Ever since it's release, Divinity Original Sin 2 has been hailed as one of the best western RPGs in recent memory, the highlight of the CRPG resurgence, and is subject to such widespread fondness that it's developers got handed the keys to make an actual Baldur's Gate 3. Which has always flummoxed me, because I played this game at launch and fucking hated it.
A degree of this is that me and the game simply have different priorities. When it comes to a game like this, I want to create a character, a person to embody, rather than being handed one of the DMs shitty edgy OCs to play as, but DOS2 disagrees, and will in fact offer a fairly substantially lesser experience (losing access to multiple sidequests and altering a number of key scenes for the worse) if you don't pick one of it's stable of interminable snarky edgelords. I know that for a lot of people, not having to make a character is actually a plus (i remember all those thinkpieces positing Geralt as proof that player-created characters should be a thing of the past) so you may not find this as immediately distasteful as I did, but I'd expect more people to agree that this game is terribly written.
Every single character in this game feels like someone's edgy OC, but not in an endearing way. There's zero earnestness here, no honest investment in this world or belief that what is happening matters, just a bunch of archly smug edgelords quipping at each other, like a cut of Drakengard directed by Joss Whedon. Lohse was the only character I had any fondness for, and even she has a bizarre edgy streak that feels totally incongruous. These eminently hateable assholes will bring up a theme, float an idea, and then stick their tongue firmly in their cheek and laugh at you for wanting to engage the idea in any meaningful way.
The thing about this game that made me angry was how it brought up incredibly heavy source material on a whim (the first act of the game is you escaping what is essentially a concentration camp and genocide is a major part of the backstory) but utterly refused to engage with it on any level beyond a Redditor smugly correcting the grammar of a post detailing the very real atrocities that exist in our world. It leverages these things purely aesthetically, draping itself in a cloak of the most rancid vibes imaginable. If you're the kind of person who writes entries on TV Tropes about "deconstruction" you probably think it's genius.
CRPGs like this have been described as digital dungeon masters, creating a virtual tabletop space that reveals it's character through what aspect of the experience it chooses to focus on. Icewind Dale focused on pure combat and dungeon delving, Baldur's Gate on the charmingly amateurish emulation of epic fantasy, and Divinity Original Sin 2 focuses on all the ugliest, most cynical, and rotten tropes and expectations that players of fantasy RPGs have come to expect. If it's a dungeon master, it's the kind of guy who describes a field of brutally massacred gnomes while lighting up a blunt.
Oh, but what about dat combat though? Yeah, it's ok. There's fun to be had in throwing a barrel of oil to set on fire, or throwing a barrel of water to electrocute, or teleporting someone far away from you, but thanks to inflated health pools and interminable turn times, all the "creative solutions" that this game's passionate fanbase eulogise about eventually yield to much more standard and predictable turn-based combat with a truly obscene level curve that drags out every single fight to absurd lengths. And even this is being generous, as after the (admittedly, genuinely good) first act the quality of encounters begins to tumble down a cliff before practically giving up entirely by Act Three. I'll fully admit that I turned the game down to easy by that point because I just wanted this obscenely drawn-out overlong game done with already. These people were going to make a tactics game??? Thank god we were spared that reality.
Oh, but it's got co-op! That's fun, that's unique! Yeah, it is, but if you think I'm going to play a story-driven Role Playing Game where only the person who clicked on a character first is allowed to have any input in the story whatsoever, you must have confused me for someone who thinks Travis McElroy's Adventure Zone is good. Co-op was definitely the most fun I had playing this, but at the same time, it did make a game that was already long, slow, and drawn-out even longer, slower, and more drawn-out, a bit like this review.
The version of this game I played was the pre-definitive edition version, so this may not be reflective of the game as it is now, but the game was already receiving comically overblown praise even before that update, so clearly I'm missing something greater than was added there. Still, my impression of the game was certainly not helped by a final act so unfinished it verged on parody, which culminated in endings that would have grated enough for their abruptness, adolescent nihilism and fascist apologia if they actually Worked. Instead every time I picked an option it gave me a different one and I had to go through each one until it actually gave me the one I wanted, at which point the game called me a fucking idiot for not comitting genocide. 93 on Metacritic.
Most of the time when I don't line up with the wider consensus on a game, I at least understand why people thought that way. I cannot understand why anyone who finished this game left with positive feelings. By the time I finished it, any positive feelings I had about this game were an easy 60 hours behind me. A complete trainwreck on every conceivable level.
This is what y'all played instead of Tyranny? shake my damn head
all that being said the sex scene is so hilariously terrible that it's maybe worth playing just for that so five stars best CRPG of the renaissance
A degree of this is that me and the game simply have different priorities. When it comes to a game like this, I want to create a character, a person to embody, rather than being handed one of the DMs shitty edgy OCs to play as, but DOS2 disagrees, and will in fact offer a fairly substantially lesser experience (losing access to multiple sidequests and altering a number of key scenes for the worse) if you don't pick one of it's stable of interminable snarky edgelords. I know that for a lot of people, not having to make a character is actually a plus (i remember all those thinkpieces positing Geralt as proof that player-created characters should be a thing of the past) so you may not find this as immediately distasteful as I did, but I'd expect more people to agree that this game is terribly written.
Every single character in this game feels like someone's edgy OC, but not in an endearing way. There's zero earnestness here, no honest investment in this world or belief that what is happening matters, just a bunch of archly smug edgelords quipping at each other, like a cut of Drakengard directed by Joss Whedon. Lohse was the only character I had any fondness for, and even she has a bizarre edgy streak that feels totally incongruous. These eminently hateable assholes will bring up a theme, float an idea, and then stick their tongue firmly in their cheek and laugh at you for wanting to engage the idea in any meaningful way.
The thing about this game that made me angry was how it brought up incredibly heavy source material on a whim (the first act of the game is you escaping what is essentially a concentration camp and genocide is a major part of the backstory) but utterly refused to engage with it on any level beyond a Redditor smugly correcting the grammar of a post detailing the very real atrocities that exist in our world. It leverages these things purely aesthetically, draping itself in a cloak of the most rancid vibes imaginable. If you're the kind of person who writes entries on TV Tropes about "deconstruction" you probably think it's genius.
CRPGs like this have been described as digital dungeon masters, creating a virtual tabletop space that reveals it's character through what aspect of the experience it chooses to focus on. Icewind Dale focused on pure combat and dungeon delving, Baldur's Gate on the charmingly amateurish emulation of epic fantasy, and Divinity Original Sin 2 focuses on all the ugliest, most cynical, and rotten tropes and expectations that players of fantasy RPGs have come to expect. If it's a dungeon master, it's the kind of guy who describes a field of brutally massacred gnomes while lighting up a blunt.
Oh, but what about dat combat though? Yeah, it's ok. There's fun to be had in throwing a barrel of oil to set on fire, or throwing a barrel of water to electrocute, or teleporting someone far away from you, but thanks to inflated health pools and interminable turn times, all the "creative solutions" that this game's passionate fanbase eulogise about eventually yield to much more standard and predictable turn-based combat with a truly obscene level curve that drags out every single fight to absurd lengths. And even this is being generous, as after the (admittedly, genuinely good) first act the quality of encounters begins to tumble down a cliff before practically giving up entirely by Act Three. I'll fully admit that I turned the game down to easy by that point because I just wanted this obscenely drawn-out overlong game done with already. These people were going to make a tactics game??? Thank god we were spared that reality.
Oh, but it's got co-op! That's fun, that's unique! Yeah, it is, but if you think I'm going to play a story-driven Role Playing Game where only the person who clicked on a character first is allowed to have any input in the story whatsoever, you must have confused me for someone who thinks Travis McElroy's Adventure Zone is good. Co-op was definitely the most fun I had playing this, but at the same time, it did make a game that was already long, slow, and drawn-out even longer, slower, and more drawn-out, a bit like this review.
The version of this game I played was the pre-definitive edition version, so this may not be reflective of the game as it is now, but the game was already receiving comically overblown praise even before that update, so clearly I'm missing something greater than was added there. Still, my impression of the game was certainly not helped by a final act so unfinished it verged on parody, which culminated in endings that would have grated enough for their abruptness, adolescent nihilism and fascist apologia if they actually Worked. Instead every time I picked an option it gave me a different one and I had to go through each one until it actually gave me the one I wanted, at which point the game called me a fucking idiot for not comitting genocide. 93 on Metacritic.
Most of the time when I don't line up with the wider consensus on a game, I at least understand why people thought that way. I cannot understand why anyone who finished this game left with positive feelings. By the time I finished it, any positive feelings I had about this game were an easy 60 hours behind me. A complete trainwreck on every conceivable level.
This is what y'all played instead of Tyranny? shake my damn head
all that being said the sex scene is so hilariously terrible that it's maybe worth playing just for that so five stars best CRPG of the renaissance
you can play as a true blue bone daddy in this game and you have to wear a mask because your bones scare people
After playing Baldur's Gate 3 last year, I remember telling one of my mates: "I have no idea where this came from? Larian just showed up and was like, I'm the greatest RPG developer ever, here's a certified godlike banger, goodbye." Having now rolled credits on Divinity 2, it turns out I'm just stupid. Larian's been cooking for years but my debilitating fear of top-down cameras and ability hotbars as long as Route 66 meant I completely avoided it. Divinity 2: Original Sin is essentially Baldur's Gate 3's older, slightly nerdier brother, and by extension, it's another boundary-breaking master class in how to make ginormous, sprawling experiences that are still somehow rewarding, reactive and quality-rich. And when I say quality-rich, I mean unfathomably quality-rich.
This game is like 80 hours long. It's just filled to the brim with stuff. It's one of those games that I have to dig deep, speak mystical incantations and summon my relentless 13-year-old, gremlin-brained self to have the patience, stamina and sheer lack of self-preservation to get through in a timely manner. And somehow, while offering such a vast spread of stuff to engage with, nothing in here ever really feels like it's scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's never just serving you up content. It's mission after mission of main event, must-play stuff, largely because everything from the side quests and the companion missions to the core story sections and even random NPC encounters are intertwined. Every quest somehow links into the larger story, every character has something relevant to say and every corner is filled with something worth investigating.
Having played this and Baldur's Gate 3 only a few months apart, it's wild to me how good Larian is at spinning these kinds of stories. They're unparalleled at setting up a huge world that you can explore freely while still somehow making every element you interact with feel like it's part of one, seamlessly unified narrative. Their games are labours of love, and Divinity 2 is no exception. It's just a really saucy, well-made, video-game-ass video game.
And that extends far beyond the story. The way it doesn't establish arbitrary rules regarding how you play or solve a situation. The way combat is a puzzle that challenges you to think outside the box. The way it never holds your hand or tells you what to do but slyly always somehow guides you back to your objective.
And yes, I don't think it's quite as good as BG3. It's more tedious to play, the inventory management is hellish, and act 4 is filled with bullshit gimmick fights and puzzles that are more annoying than fun. The difficulty spikes are also ROUGH at points. The tutorial area's my personal favourite, because it's like, oh here's some slugs to fight. Really learn the game and all that. Then it randomly just decides it's tired of all the loser baby shit now, and spawns in giant alligators with teleporting magic who will absolutely push your shit in for no reason at all.
And don't even get me started on the many, many sections where you get a potato-brained AI teammate you have to protect. Every single one of these goofy lil bastards will single-handedly pull off the most elaborately stupid manoeuvres you've ever seen, to the point where you wonder if they're throwing on purpose and you're gonna pop up in a YouTube prank video in two months' time. They'll actively cancel out every big-damage-set-up you're currently putting together, and then after they inevitably die, every NPC you meet will just chat mad shit about what a terrible person you are for not reloading every turn 9 times to protect them from their own stupidity.
But this is still an absolute banger from a studio that I'm slowly learning is incapable of dropping the ball. Considering the talks before Baldur's Gate 3 were that Divinity 3 could be the next big project on the docket for Larian, I'm pretty gassed to see what these dudes could do with the IP now they've managed to launch arguably one of the best RPGs ever made. Gonna hazard a guess that it'll feature way more horny vampire dudes and shapeshifting grizzly bear sex...
This game is like 80 hours long. It's just filled to the brim with stuff. It's one of those games that I have to dig deep, speak mystical incantations and summon my relentless 13-year-old, gremlin-brained self to have the patience, stamina and sheer lack of self-preservation to get through in a timely manner. And somehow, while offering such a vast spread of stuff to engage with, nothing in here ever really feels like it's scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's never just serving you up content. It's mission after mission of main event, must-play stuff, largely because everything from the side quests and the companion missions to the core story sections and even random NPC encounters are intertwined. Every quest somehow links into the larger story, every character has something relevant to say and every corner is filled with something worth investigating.
Having played this and Baldur's Gate 3 only a few months apart, it's wild to me how good Larian is at spinning these kinds of stories. They're unparalleled at setting up a huge world that you can explore freely while still somehow making every element you interact with feel like it's part of one, seamlessly unified narrative. Their games are labours of love, and Divinity 2 is no exception. It's just a really saucy, well-made, video-game-ass video game.
And that extends far beyond the story. The way it doesn't establish arbitrary rules regarding how you play or solve a situation. The way combat is a puzzle that challenges you to think outside the box. The way it never holds your hand or tells you what to do but slyly always somehow guides you back to your objective.
And yes, I don't think it's quite as good as BG3. It's more tedious to play, the inventory management is hellish, and act 4 is filled with bullshit gimmick fights and puzzles that are more annoying than fun. The difficulty spikes are also ROUGH at points. The tutorial area's my personal favourite, because it's like, oh here's some slugs to fight. Really learn the game and all that. Then it randomly just decides it's tired of all the loser baby shit now, and spawns in giant alligators with teleporting magic who will absolutely push your shit in for no reason at all.
And don't even get me started on the many, many sections where you get a potato-brained AI teammate you have to protect. Every single one of these goofy lil bastards will single-handedly pull off the most elaborately stupid manoeuvres you've ever seen, to the point where you wonder if they're throwing on purpose and you're gonna pop up in a YouTube prank video in two months' time. They'll actively cancel out every big-damage-set-up you're currently putting together, and then after they inevitably die, every NPC you meet will just chat mad shit about what a terrible person you are for not reloading every turn 9 times to protect them from their own stupidity.
But this is still an absolute banger from a studio that I'm slowly learning is incapable of dropping the ball. Considering the talks before Baldur's Gate 3 were that Divinity 3 could be the next big project on the docket for Larian, I'm pretty gassed to see what these dudes could do with the IP now they've managed to launch arguably one of the best RPGs ever made. Gonna hazard a guess that it'll feature way more horny vampire dudes and shapeshifting grizzly bear sex...
This game will take you approximately 405030592309841293128318920319208048104089 million hours to complete, but it is an absolute blast of a CRPG in terms of content and opportunities to craft your own story. I found the best way to play Divinity: OS2 is with a group of at least two other friends to keep the experience fresh. You are emplored to craft your own character and create stats to fit the type of game YOU want to play, which I think is very underappreciated in the RPG genre nowadays. It feels like any playstyle can be successful if you are willing to play the fights correctly.
My biggest drawbacks are maybe that I wish money was easier to find and that objectives gave better hints.
My biggest drawbacks are maybe that I wish money was easier to find and that objectives gave better hints.
Это уважаемая игра. Несколько лет Нина пиарила мне эту игру как ультимативный шедевр, и по сути так и есть. Огромная вариативность в прокачке, множество классов, способностей, просто глаза разбегаются и лично я тратил по часу на то как лучше прокачать своего перса ( все равно выходил какой то амеба )
Сюжет эпичный, и завлекает. Из незначительных минусов, последний акт в городе показался не таким нагруженным на контент, как остальные.
Ну и тот факт что в это можно играть с другом еще плюс баллы к игре
Сюжет эпичный, и завлекает. Из незначительных минусов, последний акт в городе показался не таким нагруженным на контент, как остальные.
Ну и тот факт что в это можно играть с другом еще плюс баллы к игре
There's a lot of depth to this game, particularly for those wanting to focus on getting a powerful or specialised build together. For me though, the narrative and adventure was the main draw and here I found the execution a little jilted and rough. The main story beats were hitting, but the emergent narrative didn't seem to hold together. There were numerous times where motivations and emotion seemed to cohere. For example, at one point we had a battle for a reasonably well laid out motive. But at the end of the battle, having lost one team mate, the gameplay just continued without any conclusion, at that point. It just ruined the immersion for me. A solid game though and I'm sure for those who are deeply invested in the combat mechanics, this will be great.
Шедевр РПГ. Прошел в коопе, но Фукай говорит в соло лучше.
This one wasn't finished because my friend Lrazzy doesn't like me anymore.
I've try to finish this game 3 times, and third time is indeed the charm.
A beautiful sandbox of chaos with enriched story telling and beautiful environments. Definitely one of the best CRPG's of the decade that it came out in if not the best.
I should get back to this, its honestly one of few western rpgs to really captivate me
I put 200 hours into this game and still didn't finish it.
I respect the game a lot because there's an insane amount of content and so much freedom in the gameplay and choices you can make meaning if you're creative enough you can do almost anything you want to. It's the ultimate D&D campaign.
However on PS4 with no mod support it's punishingly difficult and almost every battle encounter takes like an hour due to how slow everything is so the game just isn't fun at times for me and I can't tell you how many times I died and had to reload.
Still I can certainly see the appeal and why so many people consider it one of the greatest RPGs ever made, I have hope I'll be able to finish it one day.
I respect the game a lot because there's an insane amount of content and so much freedom in the gameplay and choices you can make meaning if you're creative enough you can do almost anything you want to. It's the ultimate D&D campaign.
However on PS4 with no mod support it's punishingly difficult and almost every battle encounter takes like an hour due to how slow everything is so the game just isn't fun at times for me and I can't tell you how many times I died and had to reload.
Still I can certainly see the appeal and why so many people consider it one of the greatest RPGs ever made, I have hope I'll be able to finish it one day.
tears in my eyes
My favorite CRPG to date.
The story isn't the pinnacle of video game writing, but it's solid, and the world, lore, characters, and choices you can make (and their consequences), all mesh together to create an engaging RPG experience.
I've never understood the obsession with RTWP combat in CRPGs, and I'm glad that this game chose to use a fun and diverse tactical turn-based system, where you have to weigh your movements and ability options carefully each turn.
This is one of the only games I've ever done an Ironman (Honour Difficulty) run with.
The story isn't the pinnacle of video game writing, but it's solid, and the world, lore, characters, and choices you can make (and their consequences), all mesh together to create an engaging RPG experience.
I've never understood the obsession with RTWP combat in CRPGs, and I'm glad that this game chose to use a fun and diverse tactical turn-based system, where you have to weigh your movements and ability options carefully each turn.
This is one of the only games I've ever done an Ironman (Honour Difficulty) run with.
one of the best RPGs I've played with friends in a long time. this is the perfect DnD game for people who don't wanna sit around a table like a regular boring DnD session. Just a fantastic game though it takes just as long to complete the game as if it were a DnD session.
huge win for the crate stacking suck n fuck genre
Divinity: Original Sin II was a TRPG I should've liked considering my tastes, but playing it in a group of four had the opposite effect. Rather than getting engrossed in the stories, it came across as confusing and, quite frankly, a slog to get through. By the end, I even felt some hate for it. But is it my fault? Absolutely, I should’ve known that not going at my own pace would’ve ended badly. Lesson learnt.
I might revisit it in the future, but for now I’ll try and forget it exists.
I might revisit it in the future, but for now I’ll try and forget it exists.
One of the greatest RPGs ever made. The writing alone is enough to earn that distinction, but the reactive game world, intricate systems and tactical combat push it just that much higher to make it a true classic. The third act is weaker then the rest of the game for sure, but not by much.
boring, bad character creator
Don’t remember much about the story but I killed people with a box
I adore everything about this game. The characters are all unique and bring something different to the game and the storyline overall is intriguing and fun. The voice acting is great and the gameplay is fun! I like that it’s replayable, with different characters bringing new things to the story and you can make different choices the next time around keeping it fresh.
The most overrated CRPG I think i've ever played.
Impossible to get people to finish
Excellent game tho
Excellent game tho
I played as a skeleton and I collected bones and other dead things. My party didn't like me
This game absolutely blew my mind back when i played it back in 2019, it had so many possibilities and you could do whatever you wanted to in order to complete the quests, as killing important npcs or finding different ways to overcome the problems.
Everything was almost perfect, from the characters to the world.
I would have prefered a little more complexity in the builds, and the story could have been a little better, but those were only minor problems, and they also got solved in Larian's next game. Cheers.
Everything was almost perfect, from the characters to the world.
I would have prefered a little more complexity in the builds, and the story could have been a little better, but those were only minor problems, and they also got solved in Larian's next game. Cheers.
Taps into what addicted me to DnD as a kid, and a thing I've long since thought impossible for a video game: a sense, however illusory, that the player is free to indulge in their own rules, however bullshit they may be. One of the few modern RPG's that invites you to tug on its edges rather than taking pains to conceal them.
Captures the spirit of old-school CRPG's while aiming their trappings at something entirely new rather than relegating them to window dressing.
Captures the spirit of old-school CRPG's while aiming their trappings at something entirely new rather than relegating them to window dressing.
Started over a few times but never made it past the first couple hours of act 2; Larian basically doubled down on all the annoying things from the previous game (they trust their cliché-ridden writing waaaay too much, even if it isn't as incredibly dreadful this time around) while completely reworking the formerly innovative combat system into what is essentially a glorified dps race.
Still arguably worth it if your tolerance for generic overblown "chosen one" narratives is high; mine isn't, and when it's easier to find literal gods to talk to and be sent on yet another quest to save the world by than it is to find a pair of trousers for everyone in your party, you know that the developers have gone way too far up their own asses with the "divinity" theme.
Still arguably worth it if your tolerance for generic overblown "chosen one" narratives is high; mine isn't, and when it's easier to find literal gods to talk to and be sent on yet another quest to save the world by than it is to find a pair of trousers for everyone in your party, you know that the developers have gone way too far up their own asses with the "divinity" theme.
It's been 3 years since i've beaten this game and i still think about it, fantastic storytelling and gameplay, and soundtrack is phenomenal.
One of my favorite rpgs in terms of combat and mechanics overall. Story is also good and as a coop experience it’s a blast. I’ve finished this game twice and there was noticable differences in each playthrough based on some choices we made. Good times all around.
Fan-fiction tier story