Now Released...Impressions?

This game is on the Steam sale right now ($32) and I've been waiting for a full release, and from the posts on their Steam page, this seems to be just about the final release of this game (the game was updated just two days ago).

So I'm wondering if people who have played or been playing could share impressions?

I've played a few hours of the Beta and it seems really solid, to the point where I might be more excited for it than I am for Wasteland 2. According to people who have played more than I have, it apparently keeps that level of quality throughout the beta, so if you want an old-school traditional RPG, this might not be a bad one to pick!

My body is ready.

I played through 3/4 of the original game. That makes me entirely unqualified to answer this question, but I thought I would say that I loved the 30 hours or whatever I spent on that game, especially when I learned a spell that let me beat any enemy including bosses in seconds.

Well I bought it. Final release in a few hours. I'll put up some impressions when I start.

I haven't played since the early early alpha which seemed weak. But it was an alpha. I decided I didn't want my views tainted so am waiting for the full release myself. By contrast I have played the most updated version of Wasteland 2 and was left bored within the hour. It is too old school for it's own good.

I need it. I need it right now.

I've been itching for a cRPG like this for years now. I've tried all the classics (and finished some of them), but my constant wall with those games is how archaic the design of it all is. If you didn't play them on release (I didn't) they're practically impenetrable.

This, though? This is a cRPG with modern design that still holds true to the tenets of the genre. I'm rock hard for Original Sin.

The final version seems to be out. Steam updating it right now.

Game is pretty damn dope. Combat's excellent, graphics are fantastic, writing's pretty good so far.

I('ve had this for a while, but I hope they do a Quick Look on this. I really want people to get into this game, as it is fantastic.

@demonicgoblin Can't wait ti give it a try myself. Ican totally see Vinny doing a QL.

Paging @snide for special guest CRPG quick look?

Divinity: Original Sin is a real breath of fresh air because it is all about freedom of choice, which is becoming a real rarity in RPGs (not to mention video games in general) these days. In-game, players are given enough freedom to take what they want, fight how they wish, and respond however they desire to the obstacles, barriers, and adversaries that they face.

Hopefully, this game marks the beginning of a wonderful new era for player agency.

I love this game, and Larian as a developer, not to mention their fantastic composer Kirill Pokrovsky. I hope they all keep up the good work in the future.

I felt like I needed to chime in and say I am really, really enjoying my time with this game. I haven't had an RPG (especially a CRPG) grab me like this since the days of Black Isle (Icewind Dale, specifically). It feels great to play, especially the combat, which is difficult and challenging without feeling unfair. I'm finding myself using my brain in a way I haven't for many years when coming up with good skill combos, environmental combos, and all that jazz. Very impressed with the design and especially surprised at how much it has demanded my attention.

Not sure about the story so far, it seems like the weakest element to me right now, but saying it is bad would be premature and unfair as I've barely scratched the surface of the main quest.

TL;DR: You like CRPG? Must play.

I summoned a spider, punched a dude hard enough to explode him, saved a talking clam, then met a Wizard who was really into transforming into a cat.

10/10 play this game forever.

I have only played an hour yesterday. It still had the beta warning up, so I was a little hesitant to put much time into it. Yeah, it's way more like the old Fallouts or Infinity Engine games than I expected. I'm replaying Baldur's Gate right now and still have at least 60 hours to go. I might put that on hold to play Original Sin.

I kickstarted this a while back, it was really cheap to get in and I liked the premise.

Then Jesse Cox and OMFG Cata did a alpha look of the game, and that's when my hype level went through the roof.

I got my early access codes and played around a little bit. From hour or so I played, I -really- enjoyed it. From the combat system, to the coop system, to just how interactive things are. I would have played more, but I didn't want to spoil the game for myself. And, I'll be playing it coop with my girlfriend, so I didn't want to feel like I was rushing us through quests or anything.

Also?

Mod tools!

more i keep looking at this game, the more it feels like it's up my alley.... though i burned my wallet during the summer sales though :(

I backed it, but never touched the alpha/beta/early access. I wanted to go in fresh. I'll be downloading and playing it this weekend.

Raise your wallet from the dead and use it to purchase this game.

After all, undead money is better than no money.

Everything about this game is just... *sweet strawberry pancakes*...

I've been keeping my eye on this for a while now. Seems I'm going to have to finally pick this one up now that it's officially released.

I picked it up in the steam sale. I really liked the original Divine Divinity back in the day, - it had solid gameplay, some great-if-goofy humour, and the open world thing was very different for RPGs.* Since then none of the other Divinity games have really struck the same balance for me. Divinity 2 was a little bit more serious and although they'd made an attempt to keep the world open it felt a lot smaller, and the gameplay wasn't that solid, either. Dragon Commander has the humour, but it's a different type of game that I'm not that interested in. Original Sin feels a lot more like that first game in terms of the world and the way you interact with it, and so far theere's already been some good goofiness to it. It also has the added benefit of having a much more interesting combat mechanic. OK, so turn based, fallout style combat isn't exactly revolutionary, and the short amount I've played of it hasn't shown much tactical depth, but it's more fun than clickathon!

So yeah, I'm enjoying it. Don't know how long it will hold my interest, but so far it's done a good job of getting me excited.

*Brief aside about open world RPGs: I think that there ar probably a few other RPGs in the same style that can claim a similar openness to Divine Divinity. Nox and Diablo II are both the first things that jump out at me. However neither of them felt quite as open as DD. Diablo II was essentially square rooms connected by narrow gates, and Nox had no load times as I recall, but it was quite linear, so you would go from relatively open areas to tunnels which connected them, and also there was no backtracking I believe. Divinity did have load times but the areas between each loading screen were huge - the area you start in made up a good third of the game - so it just really felt very different, like you could go between towns and complete largeish quest lines without hitting a load screen.

yep, diggin this so far.

big plus: you get to design two characters

How much of an issue is the co-op design for a solo player? The whole taking both sides of a conversation thing seemed weird and not all that appealing to me.

It's even weirder in co-op where only one player gets the dialog box and then the decision stuff just pops up without context for the other player.

Aaaagh I want to play it, and I have it, but there are just too many small games on my plate i want to finish first :(

Yep, I played a bit too much yesterday. It is preeeety good thus far.

It's even weirder in solo play when you have to play a rock, paper, scissors game with yourself to get to a final decision with yourself between your characters.

There's a part with an orc lady in the first city and you have the option to kill her or not. Both of my characters agreed we should kill her (because that's the options I picked), but it still insisted I played this rock, paper, scissors mini game to determine who's decision was final. Even though they were the same decision...

Overall, I'm really enjoying the game.

@voodoopc: I don't know why they can't just assign a default decision path for single player stuff.

Wait, its a co-op game? ugh! Maybe I should have paid more attention to the game after the kickstarter campaign.

I actually have to say I love this system. If you want to roleplay it's a lot of fun. Playing my characters as a more straight laced, charismatic but arrogant knight and a wild, smart, independent rogue and it's fun to play them off each other. In a way it is kind of silly (choosing both sides against each other at times).

And actually the rock paper scissors minigame started and I thought it was a dumb mechanic to see, but ended up really appreciating it because it weighs the skill values you have (so if it's say my 6 Intimidation vs the other character's 3 reason, the intimation player gets 6 points for a win vs only 3 for the other). So it ends up kind of just being a random dice role weighed with the skills. Since both my characters have different motivations it keeps my story pretty unpredictable. Ended up killing the first guards I came across because my rogue just wasn't having their crap!

And otherwise this game is a really interesting combo of old school, modern, and all new mechanics. I really like it a lot.

The combat and abilities really stand out too. The teleport skill is cool and has a surprising amount of uses (just lets me pick up and drop anyone or any object, allows me to pluck their caster from the backline and drop him next to my warrior or pick up one enemy and drop him on the other's head, for example). All the skills and spells tend to have that quality of being pretty versatile and interacting with the world in an interesting way.

The setting is pretty generic so far but it overcomes that.

Only complaint is the ambient dialogue that happens when you wander around because it's usually super goofy and repeats OVER AND OVER very frequently. This mother fucker in the market won't shut up about his cheese. SHUT UP!

It's not just a co-op game. It can be but otherwise you just make two characters at the start which so far I've really liked playing solo. You don't have to make your characters disagree or anything if you don't want.

I haven't played a ton yet but so far the game is far more than "good or evil". There are value choices going on in many different areas that define characters and there also seems to be a faction system like you'd find in something like Fallout New Vegas.

Either way this game has it's fair share of dialogue and I think you should probably want to engage with that stuff to enjoy what it has to offer.

@artisanbreads: @sterling: @veektarius: @voodoopc: To clarify, there's a menu option that simply allows you to disengage the dual conversational stuff for both single and multiplayer. This really is not a co-op game, but simply a great RPG with some really cool multiplayer options that they did a bad job of explaining. There's a lot of pretty neat options in there, such as a Dragon Age esque zoom-in on talking characters, and the ability to rotate the camera 360 degrees. I'd not recommend the latter as it shows parts of the map that simply aren't textured, but hey, it's there for mod content.

As for me, I finished the available content in the early access and have am now inching closer to the same point in the proper release, and booooy, am I loving the shit out of this game. Combat's terrific, though it takes a while to get going. Once it has, it's tactical, explosive and just fun. Experimenting with environmental spell effects keeps being entertaining, I only just manages to create a fireball that occupied the entire screen. That was alright. The writing is the best part of this game by far, consistently hilarious. And it's worth mentioning how incredible the music is.

As a free tip for anyone who means to play this game, take the "Pet Pal" talent, no matter what you do. It's absurd how much dialogue they've written for the animals.

@do_the_manta_ray: a couple good tips in there I didn't realize. Thanks.

I think you can assign one character an "AI" that will guide their choices automatically. Apparently the devs are gonna add more "AI" types down the road, as right now there's just loyal (always agree with the player) and random.

I bought the game in early access. Between the last update and the release they added voice overs to the main game. It's generally pretty good voice work; however, the repeating voiced dialog is going to drive me nuts. Imagine hearing the same two lines of dialog repeated ad nauseam while you are trying to read through other pertinent story and character information (that isn't voiced). I had to mute the game in the main town.

That're really my only complaint as of now. IT seems like there are multiple ways to tackle any objective. I'm really looking forward to playing more (with the voice over off).

Wow, this went under my radar. As a fan of the old school Fallout games with turned based combat, this could intrigue me.

@do_the_manta_ray: Ah, I will take a looksie at the options. Most modern games are pretty short on options, so I go into the menu, crank the video settings up, see if there's any audio quality setting, then jump into the game.

I do think the combat is great. It's very Dragon Age like with the combinations but there's a lot of environmental stuff too. Like running into water when your character catches on fire, then being "wet" increases fire resist but decreases lightning resist. Or being "warm" next to a fire, which increases your cold resist. It seems like a really deep game with a lot of possibilities. I even talked to a psychic bull named Bull!

I'm excited to play more tonight.

This game reminds me of dragon's dogma , however the companions here feel more alive and way better ! =D , also the amount of freedom in this one is unbelievable ! really can't wait until the download finishes so i can finally play this :)

@do_the_manta_ray: Ok, good to know.

I agree! It can be goofy in a really fun way. Personally I quite like playing it the opposite way, with them always agreeing, because it gives this weird vibe of like, creepy comedy twins, especially when they agree to be bastards. Like Thomson and Thompson, but murderous.

@mindbullet: Where is that fucking depressed clam; I scoured the beach where you can hear him going "oh woe, et cetera" but couldn't find the little bastard.

After staring at the character creation screen for hours I started playing earlier today. It's great! Never play Baulder's Gate or Neverwinter Nights or anything like that, but I'm having a good time.

In the first hour of playing this game, there was never anything that I wanted to do that the game wouldn't let me do. Don't want to find a key? Break the door down instead. Want to light that oil on fire, but don't want to set yourself on fire in the process? Set a barrel aflame and throw it in there.

Eventually, I will probably find something that I want to do that the game won't let me, but so far this game provides an incredible amount of freedom.

@vincentavatar: Yeah, I spent way longer than I'd like to admit trying to find that thing before I gave up and moved on. I don't have exact coordinates or anything for when I did manage to find him, but

Something about this game makes me feel really excited. I missed the steam sale and was gonna wait for a decent sale on it but something tells me its worth getting full price.

15 hours into this game, and its just awesome...

i bought a bunch of skillbooks from a merchant and figured i want my gold back, but the merchant had a bodyguard, so i used one of my party members to distract the bodyguard, and one to distract the merchant, then tried to pickpocket the gold... thats when i realized that you can actually steal 'everything' a merchant sells... the pickpocket failed tho (yeah dont try to pickpocket 3k gold lol) and so the merchant went all mad and i had to kill him (and he dropped everything) :F

moments later i was wondering why the bodyguard was just standing there doing nothing, when i realized he was facing the opposite way still busy talking to one of my party members...

also i told a demon to show me the future and the credits rolled lol

11/10

I've only played up to the end of the tutorial (I'm saving it for co-op with a friend), but holy hell the music is so good. I'm so glad the soundtrack is included in the Collector's Edition.