If Obsidian Entertainment is featured on something, it's about making RPGs leave their mark on most people who love the genre. Recently we have an example of The Outer Worlds, undoubtedly one of the best titles released last year as well as the ones from Xbox Generation that we think are GOTY.
As such, Obsidian always plays games that, although true, are all around the genre, each of which has its own unique characteristics. At this time enter Pillars of Eternity 2: Dead Fire, the fast-paced RPG is based on the basic western role-playing games, but adds a lot of unique (MadeinObsidian ») stories
The kind we will find on our Xbox One is the Ultimate Edition, which in addition to base game brings three expansions Who found the game on PC: Winter Beast, Forgotten Sanctum and Sewer, Slayer, Survivor. If you want to know if these pillars of Eternal II: Dead Fire are a worthy RPG, keep reading.
Technical section
Like its predecessor, Pillars of Eternity II is a classic RPG flying in a zenith plane that we can zoom in and out as we wish. This can be misleading because the fact is that we are facing one game more beautiful and full of detail has never been made by Obsidian. We can see images and more effective effects such as green that truly respond to changes over time.
The light in this feature should be exposed differently because it has been reproduced in a spectacular way, and we will see it affect according to the time of day. The various cities and settlements we will visit during the course of our adventure feel very alive, and we will see its inhabitants walking around and doing different activities, even though at night they will be in their houses or restaurants. The style of combining 2D shapes and 3D characters is surprisingly good for you.
During our travels we couldn't enjoy any slowdowns or failures, and that's because the Console version of Wheels of Eternity II comes with all the features introduced by the PC version, so it's very slow. As a bad point, we should talk about it load times, and here they are they are numerous and wide, and even though after a few hours of playing you get used to it, the fact is that they can prevent the player from completely submerging him.
The soundtrack is wonderfully made, with a selection of dic epic themes, and adaptable to each scene. The game comes with words in English though It is completely translated into Spanish. This is much appreciated because Pillar of Eternity II is a game to enjoy a bit because we have to learn many lines of speech.
Playing
For all those people who haven't played the original Pillars of Eternity and don't know exactly what kind of RPG meets these titles, the best way to describe it would be as close as a board game with dice, paper and pencil Obsidian did a good job adapting this concept RPG and use narrative as another aspect of the game, perhaps the most important.
The history of these Eternal II pillars took place 5 years after the previous installations, so it is highly recommended to play the original Pillars. As the adventure begins and a series of events we will never see happen, we will be given the opportunity to bring our character and the choices we make with him, continue with the story and look at how those actions affected the world around us.
Fortunately that will not be compulsory and we can rebuild our character from scratch, until we make any decisions that we will have taken at some critical moments of the previous installment that we will know in a brief summary that will put us in position. The game also gives us a series of options to organize our experience, as well as various levels of difficulty to make sure our experience is not hell. Because we appreciate it, The pillars of Eternal II are not easy.
History, exploration and narrative
As for the story, the reality is we don't like to take it too seriously. As we've previously noted Pillars of Eternity II takes place 5 years after everything that happened in the first game, and puts us in the shoes of the same Observer. Our task will be to pursue the resurrected God Eothas with the Deadfire Archipelago (The Flameised Flame in Spanish), and for this we will use one of the highlights of this game: our ship.
This ship, called Defiant, will play the role of the Caed Nua stronghold in the first pier, and we will have many ways to manage it. We have to spend time developing, expanding our squad and finding supplies to keep the military high and that there are no problems. Just as it will happen when we explore the world we will have to deal with certain events that will force us to take specific actions that will directly impact our employees. At this point we have to say that testing is a good thing, and that's because the islanders who don't know how to visit and explore can be huge.
Of course we could play sea battles, whether started by ourselves or by other ships for evil purposes. These battles will develop as a turn based adventure where we will have many options and a complete display. We can choose to go to another ship and the dispute is resolved as if there were a normal fight. While it is certainly a fun part of the game, a certain point of the adventure can be repeated, and we will try to play as little as possible.
We cannot continue talking about the pillars of Eternity II without stopping to talk about expansion. The atmosphere created by Obsidian that wraps both subjects is simply amazing, and alive with beautiful novels. The way the game slowly begins history does little to make you want to continue exploring and discovering more stories on the big island. Of course all of this means we'll have to read more lines of conversation So if you want to enjoy the game you have to take it for granted.
We will have a very important part of the topic in a series of events where a small story will take place before our eyes a beautifully illustrated book. For these things we have to make a series of decisions and depending on what we do the event will have one result or another. This point is very interesting as the specific qualities of our characters will affect certain options and the higher the potential opportunities we will have to succeed.
Combat customization
When we started our adventure we were allowed to choose between two different combat systems: a traditional one where we can stop an action where we want to make strategic decisions; and one that is very different in that it will be a turn-based fight, with ease and not being specific. After trying both of them we recommend using a traditional one because we believe that it suits the game better.
The fight itself maintains the same context for the first installment, which is excellent news without a doubt. Playing at a "normal" level of difficulty will not be enough to pick a target and allow the AI to do it all for us, as this will make most of the dead time and enemies unpredictable. The controller is in good agreement with the command and though the early hours we will struggle hard given the complexity of the fact that once we become accustomed to it we are happy.
In this wonderful system a few new features have been introduced that will add opportunities and depth to the theme. The most impressive of the battle is undoubtedly multiclass installation. Each character of our team, whether it be the Observer himself or the rest of us, can have two distinct stages. This will result in the fact that characters with multiclass can access the most powerful abilities of each category, but when they return, they will have two very broad branches to prepare them as we wish.
If this is not enough, the level we can reach has risen to level 20, so we can gain a greater number of abilities and have more opportunities to deal with each fight differently. Unlike what happened in the earliest pillars of Eternity our team will be 5 characters and not 6, welcome as we believe it will be more chaotic.
Finally we have to say AI, was much improved in this delivery. Although we sometimes see some unethical behavior by our partners, the reality is that it works in a very cohesive way. Of course the enemy AI has also been greatly improved, and if we are not careful before tackling each battle we may die sooner rather than later.
Time
Talking about the length of this Eternal Pillar II is not easy, and it is not it is difficult to find the title we have given hours of play time. Even if we decided to play our adventure with a limited degree of difficulty, focusing only on the main story and thus losing all sorts of essays and arguments easily, we would be talking about the game for about 40 hours. Almost nothing.
As we mentioned before the game to check it out with urgency, and we enjoy every line of speech sent to us. Although we left it to finish and explore the other half of everything the game offers, our adventure took about 90 hours. If we add to the contents of the three additions included in this Final Edition, we can assure you that Eternal Pillar II can keep us at ease 120 hours.
Conclusion
Pillars of Eternity II is an example for all developers running in the order of their titles. Take all the best of Eternal Original Stakes and reprint them with the development and new mechanics that undoubtedly make it one of the most cutting-edge RPGs made in recent years.
While it is true that the game is not perfect and may not be for all players, Pillars of Eternity II offers a great adventure, and that it offers such depth and opportunities that each player can fully enjoy in their own way. We can't say unless we are facing the game that it should be A compulsory purchase for all those type lovers or for those who enjoyed the first delivery, available on the Xbox Game Pass.
* Thanks to Obsidian Entertainment for providing us with the review.
