![]() Though exploration and questing is certainly a huge part of the game, the turn-based combat is another area in which Divinity: Original Sin II excels. It should be noted that jack-of-all-trades are not particularly useful, especially with respect to skills outside battle in the late game players will instead want to develop a party of contrasting specialists, with perhaps one specialised in lockpicking, one in persuasion, and so forth. There are plenty of skills and attributes to choose between when upgrading a level up, but the game is generally good at explaining what everything does and includes the option to re-spec. It can also be annoying when forced into post-battle conversations that have a speech check sometimes players won’t be able to have their speech-trained character respond, even if they are standing well within earshot, thus missing out on a preferred option. Players will receive lots of equipment throughout the game and will need to occasionally stop and spend several minutes sorting through and comparing the gear before deciding what’s best and selling off the rest. There are a few archaic parts to the design that come as standard with many games of this type, particularly when it comes to handling loot, as well as some slightly frustrating controls. The game thoroughly rewards players for both looking everywhere and investing in various skills, granting extra options to learn more information or alternate means of progressing a quest. Though exploring the world is still very much the theme, Original Sin II provides enough direction that I felt comfortable with doing so without feeling overwhelmed by the potential to go off track. It’s through these quests and general structure of the game that Divinity: Original Sin II appealed to me in a way other cRPGs haven’t. The narrative is aided by excellent voice acting throughout the game, and the combination of top quality writing and performance is really noticeable. All of the quests have substance to them - very rarely will players simply have to deliver items to someone - and usually many different ways of completing them with significantly different outcomes. They can come in all shapes and can be started in many ways, some with the usual talking to NPCs, others by perhaps finding an item that leads to a deeper story when investigated, encouraging players to go out into the world and explore. The design and writing within quests of all lengths is stellar. ![]() The overall story is engaging, if maybe a tad predictable at times, but Divinity: Original Sin II‘s narrative shines in its quests and the overall depth of the world. Naturally, this state of being doesn’t hold for too long and players and their other Sourceror companions set out to find their freedom, though this quickly builds into something much larger. The narrative starts engagingly, with players controlling a prisoner being shipped off to an island named Fort Joy in a bid to remove from society all those with the innate powers of a Sourcerer, one who wield a powerful and very hazardous type of magic called Source. ![]() Origin stories not selected will be recruitable as party members in the first chapter, so even if players prefer to create an entirely new main character there will still be the option of some heavy character-based quests to enjoy. Either option works well, but picking one of the origin stories provides some extra narrative and a special questline for the character. Players start off by customising their main character, and are given the option to have a generic backstory or take one of seven specific origin stories. Though a sequel to Divinity: Original Sin, the game doesn’t require any knowledge of past events, or other games in the Divinity world for that matter, though it is a bonus. However, in Larian Studios’ Divinity: Original Sin II, I have finally found a game that offers a friendly enough in to the whole experience, and a game that is generally excellent throughout. That isn’t for lack of trying, but I have never got over that initial hump of understanding the complicated systems and character building that seem to be integral to the games. Though I’ve enjoyed more modern titles that have built off them, such as Knights of the Old Republic and Dragon Age: Origins, the appeal of beloved games like Baldur’s Gate and its ilk has eluded me. Having not fully come into western RPGs until the mid to late 2000s, I have never really managed to get into the old-school-style cRPGs.
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