The first Pillars of Eternity, has been critically acclaimed since its inception. The title was immediately considered as a spiritual heir to the beautiful RPGs of the past, such as the old and beloved Baldur's Gate. In addition, the title was awarded in 2015 as the best RPG, thanks to its engaging story and highly strategic fighting style. The second title dedicated to the series arrives now on our PCs, that is Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, set in a boundless archipelago where the importance of navigation will be equal to that of skill in battle. Let's see if this sequel will live up to its predecessor!
With full sails
This new adventure begins sometime after the events of the first, Pillars of Eternity, always within the world of And now. Players will again play the observer of Caed Nua, but he will quickly see his stronghold fall at the hands of Eothas, the god of life and rebirth. The dangerous deity, who was believed to be dead, distorts the life of the hero who barely survives the destruction of the stronghold. He thus begins a dangerous adventure in search of the god Eothas, which leads him to cross the ocean until he arrives at the archipelago of Deadfire. On this continent the observer of Caed Nua, he will have to try again to save his soul and understand what lies behind the return of the dangerous God.
The events of the first Pillars of Eternity will greatly influence those of the second chapter of the series, whether you are a new user or an experienced veteran. As soon as this fantastic adventure begins, the system will ask players whether to import their old saves or not. In case you are a new player, you will be asked questions to answer to choose how your Watcher has behaved in the past, putting players immediately in front of some different paths and difficult moral choices. The boys of Obsidian Entertainment have done a great job to make this adventure accessible to all players, even new ones, because at the beginning of Deadfire there is a long story that does a double job: it refreshes the memory of veteran players and tells the events of the first chapter to new users, as well as introducing everyone to the dangerous archipelago.
To make this kind of game even more special, which has managed to resurrect a genre that was slowly disappearing with great passion, is definitely the exploration by boat. While with the first title we played purely inland, in this new adventure we find ourselves exploring a fragmented and beautiful archipelago of islands. The setting of the title is stylistically beautiful, exotic enough, and like the predecessor perfectly realized. Each island is really pleasant, so much so that nature will also influence the gameplay.
A naval fortress
As I pointed out in the previous paragraph, the great revolution between the first and the second concerns above all the passage from the fortress of Caed Nua to the new and spectacular boat. A lot of time players will have to spend on this boat, not only to travel, but also to organize and rearrange their team.
Life on a boat is not easy, players will be able to buy different boats during the game, they will have to upgrade them and above all manage them. management is primarily concerned with the recruitment of a crew and with it venture into exciting naval battles. These are not the focus of the game but they are a part of it, they are important to the players, as will the entire management of your boat.
Our crew must be paid daily, and must be kept alive daily. It will be our duty to buy food at every trip to keep morale high, if we do not want to risk some internal revolt (buy a cook who will enhance low-cost food). As if that were not enough, we can gradually improve the parameters of our boats by purchasing equipment and improvements along our raids. In short, it will be essential to be good captains.
Explore the length and breadth of the Deadfire Archipelago
Traveling by sea is always fascinating, but the Deadfire archipelago offers so much more. In this new title, players will be able to venture into great explorations between the colonizing powers and native peoples of this continent. The new part of the "world" is really huge, it is possible to start wandering even randomly between the coasts, finding islands with secondary quests and completely detached from the main one.
The ability to turn so much is a nod to the old-fashioned RPG, where we spent hours spinning and filming between side and main quests. In our raids, however, it will be essential to weave good relations with the local populations, whether they are invaders or natives. A good part of the story will be focused precisely on trying to bring together the different populations that have been fighting each other for years like those of Huana, Royal Deadfire e Vailian Trading Company.
The diplomatic part will play a fundamental role in the advancement of the adventure, there will be many dialogues to read and answers to be given that will influence the progress of the story. The dialogues are one of the most positive notes of the second chapter, since thanks to the conspicuous Kickstarter campaign we will be able to enjoy the adventure of Deadfire translated in a very scrupulous way.
The dialogues improve not only qualitatively but also quantitatively. A negative note of the first chapter was the length and quantity of the dialogues, which could be really boring. In this new chapter, the developers have tried to involve the player himself in the story, but without going too far with endless dialogues.
Like the old RPGs
Like any self-respecting traditional RPG, the character editor must be full of customizations, underlining that you will find so many archetypes on which you can indulge yourself, among countless skills, classes and many other options. As for the fighting system, however, we must officially realize that it hasn't changed much since its predecessor. As before, players will be able to pause their fights, so as to better analyze every moment of the fight, but also slow it down to intervene more quickly or even speed it up to quickly end less demanding fights.
The battles, however, have taken on a new flavor, thanks to themassive intervention done on AI general title which is also customizable by the user. Players will also be able to use automatisms (they are really similar to the FFXII Gambit), or rules that the characters will follow automatically, so as not to always have to correct the shot ... a system that could, however, flatten the fighting too much. Using these customizations to their fullest potential, or not making use of them at all, the game's playability is perfectly balanced. Unlike the predecessor, where at the beginning the barriers of difficulty were too high, in Deadfire each chapter is a crescendo of beauty and difficulty, creating a vortex from which fans of the genre will hardly be able to escape.
The good and the bad weather
Since the announcement of Obsidian Entertainment, in all the fans of the first title a doubt has arisen that weighs like a boulder: will the software house be able to do well as seen previously, or better? The answer is a sharp yes. A stark answer, to testify the excellent strategy of the software house to satisfy all, absolutely everyone, lovers of this genre. Obisidian has taken the first chapter and has improved it in all respects, adding with great wisdom a few little gems that are worth discovering in this great adventure: exactly what was expected. However, some negative notes are also present in this Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. One above all, the loading times are quite long: given the total size of the map - which between quests and sub quests quietly offers over 100 hours of gameplay - the title suffers from loading certain areas that are particularly demanding from a purely graphic point of view. Sometimes even the audio gets lost in small glitches during conversations that spoil their meaning. Fortunately, however, in addition to some small graphic lag scattered here and there, the title does not experience any failure throughout the hours of play. Do not be frightened by these small bugs, because the software house has already announced the arrival of new updates to heal all the imperfections.
