Pillars of Eternity

Pillars of Eternity is a game that everybody wanted and that nobody expected to be the megahit it is. Created by Obsidian Entertainment and funded in part via Kickstarter, Pillars of Eternity is a game that is a direct throwback to classics like Planescape: Torment or the Baldur's Gate series. Everything about it screams nostalgia and it does it's best to show those who loved this classic style of western RPGs that there are games out there for them still, waiting to be played.

The very first striking thing about Pillars of Eternity is its character creation system; while it does have the standard race, class, etc. it also gives you the option of giving your character a backstory which affects your stats. There are number of stats in this game that you need to pay attention to while you're creating your character, because the way you allocate your points could lead to some unfortunate results depending on how you do it. All the stats affect you at some point in the game; luckily you can increase them when you level up giving you a steady sense of progression as your characters level grows.

One thing about the character creation that is quite disappointing (considering the standards set by other present day RPGs) is the lack of physical appearance customization. You can pick race, their variation of sub-race, the face and the hair, but there isn't much more to it beyond that. You'd be hard pressed to find someone who was able to make their character physically look entirely the way they them. Potentially, you could always upload a picture of your character in the character portrait section, but that leads to another strange issue this game has: that it doesn't have 3D pictures of the characters in your party, just a piece of artwork. So potentially your character portrait could look nothing like your character. You could always get someone to draw it for you or draw it yourself, but that's honestly too much of a hassle for what should be a feature in the game itself.

The story starts you out in a caravan with a party member that helps introduce you to the goings-on and the world overall. They ask you questions that help establish your character's backstory and motivations, which is a nice touch. Most of it is just for flavor, but it is a delightful flavor that helps keep the conversations with characters slightly varied.

Pillars of Eternity's story is as follows: after you fall ill on a caravan to a new settling place, you find yourself exploring a small area, looking for medicine to treat your illness. You are then attacked by a mysterious creature which chases you through some ruins where you witness a strange ritual that gives you the ability to see and hear dead people. You are called a Watcher and you can commune with souls, learning their stories. The overarching plot of the game focuses on you figuring out your new abilities, using them for good, evil, or otherwise, and possibly saving the world along the way. The entire story is in a storybook-like text and there's a lot of reading involved in what's going on, rather than full cutscenes, which gives the player more of a classic RPG style feel.

A big point of Pillars of Eternity is that after the ritual happens the world opens up to you. Yes, you do benefit from doing the main storyline since it gives you more abilities and party members, but you also have the option of just running around doing random side-quests. There's no guarantee you'll succeeded at doing these side-quests, because there are times where you can wander into an area where you are way over your head and you'll need to retreat in order to progress at all. Saving often is mandatory for a game like this, but you can mess up where you save, so having multiple saves is also essential.

Gameplay-wise it has an isometric party management system, where the player needs to pause constantly in order to set up the right positioning for your party members. Placement is everything and your party members can get into a bad situation very easily despite your best efforts, so this is micromanaging to the umpteenth degree of focus. There are thankfully AI options, where you can tinker with certain things making your party management easier, but the AI is still dense at the best of times. If you try to get them all to attack one enemy, they'll more than likely target the weakest one if you don't interfere. A lot of times they'll attack a random creature rather than the boss you want them to attack. You have to pause constantly to make sure they are doing their jobs. Formations for your party members are important and you can even make custom ones in order to avoid the easier mistakes you can make during combat. It's also good to remember you can hire additional heroes, because there will be times where you need them. It does let you customize each of them and give them your own story, but at the same time it's frustrating that your main party characters who are fully voice acted won't always be enough to face the trials of the game.

It works more like Dungeons and Dragons than what has become expected of an RPG combat system, which means that a player can't disengage from enemies without taking damage, and friendly characters will take damage if they just happen to be in your spell cone. You have to be aware of everything and everyone or you'll make some sort of cataclysmic mistake that can cause your entire party to wipe. While Dungeons and Dragons is a fun game, it's a fun game to play with friends who all control their own party members. While Pillars of Eternity is fun and challenging at times, you really don't want to play the Dungeon Master, you just want to be your character and it doesn't let you do that.

Pillars of Eternity is a fantastic game with a straight forward story and engaging characters, but its problems lie in the fact that it is so determined to root itself in the past. It's great to have a game that caters to the hardcore RPG fan that misses the classic RPGs of yore, but it's also good to have a balance in what made the classics good and what modern day RPGs did to improve on them.

Angelina Bonilla, NoobFeed (@Twitter)