Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

This game is a rare gem among CRPG's these days. A developer that shares a love and care for their product and listens to their community have improved on the previous game and already in the alpha testing did this game shine. Sure, there were plenty of stuff needed to polish, but with every new release, something was better, and there were more of it. Now, the full adventure is on us and it is already so much moreof everything that is good. It is a tactical CRPG game, with lots of things to do, many things to descover and a good combat system that makes every fight intriguing and fun to go play. Larian studios have really made a game that is worthy of countless of hours and I hope that many people get to enjoy this game.

Pros: - DOS2 has interesting take on combat - heavily utilizing environmental effects and both horizontal as well as vertical planes - music is pretty good - sandbox mechanics are implemented pretty deep, if you value your freedom at a cost of the cons below, all the power to you - the writing - as in dialogues - is pretty good Cons: - main storyline is mediocre at best - the overall vibe is light and goofy, the game doesn't take itself seriously, which isn't a bad thing unless taken to the extreme, as it is here - game atmosphere is light as well, don't expect anything thought provoking or mentally engaging - generic UI, sounds, menus, animations - there is no art in any of that - voice acting galore - art direction is very generic - memorable locations are few and far between, most of the environment consist of grey and yellow cuboids - game "ambience" is shallow, cartoonish and childish, run around with bucket on your head, talk to turtles, build pyramids out of chests - sandbox freedom as a vehicle to obtain the fun gameplay if that's your thing - characters are taken straight from Marvel superheroes movie in literal sense - every one of them has a divine spark - so plays nice to the younger audience - turn based combat is tedious and tiresome, random encounter with trash mobs take 20 mins to resolve - combat, although hard, is very straightforward, bring down magic or physical armor on the baddie, then shoot them up. Sure you take use of pools of liquids, barrels, throwables, employ some buffs and debuffs, but nothing really forcing you to strategically plan - and react (except for the positioning). By that I mean eg. no advanced defensive spellcasting system - it all boils down to armor values. - generic lore, it's no D&D - weak classes, no alignment, and so on - custom made chars get nerfed compared to origin story one - generic, random loot and loot galore - a plethora of junk called inventory, and god forbid you are a hoarder type, you will get buried

Okay, lots of people like this, but I had to force myself to play it. The storytelling is strained, and the replay value is surprisingly low. Game balance is tortured many times, and if you accidentally go into the wrong area, the jump in creature level is so dramatic as to be nearly unplayable. Many times, the puzzles are awkward and feel there just to torture players rather than making sense in the story. Speaking of the story, it is very easy to get lost and not know where to go to further the plot, because you aren't powerful enough for what looks like the next step, but you can't find anything else to grind up. Make a mistake in your levelling (easy to do) and you might as well start over, and this for even those comfortable with RPGs. In fact, the best thing you can do is near the end of each act, go back and kill every character you can find just for the experience, otherwise, you are likely to be underleveled for the gateway battle. The game needs smoother game balance, less frustrating (on normal difficulty) combat. Not encouraging players to slaughter everything in sight, leaving a scorched earth behind them would be nice as well. The pre-built characters (why can you only take so few with you again?) storylines are supposed to be the propelling force, but they failed to interest me, often feeling like nothing more than wallpaper.

After so may hours of game and fun, I wanted to update to the last version to get the new features Larian studios added to the game... Well don't know the reason behind it, everything set to run as administrator, but the new launcher prevent the game from starting, not the .net update, not the fix --skip-launcher as arguments for the exe, not the firewall or antivirus rules, not reverting to an old version allow me to play it as i did some months ago... At this point, I give up. For those who want to buy this now, late 2021, wait until they fix it... again... I'm disappointed.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 has racked up accolades, but its gameplay design means it has a mixture of creativity, fun, and stifled, frustrating gameplay all at the same time. - The story is decent. The main plot is solid, but falls apart near the end. The companions are OK, and have an interesting impact for the quests that cross-over with theirs. In other parts of the game they might as well not exist. Sidequests are decent and there's a variety of them. - The tone of the game is inconsistent, but some people enjoy it. The game's content is dark but a lot of the writing and voice work is meant to be funny. I found the voice acting mixed, nearly everyone has an over the top British accent. - The game often offers a lot of freedom, but its inconsistent and often random. There are plenty of choices, more than many similar games offer, but their impact is often not reflected in the story or narratively. - Gameplay offers lots of tactical options and flexibility. The skill system is refreshing and allows lots of change. Unfortunately, many of the fights are set up so that the player starts off at a disadvantage, which is made worse by the game's use of heavy crowd control and an armor system that blocks it. This often leads to metagaming, save scumming, a tedious, heavy reliance on items or losing control of your characters. - There's lots of missing quality of life elements, from manually searching for containers, slow running speeds, inconsistent battle formations, etc. Thankfully mods will help with some of these. - It's a pretty, vibrant game with a soundtrack that meshes well with the content. Overall, I'd recommend getting the game if you're looking for a game with more focus on tactical fights, or if you like games with weird and funky ways of finishing quests. Just don't expect a fully coheisve experience/story or frustration free gaming.