In Pillars of Eternity, characters speak not like people speak, but how writers write: in lengthy sentences that require the merely adequate voice cast to pause for breath multiple times.
But it's easy to lose focus when you're drowning in embellishment, particularly when the occasional voiceover highlights the script's need for editing. The games that spawned Pillars of Eternity were wordy, but Obsidian takes narrative density to new heights, dumping heaps of lore onto the table and overwhelming its personal stories with long histories of war replete with fictional words like "Fonestu" and "ferconyg." The writing is lovely: "How canst I, so lowly and worn, speak words of proper adulation?" cries the author of a prayer so aching in its beauty that you might be convinced it is a Biblical psalm. Recruiting adventurers from a tavern lets you re-experience the fun of character creation. There is the tale of the berry-picker who foils a would-be assassin, who "grabs the figure's wrist and falls onto his back, planting a leg in the center of the figure's chest." A story of a small boy hoping to be a wizard's apprentice describes the wizards pyrotechnics thusly: "The mage finishes his show soon after, a giant silver dragon descending through the crowd and a thousand stars exploding into nothingness." Short, vibrant stories like these paint color into the basic shapes the main plot draws. These tales are optional and self-contained, gleaned by reaching into bystanders' souls and reliving their memories, but they greatly benefit from developer Obsidian's flowery language. Watchers may also peer into others' pasts, a skill that reveals some of the game's finest tales, which are trapped within specially marked citizens on your map. Pillars of Eternity tells a cautionary tale of the gods' influence over their worshipers, planting its thematic seeds when your own character becomes a watcher-that is, an individual who can see and interact with disembodied souls. The gods, too, are different in this universe, taking such names as Woedica, Berath, and Magran, and they hold great sway over their followers, who live and die by faith. You lead your party from an isometric view, navigating forests and meadows populated by wolves, ogres, and bandits, but you also contend with dark spirits and eerie ancient machines that belong only to Pillars. The soundtrack reliably recalls composer Michael Hoenig's Baldur's Gate music, but the uberdramatic Carmina Burana-esque chants, and the wild woodwind arpeggios you hear during battle, help to differentiate it. You and your fellow party members-up to six of you journeying at any given time-may equip pistols or arequebuses in addition to swords, rapiers, crossbows, and the like. The world you step into is equally comfortable, using narrative and artistic variations to remind you that this is not, in fact, a place you have visited before. Old favorites like Elves and Dwarfs are joined by original races like the Godlike, whose elemental head adornments preclude the wearing of hats and helmets Familiar professions like barbarian and wizard are supported by the cipher, who builds up magical focus by landing attacks with a standard weapon. This isn't a Dungeons & Dragons game, but the influence is clear from the moment of character creation, during which you choose a race, a class, and a backstory for your leading man or lady.
In those first few hours, however, it relies on nostalgia and familiarity to gain your interest. It claws at Planescape and Baldur's Gate from beneath their perches, and while it never threatens to replace them, Pillars rises to greatness of its own accord. For all its complexities, Pillars of Eternity walks a narrow path already trod by the genre's greats, including the insurmountable Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate II, which rightfully remain atop the computer RPG hierarchy.Īs much as I can see how blatantly it pokes my nostalgia buttons, I still lost myself in Pillars, which sets itself apart-just enough to tip itself into the "homage" bucket rather than the "clone" one-with its original fantasy universe, as well as with combat details that reduce frustration and keep the tempo moving.
Its status within the ranks of its predecessors, however, is less obvious, given how slavishly devoted it is to a time when isometric role-playing games dominated players' imaginations. Clone or homage? That Pillars of Eternity hews close to the Baldur's Gate/ Icewind Dale formula can't be disputed.
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