Recent reviews by Rhiyo

First played the original game on Xbox 360 when it first came out. In the early 2010s I replayed it on PC I remember really enjoying it but found it lacking compared to morrowind and a bit goofy.

Coming back to it years late with a modern view I find it very charming. The quests and factions are really fun and well written, the main story isn't short, the world is high fantasy which got a bit stale but now I find refreshing again. I suppose it lacks a bit of depth with no branching story telling and being able to do almost everything but Skyrim was much worse.

Now, as a remaster, this is amazing. It's probably the most beautiful open world game I've seen as of yet. It was such a brilliant move to just replace the rendering with UE5 and keep the core of the game. All the charming jank is still there. I honestly love the character redesigns, they actually look real and grounded but still keep the goofy touches of the original. Some people don't like the goofyness I actually enjoy it in Oblivion. The silly elf hair is just elven fashion of the time, who am I to judge their culture's fashion?
They improved the levelling system but I find it still to be not great. I just don't like scaling enemies. I ended up being a high level at the end and it got really annoying fighting hordes of daedra health sponges.

Really hoping to see more remasters like this.

Played PoE1 and PoE2 once more in preparation for this.

The best way I can describe it is it being a first person CRPG similar to the POE but in first person and parkour mechanics with areas being less more open and less granular.

Yes - the areas are semi open world but there is no life to them. There are no systems. To reiterate, this is a first person CRPG, not a game like Skyrim. NPCs all stand still, the world doesn't really react to your or change.

The things I would say it did well in:
- Making the world look interesting and beautiful
- a decent story hook - an unknown god is a cool thing to have in this universe
- Extra lore and references which were awesome to see after playing PoE
- Combat
- Vertical parkour exploration that feels really good

Things I found to be lacking:
- Very little depth in character builds, you can basically build a character by class crossing between a limited version or ranger fighter and wizard.
- Boring characters and limited companions. I only really liked one or two characters in the entire game and non really felt interesting. I did like the arch mage and Yatzli, kai was okay
- Uninteresting encounters. There was a lot of the world to play around with but I found most of the encounters ended up fighting similar enemies with nothing interesting about them, especially the bosses
- Uninteresting story. Wasn't boring per se but I felt (probably due to the open world) it lacked some good beats. It started out interested and I did like how it wrapped up in the end however.

I actually enjoyed the game. It's not perfect but I feel like if they use this as a basis and improve on the above cons they could have a really great game on their hands.

Huge improvement over the first. I'm a bit bias because I love pirate settings.

Came off this right after finishing the 1st again, getting ready for Avowed and this is my second time playing it.

It's really cool that you can multi class in this - I didn't do it for my main character, but did it for some companions. It's cool that it works quite differently to D&D - one aspects being that you can only choice a dual multiclass and you are stuck with that choice for the whole game.

I went a gun monk (a meta build-ish) using AoE blunderbusses. It's been nerfed I believe but is still crazy overpowered. Seeing all the different combos working in combat felt so satisfying, almost like cheesing. I've never really cared about cheesing though, I don't find it to be cheating unless you use an external tool, console, or defined cheat codes in a game.

You get a ship in this game, it's really cool that you can build a motley crew (not companions) that you find in the game, and it's also cool that you buy and find parts to upgrade your ship. However - it feels kinda useless. The ship combat is pretty lame (just text based but that's not the only problem) and you can basically skip every fight and go directly into normal combat with any other ship.

Exploration changes in this to move your character around on an over world map, either on your ship in the sea or yourself on land. You walk towards point of interest which will either bring you into the main game world of that POI or start a event conversation that you settle with text. There is also POIs that just give items and resources required to upkeep your crew and ship. Honestly I liked the change and if they ever make a new pillars I'd love to see them do it on a land only game still.

The game feels a lot more polished to play in general, the feel of combat is much better, there is a turn based mode now but I actually think RTWP feels great in this. Turn based would take way too long with all the junk mobs. The leveling is slightly changed but pretty similar.

When you recruit a companion it allows you to choose one of three classes for them to fit into your party better. One or two of the classes usually being a multiclass option. As far the companions themselves, they now divide into main companions and side companions, the latter not really having much story story importance. The only standout for me really being Serafen, Eder was annoying as an evil character and I never really switched to the other new companions.

While an interesting start, I found the main story of this game to be not that great. It has a good premise, but it suffers from being really short and padded with side content again. It's especially annoying considering the main quest seems extremely urgent - yet your character is off pirating around. You spend a lot of time trying to please some of the factions and you may have to side with one to help progress to the end of the game. I chose the Principi as I was playing an evil-ish character and wanted the most pirate like factions. All the other factions are quite cool though, they are varied and have interesting motivations. Not are directly evil or good but I do find it easier to decide which factions are more on the evil side and which are more on the good side.

I found the end to be quite lacking as well, it's kind of cool from a story perspective but it's almost like it builds up to nothing, It feel unsatisfying to not have a big fight with any character relevant to the rest of the story.

The game has several DLCs which are all pretty good, however The Forgotten Sanctum really stood out for me. Really interesting setting, with really cool characters and lots of different directions the story can go and end. As far as I'm aware it doesn't affect the main story though - would be cool if it somehow could.

Again, gun monk is awesome.

Played this for a second time to get ready for Avowed - the first time I played it was when it first released and then the DLC as it released. I had basically completely forgotten everything. I'm writing this post playing Pillars 2 as well.

Playing it a second time around I actually really enjoyed it - although it's a bit rough around the edges.

First time I played I didn't pay attention to leveling or gear too much - this made some of the fights really challenging and really annoying, I was too lazy to learn a new system and was coming off D&D games. This time, I thought I want to use guns, came across that guns on monks in pillars 2 is very powerful, so decided to go monk in this to get ready for that. Monk was very fun, I loved stunning and pushing enemies around. I really enjoy how every stat does something interesting (no useless attributes like D&D) so you can get some really cool and unexpected combos. Actually focusing on my build and trying to find gear that aids it - then seeing it work in combat - felt really good. I still had trouble leveling all my companions properly - but leveling the wizard class for Aloth was really fun, I especially love the grimoire sytem of having an item that contains your spells.

Speaking of companions, I found Aloth and Eder to be quite annoying, I was playing an evil character and they just seemed to get in the way. The stand outs for me with interesting stories were Durance, grieving mother and Devil of Caroc.

I remember the game being a bit too wordy, and while it is, I do find it pretty interesting (Screw the backer NPCs though). The mythic lore is really cool and makes for great world building. The world story is really good but I find it just feels too rushed after the city, and if you don't pad it with side quests actually feels pretty short. Thaos is a cool villain (good voice actor too!).

You get your own keep but I didn't find it very interesting to be honest. The dungeon in it is kind of cool though. I'd rather just focus on whats at hand though, and I've never been a fan of systems like this that don't integrate well with the main game and just seem like a side task.

I'm glad this game got a DLC that was basically like an expansion pack with a full other story, I'm not really a fan of bite size story DLCs in some games. It was pretty interested, added a cool crafting system to the game, had cool companions and a cool boss. Didn't overstay it's welcome but not too short.

If you liked F.E.A.R and that era of shooters, you'll enjoy this.

Set in a near future, bullet time, low-horror. It definitely has an inspiration.

The shooting feels nice but I am too used to modern shooters and get the urge to aim down sights too much.

The movement feels great.

The story isn't the best paced as you can do levels out of order, but I thought the lore was really cool and I like how each level is quite different, and although the game has a theme of horror, only some levels being horror. Those horror levels are no where near as creepy as F.E.A.R though. Definitely not on the same horror level.

One thing I found about the levels - some of them seemed to be quite clean and lack clutter and detail. This gives me a sort of "environment artists portfolio vibe" and I wish they could be better. But there were some levels that were really cool and did have detail. It was a little inconsistent.

Great game. I love the world and the game play. The artstyle is beautiful and consistent, and the gameplay feels very polished with good progression and different playstyles you can level into.

If you've played Gothic for this is very similar, especially how the open world works and progression.

- Leveling up gives you skill points you can spend at trainers to gain more skill in weapons and crafting.
- Armor is tied to factions and story progression and quite limited
- You aren't spammed with several different weapons, specific weapons are special and meaningful
- Different opposing factions to join
- The open world is smaller but has a lot of depth, and changes and progress based when entering new chapters and based on story choices

And that latter point, it even takes some story elements (mining) and a similar premise to Gothic, in which you are stuck in an area isolated from the rest of the world. Honestly I wish it was more original with that premise, it doesn't need to be that similar to Gothic. However, the reasoning for the isolation is different.

I really enjoyed this game, I found the factions interesting and the lore of the world interesting. I found the ending verying satisfying aswell. Especailly the special ending the references a lot of choices you made in the game and shows the characters you met and helped along the way.

I had a few breaks from this game as a got a little burnt out a few times and as such it took a few months to complete.

At first I wasn't a fan, I found the combat too simplistic and that it lacked depth in itemization and other RPG mechanics.

But I also loved the art direction (although a lot of my friends consider a turn off) and the unique looking world, so that kept me going.

I took a break from playing and then continued again and got to the clockwork area. Once I was there I really started to like the game as I found the lore of the area and the NPCs really interesting and I could ignore what I consider to be poor gameplay. I continued playing until after you confront vera and get injured and burnt out again. When I picked it up again I unlocked my own airship and was amazed that you could travel around open world with it. I assumed it was just going to be fast travel, so wasn't too excited. I find it sad that the game almost ends as you get it. I love that it's upgrade-able but also wish there was more depth to the upgrade system and that the upgrades had more meaning. As for now the airship was, as far as i can tell, just a form of travel so there wasn't much necessary to upgrade.

If you liken the game to an open world N64 game you can forgive the lack of depth in the gameplay. I found the pickups and itemization to be quite arcade-y and like games of that era.

I'm hoping if a sequel or another similar game is made they can add more depth to the hardcore RPG side of things.

Overall, as said, I didn't like the game at the first but the worldbuilding and open world exploration made up for any other faults and I ended up loving it, it just took time.

Fun little game with a comfortable art style. Cute characters, varying biomes to explore, open world which is nice.

It sits somewhere adjacent to metroidvania/soulslike not perfectly fitting into either but obviously has parts of both. Can see that it has hollow knight inspirations which I'd say has the same fitting.

The scope is a little less than hollow knight and most games adjacent to it though, which isn't necessarily a bad thing as I tend to find long complicated games tiring and a game like this fits in really well between those.

The bosses are cute, original and fun as well.

A great extension that adds new enemies and weapons that is just as good as the base game. They knew what made the base game great and they knew what they needed to do expand on it. Again, this expansion starts you in a overly cyberpunk city (specifically in a club this time) and later on leads you to in my opinion, less inspired levels. Although I found the last area to be really cool and fun - I just wish we spent more time in Cyberpunk cities in this game.

The motorbike levels were also really fun and changed things up a bit. For an engine not necessarily designed around using vehicles, the bike controls are surprisingly not very clunk and I found them to be intuitive enough.

If you like the base game, definitely get this.

I loved the original Duke Nukem 3D and cyberpunk genre so had to try this.

I hadn't played Duke Nukem 3D in a long time when I first started playing this so was comparing it to my memory of that. It felt very faithful and a natural progression, like Duke Nukem in a different settings. It's satirical like Duke Nukem too, although a little less so, and it does it well and doesn't feel forced like DNF does.

The levels are really detailed and the game has good enemy variety - introducing new enemy types and weapons as it goes. Unlike the original Duke Nukem the level are more like Half Life where the levels are still instanced but contiguous. Which feels a lot better. The game starts in an overly cyberpunk city in some kind of bar - it looks amazing and drew me in immediately. However, as the game goes on I feel like it starts to drift a bit and feel less inspired with the look of levels.

I played on the hardest difficulty (disregarding expansion difficulties) and didn't realize you could quick save for half the game. So the first half was a little frustrating and took many retries to get through some levels. The bosses were fun and interesting however could be easy to cheese (almost all bosses were easily killable using the crossbow like weapons alt fire).

I actually went back and played a bit of DN3D and didn't realize how many gameplay elements from that extended to Ion Fury. The many use of vents, the keycards and even more. I found out the developers were the same team that build the open source version of the DN3D engine so it makes sense this game was so faithful and still felt like Duke Nukem.

A great game that I kept wanting to come back too, I really hope they add co op as I loved playing Co op in DN3D.