Divinity Original Sins 2: An unbelievably awesome game
Recently I've discovered the joy of CRPGs, having previously only dabbled in them without spending any significant time on the genre.
With Baldur's Gate 2 just around the corner, which I'm sure many of us are hyped for, I wanted to try a similar CRPG to get a feel for whether I'm going to want to play it. Enter DOS2; this game is made by Larian Studios, the same studio making BG2, and is an absolutely incredible game.
From the graphics, which are stunning even 6 years on from release, to the combat which makes you think about your moves in a manner similar to how you might do in a game like chess, and best of all stories which are for the most part genuinely interesting. I frequently found myself surprised at events / characters / quests I found throughout the world, even small things like hearing someone screaming nearby then discovering they had been torn to pieces by voidwoken.
I recently just finished Act I and just started Act II but wanted to share a bit of love for this game as it is an absolute masterpiece with a well deserved 95% positive rating with 144k reviews on steam.
Please share your experience with DOS2 and whether or not you have fully completed the game!
It's probably just me, but I've always felt like if you're not going to hold the player's hand, then it's important to be intuitive. DOS2...is anything BUT intuitive; not only is the game open-ended, the way forward isn't always clear. Some early fights are difficult enough that you might assume it's a beef gate, when it's actually required to proceed and you just need to cheese it.
For me, it might be because the RPG mechanics aren't familiar to me. I picked up Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous and fuckin' loved both of those games, but Pathfinder is a game system I'm familiar with. Maybe since Baldur's Gate 3 uses a variant of 5th edition D&D, it'll click for me.
Me and my partner at the time figured it'd be amazing for a couch-co-op thing, but it was so chaotic around NPCs due to the spam of random interactions flying off from two interacting characters, we just gave up on it. Breaking combat was a lot of fun though.
I really ought to get back into it and just play it solo. 🤔
I haven't played a lot of games like this but from all of the games I've played in the past 20-ish years, this one shot up to near the top of my list. I must have dropped at least 200 hours on this game on my first playthrough, just appreciating every little detail there was and doing all of the side quests.
The gameplay itself is already amazing, but to me what really shone was the brilliant, brilliant writing. I have never read such intensely hued writing in a video game.
I liked the game but I was a bit disappointed that nearly every fight ends up with everything covered in necrofire. I bet that if you were to just spec into a build that likes being on fire you'll probably be super overpowered.
It's great but too big and sprawling for me. I got drowned in side AND main quests in the second act and couldn't get back into it. Probably a me problem but still.
Only problem I have with the series is that the average battle takes around half an hour. Wish there was a way to speed that up. But fun games with awesome graphics no doubt.
It's an incredible game, but it took me something like 20 hours just to finish the first act, and I just don't have the patience anymore for a 100+ hour long RPG. The combat is really good overall, but I didn't like that movement and attacks use the same pool of AP. Compared to something like XCOM, this forces you to be very static since moving is basically wasting an attack, or it makes movement abilities like jump and the likes extremely OP.
I liked the first game more. The introduction of armour bars in DOS2 made each fight a huge slog; I understand the intention of promoting strategic thinking, but it just felt un-fun to me. Also, I liked the light hearted nature of DOS1's story more.
A friend and I tried this game and enjoyed it up to a point, a particular fight we could not get past.
Finally looking online for a guide, we discovered that every guide we could find suggested cheesing the fight in various ways.
We both decided that any game that required the player to both know a fight was about to happen (when it was impossible from context to predict) and cheese the fight to win was a bad game. Even if this was only one fight, it was a fight that blocked all progress. We quit and neither of us have wanted to play the game again.
Note: We have, either together or on our own, completed other games - like BG 1-2, NWN, PoE, DOS1 - without resorting to guides, cheats, foreknowledge, or cheese.
We were, and remain, very disappointed with DOS2 because of this, and we're "suspicious" of BG3 because of DOS2 (but, charitably, perhaps Larian made a mistake in DOS2 and won't repeat it in BG3).
Quite slow paced and inventory management is a mess, but a very good game otherwise!
I heavily recommend the Explorer difficulty if you aren't familiar with CRPGs, on Classic the game is quite hard even in Act 1 if you don't know how to play them.
Speaking of CRPGs, I just played Baldur’s Gate 1 for the first time, funnily enough. It was a great game which is not exactly a controversial opinion but I wasn’t expecting it to be so fucking funny also. It was very very very hard though.
I also downloaded DOS2 but it felt like I needed a breather after BG so I’ll get to it when I can commit some time to it.
I really wanted to like this game.
But
Man it was too linear for me and also too hard.
I had to google every quest to know where the fuck is X to finish it.
It was just too daunting. And I like hard games. But this one was frustrating for some reason.
Otherwise its probably an awesome game. Not for me.
I wish I would love it. It is a really great game but I cannot make it click for me. Looks great, sounds great, feels great.
But somehow it doesn't work for me. Half the time I feel I have no control and have no idea of how to get it, other half I'm steamrolling things. Worst part is winning fights and it feeling undeserved, like a sloppy brawl.
This is a game for which the developers said "you have to cheese it, we made it that way intentionally".
You have to do fights trying to cheese it as much as possible, guess the correct order based on your level as well and often end up in situations that are impossible to resolve unless you do something that doesn't make sense.
And let's not forget the "kill everything that moves to get the most xp possible" because that's the way it's intended to be played.
If it was just a straight up "combat - cutscene - combat" I would agree with the "great game" opinion because the game only shines for the combat system.
Everything else is below average when not straight out broken.
Me and another, took so long to get through the tutorial. Neither of us could figure out the quests that ended with us outside the fort, so we both somehow learned teleport - I'd teleport them a distance to some unreachable nook, and then they'd teleport me to some other farther unreachable nook from there and so on till we leapfrogged our way out. It was a fun time all things considered.
I want to go back to this game so bad. I played for about 15 hours and loved it but got distracted with something else. Ive tried to start over a couple of times but I just can't get into it again in the same way. Once I've finished Pikmin 4 I might try again.
I started playing D:OS2 in 2020, but eventually got distracted around 15hrs in. I started a new playthrough to test out the gameplay again, and have really fallen in love with it all over again. I'm really terrible at the combat, but everything surrounding it is extremely engrossing.
I do plan to pick up BG3, and I've read that the combat is a little more quick-paced and hopefully forgiving, so I'm really looking forward to the release this week.
I still think DOS2 is one of the best games I have ever played, and I played it on release when 80% of the 4th act just broke for me. It gives a ton of freedom, interestingly written characters, and once you get the hang of the combat system it's easy to dominate even with weird builds.
I understand why people aren't it's biggest fans, but giving this one a chance is worth it. Overall, I would say BG3 (played a ton in early access) might be the more accessible game. It's less weird, more cinematic etc. Though, I would expect it to be exceedingly buggy on release so keep that in mind.
It's a great game, very cool and crazy interactions can happen. But I never got totally invested in the map and story. That may be because I was playing coop. The difficulty is a bit tricky, at one level constantly retreating and throwing barrels is the only way to barely win. Go one notch down on difficulty and I never lose a battle.
Also it irks me that physical armor prevents me from knocking someone over.
But even thought I may never finish it, it's a very unique game.
I love CRPGs and was excited when I got recommended this game - it got a lot of praise. Unfortunately, I found it to be tedious and overall uninteresting. That wouldn't be worth mentioning if this game wasn't on every top-rpgs-of-all-time list... I honestly don't get it and I am confused.
Meh, D:OS2 is a great game until the latter 1/4th in my opinion. Act 1/2 are fantastic, act 3 drags a bit and act 4(arx) is the absolute worst in my opinion. I sincerely hope BG3 doesn't have the same problem, since D:OS1 had a similar issue where it was great until the very end for me(scavenger hunt.) Sadly i dislike the latter parts of each game enough i'm just not inclined to ever replay them. It really soured the whole experience for me unfortunately.
Arguably the definitive edition makes D:OS2 worse too, since it makes side quests damn near mandatory or else you'll be constantly underleveled.
I played on the switch and that made it take ages. I got until about act 4 or 5, I can't remember, with a kraken? But I noticed a harsh spike in difficulty at that point. Coupled with the very tedious controls on switch that made me stop playing.
I enjoyed DOS2 quite a lot even though I didn't make it out of the first act, I should probably try playing it again although I don't really have the time or patience for 100+ hour games anymore.
Its a great game, its funny trying to break it as its quite arbitrary at some places. Also it needed a few more QOL passes as things like an invisible oil spill will randomly slow your character down and ruin the turn.
Also the ending was very unsatisfying. All this talk about being divine, then it just ends with a book reading.
I have the first game and ... ive only played through the combat tutorial. I guess its a bit too slow paced for me. But maybe i should give it a whirl at some point