Divinity: Original Sin 2 Review: Rich RPG

Let's start with some of the things that I like. I absolutely love the origin stories. I know many players prefer to work with a blank slate and feel like having a character that's somewhat pre-made takes away from the role-playing aspect of being able to play through games, but I actually love it. I think it's a fantastic way to really help flesh out a lot of what's happening in the world. 

So, the first time I played this game when it was first released, I played as the Red Prince, who is a lizard that's essentially royalty. He's used to having slaves and his every need being waited upon. But he made a horrible mistake and was banished from his kingdom. 

Basically, as you go through the game, he's trying to figure out how to adapt using only his own resources and his wits, but he's also trying to figure out how to get his kingdom back and become the person that he feels like he always should have been. An absolutely fantastic journey, really enthralling, and does so much to help again flesh out what you're experiencing in the game world. I just don't think playing as a blank slate would provide the same level of enjoyment for me, at least.

I also went through about half of a playthrough as Lohse, right after that Red Prince playthrough. Going through her backstory, I really enjoyed that as well, and I feel pretty confident in saying that all of the origin stories are well done and definitely a good way for you to be able to enjoy the game. 

My last play several days ago was with Fane, because I've heard he understands a lot more of what's happening in the story by witnessing it from his perspective, and so I'm looking forward to getting those extra details and hopefully enjoying the game even more.

Another thing that I really enjoy about this game is the music. The soundtrack for this game is just fantastic all the way through. In the soft, quieter moments, it can just blend in naturally with what you're doing, but during fights or really momentous moments, they can absolutely bring in the heart-pounding themes, and it's just absolutely amazing. It really makes me even more excited for Baldur's Gate 3. 

I forgot how great Larian is when it comes to the soundtrack side of gaming, and that first theme song they released for Baldur's Gate 3 is actually something I play all the time. Looking forward to what Baldur's Gate 3's overall soundtrack is going to sound like.

Another thing I really enjoy about Divinity: Original Sin 2 is the combat. It is always, always a blast and a great time. So, let's talk about the obvious part: there is fire everywhere every time you are fighting. And I know some people, it really annoys them, but for me, it's fine because I feel like that's just a signature part of this game. The fact that you're using elements all the time, that they spread around everywhere, and you've got to figure out how to adapt to deal with that situation. 

This becomes even more important since I'm playing on Tactician difficulty, which is the hardest difficulty of the game. Obviously, all of those elements are extremely dangerous, but it just makes me play differently than I've had to play in any other similar type of game.

And I love the way all the elements can interact with each other and how you can set up your party members and their overall powers to work in cohesion when you're dealing with enemies. It's really, really cool stuff. 

On that same note, because the elements work together so well, the team-building aspect of this game is incredible. You can create your team as a group that either deals elemental damage, physical damage, or some combination of both. Regardless, there are just a hundred different ways you can put your team together and figure out how to make sure that they complement each other in combat, and it is so entertaining to do. 

I came into this game with builds in mind for all of them, it took me a while to come up with it, and I still ended up blowing up my strategies and going in a different direction. And it didn't feel annoying or cumbersome. It just felt like part of the fun of playing this game. Really, really well done.

Sticking with combat, I'm also a big fan of how Divinity: Original Sin 2 handles summoning. Summoning is actually one of my favorite mechanics in RPGs. Anytime a summoner is available and I feel relatively confident it's going to be effective, I'm usually going to play as a summoner. 

And the fact that as you build up your summoning skill, not only does it become more powerful, but also you can infuse it with different elements, so you can change up how it fights based upon what you need for a particular combat scenario. And once you reach a certain plateau, the summon completely changes in its physical makeup and becomes significantly more powerful, which makes it feel so much more rewarding to invest in that skill. Just really, really well done.

The last thing I'll say about the combat and team building. I actually love that you can respec at will. You can't do it in Act One for the most part, but once you get out of Act One, you'll get access to a mirror where you can, at any point in time, travel back, open up your character's menu, and rearrange points as you see fit. 

This means that anytime the mood strikes me I say, "You know what? I want to completely blow up how this character works, and let's do this in a different way", I have the freedom to do that, as long as I have enough money to buy whatever additional skills they need. It feels like that provides so much freedom. 

I understand the developers who leave a respec option out of their game because they really want you to have to stick with whatever build choices you make, but I prefer it this way. I prefer the freedom to decide that I want to fight in a different way or have my character made up in a different way for whatever reason. Let me go ahead and do that. Give me the freedom to actually play around with your systems. And the fact that it's just wide open like this for all four of your characters, is absolutely fantastic. Really, really enjoy that.

One more thing I enjoyed in the game is the gift bag system. I've been playing with the definitive edition of Divinity: Original Sin 2, and they added a gift bag feature that basically took a bunch of the popular mods that people were using and then added it directly into the game. 

So if you use this, I think it turns off achievements, but they've got a huge, long list of all sorts of quality-of-life features that are really nice to have, especially for someone like me who's already played through the game. 

They've got stuff like giving Pet Pal to all of your party members, and anyone who's played through the game knows Pet Pal allows you to speak to animals, and there are a ton of animals. The conversations add a lot to the game. So, if you don't have someone with Pet Pal on their character sheet, you just miss out on a ton of content. 

To the point, a lot of people felt like Pet Pal was absolutely a must-have, and it kind of didn't make sense that they didn't just allow you to talk to animals straight up. So, it's things like this where it's just a huge quality of life increase that doesn't change really the amount of challenge in the game, and so yeah, some of these are really, really worthwhile. We'll talk through them more when we go through the actual review.

There are a couple of things that I'm not too crazy about in this game. So first and foremost, not a big fan of the cartoony art style. I absolutely understand that it fits this Divinity world very, very well, but I much more prefer the art style that's more realistic, like Pillars of Eternity, and Witcher games of that sort. 

This hypercartoony, colorful world, it's cool, it's vibrant, and of course, with all the crazy elements and magical effects happening on the screen, the cartooning style really makes that pop, but it's just not for me. It's not the way that I prefer my games to look. But again, I understand it does fit this world.

Another thing I'm not really hot on is the overall menu system or interface, especially when you're trying to craft things or when you're dealing with the room enchantments. I feel like this is all clunkier than it should be, especially if you're trying to craft something that doesn't have a recipe for it. 

And so you have to manually pull in all the ingredients in order for you to be able to put it together. It just doesn't feel smooth at all, and I'm hoping in, when they do a third version of this game, that that menu system is going to be significantly cleaner and easier to use.

And then the final thing that I'll say so far I don't really like about the game is, technically, there is a singular villain. Like, you hear a voice, you kind of know who you're trying to face, but I'm 70+ hours into the game, and I haven't really met this person yet or had a direct interaction with this person. Actually I'm a big fan of that singular villain, someone that you're interfacing with on a regular basis, that you maybe face once or twice before that true final battle to establish them as the big bad that you're trying to overcome. 

And Divinity does that to some degree, but not, I feel like it could be better. I feel like, at least at this point, it should be a little more direct, and there should have been a little more interaction between us to really establish what's happening and to make it clear who it is that I'm facing.