I'm an older gamer who plays many different genres, but RPGs are my favorite sort of game. While the larger, establish companies like Bethesda tend to pull high marks on the basis of past glories and industry clout, Larian Studions, a smaller company has managed to pull off a wonderful gem that actually is deserving of the high praise it has received. It is astoundingly smart, immersive and deep. There is a mind boggling amount of exploring to do here, with the most believable, deeply written and wonderfully real feeling NPCs I've encountered in any game of any genre. It is a Dungeons & Dragons based game, and it carries the general flavor of it's pen and paper relative extremely well. It incorporates dice rolls that don't bog down the action. The Narrator acts as a capable DM, often describing bits of lore in an interesting, beautifully written way. There's none of the dull, cliched nonsense I encountered in Starfield, which frankly feels like a tired, boring outdated codger in comparison. One of the most remarkable things about BG 3 is the way that the in-game above camera melds with the thousands of intimate cutscenes so effortlessly. Looking back over a long playing session, I never feel like I've played from an above, more distant place. Somehow the game designers have cast some gaming magic into the mix so that it's all one experience. All the actors are voiced....even the animals. Everyone seems to have something to say, and a point of view of their own. It's really quite amazing. Combat is deeply tactical. Charging stupidly into a fray generally ends up in death. Flanking, using height and cover are rewarded. There are seemingly endless possible ways to succeed in every encounter. This game was a labor of love by Larian, and it's a real work of art. All it's parts add up to something greater than it's individual bits. Hells, it could be the best computer rpg of all time. As perfect as a complex computer game can get.
Divinity: Original Sin II is among the finest RPGs I've played. I only discovered it this year. I see a number of negative reviews here, and I have no idea why anyone would rate this poorly. It's original, smart, and definitely for the thinking gamer who demands freedom to explore and smart, tactical challenges in their battles. The game's strengths are in the excellent character writing, the creative design to offering surprising, varied combat options, a very stable platform, and an interesting approach to spells/skills/classes that is logical but different and original in approach to your average dragon and wizard game. Most of the game runs in real time, and a player is free to explore as he wants, or take on various tasks and quests, in most any order. The enemies don't scale, so the player needs to carefully judge what they are taking on before throwing themselves into something well over their heads. This need for consideration and the lack of hand holding makes the game several pegs of brainpower over most games of this ilk. You can play alone or as a decent sized party with a large variety of skills. The game takes into account elevation and the game is excellent at offering cover from objects and clouds from spells of various sorts. I'd say that this attention to tactical detail- placement of your party members, knowing what weaknesses your enemy has versus your own strengths, is the most wonderful thing about the game for me. This makes for a delightful, fresh game I keep coming back to. The character "races" are different than normally encountered, and anyone can be any mix of anything, which is also fresh and innovative. There is no "normal" party of warrior/cleric/ thief and mage that you have to build- you aren't stuck in that rather cliched trope at all. I really could not be more delighted, and I am quite excited for Baldur's Gate III by this same team.
