Reviews

First Playthrough: Medium Difficulty / Pure Melee Build

 Being free on PS Plus I will admit I went into Greedfall with little to no hype or expectations and only a passing experience of Dragon Age-esque RPGs. But I will say here the generally high level of quality on display here makes very enjoyable to play despite its many shortfalls. The storyline is engaging an intertwining to the point where even the shortest side quest feels set up with the time and care of a main quest quick keeps the overall story ever engaging despite the unimaginative writing, sometimes stiff voice acting and one-note though overall decently likeable characters.

 Although this engagement comes at the cost of a combat system that feels incredibly shallow and monotonous, especially in the end game, yes there are 3 distinct play styles and a multitude of weapons included in each, but when they all have the same moveset and when combat generally boils down to two buttons, maybe a binded broken healing spell, and one special move it is bound to feel tiresome, even grating when you account for your companions incessant one-liners throughout. Speaking of, the games simplistic approach to RPGs is no more prevalent than in its companions as due to a lack of controllable companion levelling or any combat interactivity with them at all, makes them feel more like minions and damage sponges rather than 2/3rds of a coherent and organised team. The lack of different set-ups and playstyles of these companions definitely hurts the replayability although the differing dialogue they offer in missions adds some flavour to the proceedings, it is not enough to keep people coming back.

 The lore of the world and the characters is also interesting although it is held back by it being told nearly exclusively through dialogue with basically no in-game texts expanding on it. Just another part that looks intriguing but is too shallow to make an impact. Although it can look fairly underwhelming for a 2019 release, the scenery looks stunning at points and exploration is encouraged, the maps are fairly small in number and size but Spiders clearly put time and care into making them all look unique.

 All-in-all a fairly enjoyable experience whose grand and complex vision is clearly held back by budgetary constraints. I would be interested in a Spiders game with more time and money put in as this clearly shows heart and passion for the genre and is rather well-made and bug-free. I wonder if my magic-focused second playthrough on extreme will give me any different impressions.


 ENDING SPOILERS: One of my most major gripes and one that left me with a sour taste in my mouth as the credits rolled is the ending, not the final Fallout-esque epilogue sequence but the whole “final battle” itself. It builds it up as some final big defence with all the major factions against Constantin’s beast army. And I’m sure that battle was grand and all but having you come in with all 5 of your companions at the big fight has ended in some kinda Avengers Assemble moment only to fight 3 small groups of stragglers before you battle the Midir-like final boss left me incredibly underwhelmed, especially as the build-up was so engaging throughout.

In 2016, this game could be a good impetus for buying a PS4. However, after generally restrained or negative reviews from people I respect, I decided to postpone the purchase until the better times that aeventually took place these days, when I am finally able to play, paying only for the PS+ subscription.

In terms of reviews, there were complaints about performance, camera and control issues, and finally Trico himself became the main target of humiliation. Well, by an amazing coincidence, at least 4 years after the release, the game runs in a solid frame rate, doesn’t have frustrating control problems (it was quite smoothly for me) and, most importantly, it turns out that Trico also has no problems in general. Moreover, the beast, together with me, went the ideal pace of the path from complete rejection (on his part, of course) to real strong friendship and mutual understanding. So I got exactly the initially intended gaming experience, and it was absolutely wonderful.

I can only comment exactly one problem in the game in the form of a voiceover. Unfortunately, no more elegant way of giving hints to the player was found, and obvious comments were added along the way, so that the voiceover was evenly distributed. In my opinion, it is better to sit and think than to be offended by a trivial phrase, inserted only so that there is no way to get lost. Considering that the boy's own remarks do not violate immersiveness, it was possible to put clues in them. But apparently some of the producers have a grossly underestimated opinion about the intelligence of players. This is clearly not a nitpicking, because in the Shadow of the Colossus remake that came out two years later, the hints (which were already more organically built into the game) could be turned off in the settings. Next, I want to breathe out, because the amount of lore information is just as small as necessary, and the voiceover is really mostly limited to trivial commenting on what is happening.

In addition, the game just feels consistently after Iсo and Shadow of the Colossus, incorporating aspects of both. This, of course, does not mean that Mr. Ueda's previous works do not need to be played. I felt frisson and cried playing each of the three.