Or well, at least PoE(1) - it is my favorite game of all time in everything from main story to companions to music. c: Absolutely adored everything about it! The sequel was... Not a bad game per se, but there is definitely a long list of things that I did not enjoy as much (*especially the ending*)
I have the take similar to the one I have on BG1-BG2 with the PoE games, probably because they both pay homages to the respective part of the series they are obviously inspired by. The first one is a little rough around the edges, doesn't have as much companion interaction and scale, but has its own charm and in my opinion better writing (although writing-wise BG2 is a step up from BG1) - it's fine to hate on Durance, but that doesn't make him a badly written character. He's an awful, disgusting character who is very well-written, and is worth keeping around in spite of his personality. The main plot flows a lot better too, and the expansions are great. It's not as well thought-through, but an awesome experience at least subjectively.
While PoE2 is massive, and the faction questlines and all the wiggle room you get within them, combined with the free-roam exploration and the atmosphere, plus the character-building opportunities it provides, all make for a stronger experience from a pure gameplay (with a few of the Magran's Fires turned on) and role-playing perspective, but the writing is... not necessarily worse, but is certainly different. Modernized, I guess is the word. It's still not Bioware's cotton-candy fantasy that they turned Dragon Age into, and I really liked the historical inspirations for the factions and their individual aesthetics (as I've said, I am a sucker for the late-/post-Renaissance thematics, and Obsidian did manage to create a believable fantasy setting where firearms and advanced technology exist logically and make sense rather than are a random quirky addition), but you definitely feel that it's far less gritty and a lot more sanitized, and the real-world parallels do get out of hand sometimes with how blatant they are, while in PoE1 they were a lot less apparent (like with how it was pretty obvious that Aedyr is a stand-in for the British Empire albeit with a more Mediterranean flavour, and the Dyrwood/Glanfathan conflict is at least somewhat inspired by the colonist/Native American tensions, and the Vailians are clearly Italian from the commerce-driven era, although with more colonial ambitions, and Great Vailia and Old Vailia would probably then be allusions to the Roman and the Byzantine empires, respectively).
As for the companions, I am really sad that Ydwyn didn't get properly developed because they didn't make it to the stretch goal. I had to headcanon my scholarly Watcher and her having nerdy banter over khapa tea... ahem. The rest are... fine? The old ones are still themselves, and I liked Maia the most out of the new ones, she's controversial and related to Kana, who was my favourite in the first game. Xoti and Tekehu do sometimes seem like they're just there as romance options, and Serafen just doesn't have much more to him than a vulgar furry shortstack swashbuckler. It does feel like the first game's crew had more going on with them despite having fewer interactions with the Watcher and during quests. The DLCs are a treat, though (yes, even the arena one). They aren't the first game's two expansions, but each offers a very cool, new setting and taps into the Eora lore from a new perspective - hence me being really excited for what they're gonna do with Avowed. Hopefully it doesn't become even modern-er with its writing, the setting deserves better.
That was more than enough of an off-topic tangent, methinks. Suffice to say that I do agree with one of the earlier posts that Owlcat writes evil/neutral companions much better, with some expections (Jaethal is kinda dull in Kingmaker, although Harrim is really entertaining, while Tristian the Choir Boy was mostly kept around by me, as a player, because having no cleric is downright masochistic). An interesting parallel with Bioware, where 1's evil party members were mostly absurdly theatrical villains, and 2, while much better in that regard (Viconia, a better characterized Edwin), still had more going on with the good-aligned part of the team (Keldorn, Aerie, Jaheira, Mazzy). Somewhat sad how many of them got retconned and butchered in the new lore books, although I doubt many BG fans consider them and the old novels canon.
