Adventure is Often Painful, but Worth It
I love Divinity: Original Sin. It isn't without flaws, but I don't rate games on their technical excellence, or their lack of bugs. To me, a five star game must absorb more time than is normally required to complete the game, it must immerse me in a world that is somehow unique and interesting, and it must provide game mechanics that are not only addictive, but intelligently implemented and interesting. Divinity: Original Sin hits on all of these notes, and when it misses, it barely misses at all.
Some might laud the game for its difficulty curve, and I won't disagree with them. The game starts out fairly difficult if you don't build the right party. It doesn't hold your hand, and it doesn't explain jack. It has a tutorial, but it only explains how the basic combat mechanics work, not how the quests are structured or how relentless and unforgiving the enemy AI can be. In a normal RPG, you expect your foes to have gimmicks and tricks to beating them. That is one of the biggest downfalls of RPGs, and even great games like Persona 4 can faulter in this area. D:OS on the other hand doesn't give a shit about convention. The enemies will have anything and everything you could have at your disposal at the ready. Fighting an archer? Well prepare to be hit with a variety of specialized arrows that you can receive via loot or crafting. Fighting a mage? Expect to see spells that you should have bought, but you didn't get enough gold. It always feels like you are out-classed at least a little bit, especially early on. The game even expects you to be level 3 or 4 before leaving the first town! Me and my co-op partner kept trying to leave the town to adventure, and the enemies just out-leveled us and beat us to a pulp repeatedly until we gave up and started over. Once we grasped the full mechanics of the combat, however, we suddenly were able to hold our own, even against higher level enemies.
The game has strong environmental presence in the combat. It's action point based, so you can only move a certain amount and attack until you use up your action points. The environment can help or hinder you, depending on if there are things in the way, or if there are certain simple things, such as a puddle, in the middle of the combat area. Puddles can be electrified to stun enemies (or friends) that are touching them. Poison is extremely flammable, and poison clouds and puddles can be ignited to either explode (dealing massive damage to anything nearby) or burn to set enemies aflame. Steam can be electrified to provide a storm cloud of blinding and stunning pain. Burning ground can be turned into steam via a rain storm or water arrows, or you can fire a poison cloud arrow into it to create a nasty explosion. If it's raining, you are more likely to freeze enemies or stun them, and be frozen or stunned. The interactivity between elements keeps going and going. It truly makes you consider all of your options, and for once every status effect at your disposal is useful. You can reduce enemy action points, poison them, blind them, burn them, and more. All of these effects are not optional, sometimes they are down right necessary to give you the opening you need.
Besides combat, the game is rich with story and characters. Every character has something to say, and sometimes you don't agree with them. Sometimes you need something and they don't want to give it up. You can try to persuade them, charm them, kill them, or reason with them. Trying to talk your way into (or out of) a situation often results in a disagreement that can only be resolved via a rock-paper-scissors mini-game. This feels RNG based, but it is still a fun way to resolve arguments and sometimes can get you out of a difficult fight or straight into one. You never know what to expect from anyone, and that is the beauty of the game world. The story is written in a witty way, and the dialogue is often cute and funny. It all works to where this world you are fighting to defend comes to life. It's well done, and rarely tiresome.
Overall, a modern classic. For $40, you get 70 hours of game play at least. The game is huge, and truly open world. You can try to go anywhere and the game won't stop you. You can steal quest items, you can kill important people to the plot, and you can murder an entire town, if you so choose. Larian Studios have produced the Divinity game they've always wanted to make, but couldn't due to publisher pressure, and it shows. A masterpiece of the genre, a revitalization of the ideas, and an overall must-play for any RPG fans out there. A solid five-out-of-five.
