If you’re like me, you probably have a small number of favorite RPGs that you place on a pedestal of sorts. Regardless of whether it’s the story, the freedom few other games offer, or some mechanic that speaks to you, those RPGs are going to shape your future gaming habits one way or another. For me, it was being given the ability to feel like my decisions had an impact, and I’m not just talking about choosing a specific color at the end of Mass Effect 3. I’m talking about how I interact with the world on a small scale, in essence playing God, killing or helping anyone as I see fit just because I can. It’s something that my favorite RPGs such as (most of the) Fallout series, Skyrim, or even to some degree Fable excelled at like few other experiences on the market. Unfortunately, GreedFall manages to miss this mark, as well as pretty much every other mark you could put in front of it by a wide margin.

From start to finish, GreedFall isn’t a terrible game, it’s just not a good one either – it’s painfully mediocre in every way. Whether it’s the painfully boring story, the slightly better than your average hand puppet lip-synching, or the dull combat, everything feels like it was cut and pasted from more polished games of the past using safety scissors and glue sticks. The narrative follows you as you form a team to embark on a journey to help cure a deadly disease known as Malichor and resolve a conflict between religious and science-based sects that feel entirely too similar to the current arguments in the US between the two major political parties. I typically try to avoid political statements in my entertainment selections, meaning that completing the thirty-ish hour story was a bit of a chore. Even when you take the political themes out of the equation, the story fails to grab the player early in as most RPGs do, taking a solid hour or so to actually get your full party situated and into the bulk of the game, and by then, I was already waning interest. As the story progressed, it always felt like I was jumping into a long-running TV show with a Game of Thrones-style hierarchy a few seasons too late.

Visually, the game stands on its own two legs, but the more you look at it, the more you start to notice the little things that really stand out in the visual representation. Not only does the game fail to properly appear to be in-sync with the verbose dialogue, but the characters all appear to have wooden teeth that look like they were added at the last minute using 2D renderings in a 3D space. Regardless of what was going on at any given time on the screen, whether it was a bustling cityscape or a lush forest scene, I was fixated on the horrible looking teeth. These are the small details that really stand out when everything else looks acceptable.

Despite having the option to use magic, disguises, charisma, or stealth to resolve any conflict the narrative throws in your direction, I went with my favorite means of conflict resolution in video games – violence. Sadly, you’re limited in how and when you can kill most people outside of the normal combat situations you find in RPGs. When you are able to take your group off their respective leashes, the combat is extremely basic. Essentially you will mash the light attack button until you fill up a meter allowing you to unleash heavier attacks. Additionally, you can opt to use some of the simplistic firearms from the revolutionary times; however, they are controlled by using the D-pad which feels extremely off for the style of battle. This didn’t only feel awkward, it often broke the momentum for me mid-combat, especially when the guns fire at whatever target they feel like, opposed to which opponent you’re actively engaged with.

Customization is a thing in the game, but like everything else it is questionable at best. As far as character creation goes, you’re limited to changing a few options on either end of the gender spectrum with only a handful of options per feature. When it comes to decking out your group, many of the same limitations apply. You can change out the armor and weapons for your party, but you can’t control them in combat, assign skill points, or play with the builds of any of your companions in any meaningful way which feels like the developer’s invited you over to play in their sandbox, but you can only play with the toys they want you to, when they want. The one positive note the combat brings is that you can slow it down to strategically plan your assault, almost taking on a turn-based style if that’s your thing.

I wouldn’t say that I completely hated my time with GreedFall, but I can’t say I enjoyed it either. It felt like a game I would play back in the early days of the Xbox achievements when I would play anything I could get from GameFly for a bit of Gamerscore and send it back as soon as I saw the credits roll. If you’re a diehard RPG fan, this will tide you over until the next big RPG drops, but this isn’t the swan song from Spiders we hoped it would be.

6 out of 10

Pros

• Slow Down Combat

Cons

• Story is Not Captivating
• Lack of Proper Freedom
• Inability to Shape Squad’s Overall Builds and Tactics
• Painfully Mediocre in Every Way

Greedfall was developed by Spiders and published by Focus Home Interactive. It is available on PC, PS4, and X1. The game was provided to us for review on PS4. If you’d like to see more of Greedfall, check out the official site.

 

Here at GBG we use a rating method that you are more than likely familiar with – a scale of 1 to 10. For clarification, we intend on using the entire scale: 1-4 is something you should probably avoid paying for; 5-7 is something that is worth playing, but probably not at full price; 8-10 is a great title that you can feel confident about buying. If you have any questions or comments about how we rate a game, please let us know.

 

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