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Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth Review Thread

Tizoc

Member
The game is releasing soon and reviews are starting to appear on OpenCritic and MetaCritic.
Keep in mind that so far reviews are for the First episode of the game as it is episodic (3 episodes).

TechRaptor said:
If you like a slower story more about political intrigue wrapped up in a great presentation, you'll love The Pillars of the Earth.
https://techraptor.net/content/pillars-of-the-earth-review-book-one

Ode médiévale, merveille artistique, sonore et technique, The Pillars of the Earth fait partie de ces jeux qui se savourent et qui forcent à prendre son temps. Sa direction artistique fait tout pour nous pousser à observer, à fureter dans le décor à la recherche du moindre indice. À la fois pédagogique et ludique, le titre de Daedalic nous raconte à travers sa narration tirée du roman de Ken Follett l'Histoire médiévale comme on aurait aimé l'apprendre à l'école. Il ne s'agit rien de moins que d'un livre interactif, mais qui arrive à capter notre attention aussi bien par sa force narrative que par la majesté de ses représentations visuelles. Un quasi sans-faute pour Daedalic.
http://www.gameblog.fr/tests/2810-the-pillars-of-the-earth-pc

wccftech said:
Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth is a surprisingly well grounded game. As mundane as the subject matter may seem at first, it's incredibly absorbing as you follow the lives of realistic people. While not perfect, suffering from general adventure game problems of backtracking and long-winded puzzles, the game more than makes up for it with compelling characters, a great script with fantastic voice acting and an aesthetic design that benefits the game greatly.
http://wccftech.com/review/pillars-of-the-earth-part-1/

If you’re sick of dragons, elves, zombies and superheroes then this realistic point-and-click visual novel is the perfect antidote. It’s more Vikings than Game of Thrones, and earns your interest through the strength of its plot and depth of its characters. The music is in equal parts haunting and beautiful and the gorgeous backdrops are guaranteed to impress. It’s the most ambitious project yet for Daedelic and it shows, I just hope it gets the attention it deserves.
http://progressbar.com.au/2017/08/ken-folletts-the-pillars-of-the-earth-book-one-review/

PCGames.de - 8/10[/quote]
I already visited Daedalic in April, where I was able to take a look at the first chapter of The Pillars of the Earth. Already there, I was delighted by the background and the gloomy mood of the game. The animation was still a little stiff and the dialogues quite lengthy, but Daedalic had still a few months time. In the final game, the animations are still somewhat stiff, and pacing could still be a bit faster, but on the whole, Daedalic has developed a great interactive novel in collaboration with Ken Follett. Although there is little and not very varied gameplay, you will get a wonderfully staged story, exciting dialogues and beautifully drawn backgrounds and characters. Follett's book is brought to life and with a few bugfixes and animation enhancements, the following two episodes will surely be just as good.[/quote]
http://www.pcgames.de/Die-Saeulen-der-Erde-Spiel-55061/Tests/review-1235245/2/

Golem.de - No score
Developer Daedalic speaks of The Pillars of the Earth as their "biggest and most ambitious project" in the company's history - it's the attempt to transform a novel with 1,200 pages into a game and also offer decision-making and interaction possibilities that are not present in the novel. But the experiment starts at least in the first book: The operation is simple, the production succeeded, the story is told excitingly. It is a lot of fun to walk through the old England and gradually discover the conspiracies and motives of the actors.

How good the whole thing really is in the end, we will only see when the two following two books are published. In addition, fans of the old Daedalic games should be warned not only because of the missing and otherwise typical humour: the game is not advertised without reason as an interactive novel, the usual puzzles and headnuts are almost not here, the difficulty is in favor of the fast progress very low. The whole thing is just a story to play, not a real puzzle.
https://www.golem.de/news/die-saeulen-der-erde-im-test-ken-follett-zum-klicken-1708-129238.html

More reviews can be found here-
OpenCritic page: http://opencritic.com/game/4715/ken-folletts-the-pillars-of-the-earth
MetaCritic page: http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/ken-folletts-the-pillars-of-the-earth

Let me know of other reviews that are out and I'll link them in this post.
 

shmoglish

Member
Read the book like 5+ times many years ago, so ist great to see some good Reviews. Adventures are not my genre, but I think I will give the game a Chance.
 

Shiggy

Member
The game already launched in Germany as part of a magazine earlier this month, so here are two German reviews (via Google Translate):

PCGames.de - 8/10
I already visited Daedalic in April, where I was able to take a look at the first chapter of The Pillars of the Earth. Already there, I was delighted by the background and the gloomy mood of the game. The animation was still a little stiff and the dialogues quite lengthy, but Daedalic had still a few months time. In the final game, the animations are still somewhat stiff, and pacing could still be a bit faster, but on the whole, Daedalic has developed a great interactive novel in collaboration with Ken Follett. Although there is little and not very varied gameplay, you will get a wonderfully staged story, exciting dialogues and beautifully drawn backgrounds and characters. Follett's book is brought to life and with a few bugfixes and animation enhancements, the following two episodes will surely be just as good.
http://www.pcgames.de/Die-Saeulen-der-Erde-Spiel-55061/Tests/review-1235245/2/


Golem.de - No score
Developer Daedalic speaks of The Pillars of the Earth as their "biggest and most ambitious project" in the company's history - it's the attempt to transform a novel with 1,200 pages into a game and also offer decision-making and interaction possibilities that are not present in the novel. But the experiment starts at least in the first book: The operation is simple, the production succeeded, the story is told excitingly. It is a lot of fun to walk through the old England and gradually discover the conspiracies and motives of the actors.

How good the whole thing really is in the end, we will only see when the two following two books are published. In addition, fans of the old Daedalic games should be warned not only because of the missing and otherwise typical humour: the game is not advertised without reason as an interactive novel, the usual puzzles and headnuts are almost not here, the difficulty is in favor of the fast progress very low. The whole thing is just a story to play, not a real puzzle.
https://www.golem.de/news/die-saeulen-der-erde-im-test-ken-follett-zum-klicken-1708-129238.html


So don't expect an adventure game with much gameplay. It's an interactive novel.
 
I love Daedalic and have been waiting for this. At E3 they said episodes 2&3 would be talked about more at Gamescom, so should be more info soon
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
Interesting, thanks for the thread.

So don't expect an adventure game with much gameplay. It's an interactive novel.

I'm torn, because I've already read the novel (loved it). Not sure I need to point and click through an interactive version of the same thing.
 

wouwie

Member
Seems to get decent reviews, though there aren't all that many around so far.

I'm buying this game when it releases. I never read the books but right now, i feel like playing an interactive story. Next week, i'll be buying a proper adventure game too (Thimbleweed Park on PS4) so a bit of both genres will be nice. Also, the background art in this game looks gorgeous.

However, it seems to have the timed speech mechanic, which i detest (expect maybe in Oxenfree)...
 

Dmax3901

Member
Seems to get decent reviews, though there aren't all that many around so far.

I'm buying this game when it releases. I never read the books but right now, i feel like playing an interactive story. Next week, i'll be buying a proper adventure game too (Thimbleweed Park on PS4) so a bit of both genres will be nice. Also, the background art in this game looks gorgeous.

However, it seems to have the timed speech mechanic, which i detest (expect maybe in Oxenfree)...

The timed speech thing is never really a problem. It's not all that quick and the answers/decisions aren't monumental.
 

Chris R

Member
Are Hayley Atwell and/or Ian McShane involved with this in any way shape or form?

Terrific book and I liked the tv miniseries as well?
 

Tizoc

Member
The game already launched in Germany as part of a magazine earlier this month, so here are two German reviews (via Google Translate):

PCGames.de - 8/10

http://www.pcgames.de/Die-Saeulen-der-Erde-Spiel-55061/Tests/review-1235245/2/


Golem.de - No score

https://www.golem.de/news/die-saeulen-der-erde-im-test-ken-follett-zum-klicken-1708-129238.html


So don't expect an adventure game with much gameplay. It's an interactive novel.
I will add these to the first post thanks
 

wouwie

Member
Not too sure how i feel about paying full price (40€ on console) for the entire game while there is no info on when the other 2/3 of the game will be released. This is probably the first episodic game that doesn't offer the choice to buy each episode separately and an upgrade to a "season" pass for the entire game. If there is a big gap in between the 3 books, then i wonder if it wouldn't be better to wait and buy the entire thing when it's out. Or wait for a boxed version. I think it would have been smart from the developer to give an option to try out the first book at a smaller price, as most developers of episodic content do.
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
Yeah, I'll wait for all three episodes to be released before considering. I don't want to play episode 1 then wait 6 months for the next episode. I'd like to play them consecutively.
 

Warnen

Don't pass gaas, it is your Destiny!
Just got it for Xbox after seeing the kotaku story, I likes me a story game!
 
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