izigame.me

I don't think that this game is all together better than its predecesor, but its not worse, either. It's a big, beautiful mess, one that is both smaller and larger in scale than the first. There was a lot of potential here, and most of it comes to fruition, but at the same time it's really frustrating in its failures.

The Improvements
I think most of Deadfire's failures come from what was not done with its new systems. What was done with its old systems, for the most part, are successes.

-Subclassing and Multiclassing: There's not much to say for these other than they're really good additions. Both add a staggering amount of build variety and options to the game, making Deadfire as a whole a lot more replayable. The subclasses themselves are really clever and well done despite not working in the usual dnd "unique abilities every few levels" way.

-Companion reactivity: This is a result of Pillars 2 being a much more polished, funded game. There's no more backer npcs taking up space, and now everyone is fully voiced and has their own little profile. With this funding comes better companion reactivity, I think. Companions seem to interject more into conversations, and what they say is actually acknowledged by the npc you're talking to. Companions also seem more aware of each other.

-Leveling and Stats/b]: The leveling system in Deadfire is the best improvement between the games, I say. The way "abilities" worked in the first game was weird and clunky. Some were tied to social interactions, like lore, some not, and the way they increased prices was janky. Deadfire's levelling interfacing is much better, you are guaranteed to increase a skill by 1 every time instead of the rising prices, and the social skills and practical skills are seperated into two categories, which is great. You no longer need to sacrafice dialogue interactions for combat practicality. The way the "skill tree" works is much better as well in the way that you can actually see what is coming up and what to invest in instead of it being blind and unforgiving. Weapon proficiencies are also a good addition, no notes on those.

The Complaints
-Disposition: The disposition system wasn't great in the first game, but it had its moments. It's a little worse in Deadfire. By the end of the game, I had maxed out every single disposition except for cruel and aggressive, which I found bizarre. I think disposition is handed out too liberally, and the fact that you can build up opposite dispositions is also bizarre. It was before I testified to the Vailian Trading Company that they knew I wasn't honest. I felt like that came out of nowhere, so I checked my dispositions, and I had built up 4 points in honest and 3 in shady. Were I to be Obsidian Entertainment, I would have the shady subtracted from the honest, the cruel subtracted from the benevolent, the passionate subtracted from the stoic, and so on.

-Exploration: I really loved the way that the map worked in Pillars 1, the way everything was bridged together by the wilderness areas. It's hard to explain now, I think, looking at what I've written so far. But the exploration in Deadfire gets rid of these nice strolls through the hand crafted wilderness of the Dyrwood and into a world map where you're a little circle. You walk up to a spot on the island and usually have a storybook encounter with it. The storybook encounters were charming in pillars 1, but they were super overused and got quite old in Deadfire. Occasionally these encounters would end with you in a generic patch of wilderness fighting a generic group of enemies, and once you were through with it, that spot on the map you interacted with no longer exists.

Everything Else
These are things that I don't think I can just compare to pillars 1, things that set Deadfire apart from its predecesor. I am not sure how positive or negative I'm going to be on them.
-Factions: I loved the four major factions. The factions in Defiance Bay were bland and flavorless in comparison. Each of the four were appealing not only because of their outward description (pirates, natives, imperialists, traders) but their aesthetics, their culture. Each has their own style of dress, architecture, their own verbal ticks from their language they throw in (Ekera, I say, ac, postenago, agracima, etc etc). None of the factions are particularly good, but they're complex, and I love that, it is refreshingly human. There is no faction of good and justice and faction of evil demons. They all have human goals and ambitions, for the future, for their people, for the way they think life should be lived. Their respective leaders are all great characters too, much better than the blank cardboard characters that led the defiance bay factions. The Huana are the natives, so I thought they were going to be the easiest, most moral and neutral faction to side with, but their flaws are laid out excessively (the prize share, the roparu, the watershaper's guild.) The Rautaians would be the best fate for the Roparu, they would bring more longevity to the Deadfire than the Vailians, but they are imperialists all the same, imperialists who send in snipers to kill local leadership and would eventually assimilate the Huana. The Vailians have lofty goals and aspirations relating to animancy, and it is hard to disagree with animancy given your position (and the ending), but they will eventually drain the deadfire of all of its resources, they cheat the Huana out of their land with contracts they can't read, and their whole operation revolves around destroying things the world needs to function. The principi (if Furrante and their slave trade is removed) have the fewest things to hide, but they are obviously pirates and thieves. The choice between the factions is genuinley well done, its full of questions on colonialism and class struggle and the use of the environment and it ends up being a great chance for roleplay, much more than the defiance bay factions ever could.

-Story: The story is a mess, but there was potential, and much of the potential came through yet most of it is still buried. The stakes were just too high. By the time I reached Ukaizo, I had spent an ingame year of time, and the problem should've probably been dealt with in a week. They wrote themselves into a hole by making Eothas the adra titan, even though its really, really cool. He probably should've just been one guy again, like Waidwen, so the story is smaller, more focused on an intimate conspiracy like the first game. Instead you go to an island, see that, yeah, it's been destroyed, go to the next one, also destroyed, third one, thrice destroyed, and then you go have a very underwhelming talk with Eothas. Had the watcher not gotten involved, the outcome would be exactly the same, although the burned book of law and Woedica plotline they added post launch made succesfuly made it seem like you accomplished something. The talks with the pantheon were great, as they were in Pillars 1, I loved seeing how freakish and grotesque they all were. Their bickerings over the fate of kith and the wheel and their own personal clashes of philosiphies with themselves and the watcher, all great. I wish they had built more into that, let it grow a bit more. But at the same time, there's all of the factions. They're kind of awkwardly melded into the story with the gods, the burned book of law could not fix that, unfortunatley. The scene in ashen maw was great, it really sold the scale of its setting, it felt emotional and powerful, the Ukaizo finale felt embarrasing by comparison. I like a lot of the story, I like the gods, I like the dillema, I like the moral quandries it brings up. But its all brought down by Eothas being a big green guy, and that's a shame.

Final Score: 8/10, but a passionate 8/10