Pretty, lots of lore, but kinda pointless
I loved the old IE games and playing them was a big part of my early teens so the opportunity to play another game in a similar vein has been a big attraction for me. I was excited to see what 20 years of progress would look like. I saw alot of the negative reviews but also read a few retrospectives which indicated that alot of the previous flaws had been dealt with in this "definitive" edition.
Oh boy. . . . unless you are happy wading through loads of pointless combat and reading tons of lore with no relevance to the game itself then move on. Overall, POE may have driven me back to pirating games (pirate first buy if it's good or keeps me playing more than a few hours). I simply don't have the disposable cash to drop 30+ dollars on a game to then go "ah shite, well why don't I buy another and maybe it'll be better". So what are my reasons for disliking POE to such an extent, well:
-Dialogue and dialogue choices. Many of them lead to the same response or something inanely similar. I haven't had a single conversation with an NPC as much as just talked at. Can I challenge the inquisitor that's obviously involved in the killing of 20 people and hanging them from a tree . . . Nope. Not a single option to interrogate and confront such a monstrous act but I have no option but to kill a bunch of drunks (in the middle of the village but no-one cares). It's like there is no narrative or flow, just random dialogue options. Even the attribute and background associated choices lead to the same conversation paths.
- Combat, oh god. At high difficulties it's a slog through multiple combats each requiring the same tactics, each one being slow and time consuming. Conversely, at lower difficulties it's easy, simple, and boring. Regardless, there's little reason for any of the combat except to have more combat.
What makes it even weirder is that they removed XP acquisition from combat and added sneak mechanics, but I still need to fight everything to progress. So why do they force so damn much of it? Personally, I'd much rather have fewer, narratively meaningful, tactically interesting combat.
- Narrative. Kinda boring. There's obviously been alot of effort to fill the game with lore about the overall world. That's cool. But surely the focus should be on the game narrative itself. I don't spend 30 dollars to play collect the book (though I do enjoy well written lore). The narrative of the game world should take precedence, of which there is little. The PC is part of a caravan that is killed and gains the ability to interact with dead spirits. Cool. Then s/he should traipse through forest killing wolves until s/he finds someone that can tell them more. That's it, that's the draw. Other, much more interesting narratives like the mass murders of peasants by violent nobles is ignored.
I'm really disappointed in Obsidian. Maybe if rather than 80 odd hours they made a much more narratively focused 30 hour game with more variety and choice it would have been better. I've played for a bit over 10 hours and doubt I'll do back. If I could I'd ask for a refund (the only time during my time on GOG I want a refund to a game). I'm amazed at the players who, having said they felt like me after 10 hours, forced themselves to play to the end or near end so they wouldn't feel cheated. As if wasting 60 hours on a boring game is better than having wasted 10.
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