Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

As a self-proclaimed RPG lover, I want to love this game. I really, really do. I try constantly to find a game to fill the gap that KOTOR, Dragon Age: Origins, and Jade Empire left. I can't quite seem to do it. Divinity is one of the games that I hoped would be able to. I've taken two or three good whacks at the game with varying results. Most the time, I don't get off the prison island because I just get so overwhelmed by the open endedness of it all. The combat is brutal, the lore is deep, the mechanics are pretty complicated. The story is great, the choices mean something, and these are all incredible things. Unfortunately, for me, this game feels like work to play. I have to constantly remember all the things that I need to. I have to plan my combat meticulously. I have to be very, very careful not to wander into an area where I'm going to get absolutely stomped on because I might lose 2 hours of gameplay if I do. I tried playing with a friend as well. While I get the concept and I feel like it could lead to amazing adventures, I just wish there were a simpler way to manage it. I love the idea, but I think I'm just too smooth brained to get it. I give it 3 stars because the game is so well done. It's the perfect open world RPG, but I just think it's too open for me. Sometimes I need to be put in a really roomy cage

This game has awesome mechanics and the leveling, fighting, and general game play are fantastic. However, the plot is not well written and the game hides too much information to figure out what they were thinking for some of the puzzles. It's impossible to be an all-good character but it's trivial to be chaotic or evil. The co-op is great for fights, ok for exploring and travelling, extremely clunky for inventory management, and the way they manage co-op dialog is game-breakingly bad (the Start Wars MMO SWtOR did shared dialog really well, this is a huge step back). In the middle of the third act is a point that you don't know to prepare for and when it arrives, can rip party members away permanently. There's hidden mechanics in the game that you have no insight into that can drastically affect your game and one of these is the attitude of companions. If their attitude towards you is high enough, then the third act point is nothing and it's trivial to keep the party whole, but the game doesn't tell you how to raise their attitude or that it even exists and by the time you're in the third act it's too late to fix. Another mechanic that's not quite hidden but you're not told how important it is is the persuasion skill. Throughout the game you are presented with the chance to persuade other characters with skill checks to strength or intelligence or other stats. Unfortunately, they're also all gated behind the persuasion skill. Even if you have 35 strength and that's more than enough for a check, if you have 1 persuasion then you'll never pass any checks after the first few levels. The level of persuasion skill required isn't listed in the dialog, it just lists the type of persuasion you can try. So you have to save first, then try and fail to see what it would have taken, then see if you have a potion or spell or other character that can meet that. The persuasion thing wouldn't be too bad except it's used a lot to uncover most of the more interesting conversations.

I'm not one for long reviews, so here goes: This game is great, buy it. There's not much to say here, it's just great. Why 4 starts and not 5? The inventory system is annoying. So if you have one character that has 5 barter (so that character is the one you should use when selling things), you now have to move all the equipment to that character. If you like loot and pick up everything in order to sell it, it should take you around 30 years. If not then I guess it could be done in 5 years so that's nice. Why can't the characters share skills? If I have a character with 5 barter, whatever, let me sell my shit with whoever is carying said shit. Why torture me? They have it for other skills (lucky charm and I think lore as well) so why stop there? Personally, I never understood why all characters can't share one big inventory and why put in encumbered mode. I never had fun with encumber mode, but what do I know? I'm just a goddamn genius. What was I even saying? Oh yeah, great game. Buy it.

Story is cool, doesn't force you into being the protagonist. Combat can be challenging on occasion in the beginning but this game is, like any skill-based RPG, very susceptible to being min-maxed. Fights end on turn 3 by the second act if you spec properly -- i.e. prioritize high initiative / wits buffs on all equipment, give at least teleport or a mobility spell to each character, invest 4 skill points (1 scoundrel + 3 polymorph) and put adrenaline + skin graft on everyone). Lock down victory turn 1 with 2 turns worth of AP before the enemy has done anything, mass evasion turn 2, clean-up turn 3. OP OP PROS: - cool level design, nice environments - spell / skill trees are really flexible and make for some truly unique combinations (like maxing poison resistance + shackles of pain on all your champs so you can cast mass poison orgy spells on yourself for imba healing while shackles ignores enemy poison resistances and melts them in a blink). - equipment leveling feels very satisfying - genuine sense of progression towards becoming a god on the battlefield CONS: - sometimes character models are hard to click (but much improved over D:OS 1) - I wish persuasion was shared across the party for dialog the same way bartering is for trading so that I don't have to switch away from my main character to red prince all the time for persuasion checks - long reload times - NPC corpses don't give full loot of everything they're carrying

Basically, a vast improvement over first Original Sin in virtually every way. The writing is better - it toned down the humour, and while it is still there, it no longer overshadows the actual plot. In all honesty, despite cheerful, colourful setup, this game can be really depressing at times. That being said, this game is not for everyone and has some quirks. Difficulty - unlike many modern titles, D:OS 2 is bruttally difficult and AI will punish all mistakes. Archetype team involving a tank character simply does not work, as enemies will simply ignore the hardest nut to crack. On the other hand, each battle feels pretty unique and presents different challenge. The armour system - basically physical and magical armour acts as additional hitpoints against specific attacks AND barrier against CC. So, for example, if you want to knock enemy down or freeze them, you need to deplete specific type of armour first. This is the system that you will either love or hate. Some people say that it forces you to focus on only full physical or magical damage team composition but this is a lie - there are ways to work around this through proper tactics, and it gives good results in the end. Another controversial aspect is dependancy on level. Your level matters, A LOT, especially at medium and high difficulties. It is so significant in fact, that a single level may mean a difference between life and death. Areas are basically level coded, so you are pushed in the right direction by levels of your foes. This is more of a traditional RPG and not in the slightest a proper open world game - each act presents a semi-open area. The presentation is overall excellent but there are some very strange things going on there. There is no day and night cycle which would normally be standard these days and weather is region-locked, which leads to some funny situations - sunny town, but the second you move outside, rain. To sum this up - beautiful, intriguing, brutally hard and quirky.