Pillars Of Eternity Review – An Eternity Of Content

<p>I personally became a huge fan of <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;obsidian&period;net&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener noreferrer">Obsidian Entertainment<&sol;a> when they brought me the sequel to one of my top games of all time&comma; <em>Star Wars&colon; Knights of the Old Republic<&sol;em>&period; I loved being able to jump back into that world and wield The Force so perfectly&comma; the ending could have been better&comma; but Bioware took up the mantel of bad endings&period; I remember being excited for <em>Alpha Protocol<&sol;em> as well&comma; but feeling disappointed after getting my hands on the title&comma; I stopped looking for titles from them&period; Then I heard from the grapevine that Obsidian was going back to RPG&&num;8217&semi;s&comma; something that I loved them for at the onset&comma; that rumor was <em>Pillars of Eternity<&sol;em>&period; I was suddenly excited for this title&comma; but super bummed once I found out the platform it was coming to&comma; PC only&semi; and seeing as I&&num;8217&semi;m not part of the PC Master Race I feared I would never play this RPG&period; Then Obsidian decided to put the game on consoles and I jumped at the chance to play this title even though I&&num;8217&semi;m very new at Real-Time Party RPG&&num;8217&semi;s&period; I knew the world they would create would be amazing&comma; and I wasn&&num;8217&semi;t wrong&semi; this game lures you in and keeps you trapped&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Since I&&num;8217&semi;m a newcomer to this type of series I decided to play on Easy so that I could enjoy my experience and not freak out at every battle I would lose&period; Thankfully Obsidian gives many levels of difficulty to play&comma; there was even one that was easier than Easy&comma; which I declined&comma; I wanted to experience some of the battles so that I could tell you about them&period; I knew that I was in for a huge experience in this game when I opened up the character creator and greeted with so much text that would ultimately lead me to chose my character&period; You can chose from six different races&comma; Human&comma; Aumaua&comma; Dwarf&comma; Eld&comma; Orlan and Godlike&semi; the most interesting design was Godlike&comma; but I passed on the race&period; Once you pick a race you can pick a Sub-Race that has even more special attributes for the character you are creating&period; After reading everything several times I decided to go with a Pale Elf due to the fact that they had increased burn and freeze damage reductions&period; Once you chose Race and Sub-Race you get to chose class&semi; Barbarian&comma; Chanter&comma; Cipher&comma; Druid&comma; Fighter&comma; Monk&comma; Paladin&comma; Priest&comma; Ranger&comma; Rogue and Wizard&period; I chose Barbarian because I like to swing my sword a lot&period; If you are a super picky gamer or just have some major OCD you could easily lose hours just creating your character and reading all the lore&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;128860" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-128860" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-128860" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;08&sol;19020347&sol;2015-04-01&lowbar;00001&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-128860" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Pillars of Eternity<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Obsidian&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The look&comma; feel and sounds of this game took me back to Peter Jackson&&num;8217&semi;s <em>Lord of the Rings Trilogy<&sol;em>&comma; which to me is a very good thing&period; I like it when games pay homage to some of the very best of what came before&comma; it reminds you of something great and adds to it&comma; at least that&&num;8217&semi;s what I think&period; There were times when I was in an Inn and decided to just sit there and enjoy the ambiance&comma; the wooden floors&comma; the dirty glasses and the wonderful music that played softly in the background&period; It made me wish there was actually a pub like this when I live&comma; sadly there are not and I would probably have to go to England at some point to experience the real life version&period; What made everything stand out the most though was the fact that the backgrounds in the world were actually hand drawn&period; They are gorgeous backgrounds and they make the character models pop out on the screen&comma; plus the way dialogue is handled makes the game seem like a real movie&period; When you speak the isometric camera heads towards you when your campaign speaks the camera shifts overhead to them which gives the game the feeling of cut-scenes without really having them&period; Instead&comma; you are greeting with lots of dialogue boxes and wonderfully performed voice-over work&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The story is typical of all RPG&&num;8217&semi;s&comma; you&comma; the lone hero&comma; must cure what ails the world you are currently inhabiting&period; In this instance you find yourself in Dyrwood a place where all of the babies are being born&comma; are being born without a very important thing&period; They are being born without their souls&period; Weird right&quest; Well you&comma; the lone hero&comma; must find a way to stop this madness in this monster of an RPG&period; And when I say monster&comma; I mean monster&comma; you must be prepared to read a lot of dialogue and ask a lot of questions so that you can get new quests and learn about this strange land you are in&period; You also learn that this land in divided in thought&comma; some people agree that animancy can be used&period; This animancy involves the manipulation of souls&comma; some people are abhorred by it and others embrace it&semi; you must remember this as you ask and answer questions throughout the world&period; One wrong answer could ruin your day in Dyrwood&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;129042" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-129042" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-129042" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;08&sol;23010258&sol;f2b5bb37fbd1d92f24dd415db8d9c973&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"360" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-129042" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Pillars of Eternity<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Obsidian&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>The controls for <em>Pillars of Eternity<&sol;em> are simple yet somewhat annoying&period; You control your avatar with the thumbsticks and interact with objects by pressing X&comma; the world prompts you to press X when items are available or when there is a point of interest&period; Combat it when the game shows that it was made to play the best on a PC&period; When combat begins the game pauses and you use a little star reticle to command your characters to attack or cast spells&period; You place the reticle on your enemy and can press attack when prompted&semi; Right Trigger opens the combat radial menu&period; When you open up the menu you can use Spells&comma; Abilities&comma; Quick Items and different Weapon Sets&period; You can choose them on the fly to defeat your enemies or to save your life when you health gets low&period; This is where I began to lose my enjoyment in the game after you attack or use a spell your little icon needs to refill before you can attack again&period; This made combat pretty boring to me&comma; and reminded me of <em>Dragon Age&colon; Origins<&sol;em> a near perfect game had the combat been better&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m glad the story was so good in this game that it made me want to continue playing&comma; had it not been I would have stopped because the combat irritated me&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I would suggest that long time RPG fans pick <em>Pillars of Eternity<&sol;em> up&comma; it feels like a nice blast from the past and really sets off your nostalgia feelings&period; I loved the pop-up conversations even if they seemed to drag every now and then&comma; and you must pay attention or you would lose parts of the story&period; I will say that it is very difficult for gamers new to these types of RPG&&num;8217&semi;s&comma; I have been playing video games since 1988 and I have a very difficult time succeeding in this game&period; If you are new to the series and have an undying love for Obsidian like I do&comma; give the game a chance&period; When I saw it was coming to consoles I was considering pre-ordering it before my editor told me that I get to review it&period; I will say that after playing a substantial chunk of this game&comma; I would have regretted not buying it&comma; even though it is so foreign to me&period; I&&num;8217&semi;m glad that I got to take a chance on it&comma; and I think you should as well&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong>An Xbox One Review copy of Pillars of Eternity was provided by Obsidian Entertainment for the purpose of this review<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;