Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

Let me preface this by saying that I both enjoy a wide variety of RPGs (wider then most people, I think) - and that I don't really play them for the combat. I enjoyed Morrowind, but was also fine with Oblivion and Skyrim. I enjoyed Fallout 1/2, but also Fallout 3. I liked the original Wasteland, as well as the reboot. I have played most of the major kickstarter RPGs, and as far as I can remember, this is the first one thus far that I really, honestly hated. I've had RPGs I don't 'care for', or got bored and had not finished, but not any that I actually hated in a long time. I bought it on the recommendation of a friend who said he did not enjoy the 1st, but found this to be one of the greatest RPGs since Dragon Age. I own the first, thought it was "OK" ...but...I never got out of the starting city. Everytime I tried I died, and when I consulted the walkthroughs, they all basically said it was because I had not stolen everything nailed down, and had missed some fetch quests. So I never got farther then dying outside the city walls. It had been on my "to finish list" for awhile, once I could be bothered to get a walkthrough and figure out what fetch quests I was missing, and if it was possible to complete the game without being a kleptomaniac. I was assured this game lacked those flaws. Well, the game started fine at first. Cool-chargen, a tutorial ship that didn't seem so bad, then I'm plunked down into the starting zone, and.... the first four combats I encounter wipe the floor with me. I avoided looking at walkthroughs, and tried other quests, came back to them later, and...got my ass kicked. Fine, OK - I check walkthroughs. They all say that I need to be several levels higher. Ok, so I turn down the difficulty from classic to explorer, do some more quests and....get through it. Barely. And I keep playing. And slogging. And playing, and waiting for it to get fun. It never got fun. Here are the major problems with the system, from what I can tell playing with it, and consulting online. #1: Every enemy knows every weakness you have (even like, rats), and will 100% of the time target based off of them. Have one character thats vulnerable to "X" status effect? Expect to see every enemy that can use that, specifically target them with it to the exclusion of anyone else. #2: Enemies don't play by the same rules. Frustrated by the above? SURPRISE - all of these enemies (even animals) will have ~2x the maximum hitpoints you can possibly get at the level you encounter them. All enemies also have ~2-3 times the range on all ranged attacks you do, and have a more generous target window. So, for instance, one of the first fights you'll encounter is an arena, and one of the enemies in it is atop a platform. You can get atop an identical platform. They can target you, and you can't target them. Period. They can even (if you manage to throw a fire bomb up there) walk through a nearby door and shoot at you from behind a wall through the door, when the game would NEVER let you get away with that considering the angle and the blockage. #3. Just because environmental effects come into play, doesn't mean fights are necessarily fun. The game has a very dynamic combat system (freeze water, boil water, burn away poison) - and people love that because Bethesda and EA have lowered the bar for interactivity nearly to zero. But that doesn't, by itself, mean that combat system is FUN. It isn't. Its a horrible, horrible, slog. If you enjoy preparing for fights your characters couldn't possibly know about in advance by moving around barrels and doing crazy environmental things, to "solve the puzzle of the fight" - thats great, you'll love this game. Just looking to get through the fights, have a decent-ok time, and see the plot? THIS GAME IS NOT FOR YOU. Again, I want to point out with #3, that I have beaten a large number of tactical RPGS before. These fights are not 'challenging'. They are 'stupid and brutally pointless'. There is clearly a market for RPG players who look at the prospect of having to rob an entire city blind, with no-one magically knowing, in order to prepare for ordinary fights...who look at that with glee. I am not one of them. Rating: 0/5 stars. I wish I could get my money back. I hate it. I loathe it.

I played D: OS 1 and loved it all the way through. I was looking forward to OS 2, but upon playing found much of what made me love the original has been removed. I made it to act 3, but I still have no idea what's going on. The story feels far more fragmented and unlike the homestead of OS 1 there's no point of reference. I'm looking for...someone to do... something, but I dont have any idea who or what. The banter of the co-protagonists in OS 1 was fun and involving, but all the character interactions in OS 2 seem superfulous. Which brings me to the frustrating part... the combat. I know alot of people enjoy the difficulty of these games, but I feel like all of the strategy from OS 1 has been stripped away. There's a big emphasis on elevation, but it doesnt matter because nearly every enemy has a teleport and LoS is such that they can always use it. I try prepping my characters by putting my archer and mage up high, but on turn 1, half of the enemies Teleport, Phoenix Dive, Fly, Blitz and whatever right up to them. There are simply too many options for teleporting. There have been many times when my elevated archer would get hit by a mage only to then not be able to shoot the caster on their turn due to LoS. The other emphasis is on physical and magic armor, but its entirely dependend on gear which means if you got bad drops or lack of drops you'll have no defense. When your stategies do work it's very satisfying, but most of the time I'm left frustrated because most attempts to outwit the enemies is negated by sheer brute force. The world is nice and big and there's plenty to explore with lots of quests. I love traveling and finding new caves and civlians in peril. I just wish the amount of persuasion checks or at leas the difficulty was reduced.

Let me get this out of the way: is OS2 worth the retail price? Absolutely, if only for the first two acts. However, even this comes with a slew of caveats. Basically, all of the major problems from OS1 are still here. The story is forgettable high fantasy garbage. It's just a knock-off Baldur's Gate. I can't understand how anyone was motivated by any of the characters. Perhaps it was the VO work (which is actually phenomenal)? The plot is non-existent until the exposition dump at the final boss. It's frankly not worth the ~ 70-hour journey. The combat is hard and as untactical as possible. Ambush! -> enemy goes first -> throws oil on party -> lights it on fire -> curses it. Your party is almost dead, so what do you do? Quickload -> reposition your characters for the "ambush" -> continue to metagame for 69 hours. It's the most riveting game of Simon Says I've ever played. Whoever designed the environments is a genius, but whoever did the levels for each enemy is a madman. It's nonlinear, but if you don't go on 'the path' you're underleveled and the game becomes ludicrous. The game just generally loses steam after the first 20 hours. There's no more tricks in combat, so they force you into cheap scenarios. There's no more story developments. The environments get smaller and more linear. Make a 30 hour RPG and make it good -- don't give me 100 hours where I was counting down the seconds for half my playtime.

I know. It's the best thing since sliced bread. Also, it's not for the masses anymore. Or, I'm not part of the masses anymore. I really, really loved the first D:OS. And the new one does everything better, right? Yeah. Only for me, it's too much now. Too many systems, too many skills, too much of everything, Basically. I can't really decide on anything anymore, because I want it all. Some things are as bad as in the first one, though. Most notably combat takes *ages*. I have no clue why enemy turns take so long. Couple that with fights that have tons of enemies (like the Gwydian fight) and you'll see why I was doing other things like answering mails in parallel. Complicating that is the fact that combat seems to be more difficult than in the first one, so you should probably pay attention - but I just couldn't stand wasting so much time. I don't know. What I was feverishly awaiting turned out to feel much more like work and less than playtime. But then again, I know there are lots of you who will just love all the new stuff. Just be warned that this game took a turn to the hardcore and demands serious chunks of your time. If you got it, you'll be in paradise. If you don't, well, it might make you feel sad. I know it did for me.

I really wanted to enjoy this game, and when it comes to the story and the general feel of the world I really did. But unfortunately, the game system, and especially the combat, just ruined the whole thing for me. There's a fantastic game here hidden behind a slow, dull combat system obfuscated by a poor UI and lack of reasonable messaging. Accidental killing of your own party due to sudden unpredictable AOE (with no UI cues), accidental death due to clicking in the wrong spot and moving instead of attacking, enemies who can see (and shoot, with AOE) you while you can't see them, the whole thing just turned in to a slog of loading and reloading to get through combats against AI that commits a cardinal sin of any RPG: All it wants to do is kill you, it doesn't care if it dies in the process, when all I wanted to do was enjoy a story. So what started as a great game turned sour fast and I ended up just giving up, quitting, and feeling let down by the whole thing. 'Classic RPG' is a great concept, but classic RPG with a complex system that lacks reasonable UI cues to help guide players through that system ends up a mess, and that's what I feel you get here. I ended up not daring to use half of my skills lest they drop my own party members due to an interaction I hadn't expected - So why did I even have those skills in the first place? I'm sure some people would enjoy the tactical nature of the combats and the thrill of every enemy having just the right tactics to ruin your day, but to me it just felt like a bad GM in a tabletop game trying to prove to the players how clever they are. I think I wouldn't feel so negative if I didn't want to like it so much - It's a great idea that is, to me, marred by an awful combat interface and poor enemy design choices.