Normally I rather avoid playing on PC if I can make the choice and I was more or less convinced that I would miss the return of many old-school games thanks to that fact. But I turned out to be wrong, and it feels amazing that now, I as a console-gamer, can finally take part of both Torment: Tides of Numenara and Pillars of Eternity. But what is it really with Pillars of Eternity that tickles the gaming section of my brain?
1. The Nostalgia
Let's start with the elephant in the room. Nostalgia of course plays a large part in this game, I would even go so far to say that it is what I feel most appealed too. It feels like coming back to a place that you loved as a kid or meeting an old friend you haven't seen in many years. It's an extremely pleasant and familiar experience all throughout the game, no matter if it's about the controls of the characters or the battles. Pillars of Eternity has taken an successful concept from the past and has created it so it works absolutely amazing for us long time fans in this modern era.
2. Story Variation
Modern games are expensive to develop and that has made the developers focus more on the main story in their games than alternative branches. At it's best we'll get 1 or 2 side missions that feel unique, while the rest are reduced to simple fetch quests and other similar standard-quests. A reason for this is of course the budget: animations needs to be done, motion capture and voice actors all needs to be paid and implemented. Time and money is the cost for this so it's not hard to see why many developers let's the side-missions take a backseat.
But in Pillars of Eternity the graphics are simple and the interface is text based, which gives the developers a much larger freedom in their creation. It doesn't cost as much to create variying scenarios and it doesn't take as much time either. A shining example of this comes in PoE as I one second might run into a mystery that takes me 14 levels down under a castle, and another second I might get to play a private-detective and have to solve mysterious disappearances connected to a sinister theater. Pillars of Eternity offers a large variation in its story and many missions, and it makes me always want to play another mission just too see if it's more awesome than the one I just played.
3. Soundtrack
Justin Bell might not reach the same class as Mark Morgans classical soundtrack for Planescape: Torment but if you compare him to other classical RPG-compositors he obviously can keep the same class as Jeremy Soule and is definitely better than Inon Zur. Some examples of the fantastical and memorable songs are for one the battle theme "The Dragon Thrashed" and "Wailed" which is one of the most fantastical soundtracks for battles that I have heard in a long time and the games main background-song "Eora" creates both a fantastically beautiful and pompous emotion. Pillars of Eternity has with no doubt one of the best soundtracks out there.
4. It Matters What Role You Play
In the more modern games you often get choices to customize your character. It can be anything from cosmetic choices like race, to what skills and class you might choose. This makes your character unique while you play, but in all honesty they are often pretty meaningless in how they affect the story. You get to experience everything the game has to offer because the dev's just don't have money to let you miss any parts. This is not true for Pillars of Eternity. For once I choose to make a pretty standard warrior that mostly focused on the stats Constitution and Might, but little did I know that their would be constant choices in the dialogues that I would miss because I don't have enough Intelligence or Resolve. I always miss opportunities with other words.
And it's not just your stats that matter, but also where your character comes from plays a large part in affecting your options. I absolutely love it when games does this because it actually means that our choices mean something. I love it.
Loved the first game and can't wait for the second to come out! I've been playing oldschool rpg's for years and this one was the first one in a very long time that made it trough and was not just decent but amazing. I was excited about it since I saw the kickstarter they made years ago for it. Nice post, keep up the good work! :)
Glad you liked it bro, this is one amazing title I hope it's in you're gaming library! :D
Sure it is! I wish I had time to play it again but It is one of them games that you can come back to any time even years later and play it all over again.. it can be a totally different game depends on what you do. :)
Hejsan @conexus - Join - #teamsweden ! Also a gamer by heart! ;)
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interesting
Nice post like it and upvoted....
nice this post
I can give you 5 to get your ass on Destiny haha
I was kinda turned off by the games graphics at first, but you made a great point about the developers having more resources to add to the story! I love games with actual attention grabbing side missions like borderlands haha
Hope your doing well and get your PS4 fixed soon!
Thanks dude, been playing mostly OW, Borderlands and Far Cry Primal the latest days (except for trying out Destiny 2 extensively, on PC though) but yea I'll be in touch as soon as I get that console fixed =)