Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire

This game, dare I say it, has some of that old Fallout New Vegas magic with its huge traversible map full of stories, mysteries, adventure, books, monsters, cultures, nations, gods and above all characters, voiced, funny, sad, scary and all too human characters. Not that it's flawless; the ship2ship combat is a bore, the load screens are brutal, and the game crashes every hour or so (some kind of memory leak issue).

Another enjoyable entry in the series. Yes, it's hot ass at times to try and figure out the difficulty issues and some of the naval bits are monotonous but its still so much fun with a compelling world and story.

Probably a mistake I played this before the first game, but man, this title is really boring. On one end I want to like it because the premise is intriguing and I dig its aesthetic, but in between all of that is a lot of boring sidequests that generally feel pointless. I also hate how restrictive the combat is in how it limits your abilities and the sailing simulation is mindlessly simple. It amazes me that this game can boast so much that's interesting yet end up being incredibly boring.

I made the mistake of playing it in turn-based mode first, which made a big chunk of character abilities useless. Whoops. It's just a fun gimmick; the game really is not meant for that. When playing the game how it's meant to be played, it's fine. There's a lot of bloat here, but it's ok if you play this game in short bursts rather than long binges. The multiclassing and character themes are also a great addition.

There are many valid excuses why Deadfire is supposed to be a flop. The setting is tropey, naval combat and some encounters are sketchy, the barbarian's subclasses are all useless to name one balance issue, combat can get very messy, difficulty goes from punishing to easy as you go, etc. But for all its flaws, it may be the most underrated hardcore RPG out there, with mechanics that are a labour of love. Mechanically, character development offers enough options to invite many, many replays.

Bloated in every respect - too many pointless battles, too much meaningless dialogue, too many forgettable quests, too much time spent on interminable loading screens. Some of the turn based battles are really fun though, especially in the Seeker, Slayer, Survivor expansion.