"'Cause they know who is righteous, what is bold
(So I'm told)
[...]
Beware all those angels with their wings glued on
'Cause deep down
They are frightened and they're scared
If you don't stare"
Smashing Pumpkins - Cherub Rock
_________________________________________________________
Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is a... passable cRPG featuring above average combat encounters (marred by a lack of tiles for turn-based precision, plus over-reliance on luck-based reloads, and 'mythic' freebie abilities obviating much of your actual class progression) but a roleplaying side stretched thin between infantile pandering, the same four alignment choices for every encounter and underdeveloped or railroaded player paths. Worse, NPCs closest to you (the Baldur's Gate -style companions and the questgivers who'll be talking your ear off the entire campaign) are all slightly under-developed (albeit overly-verbose) and mostly run the gamut from trite to outright infuriating. So for this post I'll run through my CN halfling witch-lich's friend list.
Spoilers are of course implied.
Well, here they are, starting with the ones I missed or didn't even bother with, then roughly escalating in order of quality.
Finnean
To pad out a lack in design which I myself criticized in Owlcat's previous Pathfinder release, you're given a weapon that can morph to suit your specialty. All well and good, except he's a talking weapon introduced as a plucky, quirky comic relief sidekick (a gimmick very easy to misuse) so I told him to shut up and sold him to the first vendor at the bar to fund a tower shield specialist mercenary.
(At least Finnean doesn't count toward your party size total.)
Lann: LN? LG? monk. Didn't play him because I opted for Wenduag instead, but like her, his stats seem made for a flexible range/melee build. He's the "nice" path to their shared quest. While Octavia and Regongar from Kingmaker worked as divergent interpretations of shared upbringing, Lann and Wenduag are portrayed as more extreme in their schism to the point of irreconcilable (at least from her viewpoint) and which pair lends finer nuance to their conflict may be a matter of interpretation.
Nenio: ?? (apparenly NN) wizard. Hated her introductory dialogue so much that I turned on her on the spot. Basically, any time pop culture doesn't portray intelligent people as stuffy stick-in-the-muds, the only alternative is an abrasive, incongruously clueless motormouth. I don't need an Urkel in my party, much less one whose baseless insults you're expected to meekly absorb and applaud for being born the correct sex. Basically everything I hate about everyone's misinterpretation of my own standard character type of CN spellcasters, so I gave her the boot... though as she and Ember seem your only workable choices for arcane casters, you're probably forced to adopt one or another of the overentitled little bitches.
However you may wish to characterize the speech patterns of
hyperintelligent free spirits, a children's cartoon nerd parody ain't it. Most aggravatingly, this bitch's personal quest apparently ties into the game's overarching B-plot (The Secrets of Creation) meaning you're expected to keep Urkel glued to your ass for a hundred hours, at least on a first run-through. Which I most certainly did not.
Lich Companions. The Lich mythic path proves pleasingly individualistic in building up your very own army of undead. You can even "recruit" (read:zombify, complete with tormented groans) a full party of undead companions, whose inherent motivation or conflict in being raised from the dead lays out some of the most promising character arcs in the campaign... yet none of which have much to say, probably as Owlcat avoided dedicating much writing time to characters available on only one path. I will admit it works within the theme of deathly silence by which they describe your effect on the world, but still...
Ciar: never got a chance to zombify him, maybe as a result of indulging the barbarian underling's request for glorious death by combat?
Staunton: glaive-wielding warpriest whose attribute / feat array make him jaw-droppingly bad at both the "war" and "priest" parts. At least you get him early enough (early Act 3) that you can partially pad out his build, and what the hell, I like a challenge.
Delamere: insanely powerful archery slayer. By level 16 she could salvo baelors in the Alushinyrra arena.
Kestoglyr: tragic ex-paladin fighter you can revive in the last zone of Act 4, becomes usable only in Act 5. Dual-wields scimitars, so he seemed the logical choice to multi-class to rogue (rowdy, specifically) as an undead place-filler for Woljif. Can gain a personal weapon in the Ineluctable Prison by reuniting him with his lady love, though currently that weapon set is locked, meaning the dual-wielding specialist can't dual-wield anything with his dual-wielding-bonus +5 scimitar. Inspired design there.
Queen Galfrey: ghost bard (incidentally, cool name for a band) While I'm generally annoyed at how late in the campaign you get some companions, making it hard to plan your group composition, some are truly 11th-hour appearances and Galfrey in particular is only recruitable in the next-to-last adventure zone. Justified to some extent as a dramatic reversal of your campaign's start signifying your ascension to power as lich... but still. You'd think a bard of all people wouldn't be so late to the party. What makes her truly annoying are her romantic overtones, her descriptions constantly struggling to squeeze pity out of you, and the fact you never get to call her out on her stupendously stupid leadership decisions, even after raising her as a ghost.
Arushalae: CN ranger - not that she acts as anything other than Stupid Good given her singleminded worship of her goddess, cloying niceness and neediness and constantly rehashed romantic overtones. A reformed succubus and blatant teacher's pet, from her infantile lack of personality to her attributes being padded to double anyone else's to the fact she is literally indestructible! Unlike say, Grieving Mother from PoE, her religious conversion and saccharine reinforcement as a cute little girl (including by Anevia, of all people) render any guilt over her troubled past a foregone redemptive conclusion.
Arushalae is basically to Falls-From-Grace from Planescape: Torment what Qara from NWN2 was to Ignus and what Grobnar was to Jan from BG2: an insultingly simpleminded pale immitation. But unlike them she's pushed in the player's face and given a tediously overextended personal quest in which nothing happens (for a bonus, the nothing happens in a dream) under the assurance that nobody could possibly dislike her warbling about her fee-fees... which is of course what makes her so utterly insufferable!
Seelah:
LG paladin. Along with the NPCs Anevia and Irabeth, part of a trio of
bad girls made good, slightly edgy, antiheroic flavored, but
nonetheless card-carrying heroines of the crusade. The only one who
really owns it is pragmatic Anevia, and I'd much rather have recruited her than
Seelah whose constant reminders of 'I grew up on the mean streets of
etcetera' and side quests with her alternate adventuring party get old
very quickly. Worse yet, the game tries to strongarm you into bringing her along as the only designated meat-shield out of a score of companions. Handy reminder: you can recruit mercenaries.
Ember: NG witch. No less a teacher's pet than Arushalae, though lacking the other's stat fudging. Adorable little girl whom you're expected to coddle and praise at every single step despite doing nothing but spouting inane platitudes, and to whose every whim the very multiverse must bend. I kept expecting her personal quest would at some point explore the obvious logical flaws in her basic setup, only for Mary to Sue harder with every chapter. Like the talking sword with abandonment issues from Deadfire, I have to wonder whether she was intentionally written as badly as possible or simply handed off to some lobotomized teenage fanfic writer. Needless to say she's always given the last word in campfire exhanges.
Ember's misconceived antics veer into unintentional comedy when you realize none of her interactions have anything to do with her character. Name one trait remaining relevant past her introduction. She doesn't elf, she doesn't witch, she doesn't crow, she doesn't orphan; her character sheet may as well read "Klingon proctologist" for all it matters!
Daeran: NE oracle. Naughty pretty-boy who serves as your best healer. In practical terms he's statted well, though his oracle handicap (limited movement at the start of combat) means you'll be playing defensively with him around. Decently conceived companion quest, but though he gets pages upon pages of dialogue, he's unfortunately built entirely around his role as 'dangerous' romance novel toy-boy who needs you to save him from his inner demons, so his every interaction boils down to a simpleminded evil-lite 'oooooh, aren't I oh-so naughty and enticing? And rich. And well-dressed. Have I mentioned I'm rich lately? And naughty-naughty!'
Sosiel: NG cleric. Practically, Sosiel's main problem is being a moderate-constitution cleric in medium armor, though even more than Staunton you get him early enough to try to make it work. Thematically, his fundamentally uncreative quest for his m.i.a. brother actually ranks one of the campaign's better-executed stories, but unfortunately Sosiel himself comes across as blandly nice - presumably to suit his role as the good boy romantic counterpart to Daeran.
Camellia: ?E shaman. Rapier specialist. Takes about five seconds to realize she's evil, soon as you ask yourself just exactly who would be hiding her alignment in a paladin-infested city. However, her spoiled brat persona gets toned down after her first appearance, and in direct counterpoint to Daeran's preciousness her quest arc follows through on her basic precept, turning out to be a thoroughly, irredeemably evil bitch manipulating you and abusing your leniency toward her to indulge her sadism. Honestly didn't think they'd go through with it. Line by line the writing ain't winning no prizes, but solid and well executed concept nonetheless. I eventually killed her back at the mansion when she clearly plummeted below my own Pandemonium on the good-evil scale.
Greybor: NN slayer. Dual-axe offense would fit well in a game with more max-CON sword-and-board companions to balance out your front line, but doesn't mesh with Wrath's already redundant lineup of dual-wielding and two-handers, especially with overpowered archers providing most of your damage. However, his companion quest positions him, along with Regill, as a sorely-needed reminder that likeability should not equate to appreciation, the antithesis to Ember and Arushalae and Daeran and Seelah and Nenio and Finnean's infantilism. A cold-blooded appreciation for each other's quality is all you need, growing slowly, cautiously to camaraderie and proven trust without the need for maudlin recitations.
Woljif: CN rogue (of the spellcasting variety, ugh, this mangled class system) Though you're better off focusing on his physical abilites to keep him functional in melee, he makes a dandy buffbot as a secondary caster and is by far your best trickster. More work also seems to have gone into his dialogues (with good voice acting to boot) to where he's arguably the best fleshed-out character in the game, with a personal quest exploring a reasonable spectrum of tiefling possibilities. Wise-cracking without seeming intrusive, with a hard luck backstory that never veers into the outright sappy and an ascension to power that remains within the scope of game mechanics (unlike some others here) he pretty much stands as proof that Wrath's worst points stem less from inability than from deliberate pandering to the idiot market.
Wenduag: NE fighter. Once again, shaky alignment, as Wenduag acts out an excellent portrayal of archetypal CE. Only wanting to be chieftess re-qualifies her as non-chaotic.
First though it's worth mentioning her stat build, because in a game full of archer / bruiser redundancy, her very flexibility as STR / DEX fighter makes her a nightmare to level up. Unless you know all the other companions ahead of time, she keeps
getting made redundant by the flavor of the Golarian month. I started her off
with bows and (to make use of the first good two-hander you find)
glaives. Cue Staunton and his glaive. So I picked up more longbow feats.
Cue Delamere and Arushalae. So I completely retrained her for falchions.
Cue Trever. By late Act 4 I was about ready to retrain her again as a
freakin' bard with harmonica feats, but for fear
some damn harmonica-prodigy angel would descend from on high just to
screw up my weapon distribution yet again. That I was considering a
scimitar just as I found Kestoglyr proved my exasperation well-founded.
However, Wenduag's Stupid Evil tendencies are what make her both contentious (going by forum chatter) and a surprisingly decent character by the end. Sadly, some of her quest prompts (especially in Act 4) are
unenlighteningly written or outright absent, making it hard to get her
"good" quest ending without cheating.
Don't get me wrong, Wenduag is a horrible, horrible person, and that's what makes her a good character, for living updown to one of the hardest companion types to portray aptly (albeit a frequent player personality) the rabid dog. You're basically talking about characters who will turn on their allies
as soon as the opportunity for mischief arises... which is exactly what Wenduag does,
unable to resist the temptation of promised power and swearing fealty
left and right, and with INT 10, WIS 12 and CHA
let's-not-even-talk-about-it, she plays out the role of a born sucker,
just barely savvy enough and socially inept so as to outsmart herself in
her allegiances. Her argument for why you should let her live after her final betrayal even makes sense: she doesn't even bother trying to convince you that she's flipped some moral switch but only that you've demonstrated your dominance in the excruciating fashion she can understand, and finally removed her best available temptation. You can follow her trainwreck of thought.
I'll stand by Wenduag as I stood by Qara because while she still lags behind better versions (Ignus or Kills-in-Shadow (who incidentally would fit the NE type better for her more stable fealty)) she fits a difficult companion role better than most games would even try.
Regill: LE fighter who acts LN. His climactic self-sabotage in service of the cause, which somehow comes across as more meaningful than mere martyrdom for so thoroughly fathoming his fellows' mentality, stands out as the most memorable moment in any Wrath companion quest. Like others here, his alignment is shaky at best, as you never see much malice or malfeasance to justify an "evil" designation beyond indifferently neutral pragmatism or martial callousness.
While yet again his gimped build is difficult to work around (a max-DEX fighter in heavy armor) he hits hard enough with those freaky little double hammers to edge out poor Trever and Staunton for pure practicality.
However, he amasses more style points even by mid-game than any of the rest could hope to. Oddly enough for a themed campaign opposing almost entirely CE enemies, lawful companions are in short supply. I don't know about Lann, but Seelah's lawfulness gets completely drowned out by sappy "power of friendship" plot excuses, so Regill alone ends up picking up a lot of the slack in both reliability and common sense. In a roster full of whiny prima-donnas he and Greybor are usually the only ones opting on no-frills gettin' shit done, which you'd think would count for more on THE VERY DOORSTEP OF EVIL INCARNATE!!!
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusions?
1) By sheer numbers, I was surprised to find most of Wrath's companions... bearable, or even intriguing in the last few cases, contrary to my overall impression of them as insufferable little preening twits. It appears rather the case that the politically correct cretins are simply given more screen time, longer personal quests and more dramatic interactions than their better alternatives. Most of Regill's lines, for instance, come during council meetings, which are so tediously numerous and overextended as to prompt click-through. The worst companions are shoved in your face right from the start (Seelah, Nenio, Ember) while some of the most promising (Trever, Lich's zombies) are 11th-hour additions.
2) While Owlcat learned a lot of lessons from Kingmaker, their interpretation of the alignment system remains shaky. Characters receive their L/C/G/E designations as much by a top-down partitioning of roles according to arbitrarily designated representation quota as they earn them via their own actions.
3) Aside from being portrayed as nauseatingly good/cute/sexy-badass (with the notable exception of Wenduag) most female companions' stats are min-maxed and
outright inflated (Arushalae, holy shit!) to make them look as good as
possible, while the males' stats are wrecked for their assigned role (Staunton, Sosiel, Regill, Trever) so
as to reinforce the womandatory "man bad, woman good" bashing without
which nothing may be published. If you want to handicap
yourself for a challenge, try running a sausage party in Wrath. Ironically, being less idealized actually makes the menfolk more interesting.
4) The most engaging are neither the most ingratiating (Ember) nor the most
extreme (Camellia) but those which best own their basic nature.
5) RPG romance needs to die in a fire. Or in ice. Or down a hole. Or up a hole. I honestly don't care how, just get rid of this idiocy. Look at how much damage it's done in Wrath. Arushalae was obviously designed from the ground up as a romance option. Galfrey instead of being scrutinized as a leader becomes a stand-in for anyone who wanted to bang Princess Peach. Daeran and Sosiel's personalities are crippled by it. At least Camellia and Wenduag's motivation in coming on to me made sense in context (playing on male protectiveness) but it still diverges too abruptly from the campaign's general concerns. Half your damn companion roster keeps stumbling over their own gonads!
You want romance? Make a porn spin-off and sell it separately.
6) They sort of fail at the BG tradition of companions, which interacted with the rest of the campaign more or less regularly, either expositing, cracking jokes or bitching you out over your RP choices. Wrath's roster on the other hand is verbally absent, aside from a few one-liners by Woljif and rare alignment-based issues like Seelah abandoning me due to my lich-craft. (Good riddens.) This uneven intrusion into your campaign lends more weight to their fewer (but often lengthier than in old games) interactions, boosting annoying moments' nuisance by volume. Maybe even Arushalae would've been more bearable if she didn't blindside you with "let's go talk about an imaginary picnic table for fifteen minutes... AGAIN"
7) As the audience for this new medium grew up over the past decades, computer games (especially cRPGs) should have matured with them (or at least progressed through adolescence) and this has sadly not happened. Though the campaign is not completely lacking in nuance, Wrath's special little companion snowflakes strutting their pre-chewed moralism and expectations of social sanction keep bringing to mind one particular descriptor: infantile.
These are the perfectly superior/transgressive/dependent best friends a sixth-grade bully expects to have, the social approval prescribed by our lowest common denominator: a cute little girl lecturing others on their badness, a sexy, sassy, classy femme fatale, a feudal playboy, a desperate for approval black amazon with a hard luck backstory, a sex goddess trying to be good if only you'll love her, a know-it-all who probably can't get any friends besides you and who'll let you cheat off her notes for the secrets of creation exam... and the cheerful, helpful little buddy you keep in your pocket, willing to be anything for you. This is not an RPG group. It's a mean girl's entourage.
One wonders whether Owlcat's hoping to capture an audience of sixth-graders, or merely one stunted at that mental level.
No comments:
Post a Comment