Divinity 2: Developer's Cut

Good: 1.) Strong writing with copious humour. 2.) Good gameplay mechanics. 3.) Excellent skill and item system. 4.) Great gameplay for the price (70hr one run through doing 100%). 5.) Minimal hangups or "bad" spots. I experienced no bugs on my play throughs, but didn't care for the dragon fight mechanics at all, unfortunately. 6.) 70hr+ gameplay for Divinity 2 and it's expansion. Bad: 1.) The engine is kind of bad. 2.) Graphics aren't that great, though animations are okay. 3.) Voice work is questionable at times. 4.) The storyline though solid, feels like it's missing a lot of backstory. 5.) It's a little slow to start, but if you can make it to the hour mark you'll probably enjoy it. I'm picky and eccentric. This is one of the few games in the past decade I've completed in it's entirety. For the current price I consider it a steal, for the laughs I had alone. It's certainly in my top five or so titles of all time.

After completing this series I am left with a bitter taste regarding the game. About mideway I was enjoying it but the lack of dungeon design, regurgitated npcs and game assets and the ending battle was so bad that it ruined the game for me. Add on extremely boring dungeons and my final feeling is that I cant be bothered to replay and go with another char and skill set like I had been planning on. Pros: great beginning levels, character development, fun skill tree to mix and match, a dragon tower to call home, enjoyable characters and funny writing, deep dialogs and long running char development with other npcs. Playing as a dragon is a blast (at first), lots of mini quests and armor to collect. crafting is enjoyable and buffing up your gear satisfying. Cons: extremely repetitive dungeons and levels. game recycles the same assets and level designs over and over. that would not be so bad but the graphics look very dated and underwhelming. big empty fortresses full of the same tired 3 barrel tucked under a tent, or bed roll. same monsters too, only they change their color. towns are better as far as graphical detail but even those reuse the same house plans, furniture, decorations per house. The worst bit was the same faces on npcs, it was disconcerting to see that. I think they had 7 faces and outfits and just reused them for all the npcs. Skill tree at first was fun but playing as a battle mage I quickly learned I only needed 3 skills to finish the game. Making monsters at first was fun but then its easy to gain the best body parts and from then on you rarely make changes to your monster. the final battle, the devs decided to throw out your hot key setup, trained game strategy and carefully decided upon skill tree to just throw at you a predetermined guantlet with false buffs and new skills not listed before. seems like they threw the two expansions together hastily, cutting corners. still recommend the game, dont expect it to end great

I thoroughly enjoyed this. The Good: Megatons of quests. No grinding--there are enough quests and interesting areas to level up without repeating oneself just to level. Pick a character and although you can mix 'n' match, if you do stick with one build, you won't be disappointed with some decent tactics and sensible fighting skills. Lots of flexibility in your ability to build your player character. The voice acting in both portions is excellent. The soundtrack is exquisite. Technically clean, I had no crashing although the odd time it all went rather swirly although some of that is a deliberate artistic choice, I suspect. It could use more "save game" slots. One of the reasons I have enjoyed the Divinity games over some others is that while the story may be dark, the player doesn't have to spend excessive time leveling up in gloomy dungeons. While you could whiz through the game, it can also play out for well over 100+ hours if you play it all through. Which is a great bang for your buck. The Bad: The second portion, Flames of Vengeance is full of fedex quests in Alaroth. Although the ending to Ego Draconis might have been considered unusual at the time, it isn't all that revolutionary or original a plot. The Interesting: The necromantic pet was weird. Kind of creeped me out. Turning into a dragon was great fun and added much to the game play. If you've played others in the series there are plenty of references and characters to catch up on. All-in-all an enjoyable experience and another WIN from the folks at Larian. ***NB: Because it can be paused during battle, for those with some physical or cognitive challenges, this game may still be playable.***

So this game, like many others, is a mixed bag. While many of its parts, individually, may seem rough and at times frustrating, when you combine them all the end result is a truly magnificent game. Larian outdid themselves with this piece. The writing is brilliantly English, bearing many references to pop culture that make you giggle but manage to stay somewhat believable in the context of the environment. The result is a very tongue-in-cheek, yet serious mood. The graphics are pretty. Some people raise complaints about them, and I don't see why. They look very nice, even compared to modern games. The facial animations are a bit rubbery, but you can't win in every department. Speaking of faces, you hardly see your own character's- there are only a few cutscenes where it's seen. You unfortunately can't toggle your helmet on and off so that you can see it more often. Combat is fun, and though I've only played through once as a mage, you often need to close in for melee combat until you get your skills up. You intersparse your attacks with combat rolls, jumps and so on. Early on in the game your jump height doubles, allowing you to leap over enemies' heads, giving great combat mobility. The plot has nice twists, and absolute heaps of side content. You're given a large, if somewhat restricted world to play in. Once you get your dragon form, it becomes a true game of exploration as you scour every nook and cranny for secrets- of which this game has many. Easter eggs, hidden treasure and so on await the intrepid explorer. The Flames of Vengeance episode takes place entirely in Aleroth, but the city is very large and you don't get tired of it (too much. Lucky teleport shrines make city travel fast) because of the dozens of side quests and puzzles for you to do. You don't get to be a dragon until the end which is slightly annoying, but the game still makes up for it. I honestly can't write down everything that I like about the game- you really need to play it and experience everything for yourself.

I feel like I'm in minorty in this, but well... The whole concept behind the game is good. The story is confusing at start, but as the time passes by it becomes more clear and interesting. Of course you have the main baddy, of course you have your allies that guide you and you're the one destined to win, but it doesn't feel so boring throughout the game. The lore that was created for the game is also something fresh and new. The quests are good, with a sense of humor and a large variety of things to do. The writing of most conversations is solid and fun. But the gameplay is something that ruins everything for me. Fighting and leveling your character just feels like copied from some cheap MMO. Fighting feels awkward and bases on button mashing and smashing those hotkeys for skills, sometimes you need to think how to approach a large group of enemies, that's all. Also the enemies just feel mostly like copy pasted, just with different skins and names. I feel like fighting is just a chore. And that's a big part of the game. It isn't a AAA budget game so the graphics weren't top notch at realease. It's quite pretty, in some places there was a lot of effort put in, but the engine is not well optimised. Also, the animations used in conversations and facial expressions.. Are mostly silly and unnatural, but the cheesy British voice acting helps me forget about it ;) TL;DR : solid game that was nicely written but with really bland gameplay and mechanics.