A turnbased Strategygame in the spirit of Pen&Paper? Heck yeah, I'm in!
This game was such a joy to play through, mostly because of the writing. Almost all Characters are written so nicely, I love it (Fane my Beloved). The world feels alive through all this interactions, it left me more often then not in awe seeing new zones and hating Scarecrows more then ever before.
This game has one flaw tho. It's combat works but it evolves ultimately in an race in who get's oneshot or twoshot first. This sadly most notably with the Final Boss of the Game. I hope Larian continues to learn for Baldurs Gate 3, because they have really shown with this game that they have the potential to be extremly goated. So I recommend this game fully for everyone that likes Pen&Paper or just a good story and nicely written Characters.
So back boneing Skeletons I guess.

Divinity: Original Sin II has maybe the most intricate combat mechanics that I've ever seen. The number of intertwining systems in this game is staggering, often overwhelming (sorry for casting restoration. I forgot you were decaying). It is a constant dance of elemental surfaces and status effects that makes every encounter unique and thrilling. While character interactions are largely shallow, the breadth of content more than makes up for it. Everything can be spoken to in this game, from flaming slug monsters to sewer rats. All of it voice acted, yet hidden behind an optional talent that many players will never select. You can play this game straight (as intended?) or you can fudge with the systems as much as possible (as intended?). You enter a room where skeletons come to life after interacting with an object? Just drag the skeletons out of the room and you won't have that problem. And without spoiling, my friend and I may have killed one of the final bosses by holding onto a crate of insta-kill death fog from earlier in the game and just dropping it next to him. This game is total freedom.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is quite simply a masterpiece, the best and most detailed rpg experience conceived. Playing this game is like playing the best DND campaign with a set of players who understood the assignment and a DM whose world-building rivals Matthew Mercer's. Each playable character, if you don't make your own is truly complex and makes for both six different ways to play the game and feel as though the main goal is COMPLETELY changed, as well as six potential companions that change the way I will ever perceive videogame companions again. Although there certainly is difficulty, and the mechanics can be tough to get a grip on, this game is worth the struggle at first.

This game was experience to play during co-op, me and my friend had a rough start adjusting to the new armor system which i think is the only major problem i have with this game. Instead of a stat check on bodybuilding/willpower like in DOS1 you now have armor and every piece comes with basically a shield that absorbs damage till its depleted in which case you must use spells and potions to restore armor to prevent health damage while in combat. Some skills and weapons however do ignore this armor gimmick but honestly its my only problem, it feels like they wanted to the battles to go faster by making you have your mage hit enemies with low magic armor so you can cc them because once your out of armor your open to cc effects which sounds fine, but since this game has smarter ai most battles go one sided real fast and especially if you running a mixed damage team.

That being said this problem is non-existent towards the mid and endgame where you should just basically destroying everything in your path with your overpowered source skills. The characters in this game were a treat, I really liked a lot of them and i regret making a custom character and not playing as Fane because besides Sebille and Lohse, He's definitely a favorite of mine. The music is different from DOS1 due the composer passing away before this game came out, however whilst different it does a good job and I really enjoyed it along with the dynamic music that changes depending on who got the killing blow in combat and whatever their instrument they picked in character creation.

The new spells/abilities in this game were really fun and honestly its amazing that you can freely respec in this game vs DOS1, Summoner was fun for a bit but the casting animations can take forever. Source skills are a nice addition while they definitely do break the game's balance and some people might not ever use them due to source points being quite rare till a certain point, I did like the idea of them and would like to see it come back should Larian ever make a DOS3.

The story has a darker tone in the beginning in comparison to DOS1 but still manages to keep some of its comedy but its noticeable toned down a bit more.

Overall, I just really like this game a lot and despite not liking the armor system, its really hard for me to choose between this and DOS1. I look forward to replaying it again sometime.

A simple story, but beautiful visuals, absolute freedom, and characters that grow on you unexpectedly.

Few games reward critical and environmental thinking like Divinity: Original Sin II does, whether that means taking advantage of the battlefield to create the largest fire you've ever seen in a video game, or realizing you can skip an entire dungeon by teleporting to a cliff entrance that most players wouldn't even see.

No matter what your approach, a playthrough of Divinity will feel uniquely yours.

This is a long game. After the first forty hours or so, the novelty of it really starts to fade, and you're left with just the combat system to carry the experience.

The combat system itself is great, but alas, this also becomes dull pretty quickly. You'll spend most of your playtime using the same strategies and the same abilities to win battles, and your arsenal will be expanding so slowly that you may not notice how vast your hotbar has actually become.

That last statement summarises the game for me: It is long and slow. Progression is slow, combat is slow and methodical, your characters run around slowly. All of it adds up to make a very deliberate game. Combined with the design of the game frequently forcing you to go back to grind to level up before facing an encounter that you've already... encountered, and it always feels like there's always something to do, until the game just... ends.

All in all, the combat in this game is a lot of fun, and there are often somewhat imaginative ways to solve quests (depending on how imaginative cheesing things with deathfog and teleportation for the twentieth time seems to you) but the whole experience is just slow and meticulous, and you either need a specific mindset (something which I don't have, this being my first proper CRPG experience) or lots of free time to sink into the game to get the enjoyment out of it.

(Copied from Steam)

This is almost a perfect game, it has potentially the best combat system and art direction in any rpg i've ever played. The characters are great (I love fane and the red prince) And the game does such a brilliant job of intoducing geniuinlely engaging mysteries and revealing hidden truths about the world it takes place in. However there are a few small issues that just build up throughout the playtime that end up becoming big issues

-In my opinion the biggest issue, and this may not seem that bad if you havent played the game, is when you enter a room, its very time consuming and boring to go through every interactable/searchable/pickupable object in the room, especially with the detailled environments. The devs obviously knew this as they included a button that highlights every object in the room that you can pick up and every dead body. However most rooms have so many pointless loose objects that its a visual nightmare and doesnt tell the player whats important, as well as this it doesnt highlight containers such as chests and bookcases that may contain important items AND it doesnt include every interactable object. This would be so easily fixed by having it only highlight important items, including ones inside containers, quest items, unique items, rare and valuable items, and books and notes that the player has not yet read. And for interactable objects used for puzzles like secret buttons and levers, it could just highlight that there is something in the room that the player has not yet interacted with yet, and the higher the characters wits level, the more precise the highlighting is, this also solves another problem of hidden objects only being detectable when standing right on top of them. This would make the game so much better in my opinion even though it seems like such a tiny thing, it would potentially cut out hours of boring room searching.

-Another small change they could make is adding in a chracter glossary, there are a lot of characters, some who change apperance, and this is a very long game so I ended up forgetting certain characters who show up again later.

-This is a personal preference but I hate being overencumbered in rpgs, i like keeping certain armour sets and unique weapons, and its very annoying to have to keep managing my inventory so I can walk at a nomal pace

-The normal movement speed is too slow, there is a mod that comes with the game to speed it up, but using it means you will get no achievements, implying its not part of the intended experience, as well as this characters who are following you wont walk over
even a tiny amount poison or fire, even if their armour blocks it from damaging them so you have to command them individually, this is annoying.

-The difficulty is a little all over the place, certain bits are insanely difficult like getting through mordus's cave and the lizard dream bit, but there are entire sections that offer little challenge, like bloodmoon island and the entirety of the nameless isle.

-There also doesnt feel like there is much of a middle in terms of plot progression, the first half of the game you still have basically only just escaped prison and then suddenly you are right on the cusp of achieveing the main goal (untill its taken away)

-This is a really minor issue, but the ending sequence doesnt take into account every decision you make (Which character you chose as a love interest, which characters you were an asshole to, in particular there is a certain sidequest involving elves and the house of shadows where you make a pretty important decision and as far as i know it wasnt acknowledged what impact it made at all in the end)

Honestly if they fixed the first issue this game would already be basically perfect, and other that the thing i have mentioned the game is brilliant, just with a few changes it could be a game I could endlessly replay

I had never played a game like Divinity: Original Sin II before. "CRPG's" were basically a foreign concept to me before this year, I'd never played Baldur's Gate or Diablo or anything like that. Getting used to Divinity Original Sin II was...A relatively slow and painful process. There was a lot to learn and frankly it all got a bit overwhelming at times. Even having finished the game, there's so much I still don't understand - and this is supposed to be one of the more beginner-friendly games of its kind!

It should say a lot, though, that despite not understanding so much - I did still finish it, and that's because it was fucking good. This game's writing and characters are excellent, and its voice-acting surprisingly top notch as well. I still think about some of the "moments" in this game now, and I finished it in January 2020. Finding a group of talking pigs on fire, discovering that the fire they're being burned by is a little thing called "Necrofire", a fire cast upon them by a sadistic mage that can never be extinguished by ordinary means and doesn't seem to be killing them either. Jeez. This game is very funny and charming at times, and then it can just hit you with something like that, so unbelievably dark and existentially scary to think about.

There's even well-written romance in this game too! Some of the sex scenes even got me a little bit hard! I thought about deleting that line - and then I decided not to!

This game's combat system offers lots of freedom and room for interesting solutions to tough battles. Unfortunate, then, that the game's difficulty is kinda all over the place. Perhaps this is me being new to the genre, but I found this game infuriatingly unforgiving at times, I've never had to save and re-load my game as often as this one. I practically lost count of the amount of times I was forced into a fight that I had no chance of winning for simply walking along the critical path, or even ambushed on my way to grind levels by doing some of the side-content. This is on display in the absolute worst way in a city towards the end of the game, where you're constantly, randomly ambushed by demons in the middle of the street who are going to be almost nigh-on impossible to beat in the first few hours of the area for just about anyone. Beware of Arx, the difficulty spike is unreal.

Aside from some inconsistent difficulty, Divinity has a couple of minor presentation errors, some of the character portraits and textures just...Do not look good for a 2017 game, and it doesn't often do the best job of explaining itself. But, the good far exceeds the bad, this game is a masterclass in balancing tone and far less generic than its front cover and key art might suggest, it has some real storytelling surprises and genuinely amazing twists in store.

This game is D&D in pure video game form. The amount of care put into it is astonishing, cementing itself as one of the greatest RPGs of the generation. The amount of player freedom and choice here really makes the game feel alive, and the fact that you can play it entirely with your friends makes it all the better. Divinity also holds some of gaming's best writing and voice acting I have ever witnessed and the soundtrack gives the game a sense of wonder that you can only get through a session of Dungeons and Dragons. Divinity is truly an amazing game, and I fully recommend it.