The user interface, the pause-and-play combat, even the dialogue window are all very specifically composed to bring the look at feel of those games to widescreen monitors of the modern gamer. The action of the game is where the comparisons to the millennial-era's D&D games like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale come into play. It is fun and intriguing the first few times, but by the last quest hub they become nothing but a pathfinding hindrance to all but the most dedicated lore-hounds. There is also a new NPC type called the Kickstarter Backer - they have strange names highlighted in odd colours and when poked they'll spit out a drabble-length of soul viewing fiction. Minor NPCs seem to exist to fill space, not even adding colour to locale as the shuffle about the environments. Most named NPCs are bolted in place to serve as exposition fonts, quest givers and the occasional dialogue-based roadblock. NPCs, however, tend to fall short of the main cast. Each character has a unique background, goals and a vibrant personality to match. Similar to the plot, the supporting cast defies convention as well no golden-hearted thieves, wisecracking mercenaries, or naive apprentice mages to be found. Masked wizards in a circle - Never a good sign. It's rare for a game to offer players that degree of chalk on a blank slate character. Dialogue options at the opening of the game, as well as in past-life flashback sections, offer the option to define backstory and past relations in a number of very interesting ways, including outright distortions of the truth by the player. The standout element for the player character is that his or her past is as user-defined as their present. In discovering the nature and cause of these new abilities the player unravels their and Thaos' shared past, and current conspiracies sends players on a massive adventure with large scale consequences. The cat-and-mouse story format is a breath of fresh air in a genre busting at the seams with MacGuffin hunts and evil overlords.įrom the player's side of the story, the game follows a mercenary newcomer to the Dyrwood region, who by coincidence is the reincarnation of the above wizard's right hand man, getting pulled back into Thaos' schemes after a supernatural storm as they gain the ability to see into the souls of others. The plot of PoE itself is not so much a quest narrative as it is a thriller, with the player and assorted cronies chasing Thaos and his minions, unravelling a magical conspiracy and deciding the fate of big pile of unclaimed souls. The writing in these could benefit more from contextual cues and smoother exposition around these backstory elements. The game walks a wobbly tightrope between adequate exposition and drowning the player in proper nouns, especially in the main story sections. There's a lot of detailed lore that I'm glossing over, including an outlawed branch of magic, a team of wizards killing a god in the recent past and the current politics between empires, all of which find ways to creep into the action. One of these wizards, Thaos, has been using this cycle to further the schemes of his chosen goddess, which involves pulling the souls of an entire country to feed her more power. The story goes that long ago, the Ancient Wizards Whose Knowledge of Magic And Artifice Are Far Beyond Our Own™ waged a "holy" war to force all belief into their chosen deities and bind the souls of their worshipers into an eternal reincarnation cycle. But it seems that Obsidian has nonetheless managed to recover a game that 2002 forgot, Pillars of Eternity, a Kickstarter success story and a well put together game in the vein of the Infinity Engine titles of yore. No one has thus far put a time machine up for crowdfunding, and given what movies have taught of the phenomenon I suspect that if time travel were invented it would never make it to consumer levels as its inventor would get caught in some sort of paradox-riddled shenanigans and recant the use of the device forever. That could be better presented at times I've Seen a Million Things They Tell Me So
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