Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

So to keep the review short: The Extraordinary: - HUGE Amount of content, 200+ hours if you want to explore and see... nearly everything. 4 different Chapters that are really disctinct from each other and everyone of them brings variety and fresh setting. - The COMBAT: dynamic, hard enough for me to stress a little bit before big encounters (like in Baldur's gate), and very diverse, the combination between elements is really well implemented... - The Origin Characters: Not your typical hero for most of them Props for Red prince/Fane/Lohse especially. -The GRAPHICS and ART(with a little reshade), sufficently detailed and colourful with strong design choices that make the world stand out. - The ENGINE: The amount of possibilities at your disposal is dizzying, craft anything and try anything (combine nails with your shoes and you can now walk over ice puddles without slipping!! ) This for me is the future of RPGs, where players create, mold the game to their liking. - The SOUNDTRACK: Very discreet and sublte in lots of areas, and yet it grows on you. There is also a coherence in between the different themes that, again, give the game its uniqueness. The GOOD: - STORY in general is pretty interesting and has a lot of twists, i especially like the ending where lots of insanely powerful characters are involved. - The REPLAY VALUE; You cannot play with all the Origin Characters in the 1st playthrough, and lots of different builds to try. The SO-SO: - A few CRASHES: especially in the end, the last ACT - Some BROKEN QUESTS: Looking at you PEEPER, you disappeared into nowhere and the issue is stated since 2017 - STUPID SIR LORA: Will trigger any trap, and die in a few fights without you being able to do anything - Some WRITING regarding key choices for your companions, the choice is often binary and extremely polarised Otherwise, I havent played such a marvelous game in a long time, I would put it up there with the classics hands down.

The game even if a bit dated at this point looks gorgeous runs smoothly and in general feels like a lot more modern than the date of release says. As for how the actual game is.. To describe it is hard because if you like these types of games there really isn't anything to complain about or even say that it could be better. It's as if they took a month of testing for each and every feature it works seamlessly and I have yet to experience a single bug or anything like it over almost 40 hours. The atmosphere and story of the game is a masterpiece just the music would make it a great game - each and every time I open it I can't help myself from humming on the main theme. Characters no matter how small are expertly voiced and really seem like true living (or not) beings. The world feels really lived in and has a way of sucking you in as if these things actually happen. I would really recommend this game to anyone. It's not hard getting into at all and every single time I've played it feels or acts different depending on choices (and yes choices do REALLY matter sometimes) If I could give more than 5/5 I would.

The story is quite interesting. Graphics are nice enough. Gameplay for the first parts I liked quite ok. Further on it became more of a grind, with some interesting story elements here and there. Turn based combat seems to drag on, and requires good knowledge how to optimize all skills, armour, etc. Else I got CC'd and wiped all the time, with constant reloads. Also I found the game requires grinding a lot of (rather pointless) quests and areas in correct order or be way under-leveled and get wiped all the time. Around end of part 2 I changed to explorer mode, which largely nerfed it for myself. Ended up with the final boss fight where I wiped all the enemies in 2 turns. Bit of a let-down even if easier mode, even if otherwise helped me finish the story. Some balance in all that would be nice. An example. These days there are plenty of walkthroughs and tips online. Often with ideas like re-spec everyone as a thief and pickpocket the town four times to have money to buy decent leveled skills and items. If this is what you have to do, maybe the mechanics could be different. I think it has good basis for a great game, just not the mechanics for me. More focused, real-time with pause, etc sounds much more interesting for me. User preference I am sure. If you like turn-based and don't mind taking 100h to finish it (not counting reloads), its certainly worth a try. I think this is often at a discount, so maybe look for that.

I have yet to finish my playthrough, but this one is anamazing game. Trully on of the best CRPG in recent years. Typically I do not expect something very good from poster with a lot of 5 star stamps, but in this case it's really deserved. Story, quests, characters, combat, world, graphics, animation - all on very good level. And the amount of content is just crazy alot. I spent more than 60 hours and yet not finished the game (level 16 ATM). ***** The only serious complain that I have is level scaling. It is way way too high. Monsters of 2 level higher than you can 1-2 shot you. And when you beat them rewards are 2 level higher and you have penalty of using the weapons. However armor is usable and I was using 14 lvl rare shield on 12 lvl character for a long time, because even Epic 13 lvl shield had worth stats. The same is applicable for skill damage, XP rewards. It is also bits you other way around: fighting monsters 2 level below you is boringly easy and unrewarding: low XP and items are inferrior.

My standards might just be low after all the endless garbage that is released in the gaming industry these days, but I've definitely enjoyed this game and it seems this game avoids being total garbage like most modern games. Larian seems to have tried to make some decent, and it shows. Gameplay's fine and has real depth; many chracters are decently written at the very least; game's hard (if you like that sort of thing, I'm personally mixed on it) and long; writing's decent overall at the least; game's quite freeform; game has pretty good replay value; game's moddable; etc. That being said, the game has its issues. The story itself has issues and is decent overall at best; game has its fair share of bugs and wonkiness (be prepared to misclick at times and have one of your characters do an action that you did no intend, protentially screwing you over); game can be obtuse at times and might need guides and/or metgaming to get past certain situations/fights; the items you get are leveled so you constantly have to replace your loot or fall behind; the general looting gameplay loop gets tedious; the leveling in general can get out of hand, both on your end and the enemies'; modding the game can be obtuse and weird; etc. Also, I can't shake the feeling that while the game has plenty of content, it doesn't have enough and that I saw most of the game on my first run. Finally, I wish the game had respawning actors, but that's a very minor and personal annoyance and I don't fault Larian for not doing having it. All in all, don't let the 3 stars fool you. The game's competent and I'd reccommend it if you've the time and patience. It's not the best game I've played, but it's far from the worst. If anything, it's a far better effort than the usual garbage these days. And sorry about the poorly written review :( . Perhaps that's not my strong suit?