Pillars of Eternity
Yes, it took me about a year and some change to finish this game. Game saves say that I have played 60 hours, so if you include the restarts and other losses, it was probably around 80. That is a massive investment, on the other hand, it is spent among 500+ days.
Put simply, it is a great game. Because of the massive amount of time between different plays, I sometimes was a bit sketchy on exactly what was going on. The story is fairly open ended, but is streamlined enough that it gets you back on track fairly often.
tldr; you should play it
EVERYTHING BELOW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS, LOOK AWAY MORTAL!
I played as a chanter, pretty enjoyable class but really not too useful until later in the combat rounds. I imagine the most powerful team would be made up entirely of fighters. Chanters become good as soon as they are able to summon additional monsters, but this can take a while. I played with all the companions but I imagine the best grouping would be something like 4 fighters and 2 chanters. The fighters are there just to soak and deal damage, the chanters are there to summon ogres and fire everyone up. Anywho, it isn't too important, on the difficulty I played upon (normal), none of the fights are so bad that you need to do too much. Adra Dragon is only real challenge.
After finishing the game (and then reading the wiki stuff) I was surprised to discover I had completely missed the Pallegina Companion. I remember the interaction, I wonder how I was supposed to get her.
As per usual, I attempted to complete everything. I mean every quest. I believe I was almost completely successful except for Durance, who I could not couple therapy talk into sanity. I just couldn't find the dialog options to get him to open up, although evidently they were there. Because of this, he burned himself on a pire made of his own staff. I'll miss him, but by the gods (Magran in his case) he was an annoying ass.
Because I received every god's boon I also unleashed terrible suffering on the world when I failed to live up to my agreements with most of them. I did the hunters god's ending, returning the souls to make future generations stronger. I didn't feel bad about breaking my word to the Gods. Gods are the equivalent of large corporations in my mind, you just don't extend the same courtesy to them that you would to a human being. I feel as bad about defrauding or abusing a corporation/god as it would feel about doing the same to me. Not much.
I won't say that I was entertained at every moment in the game, but I can say that as a whole I enjoyed every larger segment of it. This was a masterly done game by very skilled and passionate people. Kudos.
To be more enjoyed, you really should play the game at a stronger (like an hour a night at least) pace. I think the most ideal way to play this game would be on the trans-siberian rail line. It would be awesome, look out the window and imagine your adventure when you need a break. See the local sites during the day. Evenings and nights progress 2-4 hours in game. Man that would be neat.
Finally, I will talk about the ending. I thought the pacing and plot changes at the end were the best part of this game. All through the story, you were seeing this Thaos guy and thinking him some fundamentalist worshiper of an out of favor goddess. At the end, it is revealed that he isn't fundamentalist, in fact, he is one of the few people who actually knows that the gods are a fabrication of man. He isn't empowering his god for her glory, he is doing so for the future of mankind. It was an interesting argument. Would humanity be better served believing in gods? Gods that give their life meaning and purpose? Or is it better to face the simple (though barren) dust to dust truth of existence? I have to say I was somewhat sympathetic to Thaos' cause. That is good writing. I wouldn't myself want to worship any god (real or false), but I feel that many peoples lives might be enriched if they had something more to believe in. Put in sci-fi terms, what if we could program AI's that could act as Gods to humanity, and then told humanity that they were real gods? Would the happiness and fulfillment that a great deal of humanity experiences from this be worth the lie? It is a good question. Ha, wouldn't that be a awesome sequel to PoE? turns out all "souls" are really just computational resources in some simulation. Gods are just assembled by putting together enough computation. I don't think it is going to happen, that would piss of so many fans.
Great Game.
