Divinity: Original Sin II

A sequel to the acclaimed and very successful Divinity: Original Sin, which promised to up the stakes and polish up many of the shortcomings of the original game.  But does Original Sin 2 follow up on these promises, or does it simply prove to be another underwhelming Divinity game?

Divinity is a franchise that's been around for some time, though to be honest, I never really cared much about it; all of its games just seemed to be average-to-crappy knockoffs of other popular RPGs, and given the middling reviews most of them have gotten, I'm probably not too far off in that assessment.  Divinity: Original Sin was the big breakout title for the series, but it didn't really hook me either - while it had some interesting and relatively unique gameplay features, but it also featured a sluggish and clunky UI that was no fun to use at all, dragging pacing, really painful writing and acting and far too frequent and slow combat, all of which contributed to taking me out of it pretty quickly.

So, as you can imagine, it took me a good while before I worked up the gumption to play its followup.  Released three years after the original, Original Sin II once again saw a highly successful crowdfunding campaign that raised over $2 million, and the developers seemed intent to take fan criticisms of the original into account to make a much more refined and entertaining game this time around.  They certainly succeeded in that regard, and it's evident right away - the game's engine and UI are much more crisp and responsive, the overall pace of combat and exploration is greatly tightened up, and the writing is much better, discarding the original game's distracting stiffness and having a far more natural tone to its prose and acting.  The dumb "two characters arguing with each other to boost stats" and rock-paper-scissors argument mechanics are completely discarded in favor of dialogs having a more Baldur's Gate-esque list of choices, with more options unlocking depending upon your character's race, profession, background traits and skills.  In addition, you have a choice of several pre-fabricated characters with unique character traits and backgrounds that add more story threads and dialog choices, or you can create your own character, which lacks these unique elements but grants you a greater degree of fine-tuned customization - a nice balance between classic CRPG character building and having a more narrative-driven experience as many more modern games are wont to do.  Custom characters also aren't totally left out in the cold, as they get a unique combat action (Dome of Protection) not available to prefabs.

There are certainly no shortage of options to pick from when building your character, prefab or custom.  There are four races to choose from (Human, Elf, Dwarf and Lizard), as well as undead variants of all four who are healed by poison but take damage from normal healing spells and potions.  As mentioned, each race has slightly different starting skills and bonuses (whether resistance to elements or bonuses to skills), as well as a single ability unique to their race.  Elves get the most interesting one of these from a storytelling perspective, gaining the ability to eat body parts of slain characters (enemy or otherwise) to view their memories and get information others cannot access.  Another nice thing is that other characters you recruit during the game are also not fixed - once recruited, you can tweak their starting skills via dialog options, tweaking their starting skills more toward a particular play style so you don't end up with a redundant party member.

There is quite a lot to tweak for your character's stats, broken up into four major categories.  Attributes are your basic stats, determining what your characters can equip, what abilities they can use and granting bonuses when wielding certain weapon types.  Combat Abilities govern bonuses with different types of weapons, though there is notably no individual skill for swords, maces, bows, et cetera - instead, they fall under the umbrellas of one-handed, two-handed, ranged or dual-wielded weapons (and yes, you can stack one-handed and dual-wield bonuses if you go that route).  Defensive abilities also exist, and will grant passive bonuses; Leadership grants a small boost to all allies' stats when that characters is within five meters of them, Perseverance will restore some Armor after being hit with certain status effects, and Retribution will reflect a small amount of damage back to your attacker, with the effect going up each level.  Skills govern your various spells and abilities, from elemental magic to necromancy to polymorphing to "Scoundrel" skills like backstabbing or knocking enemies out for a turn with chloroform.  Finally, there are Talents - these act somewhat like Perks from the Fallout games, granting you unique abilities that and unlock options you wouldn't see otherwise and can significantly change the way you play through the game.  A few of these include Comeback Kid (reviving once per fight with 20% health if you die), Executioner (getting some extra action points if you kill an enemy once per turn), Far Out Boy (getting more range with all of your spells), Lone Wolf (giving yourself a major stat boost if you're going it alone, which makes solo runs through the game significantly more viable), and my personal favorite, Pet Pal, which enables you to  talk to animals, unlocking a wide variety of amusing dialog snippets and even a questline or two.  There's a lot to experiment with, and the non-penalizing nature of the game's design ensures that it's pretty hard to stick yourself with a master-of-none and make the later stages of the game unnecessarily difficult.  Every major quest also has numerous different ways to complete it, allowing you some roleplaying opportunities and alternative ways to get the job done even if you do something like, say, accidentally sell/misplace a necessary item.

The much-touted combat of the first Original Sin returns here, and like the rest of the game, it keeps everything that worked while casting out everything that didn't.  First and most notable is the fact that combat is used much more sparingly this time, making every fight feel like an event and not just like filler included solely to waste your time and hit some dumb publisher-mandated length quota.  You have very granular control over your movement and aiming - if you can't hit an enemy's body with a thrown dagger or a spell, you might be able to barely target one of their limbs or the tip of their snout instead and still get that hit in.  Controlling the field itself plays a major part too - nearly every fight has you tossing around oil, poison, fire, ice and water in various combinations, trying to get your enemies in the thick of it and minimizing the effects on your own characters.   Oil and poison are also flammable, so you can easily dip your enemy in one, then set them ablaze to deal even more damage (though they can also do the same to you, of course).  Fire can also be extinguished, creating steam clouds that obscure vision and effectively block ranged attacks.  Setting up traps then teleporting enemies into them, dropping environmental objects like barrels or heavy chests on enemies for heavy damage, climbing up on ledges to get bonus damage with ranged shots.  The possibilities really do feel endless, and the fact that the game rewards creativity (and has a well-designed enough engine to grant you the ability to think laterally like this) really makes it a joy to experiment with.  That certainly doesn't end once the fight is over, either, as you can use nearly all of your spells out of battles too, letting you find hidden secrets, move traps aside and reach areas you can't simply stumble into.

To put it simply, Divinity: Original Sin II is a triumph, succeeding not just where it's predecessors fell short, but where virtually every western RPG of the last twenty years has too.  Like many western RPGs it's clearly built on the model of tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons, but it's closest I've ever seen to offering the same degree of freedom and flexibility as one of those.  There are no readily evident prefab solutions to any problem you face, and you're given enough freedom to to think outside the box when exploring and improvise tactics on the fly in combat, making it extremely rewarding to play.  The sheer amount of options you're given to customize your characters and interact with the world at large are nothing short of staggering, giving it tons of replay value on top.  Your actions over the course of the story significantly change the way events play out, your character, prefab or custom, still feels like they're an actual living part of the world you're in, and the game manages to have a surprisingly good sense of humor about itself without ever undermining the gravity of its story (or going too far in the other direction and coming off as stiff and pretentious).  Hell, if you want to take it a step further, you can also play online with friends, and one of them can even play as the "Game Master", subtly tweaking things behind the scenes to make the game as easy or difficult as they want it to be.  I fully admit I was skeptical, but after having played it, I say without hesitation that it's easily the best CRPG I've played since their golden age in the '90s and early 2000's, having enough depth to rival those with enough solid storytelling beats and puzzles to keep me invested, even if there are some irritating roadblocks at times.  Highly recommended.

Developer: Larian Studios

Publisher: Larian Studios, Bandai Namco Entertainment

Platform: PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One, macOS, Switch, iPad

Released: 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021

Recommended version: As ever, I recommend the PC version if you have the specs for it; not only does it flow perfectly with a mouse-and-keyboard setup, but it supports modding via Steam Workshop, letting you tweak the game to your tastes and add even more fun and longevity to an already incredibly deep experience.

Divinity: Original Sin

Something of a revival for the formerly low-key Divinity franchise and easily its most well-regarded game to that point, Original Sin touted "innovative" gameplay in a medium where that word is overused to the point of losing any actual meaning.  But does Divinity: Original Sin truly live up to its hype despite bad marketing, or is this just another crowdfunded game where fans' investment only went to buying glowing reviews?

Original Sin, 2014's 'revival' of an RPG franchise I never previously bothered with and only barely knew about (primarily because "Divine Divinity" has one of the worst game titles I've ever heard in my life), certainly got a lot of attention.  It was Larian Studios' first game to be crowdfunded, and when it was released some time later, it became the franchise's most successful and best-selling game almost overnight.  Moreso when it was followed up with an "enhanced edition" a year later that added more content and voiceover, and in 2017 by a sequel that somehow got even more praise and acclaim than its predecessor and is regarded as one of the best games of that year.

It wasn't hard to see why the game was touted as being "groundbreaking" and "innovative" either, even as those words have lost virtually any meaning in the modern gaming era.  Original Sin's combat and puzzle-solving makes use of some downright clever mechanics at times, with the player able to manipulate the environment with spells and objects and apply a surprising amount of common sense to puzzles that simply don't work in other games.  For example, to bypass a gas trap, one can move crates and jars over the gas vents to block it and pass by unharmed.  Or instead of having to find keys for chests and doors, one can simply smash them down with a weapon or burn the door with fire or craft a bomb and blow it down.

Following that, the game's crafting system is a surprisingly in-depth one as well, with the player able to do things I haven't seen since the 1990s with the Ultima series.  One can mix flour and water to create dough, then add apples or mushrooms or fish to make pie that restores HP, for example.  Sticking shafts and arrow heads together allows for rare types of arrows to be made, while cloth, leather and metal ingots can be used to make weapons and armor a la games like Skyrim.  But unlike many games that utilize such systems, Original Sin knows better than to get bogged down with this - while it can prove helpful at times, it is by no means an essential part of surviving the game; the player can just as easily repair existing equipment or make use of a large variety of weapons, scrolls and other equipment they find along the way to bypass this element entirely.

Other solutions show up in combat as well, with many spells synergizing with each other in surprising ways.  Earth-elemental spells include an ability to douse a part of the field in oil, for example, which a fire spell can then set ablaze, damaging all enemies within it.  A rain spell will extinguish fires, but temporarily leave behind damaging steam, and those soaked in water from rain are more vulnerable to electric-type spells, which can jump through multiple enemies and inflict significant damage to all of them.  Poison spells heal zombie-type enemies, but healing spells will damage them, and the player can take advantage of this by "curing" zombies of their Poison status via spells, stopping their HP regeneration and leaving them vulnerable.

Another new element comes in the game's dialogue system, with the two player-created characters frequently reacting to events that come their way as the story progresses, with each choice the player makes moving their 'traits' up or down one of numerous sliders; as these move further to one end of the bar, they will gain various stat bonuses.   For example, choosing "Righteous" dialog options will grant a bonus to the Leadership skill, while going the opposite route ("Renegade") will grant a bonus to Pickpocketing instead.  "Pragmatic" options will give a boost to Crafting skills, while its opposite, "Romantic", will give a boost to Luck instead.  It's clear that this was meant to be a feature of the game's co-op support, with two players roleplaying their own characters in the ways they wish in the vein of a tabletop RPG.  In a single-player game, however it just feels more than a bit silly (and tedious) to have two of your own characters having arguments over every inane thing that happens along the way; moreso when you're playing solo and have to choose both sides of the argument yourself (though, as I later learned, you can predefine your characters' personalities at character creation, automatically selecting many of these options when they come up).  

NPC dialog is handled in somewhat similar fashion, with some skills and traits determining NPC reactions to the players (such as the "Know-it-all" talent causing a negative effect on many).  Frequently the player will have arguments with them as well; however, rather than resolving this through dialog options or simple chance, here it bafflingly plays out as a rock-paper-scissors minigame, unpleasantly giving the illusion of a skill-based mechanic while still leaving the whole thing up to luck and drawing it out far longer than a simple dice roll would.  Which, if you're apt to getting the best result for every quest or just want a particular outcome for one, means you'll be doing a lot of savescumming rather than involving any actual skill, which can be pretty frustrating.

In short, Divinity: Original Sin is a game with a lot of ideas that come into play in almost every facet of its design; puzzles, combat, roleplaying and character building in general are a step apart from anything I've seen in any prior CRPG.  Somewhere along the line, though, the developers somehow forgot to make the game fun to actually play.  While there is a bit of visceral thrill in dropping enemies into hazards with teleport spells and "disarming" traps by throwing objects into them, detonating them while you're safely out of harm's way, that quickly gives way to a myriad of interface and design flaws.  UI interaction feels unpleasantly slow and sluggish, with many button inputs, enemy highlights and drag-and-drops simply not registering properly, or causing me to "grab" an inventory/quickbar icon as if I'd pressed and held the button rather than simply clicking it once.  Combat is also not bound to a grid, meaning that many attempts to make a precise move just resulted in me stumbling into a trap or taking aim at an enemy, my target becoming un-highlighted in the split-second it took for my click to register and causing my character to run straight ahead at their target, wasting AP and putting themselves straight in harm's way rather than firing an arrow or spell.  I also saw a substantial amount of screen-tearing and slowdown when simply moving through towns and combat scenes with very little actually occurring on-screen.  Basically, Original Sin as a whole just feels poorly optimized, which, for a game barely more graphically advanced than 2012's Torchlight II running on a gaming computer I built brand-new in mid-2016, should definitely not be the case.  It certainly doesn't speak well of the game either when Ultima VII - a game made for MS-DOS near the dawn of mouse-based interfaces for games - has a more crisp, responsive and solid-feeling UI than a game released over twenty years later.

The game's mechanics just wear thin after a while as well, because when it comes down to it, that's all they really are - shallow gimmicks made solely to give a false sense of innovative design.  Sure, it's fun for a time to douse enemies in oil and set them ablaze or smash down doors with a zweihander instead of having to do tedious key-hunting, but when combat is so frequent and virtually every bypassable puzzle has a more traditional solution - and it's often far less of a time investment to go get the key behind an enemy group or proceed through the quest properly instead of wasting four broadswords and fifteen minutes of tedious clicking to brute-force your way through that Level 27 door - it all just feels pointless after only a short while.  Pair that with the fact that combat is so one-note for much of the game, pitting the player against the same few enemy types (and associated gimmicks) over and over again for several hours at a stretch, and I got bored of that very quickly too.  Even the dialog wears thin fast, feeling like some child's desperate attempt to emulate Shakespeare by heaping mountains of purple prose into every single character's dialog (and spelling several words wrong as they went).  That, plus the truly wretched voice acting which they were frankly far better off without in the original release of the game, makes the storytelling aspect grating after only a short while.

So, beyond a few clever gimmicks that might draw eyes and get some impulse purchases from players who only see the first hour or so of its gameplay, Divinity: Original Sin brings almost nothing to the table.  Once the initial awe wears off, it isn't long before its design flaws become irritating and you see just how one-note and shallow the game truly is, amounting to little more than a tedious monster-mash with an archetypal plot and few, if any, memorable characters or underlying gameplay elements.  The major, defining difference between this and the rest of the Divinity franchise, as far as I can tell, it's that they had enough crowdfunding money to buy a handful of 9/10 scores from gaming rags this time around.  And since people by-and-large will just take anything the first three or four results on Google say as gospel, never bothering to apply any discretion, critical thought or even their own senses in doing so... well, you can draw your own conclusion from there.

Developer: Larian Studios
Publisher: Larian Studios, Focus Home Interactive
Platform: Windows, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Linux, OS X
Released: 2014, 2015
Recommended Version: All versions seem to be more or less identical.