Greedfall (PS4) - PlayStation 4

I've been really wanting a good RPG to sink my teeth into, and this more than delivered. I pre-ordered this largely because I like supporting smaller game developers, and I am very happy that I did. A lot of reviewers compare the gameplay to The Witcher, or Dragon Age, and they're not wrong. You control one main character, and you can use a strategic pause to stop combat and deliver commands. But the pause here feels more organic to me, personally. Going from sword to gun to trap feels really seemless. Where Greedfall really shine though is the quest system. I don't really have the slightest idea what is happening in the main story. I helped get my cousin into some position on the island, and he gave me some tasks that he wants me to do, but... he can wait, right? He's a lord! It's not like he's wanting for anything. I'm on an island full of people who need things done, and I'm just crazy enough to do them. So far, I've interrupted a crooked guard ring from extorting merchants, stopped a group of guards who apparently beat a new recruit to death, and preventing three guards from harassing a native... starting to see a pattern here... what is my cousin doing up there? Of those three examples, I want you, the reader, to notice something; no fetch quests! I've yet to encounter a quest where they say "Kill 10 bears, bring me their coats for some reason that will never become clear, and you may earn the title of Bear Slayer, which is totally useless!" Every quest that I've done so far has some kind of political intrigue, and your choices absolutely matter. Are you a jerk? Expect people to let you know you're a jerk. Are you too nice? Expect to see some bandits trying to take advantage of that. Are you gay? I've yet to see anyone treat anyone any different in this game because of their orientation (which is great), but I more wanted to run home the fact that you can be in Greedfall (and real life; it's 2019). The long and short of it is; I am thoroughly enjoying this game. The only real things someone could complain about, I guess, is the graphics sometimes seem a bit week. A cape might float through a wall or something, or someone's teeth in a dialogue cut scene might seem strange. But, hey, I grew up in the age of 16 bit RPGs. A cape floating through a wall is not a big deal to me. Short answer: if you're in need of a good RPG, get this game

Initially, I didn’t think I was taking a chance with GreedFall. From what I understood, it was marketed as an open-world action RPG (at least that was my interpretation). I’m not at all calling this a bait and switch, but that’s not what I got. The “RPG” element was definitely there; but I’m a bit skeptical about the other stuff. I placed a question mark after my review title because I’m honestly asking myself whether or not GreedFall ended up being a failure. The question has a tricky answer. For me personally? Yes, it was a failure because I had high expectations. However, I think it COULD appeal to a lot of people out there, so let's get into it. This review is not aimed at those who have played the earlier Dragon Age games, or even the earlier titles by Spiders. My review is aimed at those who have played and enjoyed RPGs such as Horizon Zero Dawn, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and The Witcher 3 (yes, I know these are all AAA games). Before you make your decision, here are 8 topics I’d like touch on. [Sidemissions]...I’m not going as far as to say this is the lone bright spot in the game, but the side missions were mostly well done. I didn’t find them to be as tedious as the main quests (more on those later). Early on, I was quite interested in them! Some of them are Witcher 3-like, where you’re not sure what you’re walking into, and how much can you really trust the quest giver? I believe the side missions fall into a few categories. You have the run-of-the-mill ones that involve a person asking you to do something (what I just touched on). You have the notice board stuff that’s found in most modern day RPGs. For example; please remove 2 monster nests if you happen to come across them. Then there’s the ones I didn’t care too much for. They’re not missions per se, so think of them as tasks that involve finding stuff. For instance, there were quite a few professor notes spread out across the land. I guess I’m supposed to find them or something. I maybe found 2 or 3, and perhaps I would have found more if I HAD A DECENT MAP!! I’ll get into that later, though. My absolute favorite side missions involved my companions. Those were super interesting and directly impacted my relationship with them. [Companions]...I just mentioned them, and there are a total of five in all. You’ll meet them one by one throughout your journey. That was one of the aspects that kept me going, if I can be perfectly honest. I’ll try to talk about them as generically as I can, because I don’t want to spoil anything. Like I said, meeting them was something I looked forward to. Although there are five of them, you’ll only be able to bring two along with you. They all have very different fighting styles. One is a sort of “dumb” brawler type that I suggest equipping with a heavy weapon, we’ll call him “K”. “P” is the Mage of the group, and cannot be equipped with any melee weapons. I mentioned them first because they’re the two I rolled with the most. “V” tends to be an all around talent that uses quick weapons, as well as a shot-gun. From what I can tell, he’s a fan favorite. “A” strictly uses high-powered shotguns, but be sure to protect her at all costs because her defense is pretty poor. Last but not least, is our girl S. She’s a hybrid fighter that uses magic as well as swords. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, each companion has their own side missions (maybe 2 or 3 each). I strongly suggest doing these because they’re the most interesting part of the game. And don’t worry, all of these companions are at least decent in battle. Well except for boss battles ;) [Combat]...Coming in, this was my greatest concern. To my surprise, it ended up being pretty ok. I’ve said this in many of my past reviews: I judge combat by how much I roll my eyes, when faced with enemies to fight. With GreedFall, there wasn’t much eye rolling at all, and I often initiated the fight! I’m not sure about the easier difficulties, but when playing on hard, you won’t be able to button mash your way to victory because the enemies will interrupt you (that’s a good thing). I used a dagger the majority of the time, so I can’t speak to the other weapons. The dagger/sword class has a standard light attack, but goes a different direction with the heavy attacks (a kick). The kick does zero damage, and I guess it’s used to stun enemies? I’m not a fan of that, and would have much rather seen a thrust for a heavy attack, and a slash for a light attack. However, the heavy weapons have the standard light/heavy attacks. There’s a lot of magic use in the game, if that’s your thing. I unfortunately cannot comment on that, since I never tried it. Although I didn’t use magic; I did make use of firearms. There’s a really cool combat feature that I want to touch on. Most enemies have armor that’s represented by blue shields above (or maybe it’s below) their health bars. You will not do any significant damage until you penetrate that armor. As you chip away at it, the blue shields will disappear. Once they’re gone, you’re well on your way to soon killing them. All weapons are not created equal, and my dagger didn’t do much armor damage. When facing a tough boss, I had to use my gun to blow away the armor, then I moved in with my dagger. If you find the armor stuff to be annoying, just use magic because it ignores armor completely and blows right through it (from what I heard). By the way, your character has “armor” as well. [Quest structure]…Wow. Now this is where GreedFall started to lose me. For the love of God, why in the HELL must every mission involve talking to what felt like 30 people????? Here’s the layout of a typical mission. Go to the “mansion” and talk to person A. After exchanging useless dialogue with person A, they send me across town to talk to person B. I’m hopeful that person B finally gives me something useful, but nooooo; person B says I need to go to the village and talk to person C (for ****’s sake). I’ll get into this later, but getting around town is not very enjoyable. I finally reached the village, and as I enter person’s C’s hut, no one is home (of course not). I’m tasked with talking to the villagers (at least 3 of them) to see if they know where person C might be. And of course, the first couple of villagers don’t know a damn thing. The last person has an idea where person C might be, but I’ll need to prove my worth, because you know, it’s too hard to JUST ******* tell me!! Now, after killing random creatures, this villager is now willing to tell me where person C might have gone. As expected, person C has gone to a village, far far away. Once I finally make it there, I have to ask person C what happened. You know, why is he there? Why did he leave his village? Is he in trouble? Blah, blah, blah… Once I get my answers, I now have to return alllllllll the way back to person A to repeat the same **** that person C told me. Now what, right? Off to talk to some more folks, that’s what. I get I’m supposed to be a diplomat, but I could only take so much of running back and forth, talking to people. I hate talking to people in my real life, so why in THE **** would I want to do it in a video game??? If you played this game, you know I’m being truthful. I get there’s a lot of dialogue in Witcher 3 and AC Odyssey, but at least there was usually a chance the exchange would end with hot sex… [Enemies]...Another swing and a miss. In a game like this, it’s vital to have different enemy types that represent a new area. There are probably 4 enemy types in the entire game, and that’s why I feel like the decent combat was sort of wasted. Once you learn their move-set, you’re good -- even on the harder difficulties. Wait, this needs to be said because I’ve never seen this before. So, this game has a problem with invisible fighting rings, and I’ll explain what I mean. I was fighting a group of creatures and doing a lot of dodging around because I’m the man, and that’s what I do. Next thing I know, the creatures started to walk away, and regained all of their health. I learned that there’s invisible “battle rings” in every combat situation, and it’s not very big. Step outside that invisible ring, and the enemy will regain all of their health and retreat to their starting positions (you don’t regain a damn thing though). Low-budget or not, how is that even close to being ok? If it’s invisible, how do I know where I can and cannot dodge? That decision alone tells me Spiders doesn’t take the combat and enemies seriously, and that’s a shame because the combat is fun. The boss battles would have been interesting, if it weren’t the same 3 monsters over and over again. The boss fights had a Dark Souls feel to them because you won’t have much time to heal!! [The Map]...For the life of me, I do not understand why Spiders didn’t give us an on-screen mini map? You know, like the one in Witcher 3. They decided to go the AC Odyssey route and use a compass, and there’s an easy explanation as to why that was a bad idea. In AC Odyssey, there’s no place where you couldn’t go, and you can climb everything. If your objective is north, just keep heading in that direction and you’ll get there. In GreedFall, there’s this little thing called invisible walls, which means you’ll do a ton of circling back and going a different direction than where you intended. This also means you’ll need to open your map every 5 seconds to make sure you’re headed in the right direction. Imagine playing Witcher 3 without an on-screen mini map… Exactly… And oh, there’s no mount, so be prepared to run every damn where. Fast travel is available, but you’ll still have to run around within the various sub regions or whatever the hell they’re called. [Environment]...I’m far from being the first to point this out, but there are really only two environments in the entire game. You have the towns (they all look the same), and you have the villages/wilderness (looks the same). When everything looks the same, that takes the fun out of uncovering new areas. Think about this for a minute: You uncover a new region, only to find out it looks exactly the same as where you just came from, and even has the same enemy types. I spent 83 hours with this game, so imagine the tedium. I usually take quite a bit longer to finish games than the average person because I screw around a lot, so it’ll probably take you 50 or so hours. [Difficulty]...I’m proud to say this is one of the few games I beat on a harder difficulty. I started out on normal, but realized how easy the enemies were, so I bumped it up. This difficulty was just right because I couldn’t just “relax” when going into battle. If I didn’t pay attention, I would die. I felt like some of the deaths were of the cheap nature, but I suppose that comes with the harder difficulty. If you’re an action RPG veteran, I suggest playing on one of the harder difficulties to get the most out of the game. Overall, I didn’t care for GreedFall. However, that doesn’t mean it’s not the right kind of game for you. I didn’t touch on this in my review because I don’t give a damn; but GreedFall has some very strong RPG elements. If you don’t place a lot of stock in gameplay and enemies, then you may like the game. It appears to have a decent enough story (I want to emphasize ”appears” because I didn’t pay much attention to the story). If you’re a fan of modern day open-world action RPGs, then tread lightly with this one because the entire game and formula feels antiquated. Consider yourself warned. The Surge 2; you’re up next!!

I waited until a few patches to play this game. I do that for just about every game I get. It means I'm never first, but I usually get the best out of the games I play this way. Greedfall is a beautiful game. I love the 3rd person gameplay. I like the voice acting. And I love that I can make such a good looking character. I find the magic fun to play. I was worried about the magic because of the colonial setting, but it fits just fine. And the auto targeting it does when I use my shadow punch attack is fun and pretty. Like a super combo! The environments are gorgeous and the world is huge. They really outdid themselves on this game. The crafting is a little limited, but the choices for weapons are not. I don't like using maces, I'd target a stave. But the mace lends to the whole battle mage thing. And that's fine. I usually don't ever switch to a physical weapon anyway. I like to keep it 100% magic user. I am really loving this game. Kind of a slow start, but it really picks up once you hit the mainland. More than enough sidequests to keep me hooked and entertained. This is a great game. And they really have been quite accommodating when it comes to fixes. Great game, great company.

Open world, action RPG, set in a Lovecraftian Colonial Fantasy world, with detective/problem solving mechanics, and borderline Dark Souls combat difficulty and strategy?! Sign me the FREAK up! I have put about 6 hours in thus far. My time has been incredibly enjoyed thus far with the following break down. PROS - Graphically - It looks great! Detail is just oozing from every city corner and narrow corridor. It isn't QUITE on par with the newest and latest looking games, but still looks gorgeous. - Sound - MAN OH MAN! They absolutely NAILED this. Flintlock pistol shots ringing from cobblestone streets and brick wall alleys sound amazing! When you strike an enemy you almost feel what you are hearing. The perfectly balanced sound of all the inhabitants around you living and interacting with everything around them! This was my biggest surprise from this game. Spyders is not typically known for great sound quality in games. This was great and very immersive. - Plot - NO SPOILERS....it starts out solid. Nothing new or ground breaking. I am BARELY into this game yet, so time will tell. - Combat - Unless you are playing on Easy, the combat absolutely requires strategic planning and approach. Careful selection of gear and/or potions or trap placement is critical when even the lowliest of enemies can drop you in three hits. -Voice Acting - VERY good voice acting. Top notch in fact. The voice actors and actresses really sell it well! SOME GOOD SOME BAD - Gameplay - Their is a lot of cool detective-esque elements to solving missions. Investigating witnesses and interrogating them. Searching for clues. Sneaking around and trying to catch suspects. You truly can approach even the most menial of missions from like 3 or 4 approaches. Also, the the sheer detail to NPC activity adds so much flavor in the missions. So that is the good side of gameplay...the bad side is that the bugs (described in more detail below) can impact the success of missions at times. THE BAD - BUGS - The biggest thing preventing me from giving this game a 5/5 is that there are SO many little bugs here and there. AI for NPCs walking into eachother and getting stuck...sound anamolies....object impact acts oddly at times, etc etc. This is breaking the immersion but also causes issues in some quests. I was sneaking up on some thugs for a mission and wanted to take a stealth approach. One of them tripped (on nothing) and fell back, clipped through me, and suddenly was behind me and could see me. -Minimal Character Development- Thus far it seems like the game is more heavily focused on the world and gameplay, and less on how you interact with your party members. This isn't a HUGE thing, as they did a great job on the gameplay aspects, however, it does take away from the investment you have into them. OVERALL - I give this a 8.5/10. Would be an easy 9/10 if they fix the bugs quickly.

I have recently finished Greedfall after taking my time with the game and now feel like a review is deserved. The Good: Main story = One Star. The game description pretty much gives the basics and no spoilers on my part, so that’s all I will really say about that. Interesting side stories as well. I especially liked the ending. Which brings me to the next. Ending = One Star. Not only do you have an option at the end on what to do, any faction(s) you side with will most likely fair well at the end as well. Once again the end game could change this outcome. But it is absolutely better than some AAA games I have play where no matter what you seem to do to help the factions you like, they get screwed over in the end. (ie. FONV.) Beautiful Scenery = One Star. I just loved the landscape. I often just took time out to take screen shots of places I traveled through. The streets, the docks, the trees and paths set with the sky. Just great. No micro-trans actions or other monetized crap! The game is the game you paid for! = One Star. I feel like giving the game two or more stars just for this alone due to the fact that this issue alone is IMHO one of the main things that is destroying gaming today. You know what, on second thought I will give it Two Stars for it after all! Customized Character = One Star. Yes, I have seen games with better character creation than this one. But so many games (including AAA ones) do not have it at all. So this is worth one star. Romance able characters = One Star. Not only can you have hetero romances but can even have same sex romance options. The Bad: Graphic Issues = Minus One Star. Yes, there is some jank and animation issues. But nothing game breaking. Personally I am not a graphic worshiper but I know this matters a lot to some gamers. No First Person Perspective = Minus One Star. First person for me really creates the feeling that I am in the game and for that reason alone I by far prefer it over third person. Also third person just feels like someone is always in my way, blocking my view. I know many gamers do not agree with me and that's fine. But this is my review, so there it is. Overall. Even with the minus two Stars I still give 6 Stars to this game. I of course realize the maximum rating is 5 so 5 it is. Give this game a shot. For a AA game it more than worth it. BTW it is about $10 cheaper than most AAA games as well.

I didn’t even hear about this game until a week before it came out, but I am so glad I did. The game play looked fun but I was still skeptical. Well, I got it and played it for 12 hours straight. It’s very well done. Especially considering the budget. PROS: Reminds me a lot of DAO with regards to picking your own skills and abilities. You’re not locked in to only being a mage or just a 1H sword. You can be a mage with a gun or a mage that sets traps, or a 1H or 2H sword who uses freeze spells and traps. The story is pretty good as well. I love how your choices have legit consequences... CONS: It had some bugs most of which were fixed, but there some clipping. Also, a lot of people complained about the reuse of textures/etc but I don’t have a problem with it especially considering the time period. OVERALL: It’s a really great game. BioWare needs to take notes.

The trailers were more interesting then the game itself. I found the story to be long, dragging, and uninteresting. I didn't bother doing side quests because I was so focused on trying to get the main story over with as soon as possible. However there were parts even in the main story that forces you to do side quests in order to continue the main story which only drags and makes the story longer then it needs to be. In my opinion games shouldn't force you to do side quests, side quests should be optional, not mandatory. Combat is simple, crafting is simple, leveling up your character is simple, however once you beat the game there is no New Game+ and the game forces you into an endless cycle of beating the final boss and watching the credits. There's no way to break this cycle other than creating a new character and starting all over.

Greedfall is a game with a well done story line and plot, a clearly defined world with fleshed out politics and history. Unfortunately the technical aspects of the game are its downfall. Graphics are respectable for the PS4, and the combat system provides 12 hotkeys and isn't overly complicated, although it is ludicrously unbalanced in favor of the player. "Never trust a game without a jump button" is a credo I believe in, and it applies to Greedfall in spades. A game whose premise is one of exploration frustrates your attempts to do so with objects as simple as a rope fence that your character cannot hop over, or a low-hanging tree branch. Want to crouch and crawl under the branch? Your character can clearly fit underneath it, but the game prevents you from going forward. Out in the wilderness, the challenge is not so much in finding what you're looking for as it is finding a path to it that isn't blocked by invisible walls or tiny changes in slope/height that your character cannot traverse. It's most annoying in locations where there is a short platform. You can't just climb onto it, you have to walk around it until you find the short ramp that allows you to ascend to something that barely comes up to your character's knees. Likewise, on occasion when you might like to fall from a height (small or large) to save time in movement (on a twisty mountain path, for example) you simply cannot. Lazy design is likewise reflected in buildings. Almost without exception, every governor's palace is the same as all the others. Every tribal chieftain's hut is the same as the others, right down to which containers have loot in them, which you can steal while the owner looks on happily at you. In a world that is supposed to be new, fresh, and ripe for exploration, each building feels like just another copy of every building like it that you've already seen. The excellent story is unfortunately marred by game design as well. No spoilers, but in one sequence you enter a building and find a note indicating that someone is about to be murdered. You can run right out and stop it - no, wait, you can't, the game tells you that the door you just came in through can no longer be opened. It's not locked or barred, you just can't run out and save the man's life. You have to go through the rest of the building and find a bunch of clues first. And once you know that, you stop worrying about the man because you know he's going to be alive for at least as long as it takes you to find all those clues. In another segment of the game, you learn that someone you like is at risk of being assassinated. However, you can't say anything about it, despite the fact that you have written evidence. You just have to wait for the point in the game when your character is suddenly allowed to speak about the assassination plot. The game gives the illusion of being open-world and non-linear, but many times you'll find that you're required to do things in a predetermined sequence when you might have other ideas about how to solve a problem. It's common to fully explore an area and find everything, only to later be given a quest to go back to that same area, where suddenly something you've already seen has become important, or something that wasn't there before has suddenly appeared, in plain sight. This disincentivizes exploration of wilderness areas until you're given a quest to go to that particular area. Customization is touted in the advertising for the game. Character customization is on par with games from ten years ago. Don't expect to be altering cheekbones or changing eye color. The skill tree is okay, although some skills are "one way" - if you have A you can get B, but if you have B you can't get A. I'm playing on a 120" screen and even I can barely make out the little "one way" indicators. Abilities and Talents don't really follow a tree as such, and there isn't much customization there. Some talents are unnecessary as you can simply find someone to carry out those tasks for you in exchange for gold. People who won't carry out tasks for you are the two companions you're allowed to have with you. If you come to a door that requires Lockpicking 2 to open, and one of your companions has Lockpicking 2, you can't control them or even ask them to open the door. Your character just stares wistfully at the locked door while the companion with the lockpicking skill whistles a jaunty tune. You can change the equipment used by your companions, but not their development of skills or abilities. I enjoyed the game but was frustrated with my character's ridiculous lack of ability to go over or under simple barriers, or running into invisible walls. The cities/settlements lack distinct identities because of the replication of buildings, which is a shame as the cultures of those cities are so well-defined in the storytelling. And being forced to deal with some situations in a linear fashion is annoying. Being able to shape the experience points and trees of the companions would have been nice. A minor issue worth noting is that if you're playing as a female character, on a number of occasions, characters will mention you as "he" or "His Excellency." Seems like they should have caught that in beta and/or QC, but it's still there even in v1.3 I hope the people responsible for the characters, plot and story have the chance to work on a game that truly allows for exploration (including jumping!) and non-linear play. That's a game I would buy in a heartbeat. For a game so rich in storytelling, the climax is pathetic, predictable and short, and the post-game wrap-up sequence is merely some brief narration over a few cut scenes. There is no interactivity to it either. The romance mechanic was the only other hole in the storytelling. It was useless in game and your "soul mate" will seldom if ever behave any differently. Overall this was good for about 50-60 hours of gameplay and given all the issues with the game, I'd suggest waiting for it to hit a $19.99 price point.