Geaorge freaks out at "biawac" then heaps praise on the first game like it didn't spend the entire opening sequence setting up the very event called "biawac."
hownow browncow precisely what I was going to say, I still haven't finished pillars one and I know that much at least, considering the praise he heaped on the first game you'd think he'd at least remember some of it
Plus the game lets you hover your mouse over lore and mechanic related words to get a short explanation of what they mean. So it's not like you need to memorize everything.
Dialogue that requires double checking a mouse over to parse lines is uh, not good dialogue if the writing isn't good enough that you internalize the terms after the first few times.
The Biawac is what made you into a watcher (as it killed you but not really) and it's constantly mentioned at the begining of the first game, I don't understand how that broke the deal for you.
And on top of it he first complains about fucking walls of text and then takes the jab "you can see Avallone wasn't involved this time around" when literally the LONGEST WALLS OF FUCKING TEXT in the first game were in conversations with the companions that Avallone wrote.
@@KitchenSinkSoup Planescape Torment is a MASTERPIECE, every single wall of text was amazingly written, what we don't like is a huge wall of text that has nothing interesting to how and no context.
Chris Avellone had little do with the first Pillars of Eternity other than writing his two companions, Durance and Grieving Mother. I would suggest that any perceived difference between the two games had more to do with 1) The replacement of the lead writer (Carrie Patel instead of Eric Fenstermaker) but mostly 2) An intentionally different, lighter and sillier approach dictated by game director Josh Sawyer.
Pillars 2 is a lot more like Fallout 2 and New Vegas than Pillars 1 or the Infinity Engine games. The main quest isn't that interesting or long, but it's the factions, side quests, and exploration that makes the game good. Unlike PoE 1, where you gradually progress through different acts and get more and more of the world opened up to you. In PoE 2, the whole world is open to explore after you get out the initial area. Then you learn about the different factions vying for power and resources in the Deadfire Isles and you can choose to help one side over the others.
I agree the main quest wasnt that long or deep, but I still got chills every time I spoke with eothas or the gods. and the narrator fucking ROCKED it when she was reading the description of events, especially a certain "battle"
KingOfMadCows I’d really love it if developers for games like this (eg bethesda) would someday realize that if the main quest is shit, maybe don’t have one in the first place? Double down on what works, abandon what doesn’t.
The main quest isn't shit. It's OK. And they're done more to sell the game, not just to audiences, but also the press, crowdfunding, potential publishers, etc. They need something big and flashy to draw attention and get people excited. It's much easier to advertise a game that's about a grand adventure where you fight mythic monsters and chase down gods than to advertise a game about participating in a political struggle between different factions vying for control in a world with a deep lore and history with a lot of ambiguity where you can't tell which side of the story is true, people lie or unknowingly give false information, and you can never know if you've made your decisions based on accurate information. Things get too complicated and people lose interest. There has to be a simpler sensational hook to draw people in.
imo the game would have been better without the hyper epic main story involving the gods. the "chosen saviour of the world" is such a tired narrative .. more of the colonial/political stuff would have been a lot more engaging
Oh butts, this got alot of thumbs. I'd like to note from people saying George isn't a voice actor, but he does talk for a living. I do swear I'm not trying to be mean, it's just I thought it was a bit silly because of the running gag of him goofing up words.
I'm pretty sure Chris Avellone didn't actually write much of Pillar's 1, similar to how he didn't write much of FNV either (he wrote a couple of characters and that's it, but he was the lead on 3/4 of the DLCs).
They really were. I could be alone in digging Dead Money the most. So Josh Sawyer’s crpg burnout could be more to blame if attention wanders with this game
That was the big issue about the review for me. Chris Avellone is a great writer sure, but the first game was written by a whole staff, not just one almighty Chris. Hell he wasn't even lead writer, that was Eric Festermaker. That and multiple other points made by George hint at pretty bad research for this review tbh.
I guess its just personal taste because I thought the start of this game was far stronger than that of the first, which was fairly dull and awkward. A 500 foot tall statue destroys the home and all the loot I spent the whole first game building up and sucks out my soul? Hell yes, I'm motivated. A bunch of people in robes do a weird thing and now I can see ghosts? Eh, I guess. In fact, that you don't remember what a Biawac is when its the thing that happens at the start of the first game and kickstarts the plot is kind of telling imo. Also after the first game I like that people know who I am. I'm practically on first name basis with the gods and I've killed dragons. It would irritate me if people still treated me like a random.
Pretty much totally agreed, especially about how the first game starts. It took me ages to actually get through the first act because I didn't much care. The setup isn't very urgent: you're an immigrant and now you can see ghosts. You're told this is bad, so you go to stop seeing ghosts. Here you are given a goal and an ultimatum, and you can even bluntly defy the gods at several points because indeed, like you said, you actually KNOW them and especially after the DLC must have interacted with them quite a lot before.
This is pretty clearly a sequel, but then so are a lot of superhero movies these days, and most of them do okay. Basically, I've played the previous game, and unless they went total final fantasy and wrote a whole new bloody setting, I don't need to play another origin story, thank you.
RedWurm You can't expect Obsidian to make a sequel where you're already max level and have legendary gear. Deadfire basically just did was Mass Effect 2 did and had you get wrecked so you have to build yourself back up again. The intro is short but impactful and a good introduction for a sequel that is actually pretty dang different from the first one in setting and mechanics.
Oh, absolutely. The main reason it worked for Baldur's gate is that the first game had a really low level cap and they take all your gear when you go to the next game - and your gear isn't even that great in the scheme of things. And even then, the highest levels kind of throw balance out of the window. "Wouldn't it be great if you could carry over your level" in the end is probably like saying "Wouldn't it be great if the map was twice as big". Fun in theory, difficult to implement, and would take so much work it would probably have a negative impact on the game as a whole.
Look, all they need to do is craft a little mini-game choose your own adventure thing that goes on at the start of RPG sequels that cover what happened in the intervening years for your characters when things got dull for them. And that's what it should always be - extremely dull work of some kind. Maybe your guy got rich and famous and has been touring the world, but it's endless hedonism draining your coffers and loosening your wits with drink and drugs. Or maybe your guy got into politics which has become a monotony of dealing with low level issues of micromanagement while fending off political rivals that are inept and simple minded and more frustratingly stupid than actually dangerous. Or they've just been tending a farm and raising a family, and while satisfying in its own right, it's certainly not a life of adventure. Point is, depending on your choices your character loses a certain amount of levels, resources, companions, skills et cetera, just from misuse, mis-management of time, or lack of use. Or just age on top of that. The different choices determine how many levels you lose and which particular stats, skills or resources. I mean, peak athletes only have a limited number of years at the top, and they train all the time to maintain those levels. But each year, they have to train just that little bit harder as time wears down their bodies. I don't see why a fantasy hero isn't at least in part basically pretty similar to an athlete when it comes to most of their physical activity on this regard.
5:05 Avellone wasn't very involved with the writing in Pillars 1. I think he only wrote couple of characters. Eric Fenstermaker was the lead writer on PoE1.
Avellone only worte Durance and Grieving Mother and Obsidian had to cut large parts of their arcs due to various reasons. All in all, his input was very limited. Idk, this review seems uncharacteristically poorly researched and written.
So old man Eder talks with wisdom but he also gets overly exited like a school boy when he sees a dog or a bird; truly what horrendous writing! Real people have layers and facets to their personality, and your criticizing the game for.... not making him fit squarely into a single archetype?
Maybe I've played a few too many crpg over the years (I regret nothing), but not having your character be an unknown, blank-slate, fish-out-of-water is something I really appreciate. I have a motivation and reputation already, and I'm not chasing an evil wizard. And no, I don't care if that evil wizard has a secret reason for his bullshit that I find out near the end of the game, I just spent 80 hours being told to kill the evil wizard who is evil.
loved it too but i got really disapointed in the ending, is like nothing we do matters and we dont see the true consecuences of Eothas actions and we dont trully explore Ukaizo.... buuut the whole scene of Eothas in magrans volcano was amazing, the tsunami and music.
I get a feeling that someday an Add On will come that hopefully covers what happens after. Would be great if that would let you further influence the decisions on what is to do with Ukaizo.
The opening scene of PoE 1 has a giant storm pass through which kills anyone caught in it, turning their bodies to ash and their souls disappear. This is clearly a made up fantasy storm, so the game gives it the name Biawac. If you played 10 minutes of the first game you would be familiar with what a Biawac is in PoE and would not be confused when a line of dialogue describes Eothas brining a Biawac in his wake. Anywhere he walks in the second game causes a big storm and steals peoples souls and turns their bodies to ash. I understand how confusing fantasy jargon created specifically for games can be, but the one you put emphasis on is clearly described and occurs at the very start of the first game, repeats, and then they talk about the same thing again in the start of the second game.
Stakes are lower he says, as a God has decoupled a part of your soul, the Gods are bickering while using you for their ends, and a colonialist empire is trying to over take their traditionalist neighbors. truly, nothing of interest here.
These stakes are so general and abstract to the point of meaninglessness. Besides cutscenes you never interact with these gods through gameplay. They never affect your characters or interact with them or the NPCs or anything - the antagonist, besides within the cutscenes, just don't exist, and so you feel no narrative pressure
I have to agree with the criticism about the weak protagonist/antagonist. I'm generally not a huge fan of the chosen-one trope but had no problem when it was done well, like in the old infinity engine games (Baldurs Gate 1&2, Planescape Torment and Fallout 1&2 for example) but in PoE 2 it felt pretty weak. The problem for me is, that while the concept of this mystical soul related universe sounds great on paper, I never felt really engaged by the setting. And playing an outstanding protagonist from the get-go (without the player working for it) in addition to the shallow and seemingly omnipotent antagonist didn't manage to hook me in. Thinking about it, the set-up sounds very similar to Tyranny, but in that case, somehow it worked very well for me. I just don't find Eothas to be an interesting villain and the protagonists special powers and background isn't inherently interesting to me either. Aside from that, PoE 2 is truly a great crpg with overall good improvements on its predecessor.
So Bunnyhops complaining that the games lore, that you could completely learn in the first game if you bothered to pay attention and read, is confusing? Cool.
No, he's criticizing the fact that lore is dumped on you even harder than the first game AND it's not properly explained. In PoE1 there's a long conversation about biawacs that not only introduces them but PoE's weird soul physics in general. In PoE2, there's...a biawac. What's a biawac? I dunno, play the first game, or read the completely inadequate tooltip. When the writing is on, it's dead-on, but it's off a lot more than it was in the first game.
Its cool for sure. Although for me there was a 3 year gap between playing these two games and its still super confusing at the beginning. Don't get me wrong I was totally wrapped up in the story at the halfway point or so and choosing a faction was REALLY hard for me. I even had to kill Pallengina at the end! But the beginning is kind of a mess.
Writing is a bit eh, but it is a sequel. biâwac was explained in that game pretty early on too IIRC. Also I don't get the issue with Witcher lore. The games are a direct continuation of a novel series. A lot of the things are explained in the games plus you don't really have to understand every single term or region to play it. Fantasy stories have been always like this. Terminology and name dropping are just part of it even in the great LOTR.
Its really jarring to have a dude critiquing a game for its writing failures over silly trombone and flute when the game actually had great writing in it by most accounts. If I did experience a moment of bad dialogue or uninteresting writing I dont remember it. And it certainly didnt impact my enjoyment. This game has on all accounts some of the most thought provoking instances of writing I have ever seen. I had characters respond to my choices in game in ways that gave me chills because of how well they got into my head and why I made the choices I did.
Well, it is not a mistake, it's a weakness of the cRPG conversation system, not all dialogue choices are regarding the same situation and therefore there would be a huge difference in mood between if you were going down a dialogue branch where you're pressing someone for information as to what happened to her crewmates that were all murdered or another branch where you just asked for general information about the city.
I can't speak for deadfire, but the first one has one of the most boring stories I've have ever read from an RPG. It was well written, yes, but it was so poorly delivered and the story was nothing great neither. writing sure is hard but i was hopping with this revival of the genre to see Chris Avellone involvement bring back a glimpse of the geniality of games like kotor 2 or planescape torment, but i guess the guy is a little bit burned by now.
This review confuses me so much. "Walls of texts so deeply submerged in their own jargon that they might not as well be speaking english" - example of a conversation between two ancient being, were inability of player to properly understand what they say is the joke. "Eothas caused a biawac when he passed through" While Deadfire might be tough for newcomers but you SBH criticises it's opening, while showing and praising PoE1 opening, which is precisely showing and explaining what the biawac is, not to mention that Caed Nua, Eothas and biawacs were so integral to PoE1 plot, I would take it for granted that someone who player PoE1, at least for a bit, should know that stuff. While criticism in itself is sound, the consistant curious choice of clips used to "illustrate the point" makes we wonder whenever there is a satire in there which I just don't grasp.
Some of the complaints are really petty. Different pronunciations of a name? There are tons of names and words that are pronounced differently by different people/dialects. And the game highlights all the lore and game mechanic related words and you can hover over them to get a short explanation of what they mean.
Grilac yes, but most of the ridicule here comes from the critic's personal taste. It's like he's trying hard to ridicule a game to validate his view. Lack of objectivity here is painful. This is not the first time he's done this.
I'm going to have to disagree here. I didn't even play the first game and English isn't my first language. Yet I had no problem following the lore of the game thanks to the helpful mouse-over explanations. I thought that the opening section of the game was amazing. It was different than most RPGs which start with "you're a random dude in a random place and then (a dragon shows up | you get attacked and your dad dies | you see something you shouldn't have seen | etc.)". Instead you're in this mythical place with these stunning visuals talking to the two aspects of the god of death. The stakes are immediately high: you're chasing after a reborn god who has destroyed your castle, killed your people, stolen your soul and who appears to have some kind of nefarious plan that even the other gods are worried about. Indeed, I much preferred an opening section with "walking and talking rather than bashing and smashing" (4:03) since thats what most CRPGs are about anyways. Also, I must admit that I had to laugh a bit at 0:57. "Oh no, people in this game speak non-American dialects of English - how am I supposed to understand what they're saying???" The complaint about the differing pronunciation of "Magran" (9:08) also seems quite petty to me. The game takes place in a colonial setting with a multitude of different races and civilizations. People are bound to pronounce things differently. Finally (13:25), I've never seen per-rest spells work well in a video game. They sucked in Baldur's Gate and they still suck 20 years later. Usually they result in wizards which are mind-numbingly boring in the first part of the game and hilariously overpowered by the end. Blindly copying mechanics from tabletop games is not good game design.
Yo if Sea Dogs 2 aka Pirates of the Caribbean controlled like an actual video game and not like a military vehicle you have to train for months to drive, it would've still been the best pirate game.
I hope for your sake you mean the modded version aka New Horizons, because that game was nasty at launch. If modded however I agree, its the best pirate game, no thanks to Akella or Bethesda (see the manual for New Horizons as to why).
I've never played PotC, but instead I've wasted an ungodly number of hours on Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships, and I understand completely what you mean. The game has a lot of potential, but doesn't focus on the important stuff - aka gameplay. Sheer playability will always keep Sid Meier's Pirates! the best pirate game ever made.
since you enjoyed AoP2 I'd recommend you check out New Horizons, they ported a heap of features from that game over. Its a very amazing mod. The developers of the mod are trying to turn it into a stand alone spiritual successor to Age of Pirates btw.
Honestly, there isn't much important about that, depending on how far it extends. Initial narrative development is kind of what I do for a living. And depending on things like what producers and directors want, how many other writers are on the project, etc. things change dramatically. The execution of ideas is almost always more important than the ideas themselves.
And in that execution, Avellone headed up writing two important party NPCs (out of about 8 total, if I recall), as well as most certainly being a writer who worked as a team player with the rest of the people at Obsidian. The equivalent in Hollywood would probably be a staff writer on a TV show who had several specific episodes where they were the credited writer. Add on top of that the basic early high level concept writing, and he's kind of an important gear in the machine that helped make PoE work.
Lol. It's not my job to do google for you. You can go look up like, a whole bunch of issues if you want to, but Avellone is the head writer on Durance and Grieving Mother, two of the key NPCs, and that's mentioned in a whole lot of them. He was also, as you already know and mentioned, there at the start working on high level discussions of the game. Then go and listen to various game writers talk about the process of writing for games, and you'll hear all the time how they work collaboratively, including the PoE team. There are few direct equivalents between game writing and TV/Movie writing. But writing entire characters, their arcs, their quests, dialogue associated with them and their quests and secondary characters et cetera is *easily* the equivalent to writing a single episode of a TV show. And even there (because I've known TV writers myself) it's usually a super collaborative process. Writers don't just divvy up tasks after an early meeting and then never see each other again, you know.
Durmin Paradox and RetrospectiveGaming have reviews on them. At least for the first two, I believe. I certainly would like to see someone like George's take on them though. They have such a unique take on the open world genre. It was kind of like lightning in a bottle in terms of atmosphere that even Piranha Bytes can't seem to recreate. Risen was the closest they've come, but its sequels aren't even close.
This dude starts off about how he doesn’t like games with complex, lived-in worlds with culture that implies life didn’t start for the characters that live in it as soon as he bought the game. If something doesn’t make sense to you, sorry? Maybe it’s not supposed to. Or fill in the blanks. It’s good storytelling for npc’s to have their own jargon because it acknowledges they have experience outside of when you interact with them. What a weird thing to have an issue with.
...I feel like 90% of your complaints are just expecting to be able to waltz into a sequel to a big original CRPG and just... get it? I don't think I can play Baldur's Gate without knowing what a Dungeon or Dragon is.
Tim the Wizard he didn't even know a basic thing like biawic meant. I mean it's literally the thing right in the beginning of the first game that makes you a watcher. It's like watching a dbz episode and forgetting what a supersayain is. Also his criticism of the combat was a bit wierd. If you've ever played PoE you'll know the difficulty settings would allow you to make the combat brutal. Also people complained about how hard combat was. This game does not dumb it down at all. He didn't even mention the major improvement in terms of more customizability and subclasses. He seems to not know that wizard skills were nerfed. The strangest criticism was that the player carried over from the first game instead of a new one. How could you complain that it makes a sequel harder for newcomers? Isn't that the case with every sequel? I like George but the way he talks about the game clearly illustrates he doesn't quite know or understand everything. Especially since he didn't know Chris avellone didn't write the story of PoE 1 nor did he write most of the characters.
Physical versions of Morrowind did come with a paper map. It was only of Vvardenfell, so places outside of the game world would have no reference points, but having a map of the game from the get go was pretty great.
Hey George please do a interview w/ Chris Avellone. He is willing to talk about anything since he didn't sign the NDA they forced on him. He disclosed a lot of info about Obsidian, info that mainstream media ignored. Also, he said you were a cool dude.
The 2nd game follows the lore from the 1st, the writing didn't magically become more complex. It even has an active encyclopedia during dialogues so you can hover over new and old words, which is the best QOL thing in my opinion. The game also shouldn't be faulted for streamlining mechanics, and the difficulty is still there on Path of the Damned with everything scaled up as you go. This is the kind of whiplash I wouldn't expect from George and I'm honestly disappointed in him with this review.
One of the very few people I've seen compare Pillars 1 and 2's opening and said 1's was stronger. I, and most every review (professional or fan) I've read came away with the exact opposite view. Pillars 1 is hard to go back too partly because the opening is so bland. 2's is literally "A massive statue possessed by a god destroyed your home, chase him down in your pirate ship after getting branded by the god of death as their herald in your quest!". That, to me, is loads better then "Be a random stranger with no clue what is going on given weird powers and seeing weird people do weird things with weird devices. Answers to be doled out very slowly. Main objective-meander towards the big city you can see on your map". Like one is engaging and interesting the other is the bog standard/boring first 5-7 hours of every JRPG ever made. I've been the "Random no-body given stranger powers' gimmick a dozen times over. I've never started a game with a god recruiting me to chase a towering statue in a pirate boat before. Which I guess explains his argument. If Pillars 1 is the kind of opening you want from a game..then Pillars 2 absolutely does not provide it. I, and most everyone else I've read/talked to this about, are happy for it. But I'll grant its possible not to be.
Bunnyhop goes straight from '2 has a weaker opening' to 'how am I supposed to know what biawac is?' What's the opening in 1? Getting caught in a biawac .... must have made a solid impression.
So, I love the opening of Deadfire- I was definitely interested in hunting down a god... and then the world was just too big and open and I hit this feeling of, "Wait, why am I sailing all over the place instead of TRYING NOT TO DIE OR LET THE WORLD END?" As a result, I found I preferred the first game- I couldn't even finish Deadfire, and that's historically been rare for me.
Tyranny with all its DLC imo is the best modern CRPG. Even better than Pillars 1&2 and Divinity Original Sin 2 and they managed to do it all without the help of Chris Avellone. The Anarchy playthrough is just a phenomenal experience. Have you tried it yet? Even in PoE1 , Chris only did the writing for 2 companions , Durance and the Grieving Mother.
No he later stated that he didn't and had no part in creating Tyranny. He was still in the procress of leaving while Tyranny was being made so Obsidian still put his name in the credits to please Paradox who was the publisher.
Okay, I looked into this further. It is true that he at one time said that "Tyranny was not his baby", but he has also confirmed in a few places that he was involved in pre-production. However, even whilst working in pre-production he apparently still worked on PoE I. I guess it is fair to say that his involvement is overstated in the credits, but he certainly was involved by his own admission.
I should try tyranny again some time. I just bounced off really hard when the writing suggested I was able to approach the game a certain way, then decided I was actually going to do something dramatically different, and my character was now locked into it.
On the subject of pirate adventures, they're actually quite steeped in Dungeons & Dragons style adventuring, to a point where I'm surprised they haven't featured more strongly in CRPGs before this. Even the Sword Coast setting used in Baldur's Gate has a strong seafaring-and-pirates presence, though it's more concentrated around the town of Luskan up north, and novels written in that setting have drawn on the pirate element quite strongly (Drizzt Do'Urden even spent a while at sea in the books). So Deadfire going in that direction isn't as strange as you might think, it's just not a direction that fantasy adventure *games* go too often, and certainly not for entire adventures.
Chris Avellone did not write much for the original game - only dialogues for Durance and Grieving Mother, and those have been heavily re-written too. He mentioned this multiple times in various interviews etc. Quality of writing has been most likely affected more by the absence of Eric Fenstermaker, who was lead writer on the first game, but left Obsidian in 2016.
Good review. I have to point out, though, that trying to say Avellone leaving impacted Deadfire rings false to me, because he had a very minor role on the first game (a game whose writing SBH praised, as we all know). He conceptualized Durance and Grieving Mother, but other people wrote them. His words: "The final versions that are in the game are province of other narrative designers, and I would be uncomfortable taking credit for the final implementation of the two characters". Copy-paste this quote on google, you'll find the source. He otherwise did no work on Pillars 1. Also, the first game opened with a biawac, so I'm surprised he was so shocked to see the word here. Besides, the weird words are explained by the hiperlinks in dialogue.
To elaborate, I believe George thinking Avellone WAS involved with Pillars 1 made its writing appear superior, but now that he left, Deadfire's appears inferior. Seems to be an issue of how the writing is perceived rather than how good it objectively is, because as I already said, Avellone was barely involved with Pillars 1 in the first place.
I feel like this game doesnt get enough credit. Maybe down the line it'll get re-evaluated and rated higher. It's not perfect but it has some great improvements over first game (turn base option, multi classing, open world map). The lore is pretty heavy and can be confusing it doesn't hold your hand explaining stuff but thats what I like. You can get lost in a town talking to NPCs and doing quests, learning little tid bits of lore. I find it to be one of the most immersive game worlds I've ever played.
Good vid, one correction though, Chris Avallone only worked on two companions: Grieving Mother and Durance. Eric Fenstermaker was the narrative lead for POE1.
Pillars 1 had so many of these problems which you seem to ignore because it had jokes? We are very different people if the first Aloth encounter gave you a proper laugh, it was dull, much like the entire starting area. You have a nasty habit of glorifying certain people, Chris Avellone was not heart behind pillars 1 and the writing is not suffering in Pillars 2 to a degree that a person would notice it. Reactive text was like this in Pillars 1, play it again. Pillars 1 suffered from being too traditional, but if you playing it for nostalgia then i guess i understand you might like it over Pillars 2, which gives us a wonderful scenery and aesthetic that feels like a breath of fresh air. Pillars 1 was great but you are too forgiving to it's flaws because you had pure nostalgia pouring through your veins, Pillars 2 is a great improvement and id recommend it to people over Pillars 1.
George is a good journalist, but a terrible reviewer (and comedian). Rose-tinted glasses and hypocritical complaints are the name of the game with him. Check out his video on DLC to see an entire comment section dunking on him for making very disingenous and nonsensical comparisons and criticizing Bloodborne's DLC and praising Dark Souls' for things that are present on both.
true what you said but in pillars 1 the writing is better, more descriptive and dark i mean read it when you are high and it will explode your brain xD, pillars 2 is great but it suffers a little because is voiced. More voice = less writing but this doesnt necesary means a bad thing
Honestly, I found Pillars 2 to be overall more polished and better. The voice-acting lessens the fatigue of the huge text blocks, the story unfolds a bit quicker, the mechanics were streamlined. If not for the fact the plot and lore are built on the assumption you play in order, I would recommend starting here.
I found the story incredibly compelling in Pillars 2 than the first game. Great lore and tons of detail. Also, the most important aspect of any game, the gameplay, is terrific.
Cool, I think I will like both PoE 1 and 2. First one is more serious and standard medieval fantasy setting, second one is light-hearted pirate fantasy. Corsairs Gold anyone?
On the opening note, the Witcher 3 (if you bought a physical copy) comes with a printed physical map of the north. It isn't super detailed but it was amazing and interesting when I first for the game running I was already super invested because of a silly printed map.
I think Deadfire needs a good writer more than a map. The writing reminds me a bit of Paolini, who wanted to prove his ability to read a thesaurus so much that he used the most obscure synonyms in every sentence to the point his Inheritance Cycle became unreadable. Well, and the saga was awful in every other way.
For real, i mean, im currently playing fallout 1 and i am surprised by how simple most of the things are, for the age of the game i was expecting obtuse dialogs, incredible specifics ways to do quest and terrible inventory system. But i am through half the game without even noticing it, the game is very open and doesn't hold your hand at all, but just by being curious you would advance in the main quest, now i can see what so many people find endearing about the originals fallout. PoE never grabbed me, the gameplay was pretty good but the story and world was so bland and dull, it is very verbose with his dialogs but has nothing of transcendence to say. They tried to copy the heavy dialog and exposition of old games like planescape torment, but forgot the key part, planescape had something to say and an interesting world.
Marc Shanahan I liked his books, but I can admit that they were very flawed works. I didn't mind the writing style but hated how he resolved certain plotlines
Obsidian obviously rushed this one, they're still tuning the difficulty. I have a feeling by the time it reaches its final expansion it'll be one of the best RPGs ever.
Isn't that kinda what happened in PoE1? The game was piss easy even on Path of the Damned (I think that's what it was called?) but after a few patches and White March, it got challenging as the class and enemies got balanced.
the bad thing is that they already said theres only like 3 or 4 dlc but no big expansion as POE1, i was hoping to see the vailian republics or rauatai instead of some shorts DLC
While for the most part I agree with the review, I will dissent on one point: The setting. It is (IMO) far more interesting than the one in the first game, and I'm not even a fan of pirates. I loved the clash of classic Tolkienesque fantasy with a colonial Carribean locale. It added a breath of fresh air to the somewhat stale achetypes of both settings. Also, major points to Obsidian for writing all the major factions in such a way that it's hard to pick one when the time comes. Seriously, a case can be made for all four factions, all four are their own breed of asshole, but all four have redeeming qualities (alright, Pirates maybe not as much). But definitely agreed that the game is a bit on the easy side, particularly later on. This has been acknowledged by the developers and will be addressed in patches. Oh, and you didn't mention that the game has a custom AI creation option, much like Dragon Age: Origins had, allowing you to automate a lot of the common drudgery. For instance, casting the initial buffs at the start of combat is a lot less of hassle this way, and some of the simpler classes/builds can be automated almost completely for regular encounters (if you so desire).
Not knocking this, but Baldur's Gate 2 **WITH** SCS mod, preferably in ironman mode, is still the king. SCS is Sword Coast Strategems, a mod that radically improves enemy AI and spellcaster battles. No more picking off enemies one at a time while their dimwitted buddies stand feet away in the fog of war. No more casting breach to defeat every wizard. If you're interested, install the huge number of good mods and improvements via Big World Project. It locates, dowwnloads and installs the mods over the base game.
Just a note for the difficulty, apparently the game was released without a proper difficulty pass, and they are going to be ramping up Veteran and PotD soon. So for those looking for a reason to do a 2nd playthrough, there it is.
Honestly, I like the fact that spells restore every encounter, it means that I'm more willing to experiment with different spells rather than constantly falling back on one or two reliable ones or leaving the wizards in the back and just having them do nothing all encounter other than shoot off their basic rod/wand/staff attacks. I also think that the opening of this game is far better than the one for the first Pillars, it's actually involved and gets you straight into the story, delivers your character's motivation and introduces the fact that the gods are going to be a more active force in things. Pillars 1's intro is really lackluster by comparison and it took me four or five times of false-starting to actually get into a playthrough where I completed it, mainly due to the fact that the game doesn't really start until you get to Defiance Bay which is easily at the 7-10 hour mark if you don't know what you're doing. I haven't finished Pillars 2 yet, mainly because the main quest feels too short and I'm trying to make the game's length stretch out as far as I can, but I'm well into the fourth act at this point and I'm very much enjoying the game.
Not gonna lie, I kinda just want to play this for the sake of playing a fantasy RPG with pirates and guns and stuff. Even if it's not quite as Pillars 1, I think I'd dig it.
And honestly, I'm not sure I've ever heard someone say they wouldn't want an awesome pirate RPG. Or even without the pirate trappings and just a game focused on a shipfaring aesthetic. Even a mediocre one would sell like mad, cause look at that Sea of Thieves travesty. Even without an actual game to speak of, people still bought into it in hopes of something fun in that kind of setting. Imagine something with mechanics like Sid Meier's Pirates, and an alternate history Age of Sail to play around in. How has nothing of the sort been made yet? With so many recycled ideas in the industry, you'd think they'd be trying like mad to find neglected genres and old forgotten games to pull ideas from.
Yeah the game is/was ridiculously easy, even on veteran. Once past level 8 or so, you never even had to pause/unpause the game anymore. Just set the combat speed to max and let your dudes do their thing. Fortunately Obsidian has made it their top-priority to tune the difficulty. I'm playing on the latest beta-patch right now and it's already significantly better.
Would you really call Avellone the "best writer" in all of vidya? I mean, he's GOOD, sure, but he also put Lonesome Road forward as his magnum opus, and in it he floundered so hard that it's almost incomprehensible.
Wait... I guess it's been a while since you played the first one eh? The concept of a biawac was introduced in the opening of the first pillars. It was literally the inciting incident. Every pillars player should know what a biawac is.
Normally I love Super Bunnyhop but like.....really? Right off the bat you roll eyes at the biawac line and say that "somewhere it makes sense to someone". D...did you play the first game? Because you make it sound like you did....and the first 30 minutes of the first game makes it very clear what that line means.
Oh, c'mon! "Biawak" OBVIOUSLY refers to a large lizard in the genus Varanus, native to Africa, Asia and Oceania, invasive in the Americas, and of which 79 species are currently recognized!
This review is pretty harsh to this game which I thought was high quality. All the supposed issues are extremely minor and hardly worth mentioning. The story is gripping, and the character arcs are engaging. Haven't had this degree of immersion in a game for years. Definitely a game you don't want to miss.
Went into this game expecting to not really like it. Ended up being my GOTY. In a world of overly simplified shooters with some rpg mechanics this game made me really feel immersed like I was playing a DnD campaign. Also loved the inevitability of the ending with Eothas, which shows you that for as much a watcher as you are you cannot truly go against the gods, and I loved the way the ending took into consideration all your faction actions and companions like F:NV
Wait, Morrowind literally came with a physical map in the box. I'm pretty sure it even came with a fancy cloth one if you got the collectors edition. 😛
The result of criticizing how PoE handles its story, as far as I have seen, is that you are often met with fingers in ears and a loud thrumming: "blah blah blah blah. I can't hear you!"
I disagree with pretty much everything you said in the review, and frankly I'm not sure you even like D&D-esque games to begin with, so why you keep torturing yourself is beyond my comprehension.
biawac is literally the first weird in-world lore word the player learns in Pillars of Eternity, dude. And I'm pretty sure you're aware of this, since immediately after saying "somehow, this line made sense to someone" you put in B roll from the first game of the OPENING LEVEL WHERE YOU'RE TAUGHT WHAT IT IS. Even funnier in light of you going on to note that reading comprehension is one of the skills demanded by the game.
I don't understand George... You LOVED pillars I... now you start this video with such a mocking tone... How quickly we forget that we used to live in a pillar-less world, where the mere mention of Crpgs from days old made all the publishers scoff...
Bro, disagree 100%. The PoE games are phenomenal, particularly in plot, themeing, and interesting continuity. Still like your reviews though, you're the best (we don't gotta agree on everything, broski). You do have to retain a good chunk of the lore from the last game, though, and if you don't, you can get confused as hell, I'll give you that.
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Geaorge freaks out at "biawac" then heaps praise on the first game like it didn't spend the entire opening sequence setting up the very event called "biawac."
hownow browncow precisely what I was going to say, I still haven't finished pillars one and I know that much at least, considering the praise he heaped on the first game you'd think he'd at least remember some of it
hypocrisy!
Plus the game lets you hover your mouse over lore and mechanic related words to get a short explanation of what they mean. So it's not like you need to memorize everything.
Dialogue that requires double checking a mouse over to parse lines is uh, not good dialogue if the writing isn't good enough that you internalize the terms after the first few times.
No really, what the fuck. The biawac is almost the whole explanation for why you're a Watcher in the first place
The Biawac is what made you into a watcher (as it killed you but not really) and it's constantly mentioned at the begining of the first game, I don't understand how that broke the deal for you.
Please do your research, George, Avellone wrote nothing for the first game except for two companions, and even that got edited by other writers after.
And on top of it he first complains about fucking walls of text and then takes the jab "you can see Avallone wasn't involved this time around" when literally the LONGEST WALLS OF FUCKING TEXT in the first game were in conversations with the companions that Avallone wrote.
@@sivoism Also the fact that Avellone wrote Planescape Torment *THE* wall of text game.
Walls of text are dope.
@@MilanVoorhees If they are well written :)
@@KitchenSinkSoup Planescape Torment is a MASTERPIECE, every single wall of text was amazingly written, what we don't like is a huge wall of text that has nothing interesting to how and no context.
Chris Avellone had little do with the first Pillars of Eternity other than writing his two companions, Durance and Grieving Mother. I would suggest that any perceived difference between the two games had more to do with 1) The replacement of the lead writer (Carrie Patel instead of Eric Fenstermaker) but mostly 2) An intentionally different, lighter and sillier approach dictated by game director Josh Sawyer.
Pillars 2 is a lot more like Fallout 2 and New Vegas than Pillars 1 or the Infinity Engine games. The main quest isn't that interesting or long, but it's the factions, side quests, and exploration that makes the game good.
Unlike PoE 1, where you gradually progress through different acts and get more and more of the world opened up to you. In PoE 2, the whole world is open to explore after you get out the initial area. Then you learn about the different factions vying for power and resources in the Deadfire Isles and you can choose to help one side over the others.
I agree the main quest wasnt that long or deep, but I still got chills every time I spoke with eothas or the gods. and the narrator fucking ROCKED it when she was reading the description of events, especially a certain "battle"
KingOfMadCows I’d really love it if developers for games like this (eg bethesda) would someday realize that if the main quest is shit, maybe don’t have one in the first place? Double down on what works, abandon what doesn’t.
The main quest isn't shit. It's OK. And they're done more to sell the game, not just to audiences, but also the press, crowdfunding, potential publishers, etc. They need something big and flashy to draw attention and get people excited.
It's much easier to advertise a game that's about a grand adventure where you fight mythic monsters and chase down gods than to advertise a game about participating in a political struggle between different factions vying for control in a world with a deep lore and history with a lot of ambiguity where you can't tell which side of the story is true, people lie or unknowingly give false information, and you can never know if you've made your decisions based on accurate information. Things get too complicated and people lose interest. There has to be a simpler sensational hook to draw people in.
KingOfMadCows Im sold.
imo the game would have been better without the hyper epic main story involving the gods. the "chosen saviour of the world" is such a tired narrative .. more of the colonial/political stuff would have been a lot more engaging
I love you George but it's pretty silly of you to to complain about pronunciation when you mispronounce very common words all the time
He's not a voice actor.
AND he didn't make up the world he mispronounces.
Yeah but is it labo or labo? Which labo is it for the love of God?!
But they're mispronouncing the words that they made up in the first place.
"nukeular"
Oh butts, this got alot of thumbs. I'd like to note from people saying George isn't a voice actor, but he does talk for a living. I do swear I'm not trying to be mean, it's just I thought it was a bit silly because of the running gag of him goofing up words.
That music was driving me nuts
I'm pretty sure Chris Avellone didn't actually write much of Pillar's 1, similar to how he didn't write much of FNV either (he wrote a couple of characters and that's it, but he was the lead on 3/4 of the DLCs).
The DLCs were pure gold, though.
They really were. I could be alone in digging Dead Money the most.
So Josh Sawyer’s crpg burnout could be more to blame if attention wanders with this game
yeah, he only wrote durance and grieving mother, absolutely great characters dotn get me wrong, but thats it, the rest was pure obsidian
That was the big issue about the review for me. Chris Avellone is a great writer sure, but the first game was written by a whole staff, not just one almighty Chris. Hell he wasn't even lead writer, that was Eric Festermaker.
That and multiple other points made by George hint at pretty bad research for this review tbh.
Chris Avellone gets waaaayyyy too much credit for games he barely worked on
I guess its just personal taste because I thought the start of this game was far stronger than that of the first, which was fairly dull and awkward. A 500 foot tall statue destroys the home and all the loot I spent the whole first game building up and sucks out my soul? Hell yes, I'm motivated. A bunch of people in robes do a weird thing and now I can see ghosts? Eh, I guess. In fact, that you don't remember what a Biawac is when its the thing that happens at the start of the first game and kickstarts the plot is kind of telling imo.
Also after the first game I like that people know who I am. I'm practically on first name basis with the gods and I've killed dragons. It would irritate me if people still treated me like a random.
Pretty much totally agreed, especially about how the first game starts. It took me ages to actually get through the first act because I didn't much care. The setup isn't very urgent: you're an immigrant and now you can see ghosts. You're told this is bad, so you go to stop seeing ghosts.
Here you are given a goal and an ultimatum, and you can even bluntly defy the gods at several points because indeed, like you said, you actually KNOW them and especially after the DLC must have interacted with them quite a lot before.
This is pretty clearly a sequel, but then so are a lot of superhero movies these days, and most of them do okay. Basically, I've played the previous game, and unless they went total final fantasy and wrote a whole new bloody setting, I don't need to play another origin story, thank you.
RedWurm You can't expect Obsidian to make a sequel where you're already max level and have legendary gear. Deadfire basically just did was Mass Effect 2 did and had you get wrecked so you have to build yourself back up again. The intro is short but impactful and a good introduction for a sequel that is actually pretty dang different from the first one in setting and mechanics.
Oh, absolutely. The main reason it worked for Baldur's gate is that the first game had a really low level cap and they take all your gear when you go to the next game - and your gear isn't even that great in the scheme of things. And even then, the highest levels kind of throw balance out of the window. "Wouldn't it be great if you could carry over your level" in the end is probably like saying "Wouldn't it be great if the map was twice as big". Fun in theory, difficult to implement, and would take so much work it would probably have a negative impact on the game as a whole.
Look, all they need to do is craft a little mini-game choose your own adventure thing that goes on at the start of RPG sequels that cover what happened in the intervening years for your characters when things got dull for them.
And that's what it should always be - extremely dull work of some kind. Maybe your guy got rich and famous and has been touring the world, but it's endless hedonism draining your coffers and loosening your wits with drink and drugs. Or maybe your guy got into politics which has become a monotony of dealing with low level issues of micromanagement while fending off political rivals that are inept and simple minded and more frustratingly stupid than actually dangerous. Or they've just been tending a farm and raising a family, and while satisfying in its own right, it's certainly not a life of adventure.
Point is, depending on your choices your character loses a certain amount of levels, resources, companions, skills et cetera, just from misuse, mis-management of time, or lack of use. Or just age on top of that. The different choices determine how many levels you lose and which particular stats, skills or resources.
I mean, peak athletes only have a limited number of years at the top, and they train all the time to maintain those levels. But each year, they have to train just that little bit harder as time wears down their bodies. I don't see why a fantasy hero isn't at least in part basically pretty similar to an athlete when it comes to most of their physical activity on this regard.
5:05 Avellone wasn't very involved with the writing in Pillars 1. I think he only wrote couple of characters. Eric Fenstermaker was the lead writer on PoE1.
Avellone only worte Durance and Grieving Mother and Obsidian had to cut large parts of their arcs due to various reasons. All in all, his input was very limited.
Idk, this review seems uncharacteristically poorly researched and written.
They also hired a lady outside of Obsidian to come in and sharpen the writing on that one.
I disagree, it seems characteristically poorly researched and written.
George is a good journalist, but he has always been a terrible reviewer.
Oh, aiming for that 1:00 AM sweetspot for maximizing views.
It’s 9AM in France
bunnyboy lives on the east coast of america so it's more like that 2 AM sweet spot
4:20 In Argentina
Hey man, the earlier I see it the better. Hate those early birds they can eat shit.
america is the only country in the world that watches youtube
So old man Eder talks with wisdom but he also gets overly exited like a school boy when he sees a dog or a bird; truly what horrendous writing! Real people have layers and facets to their personality, and your criticizing the game for.... not making him fit squarely into a single archetype?
the only thing eder needs is a good companion quest, hes like our garrus from mass effect lol
Eder is a wise simpleton who got dragged into stuff beyond him.
I totally disagree with most things. I loved the heavy plot, and the villian had a reason for everything. Eh.
Maybe I've played a few too many crpg over the years (I regret nothing), but not having your character be an unknown, blank-slate, fish-out-of-water is something I really appreciate. I have a motivation and reputation already, and I'm not chasing an evil wizard. And no, I don't care if that evil wizard has a secret reason for his bullshit that I find out near the end of the game, I just spent 80 hours being told to kill the evil wizard who is evil.
loved it too but i got really disapointed in the ending, is like nothing we do matters and we dont see the true consecuences of Eothas actions and we dont trully explore Ukaizo.... buuut the whole scene of Eothas in magrans volcano was amazing, the tsunami and music.
I get a feeling that someday an Add On will come that hopefully covers what happens after. Would be great if that would let you further influence the decisions on what is to do with Ukaizo.
The opening scene of PoE 1 has a giant storm pass through which kills anyone caught in it, turning their bodies to ash and their souls disappear. This is clearly a made up fantasy storm, so the game gives it the name Biawac. If you played 10 minutes of the first game you would be familiar with what a Biawac is in PoE and would not be confused when a line of dialogue describes Eothas brining a Biawac in his wake. Anywhere he walks in the second game causes a big storm and steals peoples souls and turns their bodies to ash.
I understand how confusing fantasy jargon created specifically for games can be, but the one you put emphasis on is clearly described and occurs at the very start of the first game, repeats, and then they talk about the same thing again in the start of the second game.
Stakes are lower he says, as a God has decoupled a part of your soul, the Gods are bickering while using you for their ends, and a colonialist empire is trying to over take their traditionalist neighbors. truly, nothing of interest here.
micah ables I mean, you're describing most of modern history. Been there, done that, got the toupee
yeah i loved it that one time in the 1920s when God came back as a giant statue and walked across the world
usa public education sucks that is why you dont remember it
These stakes are so general and abstract to the point of meaninglessness. Besides cutscenes you never interact with these gods through gameplay. They never affect your characters or interact with them or the NPCs or anything - the antagonist, besides within the cutscenes, just don't exist, and so you feel no narrative pressure
I have to agree with the criticism about the weak protagonist/antagonist. I'm generally not a huge fan of the chosen-one trope but had no problem when it was done well, like in the old infinity engine games (Baldurs Gate 1&2, Planescape Torment and Fallout 1&2 for example) but in PoE 2 it felt pretty weak. The problem for me is, that while the concept of this mystical soul related universe sounds great on paper, I never felt really engaged by the setting. And playing an outstanding protagonist from the get-go (without the player working for it) in addition to the shallow and seemingly omnipotent antagonist didn't manage to hook me in.
Thinking about it, the set-up sounds very similar to Tyranny, but in that case, somehow it worked very well for me. I just don't find Eothas to be an interesting villain and the protagonists special powers and background isn't inherently interesting to me either.
Aside from that, PoE 2 is truly a great crpg with overall good improvements on its predecessor.
Hey I'm early and hearing spongebob music so the video's already great
Yeah Pillars got nothing on Spongebob the Musical
It's just royalty free music.
So Bunnyhops complaining that the games lore, that you could completely learn in the first game if you bothered to pay attention and read, is confusing? Cool.
No, he's criticizing the fact that lore is dumped on you even harder than the first game AND it's not properly explained. In PoE1 there's a long conversation about biawacs that not only introduces them but PoE's weird soul physics in general. In PoE2, there's...a biawac. What's a biawac? I dunno, play the first game, or read the completely inadequate tooltip.
When the writing is on, it's dead-on, but it's off a lot more than it was in the first game.
Its cool for sure. Although for me there was a 3 year gap between playing these two games and its still super confusing at the beginning. Don't get me wrong I was totally wrapped up in the story at the halfway point or so and choosing a faction was REALLY hard for me. I even had to kill Pallengina at the end! But the beginning is kind of a mess.
"unlimited inventory" That's all I needed to know to want to buy this game.
The first game has unlimited inventory as well.
camycamera I had so much in my storage the game lagged when I tried to sell/move something in it. Probably should try to avoid that
Now I feel a burning desire of listening to Superbunnyhop singing "what do we do with the drunken sailor"
I really don't remember this episode of Spongebob well enough. Why is Old Man Jenkims threatening to devour Bikini Bottom?
To be fair it is just royalty free music.
Writing is a bit eh, but it is a sequel. biâwac was explained in that game pretty early on too IIRC.
Also I don't get the issue with Witcher lore. The games are a direct continuation of a novel series. A lot of the things are explained in the games plus you don't really have to understand every single term or region to play it. Fantasy stories have been always like this. Terminology and name dropping are just part of it even in the great LOTR.
Its really jarring to have a dude critiquing a game for its writing failures over silly trombone and flute when the game actually had great writing in it by most accounts. If I did experience a moment of bad dialogue or uninteresting writing I dont remember it. And it certainly didnt impact my enjoyment. This game has on all accounts some of the most thought provoking instances of writing I have ever seen. I had characters respond to my choices in game in ways that gave me chills because of how well they got into my head and why I made the choices I did.
I havent actually played the game yet but a random mood shift in a dialogue is a pretty serious mistake. Dont know how often that happens though.
Well, it is not a mistake, it's a weakness of the cRPG conversation system, not all dialogue choices are regarding the same situation and therefore there would be a huge difference in mood between if you were going down a dialogue branch where you're pressing someone for information as to what happened to her crewmates that were all murdered or another branch where you just asked for general information about the city.
micah ables And he doesn't agree with you. Crazy, huh?
I can't speak for deadfire, but the first one has one of the most boring stories I've have ever read from an RPG. It was well written, yes, but it was so poorly delivered and the story was nothing great neither. writing sure is hard but i was hopping with this revival of the genre to see Chris Avellone involvement bring back a glimpse of the geniality of games like kotor 2 or planescape torment, but i guess the guy is a little bit burned by now.
This review confuses me so much.
"Walls of texts so deeply submerged in their own jargon that they might not as well be speaking english" - example of a conversation between two ancient being, were inability of player to properly understand what they say is the joke.
"Eothas caused a biawac when he passed through" While Deadfire might be tough for newcomers but you SBH criticises it's opening, while showing and praising PoE1 opening, which is precisely showing and explaining what the biawac is, not to mention that Caed Nua, Eothas and biawacs were so integral to PoE1 plot, I would take it for granted that someone who player PoE1, at least for a bit, should know that stuff.
While criticism in itself is sound, the consistant curious choice of clips used to "illustrate the point" makes we wonder whenever there is a satire in there which I just don't grasp.
This is a good review but my god was the spongebob music distracting.
It's just mixed too loud really
I didn't really notice much, but then again I've never really seen an episode of Songebob Squarepants.
I kept watching /specifically/ because of the spongebob music. Though honestly I tuned out to the monologue at times
I didn't realize it was Spongebob music. It's very grating.
Same thoughts, I found it too loud and as a non-native english person it made it hard to focus and understand the reviewer.
Some of the complaints are really petty. Different pronunciations of a name? There are tons of names and words that are pronounced differently by different people/dialects.
And the game highlights all the lore and game mechanic related words and you can hover over them to get a short explanation of what they mean.
Courage+1
Jokes exist.
Thanks for calling out the highlight info, George really should have mentioned it
Grilac yes, but most of the ridicule here comes from the critic's personal taste. It's like he's trying hard to ridicule a game to validate his view. Lack of objectivity here is painful. This is not the first time he's done this.
he shows the hover over/highlight function @1:57, so maybe some of you didn't pay as much attention.
I'm going to have to disagree here.
I didn't even play the first game and English isn't my first language. Yet I had no problem following the lore of the game thanks to the helpful mouse-over explanations. I thought that the opening section of the game was amazing. It was different than most RPGs which start with "you're a random dude in a random place and then (a dragon shows up | you get attacked and your dad dies | you see something you shouldn't have seen | etc.)". Instead you're in this mythical place with these stunning visuals talking to the two aspects of the god of death. The stakes are immediately high: you're chasing after a reborn god who has destroyed your castle, killed your people, stolen your soul and who appears to have some kind of nefarious plan that even the other gods are worried about. Indeed, I much preferred an opening section with "walking and talking rather than bashing and smashing" (4:03) since thats what most CRPGs are about anyways.
Also, I must admit that I had to laugh a bit at 0:57. "Oh no, people in this game speak non-American dialects of English - how am I supposed to understand what they're saying???" The complaint about the differing pronunciation of "Magran" (9:08) also seems quite petty to me. The game takes place in a colonial setting with a multitude of different races and civilizations. People are bound to pronounce things differently. Finally (13:25), I've never seen per-rest spells work well in a video game. They sucked in Baldur's Gate and they still suck 20 years later. Usually they result in wizards which are mind-numbingly boring in the first part of the game and hilariously overpowered by the end. Blindly copying mechanics from tabletop games is not good game design.
This is one of your worst videos :(. Reminds me of when Noah Caldwell-Gervais
did a video on VTMB and he didn't know there was more than one ending.
.. what
Yo if Sea Dogs 2 aka Pirates of the Caribbean controlled like an actual video game and not like a military vehicle you have to train for months to drive, it would've still been the best pirate game.
I hope for your sake you mean the modded version aka New Horizons, because that game was nasty at launch. If modded however I agree, its the best pirate game, no thanks to Akella or Bethesda (see the manual for New Horizons as to why).
No pirate game ever beats the absurdity of Monkey Island tbh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I've never played PotC, but instead I've wasted an ungodly number of hours on Age of Pirates 2: City of Abandoned Ships, and I understand completely what you mean. The game has a lot of potential, but doesn't focus on the important stuff - aka gameplay. Sheer playability will always keep Sid Meier's Pirates! the best pirate game ever made.
since you enjoyed AoP2 I'd recommend you check out New Horizons, they ported a heap of features from that game over. Its a very amazing mod. The developers of the mod are trying to turn it into a stand alone spiritual successor to Age of Pirates btw.
daddy george don't want to let me sleep
boiiiiiiiii
It's worth noting that Chris Avellone reportedly had little involvement with the first Pillars game past initial narrative development.
"past initial narrative development" . . . oh, you know, nothing *important* about that initial development or anything . . .
Honestly, there isn't much important about that, depending on how far it extends. Initial narrative development is kind of what I do for a living. And depending on things like what producers and directors want, how many other writers are on the project, etc. things change dramatically. The execution of ideas is almost always more important than the ideas themselves.
And in that execution, Avellone headed up writing two important party NPCs (out of about 8 total, if I recall), as well as most certainly being a writer who worked as a team player with the rest of the people at Obsidian.
The equivalent in Hollywood would probably be a staff writer on a TV show who had several specific episodes where they were the credited writer. Add on top of that the basic early high level concept writing, and he's kind of an important gear in the machine that helped make PoE work.
The issue is you're kind of just saying that without providing any confirming information.
Lol. It's not my job to do google for you. You can go look up like, a whole bunch of issues if you want to, but Avellone is the head writer on Durance and Grieving Mother, two of the key NPCs, and that's mentioned in a whole lot of them. He was also, as you already know and mentioned, there at the start working on high level discussions of the game. Then go and listen to various game writers talk about the process of writing for games, and you'll hear all the time how they work collaboratively, including the PoE team.
There are few direct equivalents between game writing and TV/Movie writing. But writing entire characters, their arcs, their quests, dialogue associated with them and their quests and secondary characters et cetera is *easily* the equivalent to writing a single episode of a TV show. And even there (because I've known TV writers myself) it's usually a super collaborative process.
Writers don't just divvy up tasks after an early meeting and then never see each other again, you know.
The music choices here are brilliant
Can you please do a series retrospective on gothic 1-3. I'm sure you're qualified enough to do such a thing and no one else has. Good video as always.
Durmin Paradox and RetrospectiveGaming have reviews on them. At least for the first two, I believe. I certainly would like to see someone like George's take on them though. They have such a unique take on the open world genre. It was kind of like lightning in a bottle in terms of atmosphere that even Piranha Bytes can't seem to recreate. Risen was the closest they've come, but its sequels aren't even close.
I'll check out durmin paradox and restrospectivegaming for sure - but I'd still kill to see georges view of them.
John He should do that for good games though, don't you think?
Piss off kid, gothic 1-3 are great games with great atmosphere and some of the best world building of all time.
This dude starts off about how he doesn’t like games with complex, lived-in worlds with culture that implies life didn’t start for the characters that live in it as soon as he bought the game. If something doesn’t make sense to you, sorry? Maybe it’s not supposed to. Or fill in the blanks. It’s good storytelling for npc’s to have their own jargon because it acknowledges they have experience outside of when you interact with them. What a weird thing to have an issue with.
...I feel like 90% of your complaints are just expecting to be able to waltz into a sequel to a big original CRPG and just... get it? I don't think I can play Baldur's Gate without knowing what a Dungeon or Dragon is.
What? George played the first PoE. He's played other CRPGs too.
Maybe PoE 2 is just not as good as the original.
Dungeons and dragons weren't invented for Dungeons & Dragons.
Tim the Wizard If he actually cared about POE1 he would have know what a biawic is (forgive my wording I'm on a phone.)
Tim the Wizard he didn't even know a basic thing like biawic meant. I mean it's literally the thing right in the beginning of the first game that makes you a watcher. It's like watching a dbz episode and forgetting what a supersayain is.
Also his criticism of the combat was a bit wierd. If you've ever played PoE you'll know the difficulty settings would allow you to make the combat brutal. Also people complained about how hard combat was. This game does not dumb it down at all. He didn't even mention the major improvement in terms of more customizability and subclasses. He seems to not know that wizard skills were nerfed.
The strangest criticism was that the player carried over from the first game instead of a new one. How could you complain that it makes a sequel harder for newcomers? Isn't that the case with every sequel?
I like George but the way he talks about the game clearly illustrates he doesn't quite know or understand everything. Especially since he didn't know Chris avellone didn't write the story of PoE 1 nor did he write most of the characters.
Physical versions of Morrowind did come with a paper map. It was only of Vvardenfell, so places outside of the game world would have no reference points, but having a map of the game from the get go was pretty great.
Hey George please do a interview w/ Chris Avellone. He is willing to talk about anything since he didn't sign the NDA they forced on him.
He disclosed a lot of info about Obsidian, info that mainstream media ignored.
Also, he said you were a cool dude.
The 2nd game follows the lore from the 1st, the writing didn't magically become more complex. It even has an active encyclopedia during dialogues so you can hover over new and old words, which is the best QOL thing in my opinion. The game also shouldn't be faulted for streamlining mechanics, and the difficulty is still there on Path of the Damned with everything scaled up as you go.
This is the kind of whiplash I wouldn't expect from George and I'm honestly disappointed in him with this review.
One of the very few people I've seen compare Pillars 1 and 2's opening and said 1's was stronger. I, and most every review (professional or fan) I've read came away with the exact opposite view. Pillars 1 is hard to go back too partly because the opening is so bland. 2's is literally "A massive statue possessed by a god destroyed your home, chase him down in your pirate ship after getting branded by the god of death as their herald in your quest!". That, to me, is loads better then "Be a random stranger with no clue what is going on given weird powers and seeing weird people do weird things with weird devices. Answers to be doled out very slowly. Main objective-meander towards the big city you can see on your map".
Like one is engaging and interesting the other is the bog standard/boring first 5-7 hours of every JRPG ever made. I've been the "Random no-body given stranger powers' gimmick a dozen times over. I've never started a game with a god recruiting me to chase a towering statue in a pirate boat before.
Which I guess explains his argument. If Pillars 1 is the kind of opening you want from a game..then Pillars 2 absolutely does not provide it. I, and most everyone else I've read/talked to this about, are happy for it. But I'll grant its possible not to be.
Bunnyhop goes straight from '2 has a weaker opening' to 'how am I supposed to know what biawac is?'
What's the opening in 1? Getting caught in a biawac .... must have made a solid impression.
So, I love the opening of Deadfire- I was definitely interested in hunting down a god... and then the world was just too big and open and I hit this feeling of, "Wait, why am I sailing all over the place instead of TRYING NOT TO DIE OR LET THE WORLD END?" As a result, I found I preferred the first game- I couldn't even finish Deadfire, and that's historically been rare for me.
Such an old video. Just wanted to say you've a great pirate voice and I am now sold on POE from your reviews. Keep bringin' that good sh*t! :)
Tyranny with all its DLC imo is the best modern CRPG. Even better than Pillars 1&2 and Divinity Original Sin 2 and they managed to do it all without the help of Chris Avellone. The Anarchy playthrough is just a phenomenal experience. Have you tried it yet?
Even in PoE1 , Chris only did the writing for 2 companions , Durance and the Grieving Mother.
Chris Avellone created the world and designed the story for Tyranny before he left.
No he later stated that he didn't and had no part in creating Tyranny. He was still in the procress of leaving while Tyranny was being made so Obsidian still put his name in the credits to please Paradox who was the publisher.
Okay, I looked into this further. It is true that he at one time said that "Tyranny was not his baby", but he has also confirmed in a few places that he was involved in pre-production. However, even whilst working in pre-production he apparently still worked on PoE I. I guess it is fair to say that his involvement is overstated in the credits, but he certainly was involved by his own admission.
Idk about that but he said that when he was asked to work on Tyranny he declined the offer.
I should try tyranny again some time. I just bounced off really hard when the writing suggested I was able to approach the game a certain way, then decided I was actually going to do something dramatically different, and my character was now locked into it.
if you did this, id like to see you talk about tyranny.
On the subject of pirate adventures, they're actually quite steeped in Dungeons & Dragons style adventuring, to a point where I'm surprised they haven't featured more strongly in CRPGs before this. Even the Sword Coast setting used in Baldur's Gate has a strong seafaring-and-pirates presence, though it's more concentrated around the town of Luskan up north, and novels written in that setting have drawn on the pirate element quite strongly (Drizzt Do'Urden even spent a while at sea in the books). So Deadfire going in that direction isn't as strange as you might think, it's just not a direction that fantasy adventure *games* go too often, and certainly not for entire adventures.
Chris Avellone did not write much for the original game - only dialogues for Durance and Grieving Mother, and those have been heavily re-written too. He mentioned this multiple times in various interviews etc.
Quality of writing has been most likely affected more by the absence of Eric Fenstermaker, who was lead writer on the first game, but left Obsidian in 2016.
Good review. I have to point out, though, that trying to say Avellone leaving impacted Deadfire rings false to me, because he had a very minor role on the first game (a game whose writing SBH praised, as we all know). He conceptualized Durance and Grieving Mother, but other people wrote them. His words: "The final versions that are in the game are province of other narrative designers, and I would be uncomfortable taking credit for the final implementation of the two characters". Copy-paste this quote on google, you'll find the source. He otherwise did no work on Pillars 1. Also, the first game opened with a biawac, so I'm surprised he was so shocked to see the word here. Besides, the weird words are explained by the hiperlinks in dialogue.
To elaborate, I believe George thinking Avellone WAS involved with Pillars 1 made its writing appear superior, but now that he left, Deadfire's appears inferior. Seems to be an issue of how the writing is perceived rather than how good it objectively is, because as I already said, Avellone was barely involved with Pillars 1 in the first place.
I feel like this game doesnt get enough credit. Maybe down the line it'll get re-evaluated and rated higher. It's not perfect but it has some great improvements over first game (turn base option, multi classing, open world map).
The lore is pretty heavy and can be confusing it doesn't hold your hand explaining stuff but thats what I like. You can get lost in a town talking to NPCs and doing quests, learning little tid bits of lore. I find it to be one of the most immersive game worlds I've ever played.
Good vid, one correction though, Chris Avallone only worked on two companions: Grieving Mother and Durance. Eric Fenstermaker was the narrative lead for POE1.
pee pee
Pillars 1 had so many of these problems which you seem to ignore because it had jokes? We are very different people if the first Aloth encounter gave you a proper laugh, it was dull, much like the entire starting area.
You have a nasty habit of glorifying certain people, Chris Avellone was not heart behind pillars 1 and the writing is not suffering in Pillars 2 to a degree that a person would notice it.
Reactive text was like this in Pillars 1, play it again. Pillars 1 suffered from being too traditional, but if you playing it for nostalgia then i guess i understand you might like it over Pillars 2, which gives us a wonderful scenery and aesthetic that feels like a breath of fresh air.
Pillars 1 was great but you are too forgiving to it's flaws because you had pure nostalgia pouring through your veins, Pillars 2 is a great improvement and id recommend it to people over Pillars 1.
George is a good journalist, but a terrible reviewer (and comedian). Rose-tinted glasses and hypocritical complaints are the name of the game with him.
Check out his video on DLC to see an entire comment section dunking on him for making very disingenous and nonsensical comparisons and criticizing Bloodborne's DLC and praising Dark Souls' for things that are present on both.
true what you said but in pillars 1 the writing is better, more descriptive and dark i mean read it when you are high and it will explode your brain xD, pillars 2 is great but it suffers a little because is voiced.
More voice = less writing but this doesnt necesary means a bad thing
Honestly, I found Pillars 2 to be overall more polished and better. The voice-acting lessens the fatigue of the huge text blocks, the story unfolds a bit quicker, the mechanics were streamlined. If not for the fact the plot and lore are built on the assumption you play in order, I would recommend starting here.
I found the story incredibly compelling in Pillars 2 than the first game. Great lore and tons of detail. Also, the most important aspect of any game, the gameplay, is terrific.
Cool, I think I will like both PoE 1 and 2. First one is more serious and standard medieval fantasy setting, second one is light-hearted pirate fantasy. Corsairs Gold anyone?
You should try last two Shadowrun games, best of modern crpgs along with DOS II.
On the opening note, the Witcher 3 (if you bought a physical copy) comes with a printed physical map of the north. It isn't super detailed but it was amazing and interesting when I first for the game running I was already super invested because of a silly printed map.
There was at least one version of Morrowind that came with a beautiful map. Your experience might have been better with that one.
I think I liked this one more than the first. The multi-faction setup really helped me understand the world a lot better.
1:49
I just keep going back and playing it over and over. My fave moment on this channel ever
I think Deadfire needs a good writer more than a map.
The writing reminds me a bit of Paolini, who wanted to prove his ability to read a thesaurus so much that he used the most obscure synonyms in every sentence to the point his Inheritance Cycle became unreadable. Well, and the saga was awful in every other way.
I find deadfire more readable than pillar of eternity 1 though...
Kau Kolsothy relatively speaking, you may be right; that doesn't mean the writing is adequate here.
I think every reviewers agree that the writing is too pompous for both game.
For real, i mean, im currently playing fallout 1 and i am surprised by how simple most of the things are, for the age of the game i was expecting obtuse dialogs, incredible specifics ways to do quest and terrible inventory system. But i am through half the game without even noticing it, the game is very open and doesn't hold your hand at all, but just by being curious you would advance in the main quest, now i can see what so many people find endearing about the originals fallout.
PoE never grabbed me, the gameplay was pretty good but the story and world was so bland and dull, it is very verbose with his dialogs but has nothing of transcendence to say. They tried to copy the heavy dialog and exposition of old games like planescape torment, but forgot the key part, planescape had something to say and an interesting world.
Marc Shanahan I liked his books, but I can admit that they were very flawed works. I didn't mind the writing style but hated how he resolved certain plotlines
I thought the problem of exposition dumps being too deep in its own jargon was also in Pillars 1. Why didn't SBH complain about that then?
I never realized till now how ingrained into my skull Spongebob's soundtrack was.
Is this the same guy who did the review for the first game? What a complete 180 in attitude, if so.
Best writer in the whole industry? What a sad state of affairs if this is anywhere remotely true.
Obsidian obviously rushed this one, they're still tuning the difficulty. I have a feeling by the time it reaches its final expansion it'll be one of the best RPGs ever.
Isn't that kinda what happened in PoE1? The game was piss easy even on Path of the Damned (I think that's what it was called?) but after a few patches and White March, it got challenging as the class and enemies got balanced.
the bad thing is that they already said theres only like 3 or 4 dlc but no big expansion as POE1, i was hoping to see the vailian republics or rauatai instead of some shorts DLC
that's disappointing. I wish they changed their minds tho as the White March was one of the best lore expansion.
While for the most part I agree with the review, I will dissent on one point: The setting. It is (IMO) far more interesting than the one in the first game, and I'm not even a fan of pirates. I loved the clash of classic Tolkienesque fantasy with a colonial Carribean locale. It added a breath of fresh air to the somewhat stale achetypes of both settings.
Also, major points to Obsidian for writing all the major factions in such a way that it's hard to pick one when the time comes. Seriously, a case can be made for all four factions, all four are their own breed of asshole, but all four have redeeming qualities (alright, Pirates maybe not as much).
But definitely agreed that the game is a bit on the easy side, particularly later on. This has been acknowledged by the developers and will be addressed in patches.
Oh, and you didn't mention that the game has a custom AI creation option, much like Dragon Age: Origins had, allowing you to automate a lot of the common drudgery. For instance, casting the initial buffs at the start of combat is a lot less of hassle this way, and some of the simpler classes/builds can be automated almost completely for regular encounters (if you so desire).
Legit can't watch this video, can't focus on the words beneath the very loud and very off-tone music. Sensory overload. Wha da fawk.
Not knocking this, but Baldur's Gate 2 **WITH** SCS mod, preferably in ironman mode, is still the king. SCS is Sword Coast Strategems, a mod that radically improves enemy AI and spellcaster battles. No more picking off enemies one at a time while their dimwitted buddies stand feet away in the fog of war. No more casting breach to defeat every wizard.
If you're interested, install the huge number of good mods and improvements via Big World Project. It locates, dowwnloads and installs the mods over the base game.
Just a note for the difficulty, apparently the game was released without a proper difficulty pass, and they are going to be ramping up Veteran and PotD soon. So for those looking for a reason to do a 2nd playthrough, there it is.
the only major problem that I have with POE2 is that it feels really like a middle chapter.
Honestly, I like the fact that spells restore every encounter, it means that I'm more willing to experiment with different spells rather than constantly falling back on one or two reliable ones or leaving the wizards in the back and just having them do nothing all encounter other than shoot off their basic rod/wand/staff attacks. I also think that the opening of this game is far better than the one for the first Pillars, it's actually involved and gets you straight into the story, delivers your character's motivation and introduces the fact that the gods are going to be a more active force in things. Pillars 1's intro is really lackluster by comparison and it took me four or five times of false-starting to actually get into a playthrough where I completed it, mainly due to the fact that the game doesn't really start until you get to Defiance Bay which is easily at the 7-10 hour mark if you don't know what you're doing. I haven't finished Pillars 2 yet, mainly because the main quest feels too short and I'm trying to make the game's length stretch out as far as I can, but I'm well into the fourth act at this point and I'm very much enjoying the game.
Not gonna lie, I kinda just want to play this for the sake of playing a fantasy RPG with pirates and guns and stuff. Even if it's not quite as Pillars 1, I think I'd dig it.
And honestly, I'm not sure I've ever heard someone say they wouldn't want an awesome pirate RPG. Or even without the pirate trappings and just a game focused on a shipfaring aesthetic. Even a mediocre one would sell like mad, cause look at that Sea of Thieves travesty. Even without an actual game to speak of, people still bought into it in hopes of something fun in that kind of setting.
Imagine something with mechanics like Sid Meier's Pirates, and an alternate history Age of Sail to play around in. How has nothing of the sort been made yet? With so many recycled ideas in the industry, you'd think they'd be trying like mad to find neglected genres and old forgotten games to pull ideas from.
Good video as always but the background music was a bit too loud in this one.
Yeah the game is/was ridiculously easy, even on veteran. Once past level 8 or so, you never even had to pause/unpause the game anymore. Just set the combat speed to max and let your dudes do their thing. Fortunately Obsidian has made it their top-priority to tune the difficulty. I'm playing on the latest beta-patch right now and it's already significantly better.
Would you really call Avellone the "best writer" in all of vidya?
I mean, he's GOOD, sure, but he also put Lonesome Road forward as his magnum opus, and in it he floundered so hard that it's almost incomprehensible.
I wanna hear your opinion about tyranny!
Wait... I guess it's been a while since you played the first one eh? The concept of a biawac was introduced in the opening of the first pillars. It was literally the inciting incident. Every pillars player should know what a biawac is.
Man you just remembered me that i did not finish my second Divinity Original Sin 2 Playthrough. What a great game
(POE 3 comes out) "they still buy it, they still did it..."
im liking this new spongebob soundtrack, i hope it comes back
Normally I love Super Bunnyhop but like.....really? Right off the bat you roll eyes at the biawac line and say that "somewhere it makes sense to someone". D...did you play the first game? Because you make it sound like you did....and the first 30 minutes of the first game makes it very clear what that line means.
So Captain Gorg, when's non lethal Euro... I mean PotD solo funstream of Watcher 2?
Oh, c'mon!
"Biawak" OBVIOUSLY refers to a large lizard in the genus Varanus, native to Africa, Asia and Oceania, invasive in the Americas, and of which 79 species are currently recognized!
Or, you know, the driving force behind the first game that anyone who has played it should know perfectly.
bayawak! lol
PoE 2 > PoE White March > PoE
Nah White March better than 2
The audio mixing on this one was a bit off. I felt like the music was fighting your voice over.
This review is pretty harsh to this game which I thought was high quality. All the supposed issues are extremely minor and hardly worth mentioning. The story is gripping, and the character arcs are engaging. Haven't had this degree of immersion in a game for years.
Definitely a game you don't want to miss.
You forgot to put Witcher III in your footage credits. Otherwise, neat review
Went into this game expecting to not really like it. Ended up being my GOTY. In a world of overly simplified shooters with some rpg mechanics this game made me really feel immersed like I was playing a DnD campaign. Also loved the inevitability of the ending with Eothas, which shows you that for as much a watcher as you are you cannot truly go against the gods, and I loved the way the ending took into consideration all your faction actions and companions like F:NV
But did you like the Critical Role DLC?
Wait, Morrowind literally came with a physical map in the box. I'm pretty sure it even came with a fancy cloth one if you got the collectors edition. 😛
ill never forget the time he used penultimate when he meant to say ultimate.
Your pirate talk had me in tears! Amazing video even if i do personally think you're underselling PoE2. More like this please!
Dammit George I was going to sleep!
But is it BALANCED?
The result of criticizing how PoE handles its story, as far as I have seen, is that you are often met with fingers in ears and a loud thrumming: "blah blah blah blah. I can't hear you!"
I disagree with pretty much everything you said in the review, and frankly I'm not sure you even like D&D-esque games to begin with, so why you keep torturing yourself is beyond my comprehension.
i actually find the multiple faction storylines very interesting as it mirrors the history of the region i lived in, which is south east asia.
You had me with the exchange between Yselmyr and the undead warrior. Wishlisted!
The spongebob music.. this is godlike instant classic. Bravo bravo
biawac is literally the first weird in-world lore word the player learns in Pillars of Eternity, dude. And I'm pretty sure you're aware of this, since immediately after saying "somehow, this line made sense to someone" you put in B roll from the first game of the OPENING LEVEL WHERE YOU'RE TAUGHT WHAT IT IS. Even funnier in light of you going on to note that reading comprehension is one of the skills demanded by the game.
I don't understand George... You LOVED pillars I... now you start this video with such a mocking tone... How quickly we forget that we used to live in a pillar-less world, where the mere mention of Crpgs from days old made all the publishers scoff...
I still liked divinity better
Bro, disagree 100%. The PoE games are phenomenal, particularly in plot, themeing, and interesting continuity. Still like your reviews though, you're the best (we don't gotta agree on everything, broski).
You do have to retain a good chunk of the lore from the last game, though, and if you don't, you can get confused as hell, I'll give you that.