First off, I'm gonna start with some beginner tips because omg I wish these were explained through the tutorial: * Press "tab" to highlight intractable objects - I spent the first half of the game not knowing about this and OMG was it annoying. I thought "shift" would highlight interactable objects initially because this is the key I'm most familiar with using in CRPGs. * Set your controls to change the camera movement settings from arrow keys to W, A, S, and D. This helps a lot. * Make sure to mess around with the customizable formation tabs. Some formations may cause your characters to get stuck in doorways, which is a hassle to fix, so make sure to set up a "filing" formation and switch between formations before entering a doorway. * Do not explore a location unless its either a location you'll regularly visit (ex. a tavern or inn which you'll likely need to frequent). Otherwise, you'll waste time. Only explore the location once you receive the quest related to said location. * Do not feel bad or ashamed for looking things up. Trust me, I had to look up locations and major NPC locations far more than once. I highly recommend playing story mode first just so you can figure out quest objectives/locations. The game goes by MUCH faster once you know. * Storywise, I recommend playing Cipher because Cipher gets a lot of story content. The best way to play Cipher, however, is a major glass canon build, which can be hard for beginners to figure out. Melee Cipher is possible, but arguably less effective. I know storywise, none of the backgrounds and locations of origin have much content in POE1, but archipelgo islands and aristocrat backgrounds have much more content is POE2 if you plan on importing a POE1 save to POE2. * Make sure to set up your character properly stat and class-wise because you will not be able to make changes mid-game. Look up a guide if you're unsure of yourself. * You can change your party at any tavern. Just look for the party tab. You can change your skills (not stats/class) at any vendor. I honestly feel like my standards have gotten too high because of BG3. But here are my personal pros and cons. Cons: * I wish there was more actual "roleplaying" involved. I feel like my character's background was hardly mentioned and the dialogue options struck me as "super good", "stoic/neutral", or "super evil" only. Overall, MC shapes the world around them, but the world around them does not really shape the MC. * Sometimes background specific dialogue gets locked or not mentioned because of choices you made far earlier in the game, which is disappointing to see. (ex. I let the noble girl get possessed by the Skaenite slaves in Act 1, as RP wise my character had a slave background and just wanted to see nobles burn, but where Skaen is supposed to mention the MC's slave background to both MC and the party in Act 3, he doesn't and instead remarks how impressive the MC's actions during this event were.) I think it can still be assumed/headcannoned that your party knows about your character's background, but there's no reaction to it. This is the same case with POE2. It'd be cool if party members questioned my evil actions during this event, because most party members are good/neutral characters, and I could then explain my disdain for nobles due to my MC's slave background. Overall, the actual "roleplay" aspect of the series is kinda weak. * Why do major NPCs look like minor NPCs? More than once, I found it difficult to locate major NPCs because they looked so damn average. Meanwhile, some unimportant NPCs LOOK like they should be major NPCs which pisses me off. * There are still some bugs with gameplay. * I feel like the companions could've used longer questlines--especially the companions you encounter at the very beginning of the game. I was actually disappointed with how short Eder and Aloth's quests were. The good thing is that most companion quests follow the MC's main questline, so you can travel to wherever you need to go along the way. * AI gets confused pretty often. Especially in doorways. It's better to just turn it off and manually control characters for every move, but at the same time it gets hectic, so I avoided doing this unless the battle was a major battle. * It's difficult to find certain locations. Many times, I had to look up where to go. Sometimes graphical glitches actually obscured or outright didn't allow me to get to where I needed to go. (Ex. at the final Shadow dungeon (forgot its name) a shadow continued to obscure the stairway I needed to go down to get to Thaos. I had to look up where to go, and I realized this. The stairway only revealed itself after I reloaded the dungeon.) * Holy F*** the amount of time I spent staring at loading screens probably made up at least 25% of my playthrough. I feel like one thing Obsidian gets wrong that Larian figured out is that each act should be set in one location with few loading required locations. Otherwise, there is far too much back and forth. * At least 50% of the game is walking from location to location. I think pillars of eternity 2 actually fixes this by condensing the maps slightly. * Caed Nua restoration is neat, but I feel like it was underwhelming with the lack of content. I was hoping to see storylines/quests unlock as a result of fixing parts of Caed Nua. (Maybe I missed these? Idk) * You, unfortunately, can't change your stats/build/class mid-game. You can only change your skills. Pros: * Matt Mercer's voice. No, I totally did not just side with the evil Skaenite Wymgourd because he was also voiced by Matt Mercer. * Gameplay is fun once you figure it out. I honestly restarted my game 3 times to figure it out. * A lot of world building. Arguably, sometimes too much. I did forget major names/titles/events very often as I explored. * A lot of gameplay build options * A lot of reading for reading lovers such as myself. * Replayability. There are a lot of builds to mess around with, and there are different choices you can make to impact the ending. * Although there is a limited number of choices, they do still impact the storyline. I'm just disappointed they're not as prominent once imported to POE2. * Most of the companions are interesting and likeable. My favorite was Eder not just because of his voice, his role in POE2 and his close relationship with the MC, but because he was a major meatshield for my glass cannon Cipher build lol. Eder is a total bro (sadly just a bro). I think you'll like him even more in POE2. Overall, the game is enjoyable, but I think I'll be focusing more on POE2 because I think it fixes a lot of issues of POE1. Again, I still feel like Obsidian doesn't understand the most optimal CRPG formula like Larian does because both POE1/2 can get really frustrating at times. Sometimes, I was so frustrated I considered quitting, but i'm glad I made it all the way through. I think POE1 is a one and done game for me though.
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