I purchased Pillars of Eternity ages ago from Kickstarter and started the game over three times before giving it a fair go recently.
Pillars of Eternity is a game based on Balder's Gate and Icewind Dale series. Old school RPG entertainment.
I haven't had a lot of time for gaming outside of the time I spend with my son, so I kind of shelved the game for another time. As I said before, I played a couple of hours into it multiple times, and I really love adventure RPG games like this, but they take a lot of time and if you like me I tend to min/max.
Pillars of Eternity is an isometric RPG where you look from above and collect lots of loot and go on a lot of quests. The story is fantastic, the main character is a watcher. Watchers are able to see in the past lives of souls and have a bond with the previous lives lived by their own soul. The lore images a world where every person has had a past life, most don't remember these past lives.
The game is around 36 hours for most people to beat the main story and over 100 hours if you are a completionist. There are two DLCs that many say one of them is better than the main story of the game. The DLC adds another 14-30 hours to the main game.
I am around 90% done in the main game, I don't own the DLC add-ons but I will probably grab them as I have been enjoying the main game a lot.
While there are many difficulties to the game, I highly recommend playing the game on Hard. It makes combat extremely difficult at times and requires you to actually use strategy and your skills. Although there is an even more difficult mode that is brutal and unforgiving and really requires you to min/max your characters called Path of the Damned. While I typically choose the hardest level in games, I am not a fan of so difficult it completely takes away from the game. Many who play PotD mode have beaten the game many times and I only plan on playing through once.
One of my favorite things about the game is the interaction between characters. You can have up to six party members (and I recommend you do), and if you chose the story characters they will have their own side quests you can complete to learn more about them. They all have their own personalities and the interaction between the characters is fantastic. They will react to each other in a manner directly relatable to their storyline and mannerisms. Many of the interactions are fantastic and timely and some are downright hysterical.
I would prefer if it had a system closer to Dragon Age where the story characters have a varies levels of fondness and hate to your character, in Pillars of Eternity they mostly just like you and like you more as you go through their storyline. The depth of development was infinitely better in Dragon Age that created a fun and rewarding mini-game. Story character development is good in Pillars of Eternity though, it just isn't dynamic. If you do play the game, I highly recommend stick with story characters rather than building generic characters to min/max their development.
All the quests are good, they mostly involve fighting but are not the kill x beetles type of quests and many allow you to make choices in how you want to handle the situation. Many quests require you to decide who you want to trust, the quest giver or the target of the quest. Ultimately though the side quests have no real impact on how the story plays out, which is unfortunate. Still, they are fun and some are very challenging.
I highly recommend this game if you were a fan of Balder's Gate and Icewind Dale type of games. It is really true to the original style of the game but with much more modern interface and graphics.
All images are screenshots from the Steam product page for the game Pillars of Eternity