Every time I wanted to keep playing I felt the need to runback to a save, since theres no boss or enemy retry in the year of our lord 2021

basically a dressed up SNES game, doesn't offer much.

Does a few things better than the sequel still, especially combat freedom, and has a charming, oldschool storybook feel to its atmosphere. Great game with a friend.

It's hard to rate this, since I've never played this game alone and will never, but from the experience I have to go off of, it's stellar. I don't think it super sticks the landing, the ending cutscenes felt a bit phoned in, but the journey getting there is fantastic.

This review contains spoilers

"We refuse."

The deadfire archipelago is an incredible setting that bleeds personality through every conversation you have and every pirate you face. The main story doesn't feel quite as ambitious as the original PoE1, but the increased focus on some of the most interesting characters in the setting (the pantheon) and a great 'overall' scenario in the various factions, PoE2 is a worthy play for most crpg fans.

Though, I will say, I think the companions romance in particular is... quite bad, there's no real way to get around it.

Good aesthetic and sound design but gameplay is pretty mechanically barren, dungeon design feels like it was always on the cusp of doing something interesting but never moved behind 'light every torch in the room' type of puzzles. Not bad, but not memorable.

It's fun, short and sweet. I feel like one of the talent trees is a bit too overtuned compared to the others (blue) and I think the later half of the bosses are disappointingly easy, but still. Fun enough.

Great aesthetic and world-sense with some fun narration, but largely a boring slog through repetitive enemies and caves doing fetch quests for currency that barely matters.

Fantastic stuff.

The game is definitely getting better with every patch, and is already much better than kingmaker was initially. There are still some rough patches, though, and I don't think anything can fix the crusade mode, which is a good idea that lacks both consequence to the story and interesting gameplay outside of being a money dump.

The plot seems like your typical fantasy affair, and it is at it's core, but Mid Act 3 and on the game starts to bare its true scale, and it becomes engrossing to follow. The setting is a little overwritten still considering it's tabletop parentage, but mostly all what you need to know is kept within the confines of the worldwound and you, so it doesn't feel overindulgent.

The gameplay, if you're a fan of slower paced stuff, is rewarding to get the hang of, especially if you're someone who loves to pour over rpg mechanics and make builds for something. There is a rather large problem in that it can take a ton of time, every single encounter, to prepare every single buff you're going to want to do. It's a sad bit of busywork that plagues the game, again, because of its tabletop origins. I hope theres a solution to it, maybe in a patch in the future or (if there is going to be one) their next installment.

Either way, good stuff, one of my favorite CRPG's as of now.

A huge improvement from the original, but still lacking in a lot of areas like weapon variety. The bosses are fun, but the refights are... not great. The combat isn't super responsive and theres not a lot of options you have, and the refights are just insanely ramped in every direction. It felt more like I was expected to exploit the rpg mechanics as opposed to treating it like an action game.

The story is better than I expected, but it also feels super top heavy; basically everything after you unlock the gate is what you'll remember, and everything before that feels like empty wandering plot-wise.

Anyways, it's decent. Worth checking out, at least.

A great case if not doing a ton original, but doing everything well. Superb atmosphere, fun combat that never gets too hard but has some bite to it, satisfying progression. Maybe my only complaint is a couple of the late game bleed into eachother a little too hard in aesthetics, and I would have liked the final boss to be harder.

Fun game with a bit of an uneven balance spread and some rooms of... nothing, but the last stage in particular was very good. Last save goes on for a little too long.

Truly unfortunate. The game has the makings of being one of the best SRPG's of all time, until about when you unlock assassin for multiple characters, and the entire balance goes completely out the door. Every skill, all class identity, it all goes out the window in favor of equipping 2 weapons and left clicking something into ashes. It's a shame, because the first 60% of the game is incredible, but it doesn't last.

It has tears, it has laughs, and a little of everything more. I think the middle of the game is kind of weak and tries to establish a complicated conspiracy plot that the game didn't really need, and too many characters get shoved onto the sidelines (and yet still show up to remind us they've been shoved off) but the story has a lot of heart, with some great sidequests and a ridiculously strong climax.

The gameplay is pretty... boring, once you get past the ludicrous presentation of it all, which didn't happen for me until the end, so I was amused just seeing the different enemy types that show up. Didn't play the postgame tower because it is grriiiiindy. Can be played without playing the other games, but theres one part of the game that might be a bit confusing.

Very fun, better than 7 in my opinion. Has one of the most terrifying set pieces in recent videogame memory. The last area feels a little dragged on, and not every boss is a winner, but it's a shockingly well put together chimera of lot's of past resident evil ideas that, while not exactly breaking new ground, come together to make a satisfying game.