Greedfall | PS4 Review

Nodal Storytelling Puts GreedFall on the Map

I’ve been an RPG fan for decades, so when the opportunity to review Spiders’ GreedFall came around, I excitedly agreed to the task. I’ve put in 70+ hours to finish the campaign. You play as 17th century nobleman Sir De Sardet, recently promoted to be an emissary of your country. A plague is ravaging your homeland. Thanks to some prattling and political mumblings, it’s believed that the cure to this outbreak could be found in a barely surveyed new land a few hours sail away.

There you’ll meet colonists, congregations, religious factions, and natives alike to further this very well written story. Simply put, every story or “node” is connected to and intertwined with other nodes due to choices you make during gameplay. Consequences will drive your story, and the game will not forget these choices. You will see older choices sometimes come back to haunt you at times. But don’t be dissuaded, as these decisions also have numerous upsides.

Come Sail Away with Me

This new land of Teer Fradee is vast and mostly wild. Full of opportunities and riches as much as its numerous dangers. There are some small camps and towns, as well as larger towns and cities to explore. Main and side quests are plentiful and are offered by characters small and large, including some by your own group. Mostly unexplored, you find yourself doing a lot of investigation and offering assistance to many different factions, but the games developers pride themselves on the lack of “fetch quests.” The main story is based on character development, and most any task in the primary story only supports this narrative. You form relationships with factions and your own party characters, and these choices also affect how they can help you, or in some cases, not so much.

Un-Arrested Development

Skill trees are pretty sizable in this game, almost as great as its nodal storytelling tree. Growth is always around in RPG’s and GreedFall is no slouch when it comes to physical and passive development. Your main character can develop skills in fighting, alchemy, magic, or a mixture of all three. Just like the storyline these nodes can also be criss-crossed into different paths of development.

Other attributes like vigor, lock picking, and being able to talk your way out of a situation with your charm are difficult to add up early on. However, they also come with bonuses like being able to equip heavier armor, carry more items, or have stronger magic. Not only do some equipment choices assist you, but befriending your teammates also helps. Their accompaniment in your party can mean an increase in agility, healing, craftsmanship, and strength, amongst other useful qualities. You can grow in whatever direction you wish, and there’s even a few opportunities to wipe the slate clean and readjust your trees.

Let Slip the Dogs of War

After storytelling and investigative services, combat is the next most plentiful part of this game. The combat mechanics are really nice, but aside from your first boss battle, most fights seem very one-sided. Enemies are not overly plentiful and usually come in small groups. They seem to only attack in a certain circle because even if you’re 15 yards away and can be seen, if outside of this bubble they begin to ignore you completely. Every enemy is poised for looting even if it’s just some leather from an animal, or a few gold coins from a human opponent.

Your party, which consists of you and two cohorts, isn’t very controllable either. You can take the reigns of the main protagonist, but whatever the other members of your crew do is up to them, and they never seem overly aggressive. That’s not to say that some damage won’t be done, or healers won’t heal, but I’d rather have a little say in how a situation is dealt with. They can physically get in your way at times in both combat and non-combat situations. In town when speaking with a local merchant, they may begin fighting and thrusting for no reason, and make continuous grunting sounds all the while.

In the wilds they offer “helpful” verbal tips, but this quickly becomes overly annoying. I understand that I need to heal, but maybe I’m at 80% and don’t want to. But they’re going to remind you every 20 seconds anyways. I like one of your early companions named Kurt because of his fighting skills, but in a combat situation he loves reminding me that “Things are about to get dicey” every 10-15 seconds. And this is every single fight.

In Summation

If you enjoy a game such as Dragon Age, you’ll like GreedFall, too. The writing is fantastic, although watching the character animation gum up the words can be a little off-putting at times. The story sometimes progresses slowly, because there’s plenty of walking involved in the wilderness. Combat isn’t perfect and the game could use a few updates and polish with animation and other NPC issues, but overall Spiders has made something with great potential. If handled properly, we could be looking at the next Skyrim. So sharpen your steel, practice your magic, and prepare for some crazy looking mythical monsters because the ship for Teer Fradee is setting sail, and you don’t want to miss this adventure.

This review is based on a PS4 copy of GreedFall provided by Sandbox Strategies for coverage purposes. It is also available on PC and Xbox One.