GRcade

Preezy wrote:Looks quite good, but as I just don't have the time to start yet another new open world game it's getting added to my price-drop list.

Tafdolphin wrote:Sure there could be a vein of 'What if colonialism...is bad?!" running under the whole thing but that's not front and centre here.

OrangeRKN wrote:

Tafdolphin wrote:Sure there could be a vein of 'What if colonialism...is bad?!" running under the whole thing but that's not front and centre here.

To be fair Taf the game is literally called "Greedfall", I sort of assumed that was the front-and-centre statement about what's driving the colonials.

I do want to play this, but won't have the time any point soon. I know you can side with the natives, and you play something of a diplomatic role, so I doubt very much that the game has any absolute "colonialism good" message. Whether the native population is portrayed with any nuance I am less confident, but I'd say at least that offensively lazy =/= offensively wrong. The stereotypes appear to apply equally across all of the factions from the trailers.

With all there is to do, I may be only about halfway through this behemoth of an RPG. But I’m enjoying myself just about every step of the way. The Technomancer was disappointing, but I still wanted to see other games try the ambitious things it was attempting with more success - GreedFall delivers on that promise. There are still glitches, awkward character models, immersion-breaking re-use of assets, and an overall lack of polish that keep it from threatening Geralt’s crown, and I’ll need to find out how the story wraps up before I can pass final judgment on it. But I can already say this is going to be a crowd-pleaser for those of us who still shake our canes and talk about how the genre peaked a decade ago. We may have to eat our words before long.

Greedfall fills a void in character driven RPG’s, and delivers an experience worthy of comparison to some of the genre’s best.

I’m invested enough in the way Greedfall’s fantasy world doesn’t shy away from brushing up against real history, its well-paced writing, and endearing characters to happily continue trucking through it, despite some of its technical shortcomings.

Two of its major aspects, character progression and narrative choice-making, will take some more time to get a full read on, but I will say I’ve run into some great scenarios so far that have made me feel like the choices I’m making in both of those areas will have real consequences. If that’s the case, Greedfall could be an RPG sleeper-hit.

Greedfall seemed particularly interesting to me, though it's hard to pinpoint why. I guess I've just been hankering for a solid RPG to come by and satisfy a hole left by Divinity Original Sin 2.

While perhaps not up to that same level, Greedfall has made a pretty great impression on me so far.

I don't know if it's appropriate to think of Greedfall as a sort of substitute, merely as a replacement for some other RPG. While it shares several of the same trimmings, I ended up finding an experience that was unique and stands on its own merits. I feel like it's an easy game to criticize for lots of reasons that I wouldn't disagree with -- but I was thoroughly impressed with the handling of the setting, the tone of the narrative, the character interactions and how those meshed with the underlying systems and mechanics, that I simply found myself uninterested in clinging on too strongly to a list of imperfections. Greedfall is an ambitious game that punches above its weight, one that RPG fan owe it to themselves to try.

Monkey Man wrote:(Reviews)

I also have to talk about the colonisation-shaped elephant in the room. When asked about it, developer Spiders was quick to point out the theme chosen for its visual aesthetic, but the narrative writers did put a little more effort into the theme than that after all. You mainly negotiate peace between Teer Fradee's native population and the settlers, and the more quests you complete, the better you get to know the different native clans and the dealings they've had with the newcomers.

GreedFall does little to escape the problem central to its storyline - that you are part of a nation that just started settling on an island without permission, auspiciously under the cover of looking for a cure. While it strongly encourages kindness towards the natives, that's not just out of moral concern. You need something from them, and in order to get it, you have to gain their trust first.

There's nothing to explain why several factions thought to build large-scale settlements over 15 years or why they started trying to convert the natives to their faith. You only step in when these actions go too far, because the story can't acknowledge the real problem, which is that it isn't on the natives to seek compromise in the first place. Siora, the native princess in your party, regularly tells her people that "there is so much to learn from these people", but she's met with the argument I can only echo while playing GreedFall: what you learn is that colonisers use their technical advantage to simply take what they want, an entirely one-sided definition of profit. As the hero, De Sardet has a crucial role to play, and some of GreedFall's endings are so clichéd in legitimising them as the chosen one that my only spoiler-free comment is heaving a gusty sigh. Suffice to say that simply leaving is not an option.

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.