Dweller infestation, eh? Don't worry, I know a guy.
The title says it all.
I'm a fan of the old Infinity Engine games. Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Planescape Torment (I'll even count KOTOR, in spirit)...these games took the old RPG concept and bent it around the Western D&D ruleset in a way that made for an intensely satisfying digital roleplaying experience. I loved building my characters, the tactical pause-based combat, and, of course, the stories. While these games are classics, they fell out of vogue; the audience just wasn't big enough to support them. (At least as far as the big publishers were concerned.) Dragon Age: Origins was a surprise hit and a return to form, but was unfortunately made to serve as a jumping off point for a more action oriented sequel with a presumably wider appeal. (Unfortunate for me, anyway. Note: I played and enjoyed Dragon Age II, but only years after it came out, when I could approach it for the game it is and not the game I wanted it to be.) Divinity: Original Sin was a light in the darkness, but one I somehow never got around to playing. It's on the list.
Now there is Pillars of Eternity, and it feels like coming home again.
Home means something different to everybody.
A quick breakdown of an Infinity Engine game: tactical RPGs played from an isometric viewpoint. You have a party of adventurers—sometimes they're characters in the story, sometimes you build them yourself from the ground up—and you travel the world completing quests, solving mysteries and (most importantly) gaining levels and loot. The old games were based on the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset (...which varied. Baldur's Gate used 2nd edition, Neverwinter Nights used 3.5) with all of the associated classes and specializations. They could get complicated if you didn't know the system, but if you already played D&D then you were set to jump right in. Fights take place in real time, but orders are given individually, and to accommodate the hectic chaos of the battlefield you are given the option to pause the fight while assigning orders.
The D&D ruleset is gone, but otherwise Pillars of Eternity is true to form. The world and combat system have enough new twists to set them apart while remaining familiar for those who have played this style of game in the past, and all of the basic mechanics are there. You pause the game to give battle commands, use abilities, cast spells and position your team. Abilities often have an area of effect, offering many fantastic opportunities to fry your teammates due to a misplaced spell. Un-pause to watch it all play out, and then, if you're like me, pause it again a fraction of a second later because the enemies did something to blow your pathetic plan out of the water. As it should be!
This screenshot is porn to the right kind of person.
I'm playing on the normal difficulty, and so far combat is satisfyingly challenging. Sometimes a little too satisfyingly challenging, which may be my fault for diving into quests before I'm at the appropriate level. I took my level 5 team and rammed their heads against the final battle of a quest for a good two hours before checking it out online and seeing that it was a level 7 mission. (Blood Legacy, for those who want to point and laugh.) Of course, that only made it more satisfying to beat it anyway, and it gave me a good opportunity to make the most of my limited skills and equipment at the time. I considered it a learning opportunity, dammit.
If there's one downer about battles, it's that there are a bewildering number of unexplained status ailments. Oh, you can look them up in the game's cyclopedia, but that doesn't do you much good when you're in the middle of a fight and see that your teammate has been hobbled, weakened, dazed, blinded, flanked, frightened, sickened, stunned and terrified. All of that adds up to...something. Something bad? Probably. I've gotten to the point where I just assume that everybody is always on the brink of a crippling catastrophe, and just keep up a constant stream of healing. It seems to be working.
There are a good variety of classes, and each feels unique and useful in its own way. (I especially like the chanter, which is a pleasant surprise since skill-wise he reminds me of a D&D bard. But that's a rant for another day.) There are a handful of pre-made NPCs that you can recruit in the game—or, if you prefer, you can simply build your team from scratch and fine-tune it to perfection. However, the in-game teammates have their own histories and motivations, and if you build your own team you'll miss out on those stories. That said, you can have the best of both worlds—recruit your own team, and gather the storyline followers as well. You can only have so many members in your active party, but the stragglers will hang out in the background waiting for you to switch them out when the time is right. Adventure at your own pace and there should be plenty of time to experience it all.
I SAID WAIT AT THE CASTLE HIRAVIAS! Now, Eder, let's get some ice cream.
So far, though, I haven't found much of interest in talking to my teammates. This is probably due to the limited development resources, and not because of a lack of effort on the writers' part. Character backgrounds and motivations are delivered as text dumps—sometimes with voice acting, sometimes not—and even interesting stories become a bit dry when told in such a static way, especially when they are barely tangentially related to the larger story. I may have become spoiled; for all of their flaws, the Dragon Age/Mass Effect games do a great job of building the side characters as interesting and motivated people, as well as creating personal dynamics between them and the main character. It's not a fair comparison, and there is a lot of text given for each character, but it just feels like that personal connection is missing. I haven't completed Pillars of Eternity, however; maybe things pick up. We'll see.
Last, but not least, is the story. No spoilers—I don't know enough to spoil much yet anyway—but I dig the story so far. The world is in a state of unrest, the citizens disturbed both by a situation of vague unease (the scars of recent wars haven't healed, leaders aren't acting in the best interests of their lands and people) to specific threats (the dead are walking, and soul-sucking storms ravage the countryside). Unexpectedly given a mysterious ability that seems tied to these events, your character is determined to unravel the mystery and find his or her place in the world. Typical stuff, but the lore of the world is interesting and well told through both dialog and gameplay. There are plenty of mysteries to unravel, and a lot of side quests to fill in the blanks. Simply put, I like it.
I'll probably have more to say about Pillars of Eternity when I complete the game, but that may be a while. I've put around 50 hours into it so far, and I feel like I've barely gotten started. (This may be because I have a compulsion to explore every corner and do every side question before proceeding with the main story. That's a topic for another blog.) That said, I've played enough to give a preliminary verdict: this game is awesome. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go steal a magical tome from some old wizard so I can give it to a lich who is (presumably) holding hostage the soul of an adventurer's old girlfriend. Wish me luck!