Greedfall -- Anyone playing it yet?

[Cygnia]

Greedfall

Really contemplating getting it for the PC as I like the look of it. Holding off for a tad in case of bugs needing to be fixed. But is anyone here playing it who can give me a quick review how it is so far?

[Rynjin]

I got it day 1, played 90 minutes of it, and got sidetracked playing other stuff.

It seems like an okay game, solid 7/10 material. Good game to put in your backlog and pick up when you don't have any other games clamoring for your attention.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I would STRONGLY encourage people to pass on this one. All I can say here on these forums is that it takes the worst aspects of Dragon Age's narrative and doubles down on them. It's NOT a good game.

[Cygnia]

Care to elaborate on what you mean by that? I never played any of the Dragon Age games...

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Mostly the narrative conceit that a marginalized group using violence to defend themselves is just as bad as the violence being used TO marginalize them, that there can be legitimate reasons FOR one group to oppress another. Basically it's going for the "morally grey, bad people on both sides" stuff that Dragon Age clumsily tries to do with their Mage vs. Templar conflict and ANYTHING involving the treatment of elves and their history/culture.

Going into more detail would probably cleave too close to real-world politics for comfort.

[Rynjin]

I don't recall there being ANYTHING grey about the treatment of elves in Dragon Age, unless Inquisition ruined that too somehow. They were marginalized just for being different and perceived as "stuck up".

[Narkis]

I've also never played Inquisition, but I can definitely see the point regarding Mages and Templars. The Circle system was without a doubt unfair and abusive. But Bioware fidn't want to portray the Templars as complete monsters and thus made every mage that went against the system a power-hungry idiot that resorted to blood magic and demon summoning the very moment the Templars' back was turned.

[Rodin]

I think the larger problem with Greedfall is that the gameplay just isn't fun. It's trying to ape a Dark Souls/Witcher combat style and it simply doesn't work. Guns are horribly overpowered (which kinda makes sense given the setting), the swordplay is basic, and the dodge rolls have terrible hitboxes and massive input lag. The quests are kind of interesting in that you can complete them in different ways, but the game holds your hand on the different ways to complete the quests a bit too much.

It's supposed to have a good story and interesting companions, but I didn't get far enough in to find out. There's no tension to anything you do.

This one's a Steam Sale pick-up at best.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I don't recall there being ANYTHING grey about the treatment of elves in Dragon Age, unless Inquisition ruined that too somehow. They were marginalized just for being different and perceived as "stuck up".

Spoiler: Dragon Age SPOILERS!

Show

Yeah, it did: there's big reveals that the elven gods were super-wizard tyrants who were screwing up the world and enslaving people long before Tevinter came on the scene, which destroyed their society, casting Tevinter's subsequent enslavement of the elves as kind of "just desserts," and the Dalish are depicted (at least by Solas, where much of this perspective comes from) as idiots poking around the remnants of a culture they don't understand, especially with the reveal if your Inquisitor romances him that vallaslin, the sacred tattoos the Dalish wear as a rite of passage and way of worshiping the gods originate as slave brands that the gods (again, just super-wizard tyrants) used to mark other elves as their property. This is just one aspect of how Inquisition and other media (like The Masked Empire novel, which incidentally was written by the guy who wrote Solas) kick the elves while they're down. Even in instances where the elves are clearly being wronged (like the Orlesian chevalier tradition of celebrating getting knighted by rampaging through the local alienage murdering any elves they encounter), the text expects us to sympathize more with the human characters. It's treated as a beautiful romance when Empress Celene and Briala get back together, but that ignores the fact that the whole reason they broke up was Celene organized a massacre of an alienage in an attempt to save political face and expected Briala (AN ELF) would somehow find that an acceptable tradeoff. And for a lot of people who play these games and see their struggles reflected in that of the elves? That's a real slap in the face. And Greedfall doubling down on that, even revelling in those tropes? That's even worse.

[Manticoran]

Spoiler: Dragon Age SPOILERS!

Show

Yeah, it did: there's big reveals that the elven gods were super-wizard tyrants who were screwing up the world and enslaving people long before Tevinter came on the scene, which destroyed their society, casting Tevinter's subsequent enslavement of the elves as kind of "just desserts," and the Dalish are depicted (at least by Solas, where much of this perspective comes from) as idiots poking around the remnants of a culture they don't understand, especially with the reveal if your Inquisitor romances him that vallaslin, the sacred tattoos the Dalish wear as a rite of passage and way of worshiping the gods originate as slave brands that the gods (again, just super-wizard tyrants) used to mark other elves as their property. This is just one aspect of how Inquisition and other media (like The Masked Empire novel, which incidentally was written by the guy who wrote Solas) kick the elves while they're down. Even in instances where the elves are clearly being wronged (like the Orlesian chevalier tradition of celebrating getting knighted by rampaging through the local alienage murdering any elves they encounter), the text expects us to sympathize more with the human characters. It's treated as a beautiful romance when Empress Celene and Briala get back together, but that ignores the fact that the whole reason they broke up was Celene organized a massacre of an alienage in an attempt to save political face and expected Briala (AN ELF) would somehow find that an acceptable tradeoff. And for a lot of people who play these games and see their struggles reflected in that of the elves? That's a real slap in the face. And Greedfall doubling down on that, even revelling in those tropes? That's even worse.

Mind if I ask how Greedfall doubles down on that? OK with spoilers.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

It isn't the spoilers that are the issue. It's the politics.

[JadedDM]

I haven't played it, but I did read this review, which more or less covers what Zousha is talking about.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I haven't played it, but I did read this review, which more or less covers what Zousha is talking about.

Thank you.

[warty goblin]

I've played the opening section, which is generally fairly solid, albeit with a reasonable amount of jank. Not hardcore break-the-game jank, just things like cutscenes where they cut to black for a second so they don't have to animate some particular one-off action, or quest dialog not making 100% sense. It's a somewhat budget European RPG, kinda goes with the territory. Combat seems basically fine in a relatively mundane sort of way, but RPG combat is generally the least interesting bit of an RPG anyway, so who cares.

On the flipside however the game (at least the early bit) clearly gives a lot of room for different character builds to solve problems differently. And not just 'did you spec swords or maces' differently, but with actual solutions built around different problem-solving methods. If you can pick locks, you might be able to take a back way in. If you know science, you can probably blow up a barricade. If you're good at smooth talk, you can smooth talk - intriguingly there's actually two skills that cover this; either being smart enough to figure out how to get leverage on somebody or make them an attractive offer, or just blow them away with raw personality. Most of the actual quest problems could be solved in entirely non-violent ways, with only the occasional random encounter requiring you to stab people.

There's also something refreshingly, for wont of a better term, adult about the way the game situates you in the world. I'm not implying you navigate the world groin-first, but that you're instead set as a person with an actual adult job, in this case dealing with various factions who hate each other's guts and want to use you to get one up on their rivals or stamp out internal division. What you do with this, and how you present what you do, is entirely up to you. It's a bit Witcherish, except instead of casting you as a magically gifted ultra cool outcast superman dude, you're operating within the conventional power structure of the world.

Personally I'm looking forwards to getting back to it, as soon as life is slightly less totally crazy.