It’s these rough edges that are most likely the hallmark of Kickstarted games but ones I’m hoping will be ironed out in future patches. It’s also quite frustrating to continuously misclick (by a matter of a few pixels) next to an enemy, rather than on him, moving your character instead of attacking. During multiplayer, it can be next to impossible to read along while the other player is doing all of the talking, which makes playing co-op significantly less immersive. The UI is another rough spot, with inventory menus all stacking up on top of each other. I know easter eggs and funny tombstone epitaphs are a staple of many games in the genre, but when almost every single quest involves one jokey aspect or another, it seriously undercuts the dramatic pacing and desire to see what comes next, especially if the jokes are falling flat (sorry, but jokes written by RPG writers are never going to be comedy gold, no matter how much insider winking and pandering goes into it). Most of the time, I can’t tell if I’m playing an RPG or a parody of an RPG.
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Within the first few hours of play, you’re already running up against a depressed talking clam and soldiers that are childishly bemoaning that they’ve been turned into animate skeletons. In Original Sin, developer Larian Studios has decided to go full-on silly.
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Humor has always been a key part of the Divinity series but the degree has waffled quite a bit. As RPG stories go, it suffices and every once and while, can be mildly surprising. Yes, you can recruit personality-less “henchmen” that can fill in those two slots instead, but there isn’t even the facade of story supporting them you merely enter your dream-like stronghold location and “buy” them, like you would a sword or helmet, soulless tools existing only to be used as fighting machines.ĭivinity’s plot starts out as a cross between a “Go root out and kill those evil guys” and your standard “magical murder mystery”. The internet is all aflutter with headlines such as, “Best RPG since the Baldur’s Gate series!” But if Baldur’s Gate had launched with only two potential party members to pick up, it would never have achieved the status it did. This half-assing of a feature completely bowled me over.
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That means if you want a full party of people with personalities, you’ll always be playing with the exact same party. Speaking of party members, as of this writing, there are exactly 2 companions in the game. There’s even a neat Fallout-style perk system in place, but with so very few perks to choose from, you’ll be experience lots of overlap, even between only four party members. The abilities, skills and spells all make sense and work well together, but there just aren’t enough of them. You’re given enough facial and hair options to get by (still not very many, though), but the portraits aren’t dynamic, so you invariably end up with a portrait that doesn’t match your character, essentially always settling for “close enough”. That theme continues on into the rest of character creation and leveling.
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And this brings up the theme that will run throughout the entire review – there’s always something missing, always something coming up just short. Likewise, a female warrior looks like she could barely raise a large sword, much less swing one. For role-playing purposes this is quite limiting, since, while I can make a male thief character, it’s hard to imagine this Gaston-looking dude tip-toeing around. What is a negative is that there are only 2 models available: short, slender female and tall, cartoonishly broad-chested male. You can only be humans but that’s not really a negative.
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Unlike most RPGs, where you create either a single hero or an entire party, Divinity requires you to make two “main characters” (half of a full party). But at the end, in answering the “Is it fun?” question, I’m frustratingly ambivalent.Īs character creation is your first stop in the game’s progression, I’ll start there as well. I can (and will) lead you through all of the games feature, point by point, and explain the pros and cons. Even while writing this, I’m not entirely certain if I like it or not, and that should be one of the first check boxes a reviewer ticks. Divinity: Original Sin is probably the biggest “stumper” I’ve ever encountered. Most games, I can judge in a manner of minutes, quite accurately, and a small few take a couple of hours for me to fully understand their breadth and depth. I’ve been reviewing games for a while now, playing them for the better part of two decades.