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.
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.