GreedFall from Spiders and Focus Home Interactive is an RPG inspired by 17th-century baroque art. Learn more about this fun adventure in our GreedFall review!
GreedFall is the new open-world RPG from Spiders and Focus Home Interactive, who have given us several games to enjoy on PlayStation 4. This time around we’re getting an adventure in which a peculiar illness known as the Malichor has struck society, so you go to the new land to try and find a cure for this before it is too late. Will you be able to make the most of your connection with the factions to survive in this new land? Do you have what it takes to complete the many quests (and side-quests!) that will be thrown your way?
The game offers four difficulty settings so that you can find the right one for you. For Easy, your companions will be stronger while enemies will be weaker and not as aggressive, which is great for players that are not as experienced with RPGs. Normal is the most balanced experience in which you’ll need to make the most of your skills and equipment to succeed. Hard increases the number of enemies out to get you, making them more aggressive as well, being able to deal more damage to you. And then, there’s Extreme in which enemies are fast and fierce, out in great numbers, and can completely destroy you in an instant.
You’ll be moving your character with the left analog stick, tilting the camera around with the right analog stick. You can sprint by pressing and holding the X button to be able to put some distance between you and any enemies, attacking with the Square button, and using your secondary attack with the Triangle button. Be sure to switch weapons as needed with the R1 button. If you need a short breather to better analyze the situation, you can open the tactical pause menu with the L1 button so that you can see what the best course of action is. You can also set shortcuts for some actions on the D-Pad so that you can have quick access to abilities or skills. Fury is a special state you can enter to deal extra damage and make enemies lose their balance, and you can use it with the L2 button.
The first thing you’ll need to do is select how your character is going to look. Step one is picking its genre, and then you’ll be able to configure it by either selecting from the different preset options the game has to offer, or by manually making changes to your character by selecting between the available options for the face, hair, eyebrows, skin color, hair color, and eyes color. After this, it will be the moment to select the starting class for your main character, which will impact different things for its overall build.
For this, you can pick between a warrior, technical, or magic profile. The warrior profile is, as expected, focused on close-range melee combat, with access to starting skills one-handed heavy weapons, one-handed blade, and firearms – the game recommends you focus on strength and endurance attributes and on the craftsmanship and vigor talents. The technical profile focuses on controlling the battlefield, which you can see from its elemental traps starting skills – be sure to focus on accuracy and agility so that you can keep some distance between your enemies and your group. The magic profile is for using offensive spells to stay away from enemies by using long-range attacks – improve the mental power and willpower attributes, and you’ll have a better chance at surviving in battle.
As you level up, you will gain points to boost your character’s attributes over the six branches. For example, if you pick the warrior class, you should use your points to boost your strength so that all melee attacks deal more damage, giving you a chance to stun enemies when you land an attack while also boosting the damage you deal with an enemy’s armor rating. Use your points to boost your endurance attribute, and you will increase your life points total while increasing your balance, opening the way for you to be able to equip the heavier armor in the game.
You will also receive points to increase your talents, and these can be used on the charisma, science, lockpicking, intuition, craftsmanship, and vigor. Boosting your craftsmanship talent will allow you to craft basic weapon and armor upgrades, and by adding more points into the mix, you will be able to craft advanced weapons and armor, recycling pieces of equipment to be able to create more ingredients. Vigor will increase your max ammo capacity and will allow you to recover some life points and magic when you’re not in combat.
You won’t be going on this adventure alone, so you will need to set up your team from the available members to have a balanced group that can survive out in the wild. Each party member will have different stats, attributes, and skills for you to consider, so be sure to mix and match to find the companions that best suit your playing style. You can also interact with them and talk to learn new information and to build your relationship with them. Perhaps this might end up blossoming into something else?
GreedFall includes a full trophy list with a Platinum trophy for trophy hunters out there. Some of the trophies will make it very obvious that you will need multiple runs to be able to get everything before you can unlock a new Platinum trophy for your collection. Why? Because you need to win the favor of all three factions, as well as a good relationship with the natives of the land you are pretty much colonizing. On top of this, you need to be in a relationship with each of the four potential romance candidates. Oh, and there’s also having to complete the game on Extreme mode – the highest difficulty setting -, which I recommend you don’t take on during your first run.
GreedFall is out now on PlayStation 4, and it’s available for $49.99. It offers a solid open-world RPG experience with plenty of main quests and side-quests, three factions for which you’ll try to win their favor, different companions to choose from, the potential to establish a relationship with one character, and more. Are you ready?
Disclaimer
This Greedfall review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by Focus Home Interactive.
