game just doesn't strike home well enough. I actually prefer the first game because of the world in many ways, but want to love this one so badly. If only there was some middle ground of sorts. Good review
I loved PoE too, and I think this review nails everything. I couldn't see much of the story potholes or questions you mentioned, but I may have just been too immersed in how much more polished of a game it was to PoE1. Thanks for another on point (and much anticipated for me) video YOE.
@@winterstormm7185 I think the game is already easy as it is, even in the Path of the Damned difficulty. I like that they are optional and you may skip all of them altogether. They are innovative as a concept, but I wish I had been rewarded in other, perhaps story-related ways for completing achievements.
I played the game at release and was shocked at how little this game connects to Pillars. I kind of enjoyed the pirate life, but I dropped the game after I realized I wasn't invested in the story midway through.
I actually really like the story of this game. The ideas it presents about religion, colonialism, and structures of power, how different societies interact with each other, and how these extra-societal exchanges influence internal change are all very interesting. The themes presented and the way the game goes about allowing the player to develop their own opinions on these matters and tackle these issues in any way they see fit shows me that this game is a true spiritual successor to New Vegas. To me, the problem doesn’t lie with the writing itself, more so with the pacing. While all of the world building, side questing, and companion/faction stories are great, the main narrative itself doesn’t get interesting until over halfway through the game, when you learn Eothas’ intentions. His goal of destroying the Wheel and the gods’ reactikns to this plan present some really interesting ideas and implications for the world of Pillars to further develop upon. It just sucks that the game really struggles to hook you in from the start, creating a barrier to entry for one of the most unique and interesting stories I’ve ever experienced in a game.
I'm a bit surprised that the Obsidian Edition is still 59.99 on steam. That is a bit pricey (even including the DLCs) for a game that's been around for four years. But when you factor even the amount of hours the games takes to complete vs the amount of hours that the games is actually fun to play, and the replay value... it's totally worth it.
I currently have Baldur's Gate 3, PoE 1 & 2 (and all 3 DLCs). My cousin gave me a copy of BG2 10 years ago, played it for 1 hour. Got bored with it. I definitely love PoE series over BG series. I feel like I'm actually immerse in the game, whereas for BG 3, it feels like I'm in a movie set. Fake & pretentious. If you're micro managing trash mobs in PoE 2, it's because you spec your characters WRONG. I used to do the same thing. Put most of my points in the fancy active skills. Problem is, you can only use your fancy active skills about 3-4 times, like fighters & barbarians (cause you ran out of zeal), so they're USELESS skills. Put your points into passive skills, like more damage, resistance, 2 hand or 2 weapons proficiency. Now I only micro manage for BIG MONSTER BOSS fights. Even 5 fampyrs doesn't need my attention.
I really wanted to love PoE2, but for me it was held back by too many issues, especially in the writing. Gameplay was a huge step forward (though I wasn’t a fan of nerfing the full party amount by one), but the writing simply takes itself too seriously and comes off as bland much of the time. Baldur’s Gate 1/2 don’t necessarily have the greatest writing, but they’re tonally consistent (at least internally) and don’t try to hit me over the head with philosophical and sociopolitical themes at every moment. Still, PoE2 is a good game objectively speaking, just not in the same league as the classics.
@@adrenalin2957 yes! Planescape: Torment is a great example of how to write a game with heavier themes. I’ve heard Disco Elysium is a good spiritual successor but I haven’t played it yet.
While I get why you don't like it, I still find it odd when people criticize the game of taking itself too seriously, when PoE2 is much lighter in tone compared to its predecessor, no doubt thanks to the aforementioned criticism from fans and most likely Divinity Original Sin 2, which Josh Sawyer cited as having had a major influence in Deadfire's development.
@@vlad4o813 to be fair, I also thought the first PoE took itself too seriously, but it justified its own seriousness somewhat with more competent and flavorful writing. Characters like Durance and Grieving Mother especially left a strong impression, but in PoE2 there’s nothing really comparable. Instead, we have an overarching theme of colonialism, nativism, and morally grey faction politics that pervade almost every aspect of PoE2’s narrative. I appreciated some of the smaller character moments in PoE2, especially from Takehu, but elsewhere the game just doesn’t do enough on a narrative level to stay engaging. I don’t need all the games I play to have the level of writing quality as say, Planescape: Torment, but if you’re going to have such a strong emphasis on narrative and dialogue, it better be good and not waste my time. Both Baldur’s Gates did a lot more with less, and thus felt more satisfying for me personally.
@@matternicuss The best way I think PoE2 can be described is the crpgs equivalent of New Vegas. It places a heavy emphasis on faction politics, and that's the aspect I loved about New Vegas the most writing wise, so this game easily appealed to me. The themes of colonialism and imperialism have been a big part of the PoE lore, with the rise and fall of empires like Aedyr, which was a major talking point in the first game. Seeing such events actually play out was interesting because it felt like you were shaping the history of Eora. Also, out of the two characters you mentioned, Grieving Mother is probably one of my least favorites in the first game, and I attribute it to the fact she doesn't have much dialogue, but has walls upon walls of uninteresting and bland text that describes flashbacks and visions. Her arc is one of the weakest, especially compared to someone like Durance, who was such a brilliantly written character, that I don't think many other crpg characters even come close to his writing, not the even the ones from both Baldur's Gate games can match him.
Both Pillars games and both Divinity games, as well as Dragon Age Ogrins, all strike the right balance of depth and fun. I recently pre-ordered Wrath of the Righteous and thought it would be my new favorite strategy game but ended up hating it. It was the definition of quantity over quality, I thought Kingmaker was ok. Deadfire is underrated. The studio said they changed the setting so everything would feel fresh, but it flopped because many hated the pirate setting. Fans wanted another dark lore dungeon crawler. I like them both equally but for different reasons. However, you need a good PC or a next gen system in order to tolerate Deadfire, because on older systems it has the worse load times I have ever witnessed in the history of gaming.
This is my favorite game I've ever played. I got it to learn how to be a better game master by playing the turn based mode. As I did that I got good enough to try the traditional way of playing the game. I'm now playing the first one and going to use that profile to finish the game again through a new perspective.
I found the turn based mode dreadful due to the difficulty I strived to beat. What did you learn from it as per becoming a better game master? I was inspired by a lot of the narrative beats, companions and varied dialogue with defined personalities behind them.
@@lysanthir7231 I was playing on easy mode since I wasn't in it for a challenge and never played a game like this before. So the turn based wasn't too bad until I got into more complex ambushes. But as for a game master I learned how to set up my own dungeons better, make combat more engaging and adding life to my npcs. I write my own side quests for the main campaign I run and it just gave me a lot of inspiration of hooks, quest ideas, how to travel and places to go.
@@obscure_films dude dungeon layout is one thing I completely missed checking. Traps too. Now I gotta replay it all again to take notes 💀 Also what area did you like best layout wise? Mine is probably Galawain's underwater temple, or any of the dungeons you go clear on uncharted islands. Absolutely loathed that DLC area though where you had to drain and fill the water. Took me way longer than it should have.
@@lysanthir7231 I got the most inspiration from the uncharted islands since they work really well as simple side quests. It's hard to nail down the biggest inspiration one but all the weird cults like Nemnok are my main source. Mostly because I have an overarching side plot of a dragon necromancer cult running a protection racket. Generally I use the ideas of entering a dungeon by different means and how to make getting a quest item from the environment feel more natural.
It's a puzzle why this wasn't a bigger hit, because it's actually a really good game. I don't think it's anything to do with the specific mechanics of the game (relative to POE1, which was a success), but rather that a large segment of people who'd bought POE1 were disappointed with it, in terms of the combat and build system (especially the way Attributes work) being really quite unfamiliar and unlike D&D's. In fact, I think it's a _better_ system than D&D's _for RTwP combat,_ and POE2 improves and iterates on it. Even the attributes system makes some simulationist sense once you get used to it. But probably by the time POE2 came around, enough people had been "burnt" by the first game not to give the second a try, and not to spread enthusiasm about it. Essentially, the BG phenomenon was a bit of an accident, whereby a company developed a quasi-realtime system out of what is basically a turn-based system. They did a great job of it, but it was a kludge, and the problem is that expectations were set for that type of game in the future, so that when POE came along, and tried to actually design a system for RTwP from the ground up, a lot of people who'd gotten used to the kludge of the BG/IWD games for RTwP were disappointed. But the more I've played POE and POE2, the more I've appreciated that the system Sawyer and the others developed is actually better for RTwP gameplay - especially in the POE2 iteration, where you have extensive control over the AI conditionals. RTwP IMHO doesn't really sit well with the idea of micromanaging a whole team, in the way that turn-based perforce does. It sits better with the idea of you mainly micromanaging your own character and giving orders to a team that's fairly competent in and of itself, and only needs occasional micromanagement. And POE2, with the option of tweaking the AI to your liking, does that beautifully. I love turn-based games too, and I love the way that the Owlcat Pathfinder games enable you to switch between TB and RTwP on the fly - but again, the Pathfinder system is basically a tabletop and turn-based system, so neither style of gameplay ever sits quite comfortably. It's always going to be difficult to design a system that serves both types of gameplay equally well (even though it would be ideal). It's interesting that with the turn-based version of _this_ game, while it's fun to use because of the really clear, readable UI, it's obvious after a while of playing that the game wasn't really designed around turn-based :) These are tough conundrums for developers to work around. But I do think this game will have a reasonably long life, and sustain a level of popularity that the developers probably wouldn't have expected from its poor initial performance. It's a fun game chock full of content. What's not to like? :)
I had 2 problems with this game. Story: “Eothas is heading to point X, we have to get there now!!…oh but first let’s help find some actors for this play…and let’s find a cure for these sick Huana…” The story ruins the immersion. My second problem is the character progression. I like turned base DOS style combat…but you learn skills so slowly and there is no nuance or depth to the classes. It’s all about min/maxing. I don’t min/max so my characters aren’t the best…but also you don’t get a lot of skills so you basically approach mostly all battles the same. It gets boring quick. I take breaks often to go play divinity :(
I didn't, I just pretty much ran around and did my own thing...until it panned out, only thing was hard was shipbuilding in the beginning, ship battles sucked, then got better
There is a turned base mode for this game now. It's not bad. Though you can't switch back and forth, so be forewarned the game will take significantly longer. I enjoyed the game much more in turned based mode. Though the game isn't balanced for that, so it's not for everyone. I like the game if a bit short and like the first game, the overall story isn't that great.
@@JimmyMon666 :/ I’m sorry if my wording was bad. I just meant as a fan of that style of play, The execution is Poor here. And I agree with you, it’s very clear it was added after and that the game is meant to play more like the original Baldur’s gate. Thanks for the reply.
@@chewysplace3542 that is what every one who plays this game does. But if you try to immerse yourself in the story, which is what I like to do, you are constantly being reminded that Eothas is on the move and he’s ending the world. Meanwhile, you are going in the opposite direction to find sugar to make candies nuts.
Perhaps it's worth noting that this game offers both RTwP *and* turn based combat options. I wish more CRPGs did the same! This game rules with turn-based enabled, and it completely changes the kinds of tactics and skills you'll want to approach each situation with.
true, i would pay double the price for a Poe3... but at least we gonna get Avowed... im gonna play it just for the story i think cuz first person rpg is not rlly my favorite thing, but still hope is gonna be a decent experience
Also if you never noticed, your crew composition dictates the vocals of the ship songs. If you had a crew entirely of men, then there is an absence of female singers during the sailing songs and vice versa.
Yes!! I noticed that back in the day but forgot to mention that for the video. There is that, there is the fact that, if you are a guy, when they sing the tales of your past exploits they refer to you as "he" and if you're a gal, they refer to you as "she", there are scrolls around the archipelago with the lyrics of many of the songs, and many other details!
everything is better except the core *pillar* of an RPG. the main story and companions. the first had a much stronger plot hook, mildly better pacing (still bad) and better companions. the worst thing about POE is the esoteric and opaque gameplay, for POE 2 it is the main story's pacing defies suspension of disbelief and feels a bit contrived.
Very good video again chief! I just don't get the final score 7.6. From what I get you enjoyed the sequel more than the first game (finale score of 8.5) Is that a mistake? Probably not. I guess it's more a reflect of the limitations of all the scoring systems that exists on earth. After all, it's hard to measure fun, joy or great memories. Keep going man. You're doing great.
Thanks a lot mate. It was a mistake, yes. I copied and pasted the sprite from another video and forgot to edit it. Made a community post about it... But I think most people didn't see it (It's a 8.7 for me) --> ruclips.net/user/postUgkxGiCVNtpa0qv2syfKG7BIG-XRe0IuYulE
I like the first game a lot better. By the time I got to endgame in this one, I was winning fights without even trying. It got so boring I never finished the game. Also, the ship battles were terribly designed and boring.
Loved POE 1 and 2, Tyranny and all the DLC's, 'cept "Arena". I look forward to whatever they put out. Not having played Divinity I'm sort of meh on BG3.
I don't get much about the lore, and I didn't play POE1, but I'm still loving this game! I fell in love with CRPGs after Divinity Original Sin 2, and I tried Pathfinder afterward but I didn't like it.
On second play through I fell in love with Pillars of Eternity 2 in 4k UHD HDR 10 ultra on PC who didn't seen it can't imagine how detailed armors and weapons are. The most beautiful Baldur's Gate like game. If they could transfer beautiful character look from second game to first as we have later in Baldur's Gates it would be nice 👍 some random maps are small other is excellent
Hey, would you consider releasing a document that has all the games you reviewed and their scores in all the categories? It would make it quite a bit easier to compare your relative opinions on these games, without having to switch between different videos and go to the correct timestamps.
I thought you guys were never going to ask! (I'm on it) (But this last one has a mistake. The score isn't 7.6, it's 8.7 like I said in the addendum I posted on the community.)
Pillars 2 has me kind of stressed about the competition between roleplaying my character vs metagaming my companions with maximizing dialog choices. Not totally decided on how I feel about it. I do enjoy consequence a lot. It does present an interesting challenge for me to stick to my guns and to hell with what companions think. Hmm I dont know what I'm talking about.
i've always wondered if chris avellones had something to do with the writting in poe 2 (he not been there) though he is in poe 1 and both pathfinders lol
Well from what I've read he was an advisor of sorts in Pathfinder WOTR. A consultant if you would. I refuse to believe he had anything to do with the abysmal writing in the Pathfinder games... and if he did... he definitely lost his mojo.
Hey you. You're finally awake. You were trying to post a video, right? I'm 1 minute in so far, and there's 2 things that caught my eye already. There's not a "yes", after exactly 1:00 Wth, over one hour! Nice!
Well, given my crappy internet, "trying to post a video" doesn't seem all that implausible as far as excuses go. In truth I've been re-editing this one and dealing with an insane amount of work. But... Beast of winter is already almost done so it should be out soon.
I think the devs would have better go with a non direct sequel. Just call it PoE: pirates of the dead seas or something like it. This would have solve the issue with the plot and give more liberty to the writers
Well I got semi quoted and I'm cool with that. POE2 is an improvement in almost every way over the original except where it counts (story/characters). The Characters/companions in the first pillars harken back to Baldurs Gate, Planescape or Metal Gear Solid. The second installment just didn't capture that.
@@YeOldEntertainment I meant the "immersion breaking conversations with seemingly modern 20 something characters" paraphrase. It's funny I'll forgive a game with gameplay issues if it has a great story (Planescape), but not vice versa because isn't it just fancy candy crush at that point?
@@patrickclark9430 hehe. It's a bit extreme to say it's a candy crush but... I see where you're coming from. Immersive stories are essential in RPGs...
Played it once and unlike the first one, it didn't grab me. Somehow, despite its stakes and potential choices, I didn't care for a main quest (maybe it was the lack of strong, Thaos-like antagonist?). I also didn't fully click with any of the followers (Sarafen was the closest to achieve that, but got cliche pretty soon), so I eventually ended up replacing them ALL with "sidekicks" (yup, Mirke kicks ass!) which I never did in any game before! I've also found sea combat (and subsequent boarding) boring and tedious after 3 or 4 initial battles. And the world itself was surprisingly lacking that crucial "awe and wonder" factor I still get from traversing some stupid-ass, empty wilderness in the ancient BG1. TBH the only memorable part of that game, which will stay with me, was "The Forgotten Sanctum" DLC and that "exploding bridge" moment from the "Beast of Winter".
Well I think I liked it a lot more than you did. But yes. The Godhammer momento form the Beast of Winter DLC and the Forgotten sanctum are indeed the best parts of the game. And combat-wise, Mirke is haaaaaands down the best of the lot, OP even.
Even with all of the jank, for me Pathfinder WotR is the uncontested best game of the genre in many many years. Man that game is just insane. PoE2 has some great things, but the story is a massive letdown, and mechanically you can tell it feature more of a "home made" system vs a clearly more complete and exhaustive system like Pathfinder.
It's a shame that the writing in Pathfinder WoTR is so bad, and the game has a ton of questionable design choices. It excels at character building, but that's not enough for me personally. I really wanted to get into it, but I couldn't.
@@VladI998 I think the gameplay in general is just at a level above pillars. I do agree the writing is weird and sometimes just bad, but the story and some of the characters are pretty good. The best part IMO, is like you say, the game gives you the ability to fulfill your insane power fantasy in a million of ways.
-at first I was very surprised why you would say some of the voice acting wasn't good... but you talked about accents and I understood : as a french, it's extremely rare that there is any accent at all in our dubbings (any media) so an accent would have to be comically exaggerated to be a bad thing for me. OTOH the orlesians in Dragon age all sound silly in english ^^ -a thing you didn't mention as a negative : if you're thorough in exploring the map, you get really overleveled and the last fight SPOILERS/ against the rival faction on the island is a complete joke (I didn't have to fight the gardian because the dragon did it for me, which is awesome but sadly happened offscreen)/END SPOILERS it's the complete opposite problem of DOS2 where if you don't do ALL the sidequests you get stomped by any random enemy in the last act -story-wise it's debatable which is best since the main plot is very short and can feel a bit pointless in the sequel, but it dragged on and was badly paced in the first, but the world, side quests and exploration are way better IMO in the sequel, especially the different factions, I think the Eothas chase is the side quest in terms of being interesting, like in a Bethesda game - at least visually the gigantic avatar is something I've never seen in a isometric game and it reminds me of Myrkul's corpse -for the characters, yes Durance and Grieving mother have no equal in the 2nd, but the non-recurring characters weren't that interesting in the 1st either, and Eder is still the dependable human male that is somehow not boring, Pallegina and Aloth are still meh to me (the latter is boring-er I guess without the "used to work for the bad guys" reveal ?) It's more personnal preference I think : I'd take Serafen and Teheku over any from the 1st game other than the first 2 I spoke of (and Eder) -and finally the setting is way more interesting than "the sword coast but everything is miserable" - and I really liked the 1st game, but I didn't LOVE it, in part because of the unrelentingly depressive atmosphere and in part because without the animancy and the gods stuff that you only learn in the last hour of the game, it's really generic medieval european fantasy, whereas the pirate/colonization angle is pretty rare ... and basically everything else is better in Deadfire, except the sales which tanked Obsidian because we can't have nice things :( I'm afraid now they're gonna make only 1st person "not elder scrolls" and "not fallout" games since The outer worlds was way more succesful
I actually agree with almost everything you said... I think companions would be: 1st: Aloth from the first game (childhood story, they way Iselmyr comes into his life, his involvement with the bad guys) 2nd Grieving mother 3rd Eder 4th Durance 5th Serafen 6th Sagani 7th Vatnir (he's "just" a follower but his backstory and the story behind how he amassed a cult of followers through sheer charlatanerie is quite unique for a follower in a video game) 8th Maia 9th Kana 10th Xoti 11th Tekehu 12th Hiravias 13th Pallegina 14th Ydwin and Rekke (The only other followers who even deserve a mention lore-wise). The final fight against the faction you antagonized the most was a joke as you said. It was very anti-climatic and it would've been worth mentioning as a negative. As for the Orlesians in Dragon Age sounding funny in English. I imagine that their cliched french accent sounds every bit as hilarious to a French, as the spanish-cliche-Antivans sound to us (Spanish speakers).
I think PoE2's non-combat side was much better mechanically than PoE1's, but the opposite was true for combat. With the death of Vancian casting and resting to restore HP there are absolutely no stakes to any encounter except the hardest boss battles...and even those felt dumbed down. I would give the crown for my favorite modern RPG to Pillars 2 in the end but Baldur's Gate 3 definitely gets the nom for best combat. Pillars 2 combat is just kind of soggy. Baldur's Gate 3 and Pillars 2 are almost opposites, one is a great story and a soggy combat system, the other is a great combat system and a bloated AAA corporate mess of a story and world. And yes, I know the Trial of Woedica exists but a gimmick challenge mode is not at all equivalent to baking resource management into the actual game. Your boat is literally a more significant and meaningful thing to manage than your actual survival.
Love this game and pumped so many hours into when it released on the pa4, the voice actor that narrates makes it so immersive by far the best narration I’ve heard in a game what blow my mind is a few days ago I randomly came across a reddit post turns out console gamer’s could use the console command since launch 😅, started a new game using the console command to mimic a new game plus feel leveling my character and giving items that I had in the final chapter. Hopefully we get another game or even i next gen version would be great
I always thought PoE1 had a great story, it was unexpectedly dark and creepy in its subject matter, maybe it wasn't paced quite so well, but for a CRPG to tackle the idea of a widespread epidemic of child disability: how anybody couldn't side with Hylea in the endgame, to return souls to those they were stolen from, is to me a thought experiment in how people view life. It really was a no brainer. PoE2 makes that decision pointless though, Eothas probably absorbed countless other thousands or tens of thousands of souls just to make some theological point that the PC can ultimately influence at the very end. He's not too pleased with the Rymrgand response though, is it really any different? Eothas is an arsehole, but do the means justify the ends? The setting of PoE2 is possibly the best of any CRPG bar none, it really deserves credit for just how awesome the storytelling in sidequests is, and how tightly the factional storytelling is dealt with regards to NPC companions. Companions aren't just there to say "oh, how horrible killing people is!" and then join in a massacre of 20 or so people and congratulate the PC for how noble they are. There really is depth and a great conviction to making consequences matter, at Ukaizo anyway, to decisions that have been made throughout the game. Anyway, it's a fantasy world, and you can side with the Slavers, if that's what the PC wants, your companions might hate you for it, or be outright hostile, but those choices are there!
48:25 THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! My parrot is an integral part of my social life, and if people don't like it! Maia is great for taking Ishi along. Look, even my brothers get attacked by my parrot, but she purrs along to me and fluffs up all cozy next to me.
@@YeOldEntertainment For maybe about 5 minutes when people ask, other than that there's more interesting things to talk about, like how to completely perplex and confuse a dungeon master with any hare-brained scheme to de-rail a campaign setting.
Yeah, we'll just join with the cultists. Looks good. They've got a good setup here, better than these shitty bedrolls. Smells like good food, a few people fighting, might be able to make a bit standing some bets on here! Wooooah! Who's that? What a *cool* robe! Wow!
POE1 story was better imho. I agree. I think it would be looked upon more fondly if the writing was sharpened up (ie not being long for the sake of being long) and full voice acting. Yeah I don't want to be one of those types of people, but I do feel full voice acting if done well can add to the game. It worked for POE2. Some people didn't like the narrator in POE2, but I enjoyed the narration. Voice acting if done well certainly adds to a game.
Ok. Incredibly good video. I can see the literal mountain of work that you put in those every single time. That's why even if you ever start making videos that I completely disagree with, I'll still watch them fully. Sometimes twice. Sometimes thrice actually. As always, incredible work and that's why I'm still angry, that I can't support you directly. Set up the effing patreon. Or else. But seriously. Whew. That score. How is it lower than for PoE1, if you... Err. Liked it... More? I guess? I don't get it. Care to elaborate a bit? I know. Eder's portrait looks a million times better in PoE1, but is it worth taking away a whole point for?
No no! I posted an addendum today on the community tab! it's an 8.7. I made a mistake because I copy-pasted the score from another video! ruclips.net/user/postUgkxGiCVNtpa0qv2syfKG7BIG-XRe0IuYulE
I can think of several ways in which they could've brought Durance back... you being a watcher and the existence of ethereal realms being a thing in this universe... it wouldn't have been hard to bring him back. I Played PoE three times, Played PoE 2 four times. In a couple of those play-troughs I brought her along for a little longer to see if there was more to her... and... nope... didn't work... still uninteresting, boring, generic and with over-acted voice acting. Game-play wise... I strongly dislike two-hander wielders, they just don't fit in my tactical design. (but these are all just personal takes).
Deadfire is such a weird game, it occupies a very uncomfortably ambiguous place in my mind. I mean it's got wonderful gameplay, it's got good writing and I love a world map that I can explore full of adventurous side questing with branching narrative paths. But the biggest weakness is the story, as you say in the review. It's such a non-story. It's got no personal stakes at all to me. Yes, Eothas wrecked my stronghold, but I wasn't even attached to that place even though I played and liked the first game. It's just a big question mark. I think one problem is that a lot of the game's storytelling is mired in abstract lore specifics. Like, I'm supposed to be emotionally invested one way or another in the schemes of the gods but I couldn't give a rat's arse. If they made the story directly tied with the personal fate of my companions it would've been so much gripping. I mean, just compare it to BG2 when Imoen is kidnapped by Jon Irenicus. I might not have been that attached to Imoen but it still hurt that the villain just took away my companion out of my party. The story of Deadfire has no drive, doesn't put the wind in my sails and at that point I'm just playing the game to enjoy the gameplay and exploration, but the whole experience is still cobbled.
@@YeOldEntertainment I'm playing it right now and I luxuriate in all the other great qualities of the game so it's basically always at least a good time, it just frustrates me that it doesn't grip me in the way a Fallout 1, Vampire Bloodlines, KotoR 2 did with far more technical and QoL issues. I hope Obsidian make Pillars 3 with a really fantastic story this time.
About VO: I do like that different cultures have their own way of speaking, but I do think it can be distracting, especially in full VO. I didn’t mind American speaking characters but some Valians did feel more like accents then characters. I though Huana was very well done - with neutral accent but a distinctive way of speaking. There is always some actor overlap in RPG - did you know Eder and Aloth are voiced by the same guy Matt Mercer? The guy has range - even knowing it’s all him, I never found it distracting.
I thought I used to love this game... but I cannot play it for the past 4 years due to technical / compatibility issues. and based on the forums i'm not the only one. (in case you aren't aware: the game will simply crash with certain nvidia cards and drivers on Win10, and "upgrade to the latest driver" doesn't actually help.) oh well, i guess i'll give it another spin when i buy a new computer or graphics card. ._.
Interesting. I thought PoE2 was a step back on almost all accounts except for the audiovisuals. Its open world design was weak/boring, the writing was all over the place, the finale especially stagnant and the game was riddled with bugs and performance issues. And that was from playing the game a year ago. This title felt extremely rushed by the devs, like they were in a hurry to make something else. Unfocused. As a fan of party based isometric RPGs I really wanted to like this one, but I ended up disappointed. /shrugs I'm actually a bit surprised that people like PoE2 as much as they do, but to each his own I guess.
Good review. Have simmilar thoughts about the title. Sucks that it sold badly cause, even though I have my gripes, it's a very good game overall. Preffer it over DOS2. Just can't get into that one for some reason... Little worried about the future of this universe. We won't be getting another Pillars game most likely and there is no news about Avowed. Also, Obsidian's last first person RPG - The Outer Wolrds, sucked badly in my opinion which makes me even more worried about the quality of Avowed. If it ever comes out, that is.... What do you plan on reviewing next?
I very strongly disliked The Outer Worlds too. Coming up next is... Pillars of Eternity 2: Beast of Winter Pillars of Eternity 2: Seeker Slayer Survivor Pillars of Eternity 2: Forgotten Sanctum
For a game that really tried pushing for something different, it felt really uninspired to me. Like, I can barely remember that game or hardly care about what happened. The only cool stuff was the ending and it was done through a conversation.
I played through PoE1. A forgets Le experience for me to be honest. Starting up PoE2 I got bored within the first 40 minutes. Is it still worth playing if I found PoE1 ultimately forgettable?
That is very strange indeed! There are a few guys who have full playthroughs of PoE2 on RUclips. And I think it's safe to watch those because the only relevant spoilers that are worth avoiding in PoE2 take place after like 10 hours or so.
Personnaly I find the first one better. Even thought I prefer the combat system, narrative and graphisms in the second, I find it boring really fast. The maps are too much copy paste, a lot of the little islands where ininteresting. There is too much "not memorable" content. I did finish the game, but it was hard, I knew if I stopped I wouldn't come back to it. In the first one, the discovery in each map was fun, you never knew what you would face in a hidden corner. Less map but bigger and better made in my opinion.
Great review Alex (or should I call you Raskolnikov!). Yeah, I love this game. I keep coming back to it, trying new builds, weapons, turned based mode, etc. I do hit that "I don't really want to do that quest again..." point eventually. But it's got some magic to it, no question. I hope after Avowed, they give us another one of these "old school" CRPGs. By the way, your channel should be freakin massive, I tell you.
@@YeOldEntertainment When I wrote this comment eariler today the game was on sale - now its back up to full price. smh haha I've Greedfall to keep me company.
Thumbs down for not liking Xoti. I kid of course. Some people really don't like her, but I'm not one of them. While she isn't as well written as Durance, I like her better than Durance.
Honestly , I think the game is really fun but in my opinion both of the poe games are kind of a B grade of the more popular modern crpgs. 1's story is mostly really lame even if theres some cool moments and characters. But two has shit thats honestly hard to read its so cringy. I can forgive cringe in divinity or pathfinder cause theyre overall silly games, but jesus some of the romance lines in poe2 make me really uncomfortable. If poe1 had 2's multiclassing I honestly wouldnt touch it again with a 10 foot pole. The combat is great even if the Empower (or whatever its called) system is mostly useless unless your playing potd or a challenge run
about 8 min in i come to the conclusion omg im so glad i haven't bought this yet, and i definitely won't either. and then 8:29 and out happened. im sorry for ever promoting poe. shoulda stayed with promoting nwn, but it was getting really old.. (and dilluted from corporate greed on the name nwn) may as well mention that none know what pillars is as it's abbreviation crashed with the already well known path of hamster. and while mentioning path of hamster. i'd also like to mention lost hamster which could have been a dream come true, alas.. capitalism is stronger than ever so our best bet looks to be openMW. yeah you heard that right, openNM actually.. i'm glad i haven't touched a single nwn module yet as the future looks to be all about classic games, besides the odd mayfly like lost hamster represent.
did you skip the part about how *awful* the ship-combat text minigame is? or did i just ignore it cause it was so bad. like, as good as rest of the game is(and as much as i like mapping around in a boat), that ship-to-ship stuff is 10x worse(and buggy). ram them or run away, cuz broadsiding enemy ships isnt worth it lol.
Haha. Well I forgot to talk about that and when I thought "oh crap! I forgot to mention how nonsensical and useless (because more than awful, which it is, there is ZERO point in engaging in that minigame) this game is!" I was already uploading video. So I say... "ah fek it... it's not that important XD".
This game has an interesting myriad of paths that is worth replaying if only because of how much differently things can turn out depending on how you go on about them. But the main story isn't stellar and yes... some min-maxing is required on the combat end of things if you want to take a crack at the Path of the Damned difficulty. There are also some awesome tough-as-nails megabosses that are going to give you a run for your money.
I honestly think that PoE 2 might be one of the worst CRPGs to have come out in the past two decades. It's overbalanced to the point that all classes feel similar in terms of gameplay and the subclasses don't do much to alleviate that, mainly because most of them aren't that much different from their core class to begin with. One of the rare few I found interesting was the trickster and all it does is give you a handful of Illusion spells as you level up in exchange for a 10% weaker sneak attack. Alas, it only gets duller from there. The itemization disgusts me more than anything else related to the combat and might be one of the worst i've ever seen in a videogame. Very few pieces of equpiment have any noteworthy enchantments on them, most of the time they either have ineffective passives (ie. 10% on hit to disarm an enemy for 6 seconds if they fail a dice roll) or actives that, despite being weaker than your standard class abilities, are only usable once or twice per rest. Speaking of class abilities, they are so underwhelming that half of them barely ever end up being used. It's like Obsidian was too afraid to add something that can greatly alter combat encounters (like the Haste spell in IE games) in the fear of making certain classes stand out too much. They can mainly be classified into five categories: minor buffs (+2 to str for 20 second), minor debuffs (-30% movement speed for 8 seconds), minor crowd controls (stun a target for 3 seconds if they fail a dice roll), special attacks that do different damage types (slashing instead of piercing damage) or a combination of these. The nicest thing I can say about this game is that the faction questlines are okay-ish (similarly to the New Reno gangs in F2, you can work for all of them as long as you don't complete the last quest in their chain), but they don't make up for how boring and stupid the main story is. Hell, it somehow manages to have an even weaker plot hook than the first game. Companions are nowhere near as interesting as in prior Obsidian titles and their character arcs don't really go anywhere during the actual game. The best example of that is Serafen, a pirate who hates slavers (and is one of the most unlikable companions in the entire game in my opinion). You can show to him that his faction, the Principi, are participating in the slave trade and yet he will still leave your party if you don't side with them at the end. The only thing this changes is his ending, where he leaves the Principi to become a freelancer. I repeat, he can end up hating his own faction enough to leave them, but not enough to let you join up with someone else
The lack of multiplayer killed any interest i had in both of these titles. Getting my buddies together for some BG1 and BG2 gaming is the only reason i still play it
This game is the biggest disappointment in my gaming history. Not because it's bad but because it stutters like crazy on my gtx970 and the loading times are the worst I've experienced. Such a shame, because I've played enough to know that it's a game I'd love, but the poor performance is just unbearable.
it just have better lore and a consistent looks throughout than DnD...DnD lore and looks are crap...whiles vampire the masquerade have awesome lore and looks but only bad games nowadays, but yes this IP could be made better.
Liked PoE2. I wish the devs would further improve on that formula and gave us another great CRPG in this style.
I think a lot of the changes made in Deadfire were a response to the criticism directed at the first game. For example, PoE1 was heavily criticized for the slow pacing and weak hook. So Deadfire tries to solves this with a more bombastic and epic opening sequence that gets the player invested. I think the faction side of things is well-written, but I do agree that parts of the main story are kind of meh, though I liked Eothas as a main antagonist and enjoyed the interactions with the Gods. I also liked some of the companions in Deadfire better than the ones in the first game, such as Tekehu, who I'd take over Maneha any day. Though I wish sidekicks like Rekke, Ydwin, and Vatnir were made full fledged companions. They were all great and added so much to the lore. Especially Rekke. Anyway, glad to see you cover this game as well, and I can't wait to for your review of the expansions.
Weird that people felt that way about PoE1. I think a secret cult that uses a machine to cause a storm that rips the soul out of people’s body in a world where souls go to the wheel and get reborn is a pretty cool hook.
About portraits in conversations: it was a way to give every NPC a face. Doing detailed portraits takes a lot of time, so it would be unfeasible to do a fancy portraitfor everyone. So they came up with those simple scratches that if I remember correctly took about 30m to make. Personally I love them - they compose well with UI, and they did the job for me.
"Doing detailed portraits takes a lot of time, so it would be unfeasible to do a fancy portraitfor everyone" --> Tha is NOT what I was suggesting. They could've perfectly used the portrait version from the inventory screen with a different size, not a sepia filtered scratch version.
@@YeOldEntertainment for companions yes, but not for other NPCs as such portraits don't exist. So for consistency sake everyone got a scetch version of a portrait.
@@wormerine8029 I'm not sure that's the case. Clearly there are NPC portraits. Actually many portraits are repeated. The sepia-scratching effect is a filter applied over an existing image. That's why companions' portraits during dialogue sequences look just like they do in the inventory screen/character screen, just smaller and with the spedia/scratch. It's probably the same with Furrante, Benweth and every random less important NPC you encounter. And if there weren't regular sized portraits... then they should've made them. It's not like there are that many faces. And many of them are repeated. Given the amount of work put into so many details in this game, I don't think it would've been that costly or difficult to make them (specially since there was already a blueprint with the sepia miniatures). To me it was a clearly a style choice and I didn't like it.
I don't know which game is better since i adore them both but i will never forget my first PoE1 playthrough. Two of the best rpgs i have ever played , the fact that they didn't sell well enough breaks my heart.
That's an Obsidian/Interplay life story in general. They're not sell-outs but at the same time, their games don't make a whole ton of money. Because at the triple-A scale, CRPGs just aren't that attractive to mainstream consumerbase, which is unfortunate.
@@samuelevander9823 I believe The Outer Worlds was a financial success but i also believe it is the weakest game Obsidian has developed. In the case of PoE , the marketing was lacking. You have the Divinity series selling millions , Wasteland 3 also probably sold 1 million copies at this point , the Pathfiner series also sold very well. It's sad because my view is that the PoE games are superior to any of these other titles but PoE 2 released and nobody talked about it , very few / small youtubers and a few trailers was all we got. So unless you are a lifelong rpgs fan AND have played PoE 1 , you wouldn't even know about the sequel. In contrast , The Outer Worlds is an average at best rpg but benefited from a well managed marketing campaign.
@@weasth6354 I think that PoE 1 sold pretty well but then Tyranny and PoE 2 sadly didn't.
i think time will tell now in a post bg3 world how successful and popular crpgs will be
@@dylanbell268 ironically my first crpg w no prior crpg knowledge was poe2 like 3 months before bg3 release... it awakened an itch for crpg and i gotta say after 150+ hrs of bg3, i still reminisce on my poe2 playthroughs. At first it was a big learning curve but i loved the art style and music of poe2. Dont think bg3 topped that.
35:13 I have to say that this moment, in the dlc, where you get to know more about that war was a really special moment from someone who comes from Poe1, even better if u bring Eder w/ u. 10/10 moment
46:15 Poe2 has lost some of that "dark side" of the story that was brilliant in the first game. (I don't remember much of the first game, but I do remember that the Watcher we meet in Caed Nua was "stuck" in some horrible past memories of a man and woman with a very mature story to read.)
50:41 hell yeah \m/, more games need that damn search filter!
56:21 YES! the music in the ship is amazing, my favorite is "Its Crash Could Not Be Denied | Justin E. Bell" it's really repetitive but I can't get tired of it, that means it's a real gem! ! !
58:15 true, as well if you only have women in the ship, the voices will only be with women, the same if the crew is 100% male, again, the voices only change to male voices
1:02:40 oh, you said very well, the Vailian language is a mix of Spanish (Catalan) and Italian, and since I'm Italian I love THAT SH1T so much x'D, but some characters I think have a strong African accent, at least as far as I can understand, Pallegina also made her accent very heavy compared to the first game, a little too much, it's not bad because it's really well done in that sense but, yes, it's really very "heavy"...
Belfetto Aimico \^O^/
(or as italian i should say: Benfatto amico!)
A truly under appreciated masterpiece. I didn't like the game when I first played it, but going back yesterday I could not stop playing for HOURS. The games visuals are high art, the story is subversive and the CHOICES are so intriguing balancing between factions
it cant bbe a masterpiece when the story is shit, the writing is questionable, no good story direction. Ship battles are shit. This game is 7/10 at best.
@@robosergTV Story being shit is highly subjective. If you don't got a university degree, I question you are really smart enough to judge story content consistently.
Such an underrated channel
Deadfire is my favorite game because of its depth and tactical combat. Everything else is icing on the cake.
The combat is truly amazing.
I love PoE2 so much. It has some rough edges but man I feel like with its theme and the story structure it was specifically made for someone like me. It's definitely my favorite CRPG of the CRPG Renaissance. Fantastic video and thank you for making me rediscover my love for that game.
As for any game I like, I love this one with his flaws too. I watched some videos about Obsidian and Larian’s dev process and boy, developing games is a freaking nightmare and a work of art.
This needs to be said more! I know that some games press all the wrong keys, to the point that we become frustrated because we paid 30, 40, 60$ for a game that we didn't like. But the amount of effort that goes into these productions, even in the most modest indy games is just staggering.
Pillars 2 is one of the best CRPG's I've ever played.
Entertaining and informative video, as always, thanks. I am enjoying the game right now.
Thanks!
I consider PoE2 a good game, a straight up improvement over PoE1, especially as the combat is more fun and I like the setting more. Unfortunately for that game it had the "luck" of getting sidelined by Divinity Original Sin 2 which for me was a masterpiece, and I never really got around back to PoE2.
Great video as always. In general I thought that PoE2 improved on every asect that was weak in PoE1 - better combat, better content, no padding, worldbuilding through quests and interactions, rather then reading books. I had more fun playing PoE2, but it left me wanting more, while I felt satisfied after every PoE1 playthrough.
Gameplay wise, I have really only few complaints: XP gain is too much - one starts overleveling content in the game very early making encounters boring. Luckily that can be fixed with mods. Then there is PEN, which just didn't quite work for me.
I somewhat agree with your complaints about changes to classes, but the trade-off in variety in subclasses, and clarity of multiclassing I think out weighs what was lost from PoE1.
I still like a lot of the story of PoE2, but it has some major issues - narrative hook for the protagonist doesn't feel good. I felt it would be better to have a new character with closer ties to the events in Deadfire - with how big of a chunk of the story revolves around Deadfire's political conflict, I feel it would make more sense to be someone with stakes in what is happening, with Eothas' actions being gradually revealed during the campaign. For Watcher to work, I think the opening tutorial area, should be the island, but Dyrwood - interact with our castle, meet Eder and Aloth there, get some reactivity to our action in PoE1, and then get the castle smashed and ship off to Deadfire. Even though I forged connection with Caed Nua in PoE1, a cutscene really failed to engage me.
I like a lot of ideas and characters in PoE2, but game's non-linear nature means that story lines and characters don't really get developed - they don't get arcs. If there is some amount of linearity, then devs can write a nice story - develop characters, react to our earlier choices etc. Returning companions just don't work for me - and new companions have potential, but they don't get properly developed. There are glipses of great characters, in few scenes they get in the game's underwhelming finale, but it's too little too late. Relationship mechanic was a disaster. I miss the subtlety of the PoE1.
I heard people praise Beast of Winter as having far better writing then the base game - and I don't agree, at least no that PoE2 issues were writer's fault. It's just that a more condensed and linear nature of Beast of Winter gives writiers more to work with. In general, once again the three DLCs are brilliant.
I wonder how much the wonky writing pops out because of rushed full VO - while full VO is welcome, I did feel it was lower quality then lines on offer in PoE1. Some of the PoE1 content is some among my fav in cRPG history - some of PoE2 does feel a bit like it was done in a rush.
Somewhere between PoE1&2 there is one of the finest RPGs ever made. Too bad there likely won't be PoE3 for the series to really reach its full potential. Oh well, maybe one day.
Ive put a lot of time into the game and only finished once, forcing myself through. There's a lot I love but the game slogs itself down, especially in the major hubs. The design is missing something and while the encounters are fun, the whole game just doesn't strike home well enough. I actually prefer the first game because of the world in many ways, but want to love this one so badly. If only there was some middle ground of sorts. Good review
One little note about pets is there is a beraths blessing that let's Eder have a pet so you can have 2 of them
Figured it was worth mentioning
Picking which companion you want to romance in Deadfire is like picking what level of cock and ball torture you are okay with.
HAHAHAHAHA! And this is why I have a channel. This comment made my day.
Omg tease after tease.
I loved PoE too, and I think this review nails everything. I couldn't see much of the story potholes or questions you mentioned, but I may have just been too immersed in how much more polished of a game it was to PoE1. Thanks for another on point (and much anticipated for me) video YOE.
Thanks! this one took me longer than I anticipated but the next PoE videos are already in the oven.
Side note: what did you think of the addition of Beraths Blessings being available as you complete achievements? As a casual player, I enjoy them.
@@winterstormm7185 I think the game is already easy as it is, even in the Path of the Damned difficulty. I like that they are optional and you may skip all of them altogether. They are innovative as a concept, but I wish I had been rewarded in other, perhaps story-related ways for completing achievements.
The best one by far for me is Pathfinder Wrath of the righteous, then Kingmaker. PoE2 was good but i wasnt drawn into the main story.
I played the game at release and was shocked at how little this game connects to Pillars. I kind of enjoyed the pirate life, but I dropped the game after I realized I wasn't invested in the story midway through.
Awesome work once again! Loving this series!
Thanks man!
i enjoyed your video.
i really liked poe2, much more than i liked the first one. i would love to see another game in the series down the road.
I thank the youtube gods for introducing me to this rare channel. Such low subscribers but such refined content. Ferrari of the game review channels.
I actually really like the story of this game. The ideas it presents about religion, colonialism, and structures of power, how different societies interact with each other, and how these extra-societal exchanges influence internal change are all very interesting. The themes presented and the way the game goes about allowing the player to develop their own opinions on these matters and tackle these issues in any way they see fit shows me that this game is a true spiritual successor to New Vegas.
To me, the problem doesn’t lie with the writing itself, more so with the pacing. While all of the world building, side questing, and companion/faction stories are great, the main narrative itself doesn’t get interesting until over halfway through the game, when you learn Eothas’ intentions. His goal of destroying the Wheel and the gods’ reactikns to this plan present some really interesting ideas and implications for the world of Pillars to further develop upon. It just sucks that the game really struggles to hook you in from the start, creating a barrier to entry for one of the most unique and interesting stories I’ve ever experienced in a game.
Great review, I'll get the game when it's on sale.
I'm a bit surprised that the Obsidian Edition is still 59.99 on steam. That is a bit pricey (even including the DLCs) for a game that's been around for four years. But when you factor even the amount of hours the games takes to complete vs the amount of hours that the games is actually fun to play, and the replay value... it's totally worth it.
I currently have Baldur's Gate 3, PoE 1 & 2 (and all 3 DLCs). My cousin gave me a copy of BG2 10 years ago, played it for 1 hour. Got bored with it. I definitely love PoE series over BG series. I feel like I'm actually immerse in the game, whereas for BG 3, it feels like I'm in a movie set. Fake & pretentious.
If you're micro managing trash mobs in PoE 2, it's because you spec your characters WRONG. I used to do the same thing. Put most of my points in the fancy active skills. Problem is, you can only use your fancy active skills about 3-4 times, like fighters & barbarians (cause you ran out of zeal), so they're USELESS skills. Put your points into passive skills, like more damage, resistance, 2 hand or 2 weapons proficiency. Now I only micro manage for BIG MONSTER BOSS fights. Even 5 fampyrs doesn't need my attention.
I've been working on a mod for the BGEE series to make him recruitable. What are the most imporant things I should know of him? Thankee!
Soti's voice actress is legendary Laura Bailey lol that's why it was so good.
I really wanted to love PoE2, but for me it was held back by too many issues, especially in the writing. Gameplay was a huge step forward (though I wasn’t a fan of nerfing the full party amount by one), but the writing simply takes itself too seriously and comes off as bland much of the time. Baldur’s Gate 1/2 don’t necessarily have the greatest writing, but they’re tonally consistent (at least internally) and don’t try to hit me over the head with philosophical and sociopolitical themes at every moment. Still, PoE2 is a good game objectively speaking, just not in the same league as the classics.
Agree. Planescape: torment and Baldurs gate 2 are still the best RPG ever. PoE not even close.
@@adrenalin2957 yes! Planescape: Torment is a great example of how to write a game with heavier themes. I’ve heard Disco Elysium is a good spiritual successor but I haven’t played it yet.
While I get why you don't like it, I still find it odd when people criticize the game of taking itself too seriously, when PoE2 is much lighter in tone compared to its predecessor, no doubt thanks to the aforementioned criticism from fans and most likely Divinity Original Sin 2, which Josh Sawyer cited as having had a major influence in Deadfire's development.
@@vlad4o813 to be fair, I also thought the first PoE took itself too seriously, but it justified its own seriousness somewhat with more competent and flavorful writing. Characters like Durance and Grieving Mother especially left a strong impression, but in PoE2 there’s nothing really comparable. Instead, we have an overarching theme of colonialism, nativism, and morally grey faction politics that pervade almost every aspect of PoE2’s narrative. I appreciated some of the smaller character moments in PoE2, especially from Takehu, but elsewhere the game just doesn’t do enough on a narrative level to stay engaging. I don’t need all the games I play to have the level of writing quality as say, Planescape: Torment, but if you’re going to have such a strong emphasis on narrative and dialogue, it better be good and not waste my time. Both Baldur’s Gates did a lot more with less, and thus felt more satisfying for me personally.
@@matternicuss The best way I think PoE2 can be described is the crpgs equivalent of New Vegas. It places a heavy emphasis on faction politics, and that's the aspect I loved about New Vegas the most writing wise, so this game easily appealed to me. The themes of colonialism and imperialism have been a big part of the PoE lore, with the rise and fall of empires like Aedyr, which was a major talking point in the first game. Seeing such events actually play out was interesting because it felt like you were shaping the history of Eora. Also, out of the two characters you mentioned, Grieving Mother is probably one of my least favorites in the first game, and I attribute it to the fact she doesn't have much dialogue, but has walls upon walls of uninteresting and bland text that describes flashbacks and visions. Her arc is one of the weakest, especially compared to someone like Durance, who was such a brilliantly written character, that I don't think many other crpg characters even come close to his writing, not the even the ones from both Baldur's Gate games can match him.
Both Pillars games and both Divinity games, as well as Dragon Age Ogrins, all strike the right balance of depth and fun. I recently pre-ordered Wrath of the Righteous and thought it would be my new favorite strategy game but ended up hating it. It was the definition of quantity over quality, I thought Kingmaker was ok. Deadfire is underrated. The studio said they changed the setting so everything would feel fresh, but it flopped because many hated the pirate setting. Fans wanted another dark lore dungeon crawler. I like them both equally but for different reasons. However, you need a good PC or a next gen system in order to tolerate Deadfire, because on older systems it has the worse load times I have ever witnessed in the history of gaming.
I actually love the flexibility of not a wholly changeable companies but they can almost flex to your needs
This is my favorite game I've ever played. I got it to learn how to be a better game master by playing the turn based mode. As I did that I got good enough to try the traditional way of playing the game. I'm now playing the first one and going to use that profile to finish the game again through a new perspective.
I found the turn based mode dreadful due to the difficulty I strived to beat. What did you learn from it as per becoming a better game master? I was inspired by a lot of the narrative beats, companions and varied dialogue with defined personalities behind them.
@@lysanthir7231 I was playing on easy mode since I wasn't in it for a challenge and never played a game like this before. So the turn based wasn't too bad until I got into more complex ambushes. But as for a game master I learned how to set up my own dungeons better, make combat more engaging and adding life to my npcs. I write my own side quests for the main campaign I run and it just gave me a lot of inspiration of hooks, quest ideas, how to travel and places to go.
@@obscure_films dude dungeon layout is one thing I completely missed checking. Traps too. Now I gotta replay it all again to take notes 💀 Also what area did you like best layout wise? Mine is probably Galawain's underwater temple, or any of the dungeons you go clear on uncharted islands. Absolutely loathed that DLC area though where you had to drain and fill the water. Took me way longer than it should have.
@@lysanthir7231 I got the most inspiration from the uncharted islands since they work really well as simple side quests. It's hard to nail down the biggest inspiration one but all the weird cults like Nemnok are my main source. Mostly because I have an overarching side plot of a dragon necromancer cult running a protection racket. Generally I use the ideas of entering a dungeon by different means and how to make getting a quest item from the environment feel more natural.
It's a puzzle why this wasn't a bigger hit, because it's actually a really good game. I don't think it's anything to do with the specific mechanics of the game (relative to POE1, which was a success), but rather that a large segment of people who'd bought POE1 were disappointed with it, in terms of the combat and build system (especially the way Attributes work) being really quite unfamiliar and unlike D&D's.
In fact, I think it's a _better_ system than D&D's _for RTwP combat,_ and POE2 improves and iterates on it. Even the attributes system makes some simulationist sense once you get used to it. But probably by the time POE2 came around, enough people had been "burnt" by the first game not to give the second a try, and not to spread enthusiasm about it.
Essentially, the BG phenomenon was a bit of an accident, whereby a company developed a quasi-realtime system out of what is basically a turn-based system. They did a great job of it, but it was a kludge, and the problem is that expectations were set for that type of game in the future, so that when POE came along, and tried to actually design a system for RTwP from the ground up, a lot of people who'd gotten used to the kludge of the BG/IWD games for RTwP were disappointed.
But the more I've played POE and POE2, the more I've appreciated that the system Sawyer and the others developed is actually better for RTwP gameplay - especially in the POE2 iteration, where you have extensive control over the AI conditionals. RTwP IMHO doesn't really sit well with the idea of micromanaging a whole team, in the way that turn-based perforce does. It sits better with the idea of you mainly micromanaging your own character and giving orders to a team that's fairly competent in and of itself, and only needs occasional micromanagement. And POE2, with the option of tweaking the AI to your liking, does that beautifully.
I love turn-based games too, and I love the way that the Owlcat Pathfinder games enable you to switch between TB and RTwP on the fly - but again, the Pathfinder system is basically a tabletop and turn-based system, so neither style of gameplay ever sits quite comfortably. It's always going to be difficult to design a system that serves both types of gameplay equally well (even though it would be ideal). It's interesting that with the turn-based version of _this_ game, while it's fun to use because of the really clear, readable UI, it's obvious after a while of playing that the game wasn't really designed around turn-based :)
These are tough conundrums for developers to work around.
But I do think this game will have a reasonably long life, and sustain a level of popularity that the developers probably wouldn't have expected from its poor initial performance. It's a fun game chock full of content. What's not to like? :)
I had 2 problems with this game. Story: “Eothas is heading to point X, we have to get there now!!…oh but first let’s help find some actors for this play…and let’s find a cure for these sick Huana…” The story ruins the immersion.
My second problem is the character progression. I like turned base DOS style combat…but you learn skills so slowly and there is no nuance or depth to the classes. It’s all about min/maxing. I don’t min/max so my characters aren’t the best…but also you don’t get a lot of skills so you basically approach mostly all battles the same. It gets boring quick. I take breaks often to go play divinity :(
I didn't, I just pretty much ran around and did my own thing...until it panned out, only thing was hard was shipbuilding in the beginning, ship battles sucked, then got better
There is a turned base mode for this game now. It's not bad. Though you can't switch back and forth, so be forewarned the game will take significantly longer. I enjoyed the game much more in turned based mode. Though the game isn't balanced for that, so it's not for everyone.
I like the game if a bit short and like the first game, the overall story isn't that great.
@@JimmyMon666 :/ I’m sorry if my wording was bad. I just meant as a fan of that style of play, The execution is Poor here. And I agree with you, it’s very clear it was added after and that the game is meant to play more like the original Baldur’s gate. Thanks for the reply.
@@chewysplace3542 that is what every one who plays this game does. But if you try to immerse yourself in the story, which is what I like to do, you are constantly being reminded that Eothas is on the move and he’s ending the world. Meanwhile, you are going in the opposite direction to find sugar to make candies nuts.
Perhaps it's worth noting that this game offers both RTwP *and* turn based combat options. I wish more CRPGs did the same! This game rules with turn-based enabled, and it completely changes the kinds of tactics and skills you'll want to approach each situation with.
Spirit tornado ftw
Poe2 deadfire graphically the best and storyline is great. Well spent.
It's a pity this game didn't sell well and that POE is now in hiatus :/
true, i would pay double the price for a Poe3...
but at least we gonna get Avowed... im gonna play it just for the story i think cuz first person rpg is not rlly my favorite thing, but still hope is gonna be a decent experience
Somethings fucky about Avowed... I have a bad feeling about it... Let's hope it's good.
@@YeOldEntertainment hm i'm pretty sure is gonna be a decent/good game, i don't think is gonna be worst than The Outer Worlds ! ! ! xD
Seems like the top down CRPG resurgence has somewhat stagnated. I mean we have BG3 and Rogue trader on the horizon... but what else?
@@anab0lic true, It seems it's all on Owlcat and Larian's shoulders now. I'd say the future of CRPGs is tied to how well or bad BG3 will perform.
Nice, I was just thinking in playing this game, and Tyranny.
Do you think is necessary to play the first one to enjoy the second?
Nope, but it definitely helps. Besides. There are things that the first one does better.
@@YeOldEntertainment I just watched your review about the first one, I would like to play both!
Also if you never noticed, your crew composition dictates the vocals of the ship songs. If you had a crew entirely of men, then there is an absence of female singers during the sailing songs and vice versa.
Yes!! I noticed that back in the day but forgot to mention that for the video. There is that, there is the fact that, if you are a guy, when they sing the tales of your past exploits they refer to you as "he" and if you're a gal, they refer to you as "she", there are scrolls around the archipelago with the lyrics of many of the songs, and many other details!
Nice, never noticed that during my playthroughs
@@YeOldEntertainment Ahh very cool! Never noticed that!
Pillars 2 is insanely divisive (from my experience) but it is absolutely *overall* better than the first.
Yes. I really don't understand why it instills such impassioned debates!
everything is better except the core *pillar* of an RPG. the main story and companions. the first had a much stronger plot hook, mildly better pacing (still bad) and better companions.
the worst thing about POE is the esoteric and opaque gameplay, for POE 2 it is the main story's pacing defies suspension of disbelief and feels a bit contrived.
To the point about the soundtrack and your crewmembers not sounding like drunken pirates.
That's actually the devs at Obsidian doing all the singing.
Very good video again chief!
I just don't get the final score 7.6.
From what I get you enjoyed the sequel more than the first game (finale score of 8.5)
Is that a mistake? Probably not.
I guess it's more a reflect of the limitations of all the scoring systems that exists on earth.
After all, it's hard to measure fun, joy or great memories.
Keep going man. You're doing great.
Thanks a lot mate. It was a mistake, yes. I copied and pasted the sprite from another video and forgot to edit it. Made a community post about it... But I think most people didn't see it (It's a 8.7 for me) --> ruclips.net/user/postUgkxGiCVNtpa0qv2syfKG7BIG-XRe0IuYulE
Great review & keep it going.
Can you please tell me the name of the game @23:23 😁
thanks man! Aaah, that would be Expeditions: Viking. The game with the BEST resting mechanic amongst CRPGs.
Yes is the only answer to your title question.
I like the first game a lot better. By the time I got to endgame in this one, I was winning fights without even trying. It got so boring I never finished the game. Also, the ship battles were terribly designed and boring.
Loved POE 1 and 2, Tyranny and all the DLC's, 'cept "Arena". I look forward to whatever they put out. Not having played Divinity I'm sort of meh on BG3.
I don't get much about the lore, and I didn't play POE1, but I'm still loving this game! I fell in love with CRPGs after Divinity Original Sin 2, and I tried Pathfinder afterward but I didn't like it.
You one of us, then XD.
As for the pirates singing, I give you Newfies.
On second play through I fell in love with Pillars of Eternity 2 in 4k UHD HDR 10 ultra on PC who didn't seen it can't imagine how detailed armors and weapons are. The most beautiful Baldur's Gate like game. If they could transfer beautiful character look from second game to first as we have later in Baldur's Gates it would be nice 👍 some random maps are small other is excellent
Well, I'm not much of a 4K guy. Graphics matter very little to me. But yest PoE2 is a blast to play.
Hey, would you consider releasing a document that has all the games you reviewed and their scores in all the categories? It would make it quite a bit easier to compare your relative opinions on these games, without having to switch between different videos and go to the correct timestamps.
I thought you guys were never going to ask! (I'm on it) (But this last one has a mistake. The score isn't 7.6, it's 8.7 like I said in the addendum I posted on the community.)
Pillars 2 has me kind of stressed about the competition between roleplaying my character vs metagaming my companions with maximizing dialog choices.
Not totally decided on how I feel about it. I do enjoy consequence a lot. It does present an interesting challenge for me to stick to my guns and to hell with what companions think.
Hmm I dont know what I'm talking about.
i've always wondered if chris avellones had something to do with the writting in poe 2 (he not been there) though he is in poe 1 and both pathfinders lol
Well from what I've read he was an advisor of sorts in Pathfinder WOTR. A consultant if you would. I refuse to believe he had anything to do with the abysmal writing in the Pathfinder games... and if he did... he definitely lost his mojo.
@@YeOldEntertainment oh, certanly hope so too, i did just read that about pathfinder so i got surprised hahaha
Hey you. You're finally awake. You were trying to post a video, right?
I'm 1 minute in so far, and there's 2 things that caught my eye already.
There's not a "yes", after exactly 1:00
Wth, over one hour! Nice!
Well, given my crappy internet, "trying to post a video" doesn't seem all that implausible as far as excuses go. In truth I've been re-editing this one and dealing with an insane amount of work. But... Beast of winter is already almost done so it should be out soon.
Hopefully one day we could get a part 3 of POE. Wonder if that will still happen now that MS owns Obsidian.
I think they are going to put out a prequel as a First Person game in a year or so.
They dont have the og crew anymore plus Avellone is canceled, you can't even call him back. It's doubtfull
I think the devs would have better go with a non direct sequel.
Just call it PoE: pirates of the dead seas or something like it. This would have solve the issue with the plot and give more liberty to the writers
Wasteland 3 and Divinity are also up there in my opinion.
I love Wasteland 3
@@chimpy7267 It’s damn near perfect in my opinion
I consider you all good friends.
Well I got semi quoted and I'm cool with that.
POE2 is an improvement in almost every way over the original except where it counts (story/characters). The Characters/companions in the first pillars harken back to Baldurs Gate, Planescape or Metal Gear Solid. The second installment just didn't capture that.
Well, from a certain point of view, the entire video is a lengthened semi-quote of this comment (except for the metal gear solid reference).
@@YeOldEntertainment I meant the "immersion breaking conversations with seemingly modern 20 something characters" paraphrase.
It's funny I'll forgive a game with gameplay issues if it has a great story (Planescape), but not vice versa because isn't it just fancy candy crush at that point?
@@patrickclark9430 hehe. It's a bit extreme to say it's a candy crush but... I see where you're coming from. Immersive stories are essential in RPGs...
Played it once and unlike the first one, it didn't grab me. Somehow, despite its stakes and potential choices, I didn't care for a main quest (maybe it was the lack of strong, Thaos-like antagonist?). I also didn't fully click with any of the followers (Sarafen was the closest to achieve that, but got cliche pretty soon), so I eventually ended up replacing them ALL with "sidekicks" (yup, Mirke kicks ass!) which I never did in any game before! I've also found sea combat (and subsequent boarding) boring and tedious after 3 or 4 initial battles. And the world itself was surprisingly lacking that crucial "awe and wonder" factor I still get from traversing some stupid-ass, empty wilderness in the ancient BG1.
TBH the only memorable part of that game, which will stay with me, was "The Forgotten Sanctum" DLC and that "exploding bridge" moment from the "Beast of Winter".
Well I think I liked it a lot more than you did. But yes. The Godhammer momento form the Beast of Winter DLC and the Forgotten sanctum are indeed the best parts of the game. And combat-wise, Mirke is haaaaaands down the best of the lot, OP even.
Even with all of the jank, for me Pathfinder WotR is the uncontested best game of the genre in many many years. Man that game is just insane.
PoE2 has some great things, but the story is a massive letdown, and mechanically you can tell it feature more of a "home made" system vs a clearly more complete and exhaustive system like Pathfinder.
It's a shame that the writing in Pathfinder WoTR is so bad, and the game has a ton of questionable design choices. It excels at character building, but that's not enough for me personally. I really wanted to get into it, but I couldn't.
@@VladI998 I think the gameplay in general is just at a level above pillars. I do agree the writing is weird and sometimes just bad, but the story and some of the characters are pretty good.
The best part IMO, is like you say, the game gives you the ability to fulfill your insane power fantasy in a million of ways.
-at first I was very surprised why you would say some of the voice acting wasn't good... but you talked about accents and I understood : as a french, it's extremely rare that there is any accent at all in our dubbings (any media) so an accent would have to be comically exaggerated to be a bad thing for me. OTOH the orlesians in Dragon age all sound silly in english ^^
-a thing you didn't mention as a negative : if you're thorough in exploring the map, you get really overleveled and the last fight SPOILERS/ against the rival faction on the island is a complete joke (I didn't have to fight the gardian because the dragon did it for me, which is awesome but sadly happened offscreen)/END SPOILERS
it's the complete opposite problem of DOS2 where if you don't do ALL the sidequests you get stomped by any random enemy in the last act
-story-wise it's debatable which is best since the main plot is very short and can feel a bit pointless in the sequel, but it dragged on and was badly paced in the first, but the world, side quests and exploration are way better IMO in the sequel, especially the different factions, I think the Eothas chase is the side quest in terms of being interesting, like in a Bethesda game - at least visually the gigantic avatar is something I've never seen in a isometric game and it reminds me of Myrkul's corpse
-for the characters, yes Durance and Grieving mother have no equal in the 2nd, but the non-recurring characters weren't that interesting in the 1st either, and Eder is still the dependable human male that is somehow not boring, Pallegina and Aloth are still meh to me (the latter is boring-er I guess without the "used to work for the bad guys" reveal ?) It's more personnal preference I think : I'd take Serafen and Teheku over any from the 1st game other than the first 2 I spoke of (and Eder)
-and finally the setting is way more interesting than "the sword coast but everything is miserable" - and I really liked the 1st game, but I didn't LOVE it, in part because of the unrelentingly depressive atmosphere and in part because without the animancy and the gods stuff that you only learn in the last hour of the game, it's really generic medieval european fantasy, whereas the pirate/colonization angle is pretty rare
... and basically everything else is better in Deadfire, except the sales which tanked Obsidian because we can't have nice things :(
I'm afraid now they're gonna make only 1st person "not elder scrolls" and "not fallout" games since The outer worlds was way more succesful
I actually agree with almost everything you said... I think companions would be:
1st: Aloth from the first game (childhood story, they way Iselmyr comes into his life, his involvement with the bad guys)
2nd Grieving mother
3rd Eder
4th Durance
5th Serafen
6th Sagani
7th Vatnir (he's "just" a follower but his backstory and the story behind how he amassed a cult of followers through sheer charlatanerie is quite unique for a follower in a video game)
8th Maia
9th Kana
10th Xoti
11th Tekehu
12th Hiravias
13th Pallegina
14th Ydwin and Rekke (The only other followers who even deserve a mention lore-wise).
The final fight against the faction you antagonized the most was a joke as you said. It was very anti-climatic and it would've been worth mentioning as a negative.
As for the Orlesians in Dragon Age sounding funny in English. I imagine that their cliched french accent sounds every bit as hilarious to a French, as the spanish-cliche-Antivans sound to us (Spanish speakers).
1 hour review is crazy
I think PoE2's non-combat side was much better mechanically than PoE1's, but the opposite was true for combat. With the death of Vancian casting and resting to restore HP there are absolutely no stakes to any encounter except the hardest boss battles...and even those felt dumbed down. I would give the crown for my favorite modern RPG to Pillars 2 in the end but Baldur's Gate 3 definitely gets the nom for best combat. Pillars 2 combat is just kind of soggy. Baldur's Gate 3 and Pillars 2 are almost opposites, one is a great story and a soggy combat system, the other is a great combat system and a bloated AAA corporate mess of a story and world.
And yes, I know the Trial of Woedica exists but a gimmick challenge mode is not at all equivalent to baking resource management into the actual game. Your boat is literally a more significant and meaningful thing to manage than your actual survival.
Im like your channel. we disagrtee on somepoints but im glad. Adds to the immersion.
Love this game and pumped so many hours into when it released on the pa4, the voice actor that narrates makes it so immersive by far the best narration I’ve heard in a game what blow my mind is a few days ago I randomly came across a reddit post turns out console gamer’s could use the console command since launch 😅, started a new game using the console command to mimic a new game plus feel leveling my character and giving items that I had in the final chapter. Hopefully we get another game or even i next gen version would be great
Probably the narrator is one of the things I like the least. The one in the first one was better IMO
I always thought PoE1 had a great story, it was unexpectedly dark and creepy in its subject matter, maybe it wasn't paced quite so well, but for a CRPG to tackle the idea of a widespread epidemic of child disability: how anybody couldn't side with Hylea in the endgame, to return souls to those they were stolen from, is to me a thought experiment in how people view life. It really was a no brainer.
PoE2 makes that decision pointless though, Eothas probably absorbed countless other thousands or tens of thousands of souls just to make some theological point that the PC can ultimately influence at the very end. He's not too pleased with the Rymrgand response though, is it really any different? Eothas is an arsehole, but do the means justify the ends?
The setting of PoE2 is possibly the best of any CRPG bar none, it really deserves credit for just how awesome the storytelling in sidequests is, and how tightly the factional storytelling is dealt with regards to NPC companions. Companions aren't just there to say "oh, how horrible killing people is!" and then join in a massacre of 20 or so people and congratulate the PC for how noble they are. There really is depth and a great conviction to making consequences matter, at Ukaizo anyway, to decisions that have been made throughout the game. Anyway, it's a fantasy world, and you can side with the Slavers, if that's what the PC wants, your companions might hate you for it, or be outright hostile, but those choices are there!
48:25 THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!! My parrot is an integral part of my social life, and if people don't like it! Maia is great for taking Ishi along.
Look, even my brothers get attacked by my parrot, but she purrs along to me and fluffs up all cozy next to me.
I just hope the things you talk about aren't 80% about your parrot.
@@YeOldEntertainment For maybe about 5 minutes when people ask, other than that there's more interesting things to talk about, like how to completely perplex and confuse a dungeon master with any hare-brained scheme to de-rail a campaign setting.
Yeah, we'll just join with the cultists. Looks good. They've got a good setup here, better than these shitty bedrolls. Smells like good food, a few people fighting, might be able to make a bit standing some bets on here! Wooooah! Who's that? What a *cool* robe! Wow!
POE1 story was better imho. I agree. I think it would be looked upon more fondly if the writing was sharpened up (ie not being long for the sake of being long) and full voice acting. Yeah I don't want to be one of those types of people, but I do feel full voice acting if done well can add to the game. It worked for POE2. Some people didn't like the narrator in POE2, but I enjoyed the narration. Voice acting if done well certainly adds to a game.
Ok. Incredibly good video. I can see the literal mountain of work that you put in those every single time. That's why even if you ever start making videos that I completely disagree with, I'll still watch them fully. Sometimes twice. Sometimes thrice actually. As always, incredible work and that's why I'm still angry, that I can't support you directly. Set up the effing patreon. Or else.
But seriously. Whew. That score. How is it lower than for PoE1, if you... Err. Liked it... More? I guess? I don't get it. Care to elaborate a bit? I know. Eder's portrait looks a million times better in PoE1, but is it worth taking away a whole point for?
No no! I posted an addendum today on the community tab! it's an 8.7. I made a mistake because I copy-pasted the score from another video! ruclips.net/user/postUgkxGiCVNtpa0qv2syfKG7BIG-XRe0IuYulE
@@YeOldEntertainment That you did. I missed it somehow.
42:11 aww, this is because *something* happened to Durance at the end iirc >O
I can think of several ways in which they could've brought Durance back... you being a watcher and the existence of ethereal realms being a thing in this universe... it wouldn't have been hard to bring him back. I Played PoE three times, Played PoE 2 four times. In a couple of those play-troughs I brought her along for a little longer to see if there was more to her... and... nope... didn't work... still uninteresting, boring, generic and with over-acted voice acting. Game-play wise... I strongly dislike two-hander wielders, they just don't fit in my tactical design. (but these are all just personal takes).
Pillars 2 was the best. Nothing came even close. Let's hope rogue trader or baldurs gate 3 is even better
Great material!
Thanks my man.
Deadfire is such a weird game, it occupies a very uncomfortably ambiguous place in my mind. I mean it's got wonderful gameplay, it's got good writing and I love a world map that I can explore full of adventurous side questing with branching narrative paths. But the biggest weakness is the story, as you say in the review. It's such a non-story. It's got no personal stakes at all to me. Yes, Eothas wrecked my stronghold, but I wasn't even attached to that place even though I played and liked the first game. It's just a big question mark. I think one problem is that a lot of the game's storytelling is mired in abstract lore specifics. Like, I'm supposed to be emotionally invested one way or another in the schemes of the gods but I couldn't give a rat's arse. If they made the story directly tied with the personal fate of my companions it would've been so much gripping. I mean, just compare it to BG2 when Imoen is kidnapped by Jon Irenicus. I might not have been that attached to Imoen but it still hurt that the villain just took away my companion out of my party.
The story of Deadfire has no drive, doesn't put the wind in my sails and at that point I'm just playing the game to enjoy the gameplay and exploration, but the whole experience is still cobbled.
Yes, exactly. I still think it's an overwhelmingly net positive.
@@YeOldEntertainment I'm playing it right now and I luxuriate in all the other great qualities of the game so it's basically always at least a good time, it just frustrates me that it doesn't grip me in the way a Fallout 1, Vampire Bloodlines, KotoR 2 did with far more technical and QoL issues. I hope Obsidian make Pillars 3 with a really fantastic story this time.
About VO: I do like that different cultures have their own way of speaking, but I do think it can be distracting, especially in full VO. I didn’t mind American speaking characters but some Valians did feel more like accents then characters. I though Huana was very well done - with neutral accent but a distinctive way of speaking.
There is always some actor overlap in RPG - did you know Eder and Aloth are voiced by the same guy Matt Mercer? The guy has range - even knowing it’s all him, I never found it distracting.
But that's because Aloth and Eder sound completely different. But Ydwin and the narrator sound exactly the same. That's what I meant.
I thought I used to love this game... but I cannot play it for the past 4 years due to technical / compatibility issues. and based on the forums i'm not the only one. (in case you aren't aware: the game will simply crash with certain nvidia cards and drivers on Win10, and "upgrade to the latest driver" doesn't actually help.)
oh well, i guess i'll give it another spin when i buy a new computer or graphics card. ._.
Well shit, sea shanties are my weakness. Another reason to try this game. XD
Interesting. I thought PoE2 was a step back on almost all accounts except for the audiovisuals. Its open world design was weak/boring, the writing was all over the place, the finale especially stagnant and the game was riddled with bugs and performance issues. And that was from playing the game a year ago. This title felt extremely rushed by the devs, like they were in a hurry to make something else. Unfocused. As a fan of party based isometric RPGs I really wanted to like this one, but I ended up disappointed. /shrugs I'm actually a bit surprised that people like PoE2 as much as they do, but to each his own I guess.
Good review. Have simmilar thoughts about the title. Sucks that it sold badly cause, even though I have my gripes, it's a very good game overall. Preffer it over DOS2. Just can't get into that one for some reason...
Little worried about the future of this universe. We won't be getting another Pillars game most likely and there is no news about Avowed. Also, Obsidian's last first person RPG - The Outer Wolrds, sucked badly in my opinion which makes me even more worried about the quality of Avowed. If it ever comes out, that is....
What do you plan on reviewing next?
I very strongly disliked The Outer Worlds too. Coming up next is...
Pillars of Eternity 2: Beast of Winter
Pillars of Eternity 2: Seeker Slayer Survivor
Pillars of Eternity 2: Forgotten Sanctum
sigh... I had forgotten I had this on my steam library, I dont remember the story actually... that means one thing, oh its already launching, see ya.
For a game that really tried pushing for something different, it felt really uninspired to me. Like, I can barely remember that game or hardly care about what happened. The only cool stuff was the ending and it was done through a conversation.
i believe pathfinder kingmaker and wotr are better
I played through PoE1. A forgets Le experience for me to be honest. Starting up PoE2 I got bored within the first 40 minutes.
Is it still worth playing if I found PoE1 ultimately forgettable?
Hard to tell. If you are a story guy then no... you are probably not going to like it. If you are a gameplay guy, then maybe.
Thanks! That's still tough because ordinarily I consider myself a story over gameplay guy but I loved IWD.
That is very strange indeed! There are a few guys who have full playthroughs of PoE2 on RUclips. And I think it's safe to watch those because the only relevant spoilers that are worth avoiding in PoE2 take place after like 10 hours or so.
Personnaly I find the first one better. Even thought I prefer the combat system, narrative and graphisms in the second, I find it boring really fast. The maps are too much copy paste, a lot of the little islands where ininteresting. There is too much "not memorable" content. I did finish the game, but it was hard, I knew if I stopped I wouldn't come back to it.
In the first one, the discovery in each map was fun, you never knew what you would face in a hidden corner. Less map but bigger and better made in my opinion.
Great review Alex (or should I call you Raskolnikov!). Yeah, I love this game. I keep coming back to it, trying new builds, weapons, turned based mode, etc. I do hit that "I don't really want to do that quest again..." point eventually. But it's got some magic to it, no question. I hope after Avowed, they give us another one of these "old school" CRPGs. By the way, your channel should be freakin massive, I tell you.
Why Raskolnikov? I've only had one landlady and I didn't kill her... she was actually quite nice.
@@YeOldEntertainment Ha. I meant for his insightful observations (not that... ahem... other thing).
Had to stop once he started saying inventory in a way my mind rejected to my core... It's as if he wanted to say invented but added ory at the end.
do I have to Play the 1st really? This looks better than the 1st one.
You don't HAVE to, but it sure comes in handy.
@@YeOldEntertainment When I wrote this comment eariler today the game was on sale - now its back up to full price. smh haha
I've Greedfall to keep me company.
No talent tree in poe 1 was an issue
I want poe3 not avowed
We're all with you in this channel.
This was the only modern day crpg that I prefered playing in rtwp mode than turnbased and for me thats really sating something cause I hate rtwp
I absolutely love rtwp, so this game is a godsend!
Bro bro.
Why do you always play dwarf fighters ?
Why not do a run as something else , like a Elf cleric or something
Elf?????????????????? I would NEVER play an elf unless someone paid me handsomely for it.
@@YeOldEntertainment Good man. Disgusting elfs.
Thumbs down for not liking Xoti. I kid of course. Some people really don't like her, but I'm not one of them. While she isn't as well written as Durance, I like her better than Durance.
obsidian giving up the pillars of eternity ip because the initials are getting confused with path of exile
you missed the red hair asian guy companion btw
Pillars 2 has better moment to moment gameplay, but the first Pillars game is still unmatched in atmosphere. Not even close tbh.
That is highly subjective. I played both POE 1 and 2 and favoured 2.
Honestly , I think the game is really fun but in my opinion both of the poe games are kind of a B grade of the more popular modern crpgs. 1's story is mostly really lame even if theres some cool moments and characters. But two has shit thats honestly hard to read its so cringy. I can forgive cringe in divinity or pathfinder cause theyre overall silly games, but jesus some of the romance lines in poe2 make me really uncomfortable. If poe1 had 2's multiclassing I honestly wouldnt touch it again with a 10 foot pole. The combat is great even if the Empower (or whatever its called) system is mostly useless unless your playing potd or a challenge run
about 8 min in i come to the conclusion omg im so glad i haven't bought this yet, and i definitely won't either. and then 8:29 and out happened. im sorry for ever promoting poe. shoulda stayed with promoting nwn, but it was getting really old.. (and dilluted from corporate greed on the name nwn) may as well mention that none know what pillars is as it's abbreviation crashed with the already well known path of hamster. and while mentioning path of hamster. i'd also like to mention lost hamster which could have been a dream come true, alas.. capitalism is stronger than ever so our best bet looks to be openMW. yeah you heard that right, openNM actually.. i'm glad i haven't touched a single nwn module yet as the future looks to be all about classic games, besides the odd mayfly like lost hamster represent.
did you skip the part about how *awful* the ship-combat text minigame is? or did i just ignore it cause it was so bad. like, as good as rest of the game is(and as much as i like mapping around in a boat), that ship-to-ship stuff is 10x worse(and buggy). ram them or run away, cuz broadsiding enemy ships isnt worth it lol.
Haha. Well I forgot to talk about that and when I thought "oh crap! I forgot to mention how nonsensical and useless (because more than awful, which it is, there is ZERO point in engaging in that minigame) this game is!" I was already uploading video. So I say... "ah fek it... it's not that important XD".
You've made me curious to try It, but I fear the story will be bland as in its first chapter. Also, Min max chars again? Sigh
This game has an interesting myriad of paths that is worth replaying if only because of how much differently things can turn out depending on how you go on about them. But the main story isn't stellar and yes... some min-maxing is required on the combat end of things if you want to take a crack at the Path of the Damned difficulty. There are also some awesome tough-as-nails megabosses that are going to give you a run for your money.
I honestly think that PoE 2 might be one of the worst CRPGs to have come out in the past two decades. It's overbalanced to the point that all classes feel similar in terms of gameplay and the subclasses don't do much to alleviate that, mainly because most of them aren't that much different from their core class to begin with. One of the rare few I found interesting was the trickster and all it does is give you a handful of Illusion spells as you level up in exchange for a 10% weaker sneak attack. Alas, it only gets duller from there. The itemization disgusts me more than anything else related to the combat and might be one of the worst i've ever seen in a videogame. Very few pieces of equpiment have any noteworthy enchantments on them, most of the time they either have ineffective passives (ie. 10% on hit to disarm an enemy for 6 seconds if they fail a dice roll) or actives that, despite being weaker than your standard class abilities, are only usable once or twice per rest. Speaking of class abilities, they are so underwhelming that half of them barely ever end up being used. It's like Obsidian was too afraid to add something that can greatly alter combat encounters (like the Haste spell in IE games) in the fear of making certain classes stand out too much. They can mainly be classified into five categories: minor buffs (+2 to str for 20 second), minor debuffs (-30% movement speed for 8 seconds), minor crowd controls (stun a target for 3 seconds if they fail a dice roll), special attacks that do different damage types (slashing instead of piercing damage) or a combination of these.
The nicest thing I can say about this game is that the faction questlines are okay-ish (similarly to the New Reno gangs in F2, you can work for all of them as long as you don't complete the last quest in their chain), but they don't make up for how boring and stupid the main story is. Hell, it somehow manages to have an even weaker plot hook than the first game. Companions are nowhere near as interesting as in prior Obsidian titles and their character arcs don't really go anywhere during the actual game. The best example of that is Serafen, a pirate who hates slavers (and is one of the most unlikable companions in the entire game in my opinion). You can show to him that his faction, the Principi, are participating in the slave trade and yet he will still leave your party if you don't side with them at the end. The only thing this changes is his ending, where he leaves the Principi to become a freelancer. I repeat, he can end up hating his own faction enough to leave them, but not enough to let you join up with someone else
The lack of multiplayer killed any interest i had in both of these titles. Getting my buddies together for some BG1 and BG2 gaming is the only reason i still play it
This game is the biggest disappointment in my gaming history. Not because it's bad but because it stutters like crazy on my gtx970 and the loading times are the worst I've experienced. Such a shame, because I've played enough to know that it's a game I'd love, but the poor performance is just unbearable.
it just have better lore and a consistent looks throughout than DnD...DnD lore and looks are crap...whiles vampire the masquerade have awesome lore and looks but only bad games nowadays, but yes this IP could be made better.