![]() ![]() As the ogres in Stalwart demonstrated all too painfully, it occasionally manages to be harder than the core game and it tosses in extra variables such as enemies who are completely immune to certain types of damage. Much as in that beloved dungeon romp from 2000, combat is king here, and The White March does a good job of delivering it even if it lacks some of the inspiration of Black Isle's game. Greater combat challenges also reveal themselves, chiefly in the form of a high-level dungeon called Cragholdt Bluffs that will thwomp most parties below level 10 into the the ground faster than you can say "Icewind Dale." It's simple stuff - certainly not anything in the league of the multiple options you get in a game like Dragon Age: Inquisition - but it's usually enough to speed up the pace of combat so orchestrating each character's actions doesn't drag out the game's running time by hours. If that retro-centric design soured you on the original release, you'll be happy to know that The White March showcases Pillars of Eternity's recently improved AI, which grants enemies smarter moves and allows companions like Edér and Durance to use some of their abilities of their own accord. If you're fine with jumping into combat with gear that far exceeds the content, that's fine, too - especially considering the often plodding nature of Pillars of Eternity's "pause and bark orders" combat. As a bonus, though, if you're one of the lucky bastards with a save point at, say, the Burial Isle before Pillars of Eternity's last chapters, you can choose to upscale the monsters to your level. Especially when you've carefully made all the "right" decisions, replaying old saves feels a little like questing after Stephen King's Dark Tower. ![]() That's one of the most awkward things about expansions like this: they force you to step back to times when you had poorer gear and before you picked up a full loadout of skills. I suspect it will be the same for other players, or at least those who aren't so fastidious about deleting old saves as I am. It's a good thing that I recently started replaying Pillars of Eternity as a Barbarian, as my original playthrough had no elligible saves, which means I would have had to replay the entire game before I reached the relevant segment. Further caveats arise from the expansion's requirement of a save from before the main game's "point of no return" and after the first handful of events of Act II. ![]() ![]() Both possess strong foundations for memorable storylines and their general personalities exhibit Obsidian's usually stellar writing, but they quickly slip into predictable conversations that lack the memorable nuances of the old cast. Then there's the Devil of Caroc, a robotic-looking golem rogue whose main quirk is that she's unapologetically inclined to evil. One, a monk who's found hiding in a fish barrel, boasts a dual-wielding proficiency that's usually more interesting than the humor-laced platitudes that come out of his scarred mouth. It manifests itself in the disappointingly straightforward story of entrepreneurs attempting to reclaim an ancient dwarven forge, in predictable encounters with dwarven workers long dead, and it even shows up in the two new battle companions. This thread of inadequately wielded wonder runs throughout the whole expansion. It's a shame, though, that the vaguely Nordic shacks and pitiful puddles of its hub town end up being used for little more than bleached backdrops for battles and conversations with the gloomy populace. It's a land that's more crowded with loot and little tidbits of mouseover lore than the leafy expanses we've seen up until now, and it mercifully features more NPCs with their own quests and conversation options instead of the original's Kickstarter NPCs with bite-sized fan fiction. The high point here is the setting of the White March mountains themselves, whose icy expanses provide a welcome counterpoint to the forests that characterized the base release. ![]()
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