Pillars of Eternity: Review Roundup

[The_Imp_ZA]

Escapist - 5/5:

Bottom Line: It's the best new, isometric RPG to come out in years.
Recommendation: While Pillars of Eternity is certainly banking on a nostalgic fan base, it's still an excellent RPG in its own right. It's a game rich with player agency, giving you tons of control to craft your story or explore different solutions to the presented problems. You know, actual roleplaying not simply a game with a leveling and stat system stapled on.

Eurogamer:

It's an RPG with design firmly rooted in nostalgia, but one that absolutely doesn't rely on it to be enjoyable today. Instead, it's both a great reminder of why those games worked so well, and a brand new adventure well worth the hours upon hours (upon hours upon hours) that it takes to pick away at its secrets and its world. Pillars of Eternity is the Baldur's Gate 3 we never got, returning to the Infinity Engine style of role-playing with flair.

Gamewatcher - 9.0/10.0:

All you really need to know though, is this; Pillars of Eternity is a triumph. If you’re a backer and a fan of those classic Infinity Engine games, you’re in for a real treat, a smart and complex adventure that will keep you entertained and absorbed for possibly the rest of your life, and certainly until the already announced expansion pack comes out. Even those who never got on with those classic games should give it a go, because there’s a tonne of smart design choices in here that smooth out the rough edges that might have kept you away before. A superb introduction to a fascinating new fantasy world. Can’t wait to see where in the world of Eora we get to go next.

PC Gamer- 92/100:

This is a big, fat, deep adventure that lets you carve your own unique path through a fantasy world that’s been brilliantly brought to life with rich, evocative writing. It’s a game steeped in a bygone era of computer RPG design, but somehow it doesn’t feel archaic. Obsidian have always been bound to other peoples’ worlds—Fallout, Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, South Park—but in creating their own from scratch, they’ve made not only their best game to date, but one of the best RPGs on PC. A deep, rich, and wonderfully written RPG that lives up to the towering legacy of the games that inspired it.

PCGamesN - 10/10

Obsidian had a daunting task before them: to make a spiritual successor to a series of games that are inextricably tangled up in nostalgia, over a decade after the height of those games’ popularity. This is not the Baldur’s Gate of 2015, it’s Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, the best parts of the lot of them wrapped up in something new and brilliant. And before you venture forth, don’t forget to gather your party.

RPS (Rock Paper Shotgun):

It’s a triumph. A wonderful, enormous and spellbinding RPG, gloriously created in the image of BioWare’s Infinity classics, but distinctly its own. A classic in every sense.

Super Bunnyhop:

It’s been almost two decades since a time when games encouraged players to read into context, to do the math behind the combat and to follow written directions rather than quest markers. And that’s why Pillars of Eternity feels like such a triumph for me. It somehow does all of that without the broken quests, the unfriendly interface or the shoddy designs that usually come with old-school ruggedness. I did encounter glitches, but only one that effected gameplay and it was easily worked around. By Obsidian standards, it’s quite a polished game.

It manages to be a smooth, slick ride through convoluted RPG re-activity and murky prose. It works, because it respects the players’ intelligence, it simulates their imagination and it asks them to put in, what it can give back. Games like that don’t come out often but when they do, they are usually cherished. The Pillars of Eternity stand as a stellar reminded of a forgotten genre and an inspiring beacon for what could come in the future.

Videogamer:

Pillars of Eternity is modern, while evoking the past. It’s accessible, but satisfyingly complex. Its quality is undeniable, and it’s particularly heartening to see Obsidian, the underdog RPG studio with a string of thrown-bones and rough diamonds behind it, pour its sweat and passion into something they obviously love – and utterly nail it. The game Obsidian always wanted to make, and the result is its finest work.

Editor's Note: Despite playing Pillars of Eternity for 26 hours, and despite loving it like his own, Jim's not ready to put a score on his review just yet, as he hasn't finished the game. When he finally does so, sometime in 2143, we will update accordingly.

Wired

Love it or leave it: That’s the disposition of this sort of fantasy world-building exercise. All I can tell you is that Pillars of Eternity is hitting all its marks with me so far—and as a guy who’s lost all interest in the entire D&D enterprise, that’s saying something.

 

[Hiro]

absolutely DELIGHTED to see a Kickstarter that has been such a resounding success and the fact that its the spiritual successor to one of my favourite games of all time, just makes it all the better

 

[The_Imp_ZA]

absolutely DELIGHTED to see a Kickstarter that has been such a resounding success and the fact that its the spiritual successor to one of my favorite games of all time, just makes it all the better

I'm not just happy because it's another kickstarter success, but that things went smoothly for Obsidian for once. They were so close to bankruptcy before they started PoE. They've really been screwed over in the past by publishers, either when they weren't allowed to completely finish their games (like with KOTOR 2 or Alpha Protocol) or missing out on bonuses because their metacritic aggregate was 1% less than what they needed, like with Fallout New Vegas.

I think you'll like this:

 

[Hiro]

I'm not just happy because it's another kickstarter success, but that things went smoothly for Obsidian for once. They were so close to bankruptcy before they started PoE. They've really been screwed over in the past by publishers, either when they weren't allowed to completely finish their games (like with KOTOR 2 or Alpha Protocol) or missing out on bonuses because their metacritic aggregate was 1% less than what they needed, like with Fallout New Vegas.

I think you'll like this:

Excellent points. Thanks for links. Will check it out on PC after load shedding lifts.

 

[mk786]

Wow really awesome and its a fan funded game!