When I started playing Dungeons and Dragons, I was the Dungeon Master for our group. I did a lot of research on how to be a good DM and help my players have the most fun; the biggest piece of advice I received was "never say no". A big part of the fun in roleplaying is the freedom to do whatever you want, and a good DM should facilitate that.
Divinity Original Sin 2 is exactly that. This game gives you an incredibly varied gameworld and lets you do whatever you please. It's shockingly open-ended and expects you to come up with interesting solutions to problems. There's no wrong way to play (except maybe playing this like your typical linear RPG!) so you can devise incredible combos that feel like you're breaking the game, do quests out of sequence, or feel like you're playing in a way that opposes what the developer's intended. This is all an illusion, because the intended way to play IS to think outside the box and break rules.
A possible downside to this freedom is the difficulty of the game when on its default setting. It took me many hours to get used to what combat requires, and the min-maxing required may put some people off the game. While there are easier difficulty settings, learning the intricacies of combat and character building is immensely satisfying and worth putting the effort into understanding. Because the game is so open, you'll often find encounter balance varies constantly; some fights will be ridiculously easy while others will take 4 or 5 attempts. It comes with the territory.
As for the quick pros and cons:
Pros
+ Best strategic RPG combat system I've ever played (grumbles about mixed armour aside)
+ Flexibility is incredible, it feels like the game wants you to break it and that's so much fun
+ Very cool lore, I particularly loved the elves being able to eat body parts to gain their memories
+ Classes that feel unique, and can be mixed freely. My best tank was a necromancer/mage/hydro mix, while my summoner was a high INT melee prodigy
Cons
- Mixed physical/magic armour system starts to feel restrictive despite being interesting at the start. I had to respec to almost pure physical damage/spells to make progress
- Final chapter is a huge difficulty spike with very few places to level up, I had to scour a small zone for non-combat quests while always getting ambushed and having to reload
- Despite being SO open, it is somewhat level gated and can feel like you don't truly have all of the options the game makes you think you do
- Final fight was busted. I had a pretty well optimised team and I just couldn't make progress; I'd get killed before I could even take my turn.
So all in all it was an incredible experience. I very rarely stick with games this long, so the positives very much outweigh the negatives (and the beauty about playing on PC is that you can tweak some things if you start to feel any friction that's truly getting in the way of your enjoyment)
Divinity Original Sin 2 is exactly that. This game gives you an incredibly varied gameworld and lets you do whatever you please. It's shockingly open-ended and expects you to come up with interesting solutions to problems. There's no wrong way to play (except maybe playing this like your typical linear RPG!) so you can devise incredible combos that feel like you're breaking the game, do quests out of sequence, or feel like you're playing in a way that opposes what the developer's intended. This is all an illusion, because the intended way to play IS to think outside the box and break rules.
A possible downside to this freedom is the difficulty of the game when on its default setting. It took me many hours to get used to what combat requires, and the min-maxing required may put some people off the game. While there are easier difficulty settings, learning the intricacies of combat and character building is immensely satisfying and worth putting the effort into understanding. Because the game is so open, you'll often find encounter balance varies constantly; some fights will be ridiculously easy while others will take 4 or 5 attempts. It comes with the territory.
As for the quick pros and cons:
Pros
+ Best strategic RPG combat system I've ever played (grumbles about mixed armour aside)
+ Flexibility is incredible, it feels like the game wants you to break it and that's so much fun
+ Very cool lore, I particularly loved the elves being able to eat body parts to gain their memories
+ Classes that feel unique, and can be mixed freely. My best tank was a necromancer/mage/hydro mix, while my summoner was a high INT melee prodigy
Cons
- Mixed physical/magic armour system starts to feel restrictive despite being interesting at the start. I had to respec to almost pure physical damage/spells to make progress
- Final chapter is a huge difficulty spike with very few places to level up, I had to scour a small zone for non-combat quests while always getting ambushed and having to reload
- Despite being SO open, it is somewhat level gated and can feel like you don't truly have all of the options the game makes you think you do
- Final fight was busted. I had a pretty well optimised team and I just couldn't make progress; I'd get killed before I could even take my turn.
So all in all it was an incredible experience. I very rarely stick with games this long, so the positives very much outweigh the negatives (and the beauty about playing on PC is that you can tweak some things if you start to feel any friction that's truly getting in the way of your enjoyment)