Without giving away too many plot points, there is a definite end to the story of Pillars of Eternity, but the exact details of the ending will vary based on the choices the player makes throughout the game. Mob mentality blames the scientists that toil in soul studies and manipulation known as animancers, but it’s up to the Watcher to ascertain what is really going on in this alleged literal case of science taking people’s souls away. This curse is causing the town’s children to be born without souls, leaving them generally not quite right. Malfeitor goes to the town of Dyrwood which is afflicted by something called the Hollowborn Curse. As cool as that sounds, side effects of being Awakened included waking visions and insomnia, which is enough to drive a person mad and could have a justifiable desire to seek out vengeance on these cultists. The exact science behind it is difficult to fully comprehend, but somehow he survived the ritual but the exposure to this energy has made him a Watcher and he can now read souls and access memories of their past lives. The end of this is where things get interesting, when Malfeitor stumbled onto some ritual where a cultist uses a machine to rip the souls out of the bodies of those with him. The caravan scenario and cave really just serve as a tutorial, teaching the player how to use the radial menu, develop some rudimentary combat strategy and get a feel for exploring a rather small cave with a set final destination but no clearly marked path to get there. Malfeitor began his journey as part of a caravan, which due to a series of unfortunate events ends up being wiped out forcing him and some survivors to take shelter inside a cave. For the review play through I went with a male death godlike druid which I name Malfeitor, and my rational for selecting godlike for a race was I thought their misshapen heads were cool looking. Needless to say, there is a huge amount of freedom players have in customizing their character. Culture sets a vague background for the character and may offer bonuses in certain areas that would make sense with their background. There are eleven selectable classes: barbarian, chanter, cipher, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, priest, ranger, rogue, wizard, each one of these classes has different skills and abilities and can be further customized to the player’s specific choices. The standard fantasy race choices of human, elf, and dwarf are present, mixed in with proprietary races orlan, aumaua, and godlike. To begin the game, the player must first create their own character, choosing a gender, race, subrace, class and culture. Aside from adaptations to making Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition console friendly, the game remains identical to the PC version after it received its most recent updates, including the expanded party AI levels, increased level cap, and new difficulty levels. Thankfully the UI was adjusted so players won’t have to strain their eyes reading the on screen text from across the room, except for extreme cases where the player may be ten feet away from a 13 inch screen. Most of us sit probably about two feet from our computer monitor, and any distance from two to twenty feet from our TV, which can result in significant readability differences. A less obvious tweak that needed to be addressed is the User Interface. Playing Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition with a controller may sound implausible to those who completed the PC version, but they did a fantastic job in making the game controller friendly. RPGs in this style are designed for mouse and keyboard input which isn’t a viable option for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, so the task at hand was to reconfigure the input to accommodate a controller without losing any of the complexity and convenience a keyboard provides. While trying to avoid sounding like a fanboy for either platform, PC and console gaming can be completely different animals so there are naturally some concerns that may arise when porting a PC exclusive to console and they are somewhat valid. The game was met with near universal critical praise, and after spawning the two part expansion pack The White March, the full Pillars of Eternity experience has been bundled together for console release appropriately titled Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition, giving console gamers the opportunity to enjoy the critically acclaimed title. Drawing inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons PC games such as Baldur’s Gate, Pillars of Eternity wore its influences on its sleeve while creating its own unique world in bringing a modern take on classic PC RPGs. Pillars of Eternity was released exclusively for PC roughly two and a half years ago in 2015.
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