Here's my honest opinion about POE 2.

I want to start this review by mentioning how surprising it is to me that the same people who created Path of Exile 1, the best ARPG of the last 20 years, are now presenting us with the amalgamation of good ideas and bad executions that is Path of Exile 2.

If I were to put it in mundane terms—and I’ll do this multiple times throughout this rant I’m trying to pass off as a review, though it’s more of a vent than anything else—I feel like it’s as if a couple gave birth to a child, nailed it so hard the first time that they said, “Woohoo! We nailed it so hard with the first one that it would be a crime against humanity not to have a second.” And the result is a hyperactive kid who enjoys bashing their head against every solid surface they find and spends their afternoons seeing how far they can shove charcoal sticks up their nose. But enough about describing myself; let’s get to the game.

If I had to describe it in three words, they would be “slow,” “clunky,” and “irritating.” If Path of Exile 1 feels like adolescence—Agile. Light. Constantly making mistakes, but somehow managing to fix them and learn from them—then Path of Exile 2 feels like living through the final stages of human life: Everything is an uphill battle, it takes 3 to 4 business days to accomplish something that would take someone else a mere breath, your ideas are so entrenched in your brain that you think everyone else is wrong, and trusting your sphincter to contain the cramps in your stomach becomes an extreme sport.

I genuinely hope I’ll be able to change this review in the future, but after putting 80 hours into it over four days and consciously testing several things, I need to be critical.

As it stands in Early Access, especially if you’re not coming from POE 1, it’s not worth playing. One of the main strengths of the first game was how fast everything was. Movement, abilities, even loading screens. Here, everything feels excruciatingly slow. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that fights (especially boss battles) take longer, but there’s a difference between “things don’t explode in a second” and feeling like eeeeverything iiiis mooooving at 0.5 speed. It’s not satisfying, and if it were a subscription-based game, I’d see it as a way to artificially extend its lifespan.

Out of the 6 available classes, I’ve tried 5, and... the general feeling can be summed up as “not good.”

Playing as the mercenary, once you get the passives that increase crossbow reload speed, at least makes you feel a bit more agile. But playing melee classes? That’s something I’d exclusively recommend to masochists who enjoy going to swinger clubs where a pair of fifty-somethings tie their balls up and shove a gag in their mouth. Slow attacks, hits that break your posture and cancel your animations, and even slower abilities. It’s exhausting to try to attack and watch your character break into an Aserejé dance mid-swing because some mob, three stops away from delivering your Amazon package, sneezed, and one of their droplets grazed your shoulder.

The witch? I suspect that beneath her youthful appearance hides a crone who’s been living in a swamp for 80 years, brewing potions out of whatever she finds in the bog, because otherwise, her skillset makes no sense. Her abilities are so slow that by the time she finishes casting them, the mob you were targeting has had time to have grandchildren, reforest a woodland, write a saga inspired by their youth as a village raider, and peacefully pass away in their bed, surrounded by loved ones.

As for the monk and the warrior? Let’s just leave it at “xd,” because if I tried to explain everything that’s wrong here, I’d risk a publisher calling me to release my book.

Now, someone might say, “Oh, slow classes at low levels? Who could’ve guessed?” No, no, no, no, this isn’t a level issue at all. The passive tree has countless little nodes for better defenses or situational damage, but when it comes to speeding up the gameplay—whether attacking or casting faster—you’ll barely find any options, and ALL of them are far enough from your starting point that you’ll need to spend about 25 levels playing a grandpa simulator. And if you do, you’ll have to sacrifice other potentially more useful options. Fundamentally, the game forces you to choose between being a snail with two machine guns or a starving panther with dull claws. And that’s not even the worst part—because it’s not just the classes that feel so sluggish.

In Path of Exile 1, it was simple. Want to see the map? You press U, a PNG pops up with a few dots, you go, “Oh, I need to go there,” press U again, and you’re good. Here? After pressing U, you’re treated to a few seconds of spinning gears (very pretty, but I don’t care) while it loads a map with a spinning watermill. Wow, incredible. Just what I needed—a map that takes 10 times longer to load because some junior artist decided the map should be a GIF instead of a PNG. And if you’re running maps—the stone ones, I mean—and accidentally hit U when you meant to open your inventory, get ready to watch your frustration meter skyrocket.

Speaking of maps, another downside—Oh, hang on, I’ll throw something positive in the next paragraph to balance things out because, wow, this rant is going places.—Who was the genius who thought it’d be a good idea to give you just one life inside maps? You still get 6 portals, but if you die for whatever reason inside a map, say goodbye to the stone, the currency you invested, and the loot you left behind. IT. MAKES. NO. SENSE. A game whose main draw is killing mobs and feeling like you’re chasing a slot machine’s jackpot limits loot (you barely get 50% of the items you’d get in POE 1) and punishes you for dying without offering a way to “redeem” yourself or practice to avoid failing in the same spot. What exactly is supposed to make this worth my time?

The campaign is another overreach. They hit you with 3 acts I’d title as follows: “Act 1: Everything looks awesome (There, something positive for once),” “Act 2: Okay, still looks nice, but these zones are massive, and I’m getting tired,” “Act 3: Is this never-ending? Can I just reach the end without slogging through 20-minute zones?” Everything is huge, you don’t have dashes, teleports, or any mobility skills, and the zones aren’t even interesting enough to warrant exploring them fully. You only do it because you don’t want to accidentally miss a boss or sidequest that gives you passive points or some other useful permanent buff. When the main incentive for exploring is FOMO, it means something’s wrong. Every zone could easily be 30% smaller, and I’d forgive it if they at least added some mobility skills.

Oh, and to top it off, the EA forces you to replay these same 3 acts in a higher difficulty mode to reach the high-end. I’m not too worried because, as I said, it’s just an EA issue and will likely change in the future, but for now, it’s unbearable.

I don’t want to go on much longer since I think the text is already long enough, but there are other issues that are absolutely awful and I sincerely hope they prioritize and fix soon: The Ascendancy trials are frustrating, if there’s a double K.O. between the boss you’re fighting and yourself, the loot is lost but the story progresses, you have to check skill descriptions in the skills menu because hovering over the ability in the hotkey bar doesn’t give you any information, you’re forced to sit through all the NPC yapping even if you’ve already heard it before, and more things I’m probably forgetting to mention.

Personally, I’m going back to POE 1, because as I’ve said, in its current state, it’s impossible for me to enjoy POE 2.

You really live up to your name, huh

Well, I created this account just put this message, to be honest.

"

TheRanter#1062 wrote:

Well, I created this account just put this message, to be honest.

That's silly TBH. What's wrong with the account you play on?