I've been grappling with this game for a little over two years now, and I feel like throwing in the towel. The same thing would always happen: I'd open it every couple of months, play it from a day to a week, then I'd quit out of disinterest or pure repulsion. There is nothing here that I like. Lore is dumped in ungodly amounts, the prose is purple, the music sucks, the combat is micromanagement hell, companions are too flat, it looks ugly, backer NPCs are fucking EVERYWHERE and deliver nothing of value, and the story is boring.

Of course, you could pick any of the aforementioned elements and go "nuh uh, that was actually good!" and sure, you could do that. I think combat is the most easily defensible of my complaints: it's reactive, requires no pre-buffing, and forces you to use everybody and their abilities to best your foes. In-practice however, it felt like driving during rush hour - watching companions slap around enemies in place while stopping very frequently to cast new spells and abilities in the hopes of ending the encounter quicker - it's a dire equivalent to slowly inching your car up in traffic while you sit there, bored with nothing to do. What's most annoying is how by default companions stand slack-jawed after killing an enemy: there's a whole battlefield out there dickhead, go get some action! What the hell happened to auto-attack!

I don't like this game very much.

In the world of CRPGs, Pillars of Eternity has it all. Satisfying and thoughtful combat, a ludicrously detailed world rich with history and layered characters, and a somber, heady narrative where the very foundations of the fantasy genre are turned on their heads. There is a sickness eating at the world of Eora, and the secrets you dig up on the path to cure it are devastating.

This game is wordy, complicated, difficult to get into, and overflowing with disparate mechanics holding together its convoluted combat system. But once you're stuck in, there's so much to explore with this game. It's a marvel.