Pillars of Eternity review: A game with soul

Genre: Role-playing game
Available platforms: Microsoft Windows, Mac OSX, Linux

Suggested for: Classic RPG lovers. Dungeons and Dragons players and fans of the Isometric gaming playstyle

MANILA, Philippines – There are a lot video games that label themselves role-playing Games (RPG), although only a few can really give you an immersive experience into another world. Pillars of Eternity does the trick of immersing you in a new world magnificently.

Created by Obsidian Entertainment, developers of games like Neverwinter Nights 2, and Fallout: New Vegas, and published by Paradox Interactive, Pillars of Eternity was crowdfunded through a kickstarter campaign that raised over $4 million.

Pillars of Eternity has been termed as the spiritual successor to RPGs of the late 90s, such as Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale. It also uses the same isometric-playstyle and graphics, which makes it pale in comparison graphically to recent role-playing games, such as Bioware’s Dragon Age franchise and Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls series.

What Pillars of Eternity lacks in graphical luster and cinematic cutscenes, it makes up for in rich environmental content and detailed written storytelling.

The game does not only let you experience the world by controlling your character but by also letting you read through characters’ emotions as you engage in dialogue with them.

You do you

Character creation in any RPG is essential, especially if you want to stay true to the role-playing”aspect of the game. Pillars of Eternity offers an in-depth character customization that will determine not just your own personal story and how you play but how other characters’ reaction to you.

The game gives you the choice of sex, race, and subrace, your class, even up to choosing a culture and your character’s background. All of these choices plays to your style and what you can bring to the game.

Pillars of Eternity‘s character creation is so in-depth that it will tempt you to start a new game just so you could find out, “What if I had chosen a Ranger instead of a Fighter?” I myself restarted the game twice before I found out the best character suited for my play style.

The soul of the story

Once you have created your character, you will be plunged into the Drywood, part of a world that is unfamiliar in both culture and story approach to our world.

Reading the storyline and speaking to non-playable characters (NPCs) is essential to get an idea of the world’s lore. Whichever path you chose for your character, your journey starts as a member of a caravan stuck in the middle of some ruins and waiting for daybreak to move on. Your introduction to the story is very quick and things get messier as it unfolds.

Without spoiling much, the Pillars of Eternity story revolves around souls and the world’s connection to it. As a Watcher, you have the ability to see glimpses into people’s souls and the memories they carry.

Your journey will be to find out how you became one, and also to uncover who or what may have triggered your abilities.

Before playing I suggest you read up on the world’s places and stories. You wouldn’t want to be caught in a situation asking, “What on earth is going on?” which is basically what I went through on my first playthrough of the game. 

The more the deadlier

As with any classic RPG, Pillars of Eternity gives you the ability to create your own group or party, either by hiring adventurers from inns, or by finding story-based party members along the way.

As you meet and greet different people, there will be few who would be willing to join you on your journey. The game gets somewhat easier the more people you add to your party which are particularly useful especially in combat.

The game also eventually provides you with a Stronghold, which serves as your new home in the game. This stronghold can be upgraded and serves as  headquarters for party members in case you want to replace them.

This gives Pillars of Eternity a strategic feature in terms of balancing the money you receive from adventuring and figuring out how to best spend it.

For those who fight

Combat in Pillars of Eternity relies more on calm strategy rather than hacking and slashing.

With the isometric playstyle, some players might mistake the game for Diablo and try to bully their way against enemies. This isn’t advisable.

Taking good advantage of the pause feature (via the space bar) and issuing commands to your party members is needed to survive the numerous encounters you’ll have in this game. Otherwise, you’ll likely end up your entire party decimated within a few seconds.

The game’s difficulty curve is somewhat high – even at the easiest level – if you’re not careful. Strategy is key to this game’s battles, and as another game of this type would often advise, “Save often to spare your blood pressure.”

The only good bug is a dead bug

Several problems or bugs have been reported for the game which includes a bug that causes characters to lose their “buffs” if you double-click armor to replace a piece of clothing your character wears.

While this specific bug has been remedied, other bugs have yet to be patched. You’ll want to make good use of the Obsidian forums to keep updated on changes to the game.

Conclusion

For the RPG fan, Pillars of Eternity can take away anywhere from 80 to 90 hours of your time. You can easily lose yourself in exploring, dungeon-crawling, or even just reading books available in the game.

The explorable map is huge, the game’s content is massive, and while the story will remain the same through numerous playthroughs, the number of times you can replay this game with different character combinations and increased difficulty provides some replayability.

If you have been waiting for an enhanced version of legendary PC-based RPG hits, Pillars of Eternity will provide you with what you want and a lot more. – Rappler.com