GreedFall: The Dying World Review
Going Native
It's been seven years since players were first given the opportunity to join a band of adventurers and set sail to the mythical continent of Teer Fradee in order to track down a cure for a destructive epidemic running rampant in their homeland. Now, with GreedFall: The Dying World , developer Spiders is taking players back to before it all started, this time viewing the events unfolding on Teer Fradee from the perspective of its native people, who are forced to watch helplessly as strangers come to their shores, colonize their land, and subjugate their people. Though the narrative is laudable both in terms of its uniqueness and for mirroring similar real-world conflicts from the colonized's point of view, the game falls afoul of some of the same shortcomings as its predecessor and, in the case of its revamped combat system, even makes some new missteps all of its own.
Players create and take on the role of a native islander of Teer Fradee, choosing not only the character's appearance but also their gender. Named Vriden Gerr by their tribe, they are undergoing training to become a doneigad, a type of shaman who communes with the spirit of the land. As Vriden Gerr's training enters its final stages, events surrounding their village begin to spiral out of control. Strangers have recently begun arriving on their island, intent on colonizing it and clashing with the natives in the process: forests and rivers are beginning to run dangerously low on wildlife to feed the many additional mouths, and the strangers' mining operations are beginning to have adverse effects on the tribe's hunting grounds.
This early-game section on Teer Fradee functions as a tutorial of sorts, exposing players to the finer points of combat, stealth, and the diplomatic options baked into the game's dialogue system. Regardless of how players approach things, however -- whether trying to keep the peace between their tribe and the newly arrived interlopers or willing to let things spiral toward hostilities -- the intro ends with the protagonist and their companions brutally ambushed by the colonial settlers and locked up in cages aboard a cargo ship en route to the continent of Gacane, to be studied and scrutinized for their innate resistance to the Malichor epidemic. Though one of their companions tragically dies during the voyage, Vriden Gerr and fellow islander Nilan are soon sprung from prison by a group of ragtag outlaws who abhor this inhumane treatment of the natives. Thus begins the game's main narrative, which sees players first looking for a way back to their homeland and, later, protecting it against the remorseless machinations of General Kurnaz, the game's main antagonist.
[caption id="attachment_183040" align="aligncenter" width="640"] This time, players will be steeped in the customs and culture of Teer Fradee's natives.[/caption]
Since Vriden Gerr isn't alone on this journey, the supporting cast of characters is pretty important. The game features seven companions that accompany Vriden Gerr, and doesn't hold back long to throw them into the narrative mix. The prison break immediately following the intro chapter piles most of them into the player's party right off the bat, with the final two unceremoniously coming along shortly after. There is little time to get to know most of them before they join forces, leading them to feel like woefully interchangeable placeholders much of the time. In fact, the burly Till, a captain of the Coin Guard and one of the final companions to be acquired, joins the group during an in-game cinematic event without a proper introduction or even any dialogue whatsoever, leading to a confusing subsequent scene where the characters are already referring to their shared adventures before he had even been introduced by name.
Sadly, Till is not the only companion to be underserved by a lack of initial characterization, with much of the party's background being locked behind their individual loyalty quests, which are not only optional but, in some cases, also expire entirely at certain points in the story, and honestly do little to endear them to the player. GreedFall: The Dying World takes much of its inspiration from other Western RPGs in the vein of Dragon Age and other classic BioWare titles, which is partly evident in how the party roster loosely impacts the unfolding narrative. Companions will approve of or disagree with the player's choices along the way, raising or lowering their affinity with Vriden Gerr. Completing their loyalty missions and forging strong bonds with them may unlock them as potential love interests, whereas displeasing them may result in them abandoning the party altogether. Based on their individual backgrounds, each party member also has certain moments within the narrative where their expertise may present an alternate solution to a problem, such as a companion having influence over hostile members of the guild of Nauts, circumventing what would otherwise have resulted in a bloody skirmish.
[caption id="attachment_184512" align="aligncenter" width="640"] This is Till. He's about to join the party. Good luck finding any of that out though.[/caption]
The game world spans three major cities and their surrounding areas, each divided into distinct districts. Much like the at-times bland cast of characters, there is little about these hubs that invites deeper exploration. That's not to say that they are lazily designed; the developers have certainly taken pains to pack a lot of visual detail into the environments. However, there is simply nothing to actually do in any of them other than run through and get into the occasional, equally uninteresting scuffle. There is little reason to forego usage of the game's fast-travel system, but the remote placement of quest objectives and sheer amount of back-and-forth pinballing that is required to complete them mean that traveling of any kind is usually a chore. Visiting and revisiting the same locations ad nauseam just to talk to the same NPCs over and over again simply isn't engaging or fun by any stretch of the imagination. At least there are a small handful of quests over the course of the game that conjure up a more interesting interaction. For example, a couple of dungeons ask the player to solve environmental puzzles, such as digging through a bit of local folklore and matching certain items with particular statues or activating switches in a predetermined order; there's even a standout sidequest that sends the party on a riddle-based scavenger hunt all throughout the Naut city of Uxantis.
For the vast majority of the game's runtime, however, combat is the player's sole constant companion. In The Dying World , the developers have taken a step back from action-based battles and implemented a system more akin to real-time-with-pause. While players can opt to focus their attention on controlling only Vriden Gerr during combat and letting their companions run on autopilot, there are also options for pausing the combat at any point and issuing commands or even switching control over to a companion completely. Obviously, such a change in combat design will appeal to some more than others, but there is such a glut of extraneous mechanics to come to grips with that combat never feels smooth or satisfying in the least.
[caption id="attachment_179689" align="aligncenter" width="640"] The setting dictates lots of swords and guns in combat, but some characters also make use of mystical powers.[/caption]
To start with, the party seems perfectly capable of wearing down at least 95% of all encounters in the game without further interference from the player. This is a good thing, since learning each combatant's abilities and proclivities just isn't enjoyable. For one, the way the companions are unceremoniously dumped on the player all at once means there's simply no time to get to know each of them as a separate battlefield entity. Each companion has access to three unique skill trees, one for their class, one for their preferred weapon, and one specific to them as an individual (by comparison, Vriden Gerr, being a blank slate for the player to shape, has access to most of them). This means memorizing which companion has which abilities mapped to what button shortcuts is an exercise in ridiculousness, particularly when brute-forcing combat is almost always a better alternative. Then there's the speed at which combat moves, which would require constant sifting through menus and switching perspectives all over the battlefield to stay on top of. Most telling of all, however, is the fact that, even if one tries to exert control over the party, their AI has a tendency to override commands issued to it. Issuing an order for the party to jump out of the way of a boss's AoE attack, for instance, may result in some allies clearing the danger areas while others continue to wail away on the foe, heedless of the danger.
Whereas almost any encounter can just be slogged through on autopilot, there are a handful of battles that are curiously unbalanced, typically pitting the combat party of four against unfair numbers that simply overwhelm them through sheer force. Thankfully, there exist a couple of sliders in the options menu that allow players to fine-tune certain combat variables on the fly, like separate sliders for how much damage allies and enemies deal and whether friendly fire registers. It may be a poor consolation prize to having an enjoyable or well-implemented combat system, but at least these options ensure that no player will ever become truly stuck on any battle scenario.
The game's presentation is a bit of a mixed bag. As previously mentioned, there is a good amount of detail worked into the environments, though the color palette tends toward the brown and drab. While this certainly may be a stylistic choice and may even make some sense in the faux-historical context, it isn't often very nice to look at. Character models look fine, but there's little about them that stands out. At least the game's voice actors perform their roles fairly well, and probably add the lion's share of characterization to the cast, but even they aren't often up to the task of breathing life into the harsh fictional language of the Teer Fradeeans, which is (understandably) heavily favored by any native characters but often sounds wooden and recited straight from the script. The game's music does generally fit the bill quite well, being a good match for its mix of historical real-world colonization, with the occasional touch of the fantastical thrown in.
[caption id="attachment_179704" align="aligncenter" width="640"] The world is pretty. Pretty brown.[/caption]
Given the scope of GreedFall: The Dying World and the small-sized development studio it originated from, it seems inevitable that the game would also sport at least a few technical hiccups. In addition to AI-controlled companions having a tendency to follow the beat of their own war drum, there were a handful of times during the review playthrough that combat would initiate with only Vriden Gerr as an active combatant, while all other companions became spectators from outside the combat arena's radius, or stuck around a corner and somehow unable to find their way to the action on their own. A far more puzzling oversight was when a party member, having been allowed to perish earlier in the narrative, suddenly showed up again near the game's end in a dialogue scene where each companion was allowed to weigh in one last time before the game's final showdown. Equally odd was a completely different fallen party member also managing to return from the dead during the post-game, when the world opens up one final time for traversal despite there being nothing to do, with all quests, sidequests, and loyalty missions being permanently disabled by then.
It all adds up to a game that's more commendable on paper than in its execution. GreedFall: The Dying World is an ambitious title by a smaller developer that tells a story from a perspective not often seen in the medium. A story about the horrors of colonization, not to mention told from the point of view of the colonized, is a laudable endeavor. But there isn't much about the game that makes it a fun outing. Characters lack personality, and it's entirely up to the player to seek it out where it exists, combat is an overly complex mess of options layered on a foundation made for brute-forcing, and both presentation and technical optimization are in need of fine-tuning. With the change away from the more action-oriented combat being a questionable one, fans of the previous installment may still be on board for another chance to visit the world of Teer Fradee, while all others may want to miss the boat this time around.
Disclosure: This review is based on a free copy of the game provided by the publisher.
The post GreedFall: The Dying World Review appeared first on RPGamer .
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