Codex Review RPG Codex Review: Divinity: Original Sin 2

[frajaq]

What IS Larian doing now, do they plan to announce some expansion pack soon?

 

[Sacred82]

What IS Larian doing now, do they plan to announce some expansion pack soon?

Swen has said there's "definitely something coming up" for the game, and he said that in addition to patches.

 

[Tigranes]

why do you think it's less biased if the reviewer describes the writing in the entire game with a few adjectives, without giving you anything to judge?

I don't, it's not one or the other, black or white. I agree that it'd be better to back up his comments about the writing and give a bit more substance.

Given DOS2's sales, I'd have to assume that something is on the horizon.

 

[Lady_Error]

Currently playing DOS:EE for the first time and it is much better and much bigger than I expected. Sort of Pillars meets MMX, which I both enjoyed.

A Darth Roxor review doesn't mean the game is bad. It's just a Codex tradition by now.

 

[flabbyjack]

Haven't read the whole thing but it's definitely overly critical. Is this supposed to be some kind of parody review? Might be worthy of a second review. Maybe you thought it would be funny to dump over the game of the year (2017)?

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Achiman]

Apart from combat abilities there are also “civil” abilities, which encompass all sorts of Barters, Telekineses and Sneakings. Fortunately, they have a separate ability point pool, because they are mostly uninteresting and would hardly warrant investing any points that you could instead pump into 5% damage increases. One civil ability that deserves a bit more detailed mention is Persuasion.

The ability which was the best (worst?) out of this pool is surely lucky charm or w/e it was called. with this pumped up you can open a pile of goop, random barrels or anything really and find epic random gear for a constant stream of either upgrades or cash throughout the game.

Memory at least is something different, because it increases your skill memorisation cap – the higher your Memory, the more skills you will be able to use at once without swapping them out of combat.

A MUST for any spell orientated character, my dude (Fane guy) had about 30 skills by the end of the game and imo this was a definite improvement over the 1 or two schools you could bother with (from memory) in Div OS.

Hard to argue with the critisims of the force-field combat, when enemies start charming you (seemed a lot less than in the first game) or you start charming them is the only way to avoid the 'magic frost armor/stone skin' immunity cycle.

All the same, equipment in DOS2 also retains most of its flaws from DOS1. Loot is still random, unique items are still very rare (now in addition also terrible) and gear properties still follow the Diablo-like formula of “[prefix] [item] [of] [suffixing]”.

In the last town Arx, you start getting some unique gear which is worthwhile, but yeah, early game & mid game the gear is forgettable.

Also, despite the previously mentioned perils concerning killing blows on NPCs, it has to be mentioned and commended that the vast majority of characters in DOS2 can be slaughtered as you see fit, without breaking the game.

While it is silly that they went with the nonplussed NPCs not caring that there is a homicidal maniac amongst them, it's good that they doubled down on it

Spoiler

During the ascension fight where you have to race to the alter to ascend and become divine I actually killed my entire party (because I thought I needed to and they would be rezzed after a cut scene or something). Because I wasn't paying much attention to when the game was overwriting the autosaves and attempting the next scene (boss) I lost that save before the ascension fight and my manual save was miles back. The net effect was that I had to solo my patron god and enter the last act of the game with no companions (or money to hire them). It impressed me that the game allowed me to fuck myself so badly and kill off it's 'flavour' characters.

Good review overall, I do think that there was some MUCH more memorable late game fights (The DR especially) than in the first though, which you would have seen if you didn't bitch out after 40 hours

 

[KateMicucci]

It also doesn’t help that action points are very limited – base is 4 while the max you can hope for is 6, and that’s only with haste effects that are very short and hard to come by. In practice, this more or less limits you to doing 2 meaningful actions a turn at best.

You have fewer AP in DOS2 but actions also cost less. If you felt like your guys could do more in DOS1, that was because you were playing lone wolves.

The story was bland, the writing was boring

There's nothing more bland and boring than describing something as bland and boring.

Also, when it comes to the main plot, there is one thing I can’t really understand. The game gives inexplicable importance to Braccus Rex, an early game boss monster from DOS1, whose characterisation was limited to laughing a lot and throwing fireballs around. Out of all the bad guys in the Divinity series, they really had to pick someone as featureless as this? It’s roughly the equivalent of having The Butcher as one of the main villains in Diablo 2, although even that would make more sense.

That's a DOS1 problem, not a DOS2 problem.

I think it was a mistake to go to 4 characters.

DOS1 was 4 characters too unless you already knew that the game played better with 2 lone wolves.

Playing DOS 2 with 4 is better than DOS 1 with 4. You only have one "real" PC.

 

[Valky]

This review reads like it was written just for me. It says everything I feared and saw in the game after the mass of decline in EE and the shilling for casual multiplayer faggotry that was rampant throughout the marketing for D:OS2. I will say it again, D:OS was a great game and one of the highlights of 2014 for me. Unfortunately, Larian let the popularity get to their heads, leading to the decline of EE and 2. I think I'm going to accept now that there will be no upgrade to Original Sin like I had hoped for since I finished the game 4 years ago, and reinstall Original Sin because a diamond in the rough is the best I can hope for.

 

[Atlantico]

I've never been one to like Belgians.

Not their "chocolate" (with apologies to actual chocolate), not their politics, ethics or RPGs.

Not one of the Divinity games has entertained or impressed. Boring, mediocre, forgettable.

DOS2 is the only one I never tried, and thanks to brother Roxor, I won't have to.

Excellent review, 10/10 would read again.

edit: Their waffles are nothing to talk about either, forgettable like Larian games.:russiastronk:

 

[Urthor]

some member i don't even remember the name wrote that dos2 dialed down the environmental and elemental hazard, i.e. the things that made dos1 combat good. i stayed away from this game based on that post alone and it seems i made the rite choice (even though i don't really think that alone is enough to shit on a game.)

The environmental bits are still there the issue is they are gated behind armor. Once the armor is down it's like Divinity 1, the issue is the part where grinding the armor down is applying the same rote formula of anti armor abilities

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

I agree on the armor part... the rest is highly innaccurate or subjective even somewhat rushed out of the window.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Roxor, you poor dumb bastard. You must have some kind of martyr complex if you played this thing all the way through.

Good review, but please stop hurting yourself like this!

 

[Ninjerk]

I've never been one to like Belgians.

Not their "chocolate" (with apologies to actual chocolate), not their politics, ethics or RPGs.

Not one of the Divinity games has entertained or impressed. Boring, mediocre, forgettable.

DOS2 is the only one I never tried, and thanks to brother Roxor, I won't have to.

Excellent review, 10/10 would read again.

edit: Their waffles are nothing to talk about either, forgettable like Larian games.:russiastronk:

 

[Daedalos]

Good review, but overall not surprising. I kind of knew they were gonna fuck it up.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

And the Zionist Agenda is exposed.

Negotiations are on with Larian for neutral positive review.

 

[Ninjerk]

And the Zionist Agenda is exposed.

Negotiations are on with Larian for neutral positive review.

gimme them dolla dolla bills x 1

EDIT: ATTN: LARIAN STUDIOS, I'm serious. My integrity can be bought. I have a 1:1 or better ratio of brofists to posts without the aid of gambling. You want someone like me on your side.

 

[Shilandra]

I think ill wait for some updates but ill probably end up getting this game anyway. I liked the first one so with some combat and itemization tweaks this one should be fun enough too.

Though the animal abuse is worrying. I liked stuff like saving the chicken in the first one. I hope it isn't too much of that stuff all over the game.

 

[J_C]

Has Darth Roxor finally jumped the shark? Oh yes he did.

 

[AwesomeButton]

The game quickly falls apart after you leave the first island. It just stops offering new challenges, instead of that it simply inflates the numbers of stats, for the player and for the enemies.

This isn't all that bad, considering you can spend about 50 hours in the first island alone, the problem is that the remaining 3/4 of the game are a banal slog with atrocious writing, which is a mix of teen mastrubatory literature and a 90s kids movie.

The repeating motif is that this game is not designed for the players' amusement but for the designers' convenience.

No new mechanics and challenges are introduced. Enemies teleport into the battlefield at preset places, which the player doesn't know the first time, but can abuse the knowledge every subsequent time he plays. Dull to play, easy to "design".

Enemies cheat with initiative. Dull to play, easy to "design", "balance".

Armor and HP are continuously inflated instead of the game offering new mechanics to make combat fun. Dull to play, easy to "design".

The fact that the camera is free to zoom and rotate is not used in any way for gameplay purposes by the quest designers. Instead of providing a fixed camera, and designing locations in such a way that can be played with a fixed camera, the designers have delegated to the player to do the work to rotate the camera around, so that they don't have to concern themselves with how to design locations better. Again, designer lazyness comes at a cost to the player.

For a "deep" RPG, you would expect the dialogues amount to more than "click through all the options". But I don't remember a single instance when my choices in dialogue averted combat, gave me more information than they may have otherwise, etc. Dull to play, but easy to throw together and consider your "design" work done.

 

[J_C]

You must have some kind of martyr complex if you played this thing all the way through.

He didn't.

 

[thesheeep]

Haven't read the whole thing but it's definitely overly critical. Is this supposed to be some kind of parody review? Might be worthy of a second review. Maybe you thought it would be funny to dump over the game of the year (2017)?

Nah, he's just into hating this game. It's well known
It isn't that he's completely wrong - in fact, I agree with many criticisms. He is just - as you said - overly critical to the point of it being comedic.

The game is still quite fun to play, even if not as good as D:OS1 due to the really retarded armor system.

 

[Shilandra]

The game quickly falls apart after you leave the first island. It just stops offering new challenges, instead of that it simply inflates the numbers of stats, for the player and for the enemies.

This isn't all that bad, considering you can spend about 50 hours in the first island alone, the problem is that the remaining 3/4 of the game are a banal slog with atrocious writing, which is a mix of teen mastrubatory literature and a 90s kids movie.

The repeating motif is that this game is not designed for the players' amusement but for the designers' convenience.

No new mechanics and challenges are introduced. Enemies teleport into the battlefield at preset places, which the player doesn't know the first time, but can abuse the knowledge every subsequent time he plays. Dull to play, easy to "design".

Enemies cheat with initiative. Dull to play, easy to "design", "balance".

Armor and HP are continuously inflated instead of the game offering new mechanics to make combat fun. Dull to play, easy to "design".

The fact that the camera is free to zoom and rotate is not used in any way for gameplay purposes by the quest designers. Instead of providing a fixed camera, and designing locations in such a way that can be played with a fixed camera, the designers have delegated to the player to do the work to rotate the camera around, so that they don't have to concern themselves with how to design locations better. Again, designer lazyness comes at a cost to the player.

For a "deep" RPG, you would expect the dialogues amount to more than "click through all the options". But I don't remember a single instance when my choices in dialogue averted combat, gave me more information than they may have otherwise, etc. Dull to play, but easy to throw together and consider your "design" work done.

So do classes and origins have no real reactivity? Not even token "hey, aren't you an [origin]? Cool. Here's what I was going to say anyway"

And I keep hearing about bloat and inflated stats. How do players keep up if items and skills go up by small incremental amounts? Is magic and abilities more powerful to compensate?

 

[AwesomeButton]

There is reactivity to character race and "tags" (incl. story background tags, like when you play The Red Prince for example), but I can't think of quest reactivity on the basis of what you chose to tell someone.

How players keep up - by raising their stat and skill levels as they level up (xp rewards are also continuously inflated) and by buying gear that progressively scales in its stats (for the higher damage/shield values).

The problem is that approaches to combat don't change between the first encounter in the game and the last. It's always "find which shield is lower-attack this shield-reduce health to zero once the "shield" HP is down".

There was one combat I remember as being more interesting, where I had to protect a character for multiple turns while we were being attacked both by enemies and by off-map enemies which I couldn't reach.

 

[Darth Roxor]

some member i don't even remember the name wrote that dos2 dialed down the environmental and elemental hazard, i.e. the things that made dos1 combat good.

It's more or less what Tigranes said. On the one hand they are ramped up because there's a metric fuckton of them, but on the other they are dialed down because muh force fields.

One thing that I think they improved on from the first D:OS was the quest design.

Maybe it's cuz of the long break between playing and revioowan, but when I was writing it and opened the journal to scan for quests that were interesting or which I'd remember to be gud, nothing stood out so I opted not to mention it at all for safety reasons lest alzheimer's make me write INCORRECT, INAUTHENTIC FACTS.

O rly, I totally didn't see that coming after the first two tiny paragraphs on the character system.

im full of surprises

It begs the question what exactly is the problem here. Are the attributes not interesting enough if you look at the game as a combat simulator (which isn't a problem for many people but for you)? Or is it that the attibutes are entirely gamey and not simulationist (which isn't a problem for many people but for me)?

The problem is that every stat is the exact same (boring) thing but with a different name, so you are not dropping points into X, Y, Z but into Xa, Xb, Xc. With shit like this you might as well drop the character system altogether, and the game would probably be better off for it.

Did you use magic to solve any puzzles, and if yes how frequently, and how obvious was this solution?

Oh this is actually a gr8 thing in itself that I didn't mention because I had no good place to squeeze it into.

Puzzles are solved by activating your Witcher Vision (tm) and following the superobvious cues it gives you.

You know you're reading a Roxor review scribbled on toilet paper when skills are written off with a few sentences.

I was writing this revio from the perspective of someone who knows the first game, so I didn't dwell too much on things near-identical to it, because it would just clog things up. If you skipped dos1 and are thus confoos, tough luck.

Just what is so terrible about a hidden mechanic remains unclear though, I mean you could make the connection between Strength and intimidation after all.

The problem is you're making blind choices based on an opaque (not "hidden") mechanic, while said choices can bar you from progressing in a quest. Because, from memory, multiple quests in DOS2 hinge on a single persuasion chokepoint somewhere, and if you fail that all you have left is going guns blazung.

You don't even give a list of what 'civil' skills there are, contrary to your detailed run-down on combat skills.

and yet i dont give a list of combat skills either

also see an earlier point

All Larian games have always had unbalanced abilities and, before D:OS, shit combat, so those must be fine too.

this is not a review of all larian games

A lot of people took offense to the pure silliness of D:OS, whch was so whack out of place with the whole supposed epicness it caused you seizures trying to reconcile the two in your head. Jerry Lewis playing King Lear in a Dan Aronofsky film couldn't be half as cringey.

I see I must reiterate because mentioning this once was not enough:

A lot of people took offence to the silliness of DOS because it was badly written and badly placed. Divinity 2's ratio of lulz to epix is about equal to DOS1, but there it's inserted in just the right moments and written competently, so it's funny and not stupid (for fuck's sake it has power rangers). These "a lot of people" are focusing on the trees when there's a forest to be seen, but it's not exactly something uncommon.

Btw I don't know if you've ever played Divine Divinity, high fantasy but still down to Earth flair, not even remotely the later Larian goofiness, on par with Ultima VII for homour.

I did in fact play DivDiv. You are correct that it's the most down to earth of the Larian games, but let's not forget that the first thing you encounter after leaving starter town is a black knight with an existential crisis.

Uuuhhh, excuse me? I know it's acceptable on the Kodex to dismiss any writing with the words 'it sucks' and gain 50 Kool Kredits in the process. But just for the off-chance you want anyone else to read this crap, as does happen nowadays, you may want to lay off the edge a bit... a lot, and actually share some details about the writing.

I'd think at the very least the bit about animal abuse would be a good example of stupid grimdarkery.

A question I've asked people who have played the game is "could you identify any MCA in the game, and how much of it is there?", for example. I mean you had someone like Chris working alongside wet-eared nu-humans, it should be possible to see some stark contrasts.

Ah, the MCA in DOS2 meme. Spoiler, MCA didn't write shit for this game. He only came up with a backstory for one of the origin characters (Fane), but only that - he didn't even write it.

Dude, I didn't know you're that kind of prude. Or rather, you come across like the classical conservative, who doesn't give a shit about ethics but simply doesn't want to be bothered with things he doesn't want to think about.

If this is what you mean by 'grimdark', that sex and violence are treated in prose form rather than as 'tasteful cutscenes', bro, that's actually a good thing.

There's a question of taste, scale and competence. When it comes to taste, those bits are cringefests of the worst Biowarian kind. When it's scale, they are all over the place, and often unavoidable or coming out of the blue. As for competence, when a bit like this comes up, I shouldn't be shaking my head and thinking "what is wrong with you, writer", I should be thinking "that was fucked up, but p. cool". Clive Barker is fucked up but cool. DOS2 is a dog humping your leg.

OTOH ham-fisted reviewing using broad strokes offers a great opportunity to re-re-re-review the game after it has received the updates and expansions that have already been confirmed by Larian. I'm holding my breath for a "it's slightly less shit now but still shit, you could enjoy it if you're dumb, I sank 100 hours into it but it was a pain" Roxor verdict in the coming months.

hurr durr o u got me here

Is the hell-hamster trying to tell me that my hopes for another DOS1 with non-random loot, a solid story, non-idiotic writing and less of a drop in content-quality in the second half of the game were indeed rather foolish?

except i believe the hell-hamster doesn't ascribe any of the above qualities to dos1 and in fact explicitly states it's guilty of them too

If the initiative system is dumb and counterintuitive, why did Roxor try to game it? Just change playstyle.

how do you change playstyle and adapt to something that cant be adapted to and which leaves no room for playstyle changes other than trying to game it

And I explicitly said that, yes, the goofiness was very much an issue that needed to be adressed. Wether that change was done skilfully or not, I can't really draw that conclusion myself from the review.

redding is teh hard

Holy shit, there was an army of writers on this game. There must be discernible differences to the writing

i wish

Still, the point is it's not clear where Roxor's coming from. If he's not missing any simulationist aspect to attributes, but simply different ways of dealing and avoiding damage, hoo well, to a lot of players that is certainly a secondary aspect. Certainly in a turn-based game with destructible environments and what not, where you have a lot more factors to tactics than attributes.

i dont know how i could be even more clear on the point that the character system is nothing more than insignificant +5% damage bonuses across the board which you could instead get automatically on level up as a global "ding! you now do +5% damage with everythang!" instead of giving you the illusion of being able to engage in deep rpg activities by dropping points somewhere

also this game does not have destructible environments

Haven't read the whole thing but it's definitely overly critical. Is this supposed to be some kind of parody review? Might be worthy of a second review. Maybe you thought it would be funny to dump over the game of the year (2017)?

While its not clear from description, some 5% is additive(like ranged, melee ones) and others are multpliers, like ranged or warfare. As such ranged skill is one of the worst choices to bloat your dmg numbers.

oh yeah

and none of that is mentioned anywhere in the game too :^)

You have fewer AP in DOS2 but actions also cost less.

incorrect, you have 4 ap, actions typically cost 2, rarely 1 or 3, which means you will rarely do more than 2 things

meanwhile in dos1 you could stack up a lot of ap, conserve them through turns, etc, to gather a huge pool, while actions had a wide range of costs from 3 to 10, which could let you do a lot of things

If you felt like your guys could do more in DOS1, that was because you were playing lone wolves.

incorrect, i never played lone wolves

There's nothing more bland and boring than describing something as bland and boring.

too bad

That's a DOS1 problem, not a DOS2 problem.

except it isn't

the base of it is in dos1, but when dos2 just keeps going "ZOMG this is the armour of BRACCUS REX!!!", "ZOMG this is the bathroom of BRACCUS REX!!!", "ZOMG this guy was a servant of BRACCUS REX!!!" without anything else, then it's a problem with dos2 - because all I keep reading here is "this is the X of that unimportant boss monster who laughed a lot while throwing fireballs"

I agree on the armor part... the rest is highly innaccurate or subjective even somewhat rushed out of the window.

what a shame

And the Zionist Agenda is exposed.

Negotiations are on with Larian for neutral positive review.

this is what happens when nobody donates to my patreon

Has Darth Roxor finally jumped the shark? Oh yes he did.

jumped the shark and rode the tiger

Nah, he's just into hating this game. It's well known
It isn't that he's completely wrong, he is just - as you said - overly critical to the point of it being comedic.

But I don't remember a single instance when my choices in dialogue averted combat

I do. If you douse the burning cursed piggus in Fort Goy, the undead lizard someone of BRACCUS REX!!! appears to ask wtf do you think you're doing. Successful [persuasion] lets you avoid the fight.

And I keep hearing about bloat and inflated stats. How do players keep up if items and skills go up by small incremental amounts? Is magic and abilities more powerful to compensate?

Not exactly. What you primarily have to constantly update and upgrade are new armour parts to increase your force fields, because otherwise you'll get steamrolled. So if you aren't playing someone reliant on weapon damage, like a ranger, you can in theory skip the magic wangs because you'll just keep spell spamming, but you can never consider skipping new armerz.



who wants some more

i've got enough bile for all of you