Divinity Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition @ STEAM - $17.99

[UnknownSouljer]

Now that Baldur's Gate 3 has shined a light on Larian,​

DoS2 is a way for people who want more of a similar experience. It's for me, one of the best games I've ever played.
Steam has the game on sale now for $17.99 again!

​

***PREVIOUS THREAD/INFO below!***​

https://www.gog.com/game/divinity_original_sin_2​

Frankly I'm surprised that no one in here mentioned this deal sooner. Not sure how long it's going to go for, but $17.99 is the lowest listed price anywhere ever for the Definitive Edition according to isthereanydeal.com

The quick review/recap is: if you're hardcore into RPG's and you love tactical combat with an insane passion then this game is pretty much peerless. I am playing through the game right now and it pushes every button that I could possibly ever want from a single player RPG (although you can play this with friends through multiplayer if you'd like).

For me, it's like Fallout 1/2 but set in a high fantasy setting. For others they would compare it to playing D&D but in a CRPG setting. If you check all the reviews, they're all 90%+ and all scream GOTY level of game play. It's also long with a main story that's 60 hours long and over 100 hours if you're a completionist (and to be clear, all of that is REAL content, no fetch quests or other BS - it's all for character development and storytelling inside of the world). So at $17.99 you'll definitely get your monies worth.

I love so much about virtually everything this game done. There is a lot of variety to how you can accomplish quests and goals (yes you can murder entire towns if you so choose) - you can kill people, steal from them, use dialog, or meet their requirements a number of ways (quest dependent obviously). You can customize your build to an insane degree - there are so many classes and the game design is all about multi-classing (if anything it's a bit daunting, but it's okay! As you learn the systems you can respec at anytime in game). The voice acting is superb. The story telling feels real and heartbreaking. The choice of using a descriptive narrator some how just "fits". All of the animations and sounds in combat feel satisfying (and cool!) The music production is beautiful - if I'm to criticize the game at all, I wish there were more tracks. But it layers tracks and themes using a music mixer, so although you hear "the same" music often it doesn't get boring quickly. Seriously, there isn't really much more I can say that I haven't already said - if you like these genres and styles you'll absolutely love this title.

 

[FSCDiablo]

Reminds me I need to finish this game on ye old Xbox with my wife, at least before BG3 comes out - maybe next year.

 

[white_devil]

Thanks for the post. It's been a really long time since I played a CRPG but I love 'em and picked this up based on your glowing review.

 

[exostrife]

I never got through the first one. I didn't dislike it per se, just ran out of steam...didn't connect with the story/world enough (bland) and found the combat a bit fiddly.*

The whole thing seems like something I should/would be into, but the first one kind of left me flat. Is the second one a big jump forward, or more of the same?

*Actually think the one with fiddly combat was PoE...

 

[UnknownSouljer]

I never got through the first one. I didn't dislike it per se, just ran out of steam...didn't connect with the story/world enough (bland) and found the combat a bit fiddly.*

EDIT: The super short version is that I would say the combat in this game is near perfect; if you're into tactical based combat. I enjoy it way more than any other game I can think of in this type. Wasteland 2, Fallout 1/2, X-Com, etc.

The whole thing seems like something I should/would be into, but the first one kind of left me flat. Is the second one a big jump forward, or more of the same?

*Actually think the one with fiddly combat was PoE...

I only played about 30 minutes of the first game. But I more or less ran into the same problems most people who play that game critique: which is basically you make two chars and get dropped into the game and you have no idea what you're supposed to be doing or where you're supposed to be going. (I read other people's reviews after the fact, and then that info clicked). I intend to play the first game after it goes on sale for low enough as most say it's still a fantastic game, it just starts slow. However to be clear, it's not necessary to play the first game to understand the second. There is a 1200 year gap between the two games in the timeline. (As another side note, it also makes me really excited for Baldurs Gate 3, which Larian is making and it's in early access right now - I won't play it until it's done though).

The common "issue" if you want to call it that between both of these games, is that for hardcore RPG nerds it has certain functions that both benefit and drive players nuts (and casuals won't notice or care about). For me it's that the systems are really deep and complicated in this game - there are a lot of choices on how you can build a char and if you're looking for "best" or "optimal" build it can lead to wanting to restart and restat. That pressure goes away though when you find out that later on you can respec for free without any penalties (other than needing skillbooks to learn other skills if you're trying to play an entirely different class. It is however theoretically possible for a single character to learn every skill in the game - but that wouldn't give the same benefit as obviously specializing does). Basically every mainline class though is viable and as you learn what skills do it becomes more obvious how to synergize for multi-classing (there is a "surface" system in the game and by stacking elemental skills as an example you can do extra damage - drop rocks and oil on enemies, and then light it on fire - rain down water and then you can freeze it or alternatively electrocute it, etc). And you can play with 4 chars, so it's not like you won't get to play with a lot of classes with diverse skills anyway. I'm sort of a big thinker min/maxer optimizer, so I experienced a little bit of frustration there at the beginning - but after I realized how open the systems were the pressure was off to make "perfect" decisions. And I have to say those are mechanics I really appreciate.

The other problematic RPG quirk of having a million things you can pick up and it's hard to know whats worth it and what isn't. There is a really massive crafting system in the game, but so far it doesn't really seem like it's super necessary to dive into it or its minutiae if you don't want to (other than making poison potions to heal undead characters, if you decide to play with one - and making better runes in the rune system). I also have generally found that because you have 4 chars and more than likely at least one of them will be strength based - you basically can pick up most everything anyway and there isn't a ton of inventory management thankfully, especially compared to other tactical type games. Certainly far less than a game like Fallout 1/2. You won't be able to carry infinite gear per se, but that's generally not a problem because you more than likely want to sell all your old stuff to upgrade.

The final RPG problem that is common on all of these games is that it definitely rewards save scumming. You can definitely play this game through without it and just live with the choices (in fact it's one of the game modes should you choose it, as well as perma death) - but if you're an outcomes person (especially in dialog) then you might scum a lot.

Outside of those few relatively minor issues I have to say the game is really superb - the game keeps ramping up the difficulty and it feels consistently challenging. The story is really engrossing. It has some great twists and turns (which I won't spoil). This game definitely has a dark gritty feeling to it - a lot of the time tragic and terrible stuff just happens and you can't stop it (the world feels more grounded as a result - you can't expect that you as Johnny Superhero can cleanly solve all problems - and this also leads to dark choices [the ends justifying the means] in the world as appearing more grey). This game can be incredibly dark at times.
I really love the idea of having 6 characters all that have additional story parts in the world. It gives unique interaction between your chars and NPC's and also expands replay-ability a lot. Definitely recommend playing one of the story characters rather than a generic custom built one (the story characters can be any class or spec you want, they just have unique story-lines and goals in the world). Because I literally didn't know anything about the game before I started playing: I didn't realize that in your party you'll meet all the story characters in the game and can choose to recruit 3. So every time you play the game, you can have a different composition of story characters and see how those interactions play out. And again to mention again from the earlier post, you can choose to solve your quests in a lot of ways. I tend to like solving things through dialog, but now I'm experimenting around with stealing stuff and killing people strategically. And you can always choose to side with different people and betray others. You can choose to become a Hero or be ruthlessly Evil like a villain (you'll find that certain characters definitely have a bent one direction or another or at least are more amoral). And of course that means your character interactions change. Depending on your tags and skill checks there are a lot of ways all of that can play out.

Bottom line is still: this game is basically peerless in the genre. I live for this kind of game play though and thought it was dead since really it's rare to find games of this type. Wasteland 2 brought back a lot of the RPG + tactical combat stuff, however I found that the game was kind of rough around the edges, not really balanced, and some of the story elements were a bit over the top. DoS 2 is really well produced, well executed, and it has had 3 years of balance changes, upgrades, and content put in (for free). The last major update/content patch was June of this year. So it shows how much Larian cares about its games - and in playing through it, it shows. I definitely wouldn't recommend this game to just anyone - but again, if you love RPG + Tactical Combat then this title is definitely up there in terms of all time greats. And if you follow my posts on this board, I'm incredibly picky and only want to play the best of the best. I don't have time to play games that I consider mediocre and frankly that's 99.9% of whats out there. Larian is showing that every once in a while gems still come out. This is one of them.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Bump because it's back!