After supporting the game on Kickstarter (one of very few games I supported), after patiently waiting for two part expansion to get released, I finally played Pillars of Eternity in it’s complete current 3.x version and it was an amazing adventure to have. All of my expectations were met and exceeded and not just because we sadly lacked games with truly great stories for the past decade, but because even if there were many, Pillars would be just as great. It’s everything you loved about Black Isle, early Bioware, Troika and, of course, Obsidian themselves, but perfected, taken to a new level, despite the very nostalgic interface. It’s simple enough to get sucked into it, but complex and deep enough not to be a very fast food-ish feeling game a lot more recent AAA RPGs have become.
So what is Pillars of Eternity with both parts of White March expansion and latest patch? It’s an RPG with an active pause and Infinity Engine-inspired aesthetic. But where Infinity Engine felt restrictive in later games, both technologically and storytelling mechanics-wise, where D&D rulesets felt restrictive for the stories BioWare and especially Black Isle wanted to tell, Obsidian made something perfectly suited for their needs. The interface is highly customizable and smart, technologically the game is much less restricted and the ruleset they created for their world is a joy to play with. You pretty much cannot create a “bad character” unless you try to (and if you do something you regret you can respec easily). All mechanics and ideas complement the concept of you playing the game the way you want and shaping the story the way you want. It isn’t as freeform as what Fallout tried to be, but wow it is trying and is much more flexible than even Planescape: Torment. As an example – combat itself doesn’t give you experience now, so you never feel like you NEED to kill everything you see and doing things in other ways is perfectly viable. And the idea of very text adventure-like segments that focus even more on your deeds and abilities to do things normal gameplay wouldn’t allow is an incredibly smart decision.
The adventure itself is structured close to how the original Baldur’s Gate worked (a region where you open new destinations on the world map to go to), but every map tries to bring something new, something unique, something exciting to learn and do. The world lore, the main story, mini stories, companion stories are very fun and try to ask interesting questions and put new perspectives on what you think you already know. In the way how deep and amazing story is, I wouldn’t even compare it to Baldur’s Gate games, but more to Planescape: Torment or probably a bit of Arcanum. Now, in the White March part 1, story is considerably simpler (and the events take place as an extension of the main story, not as a post-game thing), but part 2 brings back the excitement of the main game topics and questions game asks of you, even if it’s still not as great as the main game.
There are, of course, some nitpicks to be had. Loadings for every map, for example, do become frustrating even if it was the only way to preserve the pre-rendered beauty of the backgrounds, especially since as you play longer game seems to start becoming “heavier” for the system. There are rather frustrating AI things as in the fight all party members seem to follow very simple pathing algorithms and can block each other without any logic to go around or shuffle to the side without breaking engagement with the enemy. The party AI and presets, on the other hand, are very good most of the time, so it’s just weird to see pathing being so much of an issue. And there are also some occasional glitches – wrong script triggers, character getting thrown over the path boundaries and getting stuck there forever, controls just refusing to work suddenly and even few crashes. These happened VERY rarely, but they did.
These things aside, however, I had fantastic time with Pillars of Eternity and it’s two-part expansion and I’d recommend the game to anyone who loves a really great story that you help shape the way you want. One of the best RPGs in a decade, probably best game from Obsidian so far and and adventure to be had. I really wish there will be more games in this universe.