Pillars of Eternity

I've been playing this for the last few days. I quite like it. The worldbuilding is extremely solid. The MC's storyline is good as are the stories of the companions. I'm playing a Paladin which involves interesting aspects of the reputation system.

My only annoyance is with the huge dungeon in the citadel. Basically, you need to do a few levels then go off and do other stuff before you're powerful enough to do a few more levels etc.

There's also an interesting and fun quirk based on your character's ability to read the souls of some NPCs. All through the gameworld are NPCs who have no game effects, but who have about a page of backstory each. If you want to, you can look into their souls and read these. These characters and their stories were provided by some of the kickstarter supporters who funded the game. I think that's a great incentive for the kind of people who would crowd-fund an RPG. And it works brilliantly to highlight the MC's abilities.

I just finished playing this. I think it's an excellent game for a number of reasons. I'll try to keep this post low on spoilers, but some will seep through.

The best part of this game is the integration of good writing with player and character decisions. Each choice you make influences some of what is going to happen, and all of them influence your reputation and the summary of future events that shows up after you've finished.

The world is well thought out and the world building is strongly tied into the adventure itself. Magic, gods, and history provide motivations for NPCs, and the more you understand the world the more you understand people's actions.

Spoiler: Some of the choices you end up making concern your relationships with a couple of characters in one of your past lives. These choices allow you to decide why certain things are happening to you and what path your character is on. However, elements of this main plot are linear. Certain things will happen no matter what you do, but how you approach them will affect how the game feels and plays to you.

Your companions all have interesting lives and attitudes which you get to influence by your choices and your suggestions to them for the choices they make. Some of them are more combat useful than others and some of them (Durance and The Weeping Mother for example) have very deep histories.

On to game play.
First the munchkin factor: Maximum character level is 12, but gameplay takes a long time, so do not expect to go up levels fast.
Most experience comes from quests. Each quest has stages and you get some XP for completing a stage and more for finishing the quest overall. Monster killing yields comparatively little experience.

Some classes are bloody useless: Paladins are not terribly helpful. Rangers (a class I usually like) are not much good here. Archery is no good at all. If you use missile weapons guns are the way to go. Wizards are limited by the grimoire rules and having to learn their spells. Priests and Ciphers are useful. Chanters are okay. I played this game through with a Druid and I have to say, they are excellent. They have long term damaging spells and the spiritshift power is quite effective.

I'm going to play it through again seeing if I can find a melee character class worth playing. I'll look at Barbarian, Monk, and Rogue, and pick between them.

Opportunitues to talk to the NPCs about their personal quests pop up as you go along. Usually they initiate them. Also sometimes a word balloon icon will appear on their picture in the roster indicating that they have something to say.

I wish Sagani weren't useless since she's an interesting and likable character.

Durance is annoying, but his story is deep and he's useful in combat especially at high levels.

The Wizards in this game are pretty poor.