Pillars of Eternity (PC)
After being obssesed with chess for two weeks, I decided to give it some rest and grab a real video game. It also just so happens that Pillars of Eternity was released, so of course I immediately bought the game and gave it a go. Anyone who knows me can testify what a huge fan of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment I am, so it will come to no surprise that I was really looking forward to Pillars of Eternity which was developed as spiritual successor to those games. And - oh boy - it feels like ages since a true roleplaying game was released. The fact that these types of games were basically extinct for more than 10 years speaks a lot about the sad state of the gaming industry today, but thanks to Kickstarter and Obsidian Entertainment the wait is finally over and I get to play a game very similar to my old time favorites.
Launch trailer for Pillars of Eternity hearkens to the golden era of video games. It almost brings tears to my eyes to see this happening!
Note:
I was thinking of making playthorugh videos like I did with Heroes of Might and Magic 2, but I realized quickly how this would probably prevent me from fully enjoying the game due to recording and editing stuff. And I do want to enjoy every moment of this fantastic game, so I will do a review instead.
Finished the game (15/05/2015)
It took me approximately 95 hours to finish the game, but I have finally done it! For the most part it was a real treat, and upon finishing the game I have reached the conclusion it is a real masterpiece (with some easily ignored flaws). There was actually just one thing I really hated about the game and that was the adra dragon fight! I really hope Obsidian does something about it, because that fight is a perfect example of how NOT to do a boss battle.
I still have nightmares from this fight...
The dragon is resistant to everything, and there is no way to seriously hurt it without somehow petrifying it. You can achieve this with a spell or with a trap, but neither solution is going to be easy. If you decide to cast a spell you will have to deal with awful spell range, which will result in certain death to your spellcaster 9/10 times. When you finally manage to cast the petrification spell without getting slaughtered in the process, there is still a high chance that the spell will miss. Finally, when you manage to hit the dragon with the petrification spell, you only have 5-8 seconds to kill it before the petrification effect fades away. If you don't kill the dragon within those 5-8 seconds, your whole party will probably get annihilated, since you want to keep everyone close so that they can start dishing out damage as soon as you petrify the dragon. But good luck with that! Keeping party members near the dragon without getting killed is next to impossible, due to dragon's 360 degrees long range attacks.
You can use petrification traps instead, which makes the positioning of your party members slightly easier, but if the trap misses you will probably have to reload again, because the game does not allow you to set multiple traps and you won't have the time to set a new trap while successfully repositioning all of your characters.
Keep the change you filthy animal!
Now, anyone who is reading this is probably thinking that I am complaining because the fight was too difficult, but here comes the kicker. Killing the adra dragon is incredibly easy with cheesy tactics! Namely, the dragon is so slow that it is possible to kill it with just one archer or just one chanter who can keep summoning ogres while maintaining safe distance. What I am complaining about is the whole design of the fight, which is rewarding such cheesy tactics and punishing anything else! All Obsidian needs to do to fix this issue is increase the spell range and give us some alternatives which would allow us to considerably lower dragon's defenses for a reasonable amount of time. In Baldur's Gate for example you can cast spells from safe distance, there are no saving throws for debuffing spells - so they cannot be dodged - and they last long enough that you have a fighting chance. On the other hand, in Pillars of Eternity the spell range is pathetic, debuffing spells which can lower dragon's defenses are too weak, while powerful spells such as petrification can easily be dodged and last only a few seconds. So no matter what you try, you are pretty much screwed.
Truth be told I have seen some people on YouTube with insane stats who can one-shot the adra dragon, but I have no idea how these people raised their stats to such crazy levels. For all I know, they might have been cheating or spamming food buffs, which is also cheesy. In any case, the game needs more options when it comes to the adra dragon fight. Still, me raging over this battle doesn't diminish the overall quality of the game. Needless to say I can't wait for the expansion pack that has been announced!
Click on the link for more screenshots.
