GreedFall

I guess it was for the better that EA Play being included on the PC Game Pass was postponed (on the supposed launch day of all days) because I wouldn't have had the time to play STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order after all. DOOM Eternal took longer than expected and then GreedFall was a proper-length RPG. I managed to beat the latter on the day before I would've needed to renew the subscription at a 15 times higher price.

Challenger to Dragon Age surfaces

GreedFall was developed by Spiders, the French studio whose Bound By Flame (2014) I have played and replayed too last year (for missing achievements). It was a rough experience and made me pass on Spiders' next game, The Technomancer (2016). That one wasn't hugely well received if I recall correctly, and I don't think GreedFall in 2019 either met the highest of praise. But definitely higher than usual for a Spiders game. And I personally liked it a lot.

Spiders still has ways to go to be able to produce something that could be considered a classic. However, with GreedFall they show that they are capable of challenging BioWare who presumably operate with much larger budgets. GreedFall has a lot in common with BioWare's Dragon Age: Inquisition but combat is actually fun and the game also lacks Inquisition's open world activity checklist design.

17th century-inspired world

You play as Lady or Sir De Sardet. Your uncle is Prince d'Orsay of the Merchant Congregation and has appointed you as the legate of your nation on the newly-settled island of Teer Fradee. The Prince's son and your cousin Constantin has in turn been appointed to be the next governor of New Sérène, the Congregation's few years old city in Teer Fradee. Together you set sail to discover a cure for malichor, a plague ravaging the Old Continent.

Two other nations have settled in Teer Fradee as well: religious Thélème and I suppose more science-oriented Bridge Alliance. There are also the Coin Guard who provide security for all the Old Continent's nations, the Nauts who hold the secrets of seafaring, and lastly the natives of Teer Fradee.

You leave Constantin on his throne in New Sérène and start figuring out all the factions' problems and if they have any leads for finding a cure. I liked that you're not the one sitting on the throne like in Inquisition: it bothered me that you are the leader of the organization in that game but still going to the field. An explorer diplomat is a much more fitting role for a player character -- at least in this type of game anyway.

I didn't like the native characters of the game. They're one dimensional and easy to mix up with each other. Neither did I like their language or how they speak; they sound silly when speaking English and hostile when using their own tongue. The voice cast didn't have any big names, I think, but there was Steven Hartley whom I recognized. He's a poor choice to have as multiple characters because it's so easy to tell it's him. Hartley sounds like his vocal cords have been damaged, having that croaky creakiness. But he does fit perfectly as Petrus, my favorite companion in the game for the depth of his character.

Sensible but shallow plot

The main narrative of GreedFall is pretty weak, barely carrying the game. Only the island's natives seem to be a potential source for a cure and you end up chasing after different native characters across the island, not really progressing in the mission. There's no proper main antagonist until later on and even they are not directly related to the malichor. The plague problem kind of solves on its own at the ending slides.

The endgame buildup was obvious, the only logical climax for when your character is a diplomat, accruing reputation with different factions. The payoff wasn't hugely satisfying in how it worked though. I would have liked to see more of an effect in the final quest. I also wonder if it's possible for it to go differently. Like is it possible to not have allied with every faction?

GreedFall's quests and choices have a delightfully logical sense to them. Trying to go for what ultimately would benefit my character's mission seemed to work out every time the way I had hoped. For persuasion you get few different options. Using De Sardet's Charisma or Intuition appeared to be the most optimal solution but having the right companion with you can also solve things without resorting to violence or reputation loss. The Intuition option simply checks if you have a high enough talent score but Charisma is a chance roll. That is dumb; it just invites reloading a save if you fail the roll. Dialogue checks should never have randomness to them, in my opinion.

Modest yet not too straightforward skill system

Building your character's non-combat talents is bit of a puzzle in terms of optimization. You have to consider being able to hit persuasion options, crafting, lockpicking, and accessing side areas. Maxing any one talent with your points doesn't seem to be smart as items and friend-status companions give you at least +1 to everything. If you have the originally-preorder-bonus adventure gear DLC, you get an armor with Charisma and a hat with Intuition bonus. Both are unique stats for those slots and make min-maxing much easier but you can make do without them too. I had to leave leveling Vigor for late game for lacking the DLC though. Also, lockpicking rank 3 doesn't seem worth it for chests because not a single keyless chest with a level 3 lock has anything worthwhile in them. But the talent did save me from reloading a save a couple of times when I managed to run straight into traps that then didn't go off thanks to having rank 3.

Attributes and skills for combat are more straightforward. You pick how you want to fight and then simply get related passives to boost the skills. I went for an offensive-oriented character, using one-handed blades, guns, and alchemy gadgets; not being able to equip the most protective armor pieces. Ammunition is fairly scarce but having high Intuition helps you to find plenty enough as long as you don't try to kill everything by shooting.

My idea was to have a high armor damaging gun and then finish enemies off in melee once their armor had been removed. I ended up gaining so many levels that I started to have excess points and so I tried spending them on long blades as well. My De Sardet didn't have much of a balance stat so the slow two-handed attacks got easily interrupted. However, when I did get the wide swings to connect, I made short work of enemy packs.

The armor system was probably inspired by Inquisition's guard bar but has more depth to it due to weapons having separate value for armor damage. As long you have shield icons on your health bar, you have damage reduction from armor. Once they're gone, you don't really want to get hit. Even on Normal difficulty the tougher enemies can kill you quickly when you're unprotected.

Overall the game was fairly easy on Normal -- a big change from Bound By Flame. I would've played on a higher difficulty setting if I hadn't been on a timer. Companions, which you have two at a time on the field, are also able to carry their own weight better in this game. I truly enjoyed the combat; there's a welcome lack of (euro)jank to it.

Combat is a bit more action-oriented than in the Dragon Age series; you have active dodge and parry. The latter I probably should have used more as you can parry even maybe unexpected type of attacks, such as huge monster swipes. Perfect parry (that leads to a riposte with increased damage) also has a rather large window. There is also tactical pause which I occasionally had to resort to, sometimes because I couldn't remember what skills I had in the action bar. It's too hard to tell from the icons; they should be more distinct, use different colors at least. Definitely one area for Spiders to improve upon. Do they have a color-blind GUI designer like Obsidian Entertainment or something?

One piece of advice that I would give my past self before playing GreedFall is to not explore every map on your own. Instead just follow quest markers and only explore the immediate vicinity on that route. That way you will still eventually visit every area without needlessly fighting respawned enemies. There are only so many enemy types and battling them will get old by the end. Better delay that inevitability as long as possible.

More money available to spend on development would have probably helped with things like varied environments and locations. Like how all of the three nations' governmental buildings in the game are the exact same one -- a detail a tad too hard to ignore. Some quests are also begging for cutscenes instead of having stuff happening off screen. More effort could've been taken on revising subtitles too -- there are multiple typos and errors in them throughout the game. And many random voice lines in dialogues refer to Lady De Sardet as man.

Despite GreedFall's many small shortcomings, I think it's a solid, well realized RPG. I hope Spiders manages to stay away from the pitfall of filling their games with copy-paste open world design. BioWare's been living in that hole for many years now. It's simply more immersive when maps don't repeat the same extra gameplay features.

GreedFall apparently garnered enough interest for Spiders to continue working on it: some sort of expansion is on its way with the game's console releases at some point.