Greedfall - who needs Bioware? RPG out now.

[Cosmic_Guru]

Another very short trailer on this one, with Spiders moving right away from the Mars War Logs / Technomancer universe into something more fantasy inspired.

 

Quote

Set in a 17th century setting embedded in magic, Greedfall has a unique visual identity inspired by European Baroque art, depicting grandiose sceneries in muted warm colors and dark undertones. This E3 Trailer reveals the origins of GreedFall’s story, as settlers, mercenaries and treasure hunters, fleeing a continent plagued by pollution and an incurable disease, set foot on a remote island seeping with magic, rumored to be filled with riches and lost secrets.

A grand journey filled with mystery follows, as you find yourself in the middle of ever-increasing tensions between the invading settlers and the locals, who are protected by manifestations of the island’s earthly magic in the form of supernatural beings. With a strong focus on its core RPG identity, GreedFall follows Spiders' experience in building intricate worlds filled with mysteries to discover, weaving deep character interactions, and offering players freedom to achieve quests and objectives in many different ways – through combat, as well as diplomacy, deception or stealth.

The island of GreedFall is a living, ever-evolving world. Your actions, from seemingly trivial choices to the most important political decisions, will influence and alter its course, as well as the relationship between the different factions established on the island. GreedFall releases on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in 2019. Hands off presentations and interviews are available at E3 2018.

 

 

[Luseth]

I kinda like the looks of that. Have enjoyed the past 2 games of theirs I have played so will most likely get this too

[Comrade]

Got to say, the only thing I see when I read the title of this game is “Grenfell”, which is probably not the association I think they’d like me to make.

[Cosmic_Guru]

 

[Takizawa]

If their progress from game to game so far is anything to go by, this should be excellent, Technomancer was superb. 

[Gabe]

@Takizawa Really? I'm playing through Technomancer at the moment and finding it a bit of a chore. The combat is incredibly one-note and not much fun, which is a big problem, and the RPG elements all feel very light touch. In many respects it's more refined that Mars Logs, but that also had terrible combat - so it's a bit of a concern that they've never moved that forward.

[Cosmic_Guru]

 

[Trumpets]

Never heard of this until now, looks brilliant.

[Cosmic_Guru]

 

[Cosmic_Guru]

 

[Cosmic_Guru]

 

[Cosmic_Guru]

All being well, I'll be firing this up tomorrow...

 

 

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

I have high hopes for this. Don't let me down spiders (gently if you have to let me down at all...)

[Cosmic_Guru]

I've had a quick go, creating a sultry female technician (rogue) who can use firearms and traps, and a ginger male magic user with a point in charisma; I think I slightly prefer the male voice.  Character creation covers the basics but don't expect state of the art sculpting of facial features.  Far more interesting will be skills and relationships. 

[Cosmic_Guru]

The tutorial section (prior to departure to the island) has now been completed with the male character.  Pretty much as expected - visually underwhelming but an interesting 17th century set up with  various factions in play which you will doubtless have the opportunity to befriend or betray on the island.  Plenty of different ways to go about things using charm, larceny or science - you won't be able to accomplish everything you would like to in this introduction. 

 

 

[Gabe]

Have you had any combat yet? Is it as bad as Technomancer? (I'm hoping not, I want this to be good.)

[Radish]

Yeah, I'm really excited by this. I could see it benefiting hugely from patches though (like most games) so I'm trying to resist buying it now but it's hard because it sounds really promising. Bound By Flame (in flame?) was solid and I never played Technomancer, so I'm hoping to see a bit of a jump in quality. 

 

I really love the vibe of this though. 

[Cosmic_Guru]

11 hours ago, Gabe said:

Have you had any combat yet? Is it as bad as Technomancer? (I'm hoping not, I want this to be good.)

 

Yes.  With this first run I'm playing a magic user and so I'm attacking from range which is dull but effective.  A ring I possess makes my hands glow and with them  I have a magic missile type attack which stuns, a stasis ability and a protective spell for self.  I also use traps for when my mana is low.  I might invest in the skills / talents to be able to use a gun in due course. Everyone also has 2 companions and so they are taking the brunt of the melee.    Companions seem to be beyond your direct control in combat but I don't think they use your potions and they certainly don't  die permanently in battle.  So far I've battled the usual mobs of bandits, bears and flying things, but its fair to say there has been a lot more talking than fighting so far.  Naturally there are also fights to return to at a later stage.  There is also an arena.

 

I don't think this is going to appeal to everyone. Its not particularly "Janky" other than a few odd camera positions but it can be slow going in places as you have to talk to 2 or 3 people to advance a stage in a quest. It has that very French design which doesn't quite make characters into caricatures but which doesn't hide their blemishes either.  Occasionally you get scenes like the one in the trailer where an enemy is given  coup de grace with a gun when your character neither has one equipped nor has the ability to do so.  Also, I was sure I went for a ginger hair.....

 

Travel takes a bit of getting used to.  It's not a completely open world.  You can fast travel to previously discovered points such as your home in each town campfires and other points, but to avoid loading screens there is a small buffer zone where you may change your party and chat to them, craft, rearrange your stash or trade, before the destination region is loaded. It's a bit odd at first but does the job.  You can also take a stage coach between the 3 main towns.  Within towns there are no loading screens.  Auto check points are plentiful and loading is pretty quick.

 

Systems wise it's a mixed bag.  There is no crime system for example so you can unlock chests in plain sight.  There is a rudimentary disguise system in place whereby you only need to change your coat for this to work (and team mates aren't affected at all).  Team mates do sometimes chip into conversations but other times are mute - occasionally one can't be taken into an audience because of the political situation.  Team mates have their own personal quests.

 

Although the set up is vaguely reminiscent of Risen, you don't buy skills in this, but they are awarded on levelling.  The more interesting talents and powers are only doled out every so often so you aren't going to be a Jack of all trades.   Quests seem to be fairly explicitly laid out although the means by which you achieve them may vary.  

 

There are crafting and upgrade slots for gear but without the relevant talent you won't be doing any of that.

 

The set up is interesting - an island being occupied by 3 nations, 2 of which are at each others' throats, and a native population, one of whom becomes available on your team early on.  It remains to be seen how this plays out in terms of sensitivity etc.

 

Finally 4 difficulty levels to choose from.

 

All very enjoyable so far.

Edited September 9, 2019 by Cosmic_Guru

[replicant]

Tempted to pick this up on Steam...but Borderlands is this Friday.  And WoW Classic, Control and all the others I fancy coming out soon....too many games/not enough time.

 

 

 

[Gabe]

6 hours ago, Radish said:

Yeah, I'm really excited by this. I could see it benefiting hugely from patches though (like most games) so I'm trying to resist buying it now but it's hard because it sounds really promising. Bound By Flame (in flame?) was solid and I never played Technomancer, so I'm hoping to see a bit of a jump in quality. 

 

I really love the vibe of this though. 

 

Bound By Flame was decent until the last third - but again the combat was a bit crap. Same with Mars Logs too. Made every fight incredibly dull. 

 

Ahh, I'll be buying this at some point anyway, who am I kidding? 

[Cosmic_Guru]

This is pretty much a jump up from Mars Logs and Bound by Flame in all respects - scope, visual quality, etc (albeit early days)  All the companion stuff rings noisy Technomancer bells with me - in which the fast gun + dagger style combat seemed the best choice.  Here one would need to pick a fighter character to determine whether melee is up to scratch, whether the weapons have different heft etc (avoided since I'm pants at parrying).  There are plenty of guns but ammo is limited and you can't use them from scratch unless you choose the rogue class.

 

I'm not yet sure if the respawn rate is as savage as it was in Technomancer, but then the style of this is different - I don't know if there will be classic dungeon

[Gabe]

I am basically going to base my purchase on your comments, @Cosmic_Guru, so no pressure 

[Cosmic_Guru]

Oh no .    Defo fills a gap though, and don't judge it by the tutorial section.  

[Cosmic_Guru]

HO HO Things just got much more interesting on the combat front -  a much better ring and a few points into a  fast dodge and shadow impact and suddenly I'm a whirling dervish chewing through enemies in a very entertaining manner. 

[JoeK]

At the moment, the price seems a little too rich for my blood. I'm hoping it'll be a decent game, but quite honestly something has to be extraordinarily good to warrant £40 from me these days.

[Cosmic_Guru]

Eurogamer review

 

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-09-09-greedfall-review-technical-shortcomings-are-overcome-by-an-abundance-of-heart#comments

 

Quote

GreedFall has more than its fair share of faults, and its curious mix of the sweet and the sour is far from a roleplaying revelation. But the elements that matter have been imbued with such love and care - so much so that I quickly forgave this ambitious RPG its shortcomings.

 

 

[earlymodernsteve]

Had a quick look at this last night with a melee character and it seemed solid combat wise. I sucked because I was just trying to rush through a bit before bed but the alternate weapons to damage armour make for an interesting mechanic. I thought it looked pretty impressive visually to be honest but then I am a sucker for 17th century designs. Not sure when I'll have time to play it properly but it came as part of a Focus library code I got as a present a while back so am happy with it as a bonus.

 

Couldn't get used to the green face mark though. Made my sultry warrior princess look like she had 5 o'clock shadow. Oh well. Might restart and check out the male voice anyway.

[deerokus]

It sounds like it might be the game where Spiders finally nail it. A lot of stuff they've done before has had unrealised potential 

[Cosmic_Guru]

4 minutes ago, deerokus said:

It sounds like it might be the game where Spiders finally nail it. A lot of stuff they've done before has had unrealised potential 

 

 

They've obviously drawn on their own catalog and many other RPG when putting this together based on the comparisons it's drawing.  It has it's flaws for sure - repetitive assets, flappy / poor mouth synching, slightly awkward movement, possibly limited companion development (per reviews), limited textures and facial sculpts, screen tearing (XB), but none of these are crucial concerns.  

 

https://uk.ign.com/articles/2019/09/09/greedfall-review

 

(In progress review) This seems fair.  The accents used for the islanders are all over the place in their artificiality whereas other groups are grounded in similar ones.  There may be no morality (crime) system but all your actions are going to impact relations with companions and factions.

[Takizawa]

Even if this isn't the finished article, it's really exciting to see the improvement from game to game and a studio given the opportunity to do so.

 

I'll be getting stuck in to this tonight, really excited.

 

The ACG review confirms pretty much what I anticipated / hoped from the game...