Introduction to The World of GreedFall:
GreedFall is an RPG set in a world suffering the wrath of a plague called the Malichor, and you, a legate, set off with an expedition to the island of Teer Fradee in search of its cure. What follows is a gripping story of friendship, war, diplomacy, and exploration as you meet several interesting characters and have to constantly juggle with the uneasy relations of all factions on the island.
Graphics and Visual Presentation:
The graphics are beautiful. Spiders did a stunning job of building the outside world and making it feel lived in. In the day, the cities look busy, used, and dirty, and have all the makings of a new colony hard at work, and by night they are dark, with lovely lighting from various fires that cast a warm, yet eerie glow in the dark, dangerous back alleys. Flora and fauna and excellent lighting in the wild too make the beautiful.
However, water isn’t quite as good and stood out, but it’s only a small part of the world. More noticeable was that the interiors across all the settlements are copied, with some minor differences for different cities. In a world that was otherwise so intricately designed, this felt lazy and it made the cities and their factions feel less unique, which undid the work of the story and culture design that did make the factions feel different.
Audio – Ambient Sounds, Music, and Voice Acting of GreedFall:
Audio was good. The music served to enhance environments or scenes, but it was a background noise mostly and not like Skyrim where it made a moment. It could have been used to better effect in emotional scenes too, but here were few tracks and they did well with what they had.
Ambient and combat sounds are good. Gunshots have a click before the final shot for when the hammer is pulled back and I really appreciate this! Swords have a metallic sound and make a different noise when striking armour to flesh which I also like.
Voice acting was particularly strong. There were [i]some[/i] lines that felt acted, but your character (I played female) is very well-voiced. Most of the supporting cast sound great and convey emotion and personality well and I love the accents of the Congregation characters too, just saying.
Gameplay – Levelling, Combat and Followers in GreedFall:
Levelling:
Finishing a 45-hour playthrough I’d not got enough XP to unlock all abilities. I don’t know if this was intended but it felt like bad pacing, especially since you’ll meet with things in the world, like jumping or climbing, that need certain level perks. Thankfully, there was in my experience always an alternative way to deal with these situations.
Combat:
I usually don’t like combat systems like this but GreedFall wasn’t bad. You get various enemies with different attacks and you dodge them, take down their armour, and then health. You can approach combat how you like and while it’s quite intense, it can get repetitive. When fighting, you can’t interact with the world and it started to bug me that when I’d cleared locations, a few days later, the enemies would be back and I just needed to run through for a quest, I didn’t want another fight. You do get XP from fighting but sometimes in a short quest it hurts the pacing.
If there’s space, though, you can avoid combat by running past it. However, you can accidentally leave the fight zone during a fight by dodging and this resets the enemy health, so you have to start again.
I disliked repetition of bosses. You come against several big monsters known as Guardians, but you will have to fight them a few times. I’d hoped they would just be boss per region and that would be it.
Combat was fine, but I feel it was overused, and it got tiring towards the end of the game. Enemies felt needlessly abundant.
Followers:
They were a very promising part of the game and get I feel slightly let down by their shortfalls. I really liked the individuality of the followers while keeping obvious ties with their factions, and how they interact with you and other characters in quests, but that’s about as far as it goes.
I liked the relations system but wish it had gone further. The romance option is not as fleshed out even as in Skyrim. There’s no marrying or buying a house. Outside specific chats that happen as part of quests or romance you cannot talk to your followers and this made the relationship system feel almost meaningless, as did the fact that if followers have a quest waiting, unless you accept that quest immediately, you cannot talk to them.
I would have liked the possibility to have more followers too, or at least not have to lose one when another was locked to my team for a quest. I was a little disappointed after really getting to like Vasco and Siora that I had to remove one of them to do a quest for Petrus. I also experienced a bug where Vasco was locked out of my team. I finished the quest without him, but his dialogue appeared on the screen (no audio) since he should have been there, and after that the bug was fixed.
Story – The Narrative of GreedFall, Spoiler Free:
The story in the game was mostly strong. It touches on some heavy themes around the era such as colonialism, genocide, religious persecution, etc., as the different factions and their ideas fight to prevail in an ever-changing world which they want to dominate
You’ll be faced with some hard decisions that affect the relations of these nations and outcome of the game, making them feel weighty and meaningful which I like. It’s rare in a game we have such influence over its events. Choices affect your relationship with both factions and people, and they treat you differently as a result. This is a level of immersion I’ve longed for in games like Skyrim, where no matter what you do people still treat you like dirt. I like that there are consequences and game never outright tells you you made the wrong choice, but you do feel it if something happens that you didn’t intend.
Sadly, you’re also sent to do your fair share of fetch and carry missions which didn’t feel consistent with the status of your character, and in the late game it hurt the pacing a lot. There’s sometimes the option to automatically travel where you need to, but I would have liked it more often. That, or better placement of fast travel points so there wasn’t so far to run. Since cutscenes were done so well, Spiders could have used them to mitigate this too.
Summary – Where GreedFall Excels and Fails:
Things GreedFall Does Well:
- Strong story, with multiple endings and choices.
- Strong characters, mostly well-voiced and complex.
- Factions each felt unique with ambitions and beliefs.
- Visually stunning.
- No microtransactions.
- Told about ‘point of no return’ so you can finish quests/achievements before too late.
- Great cutscenes.
Things GreedFall Could Improve:
- No screenshot mode.
- Combat overused, bosses repeated, unable to interact with world in combat.
- Can’t get all achievements first time.
- Needless running around for quests.
- Parts of world shut off unless quests are triggered, but they can be missed.
- Some emotional scenes/quests felt rushed and lacked emotion.
- Flaws with followers hold them back.
- As female, characters sometimes use male pronouns for you.
- Door animations get annoying, slowing you down.
Conclusion and Final Score:
Overall, GreedFall is a good game, lacking perhaps a little in technical prowess and with a few irritating gameplay faults. But it delivers a strong story with choices that feel meaningful, fleshed out with a colourful cast of characters, and set in a believable, visually stunning world.
It’s held back by a smaller budget and is a little pricey but for a memorable game with good replay value, I think it can be forgiven in a hope they’ll put the funds to good use to make their next game even better. I love the era this game was set in and I’d very much like to see the developers revisit it, ironing out a few of the flaws in this. I give it a well-earned 7.5 out of 10.
