Divinity: Original Sin (2014)

Started this again this weekend, now with one Larian game under my belt and playing on PC instead of Xbox, where I tried it a few years back. Definitely been liking it more this time, though I can see how I fell off of it several years back.

While I didn't really actively "like" most of Baldur's Gate 3's party members, they were at least interesting—this game's party members I more actively dislike and find boring so far, and I can't say other NPCs are really what's drawing me to the game either. Quest objectives and locations feel unnecessarily hard to keep track of. Not a fan of certain smaller mechanics like the rock, paper, scissors persuasion minigame, or characters' repetitive dialogue responses to environmental effects like heat and rain. Conversation system in general is not very refined, always re-showing options that you've already done but with no change in the response. Leveling up also feels more micromanage-y than in BG3 in a way I don't love, since it occurs more frequently and there are so many things to select from.

The AP (action point) system in combat is not really my favorite either due to how it somewhat awkwardly combines movement and attacking into the same resource, but it does create some interesting decision points around saving actions for a following turn I guess. Either way, combat is engaging overall. I'm not too jazzed about the overall plot that this seems to be leading toward, but I do think the initial act's murder mystery setup with a bunch of moving parts in the starting area is relatively decent.

So yeah, kinda interesting I guess. Though this shares some foundation with BG3, I definitely don't think it's a given that those who love that game will fall right in love with this one. Gave me some appreciation already for parts of the experience that that later game refined/streamlined/clarified. I feel like this is about the reaction I expected myself to have. It's still the same game that didn't really interest me originally, but I have a bit better grasp of what's going on, so I guess I'll just see how much I want to keep going with it. (60 hours does sound like a bit much for the kind of experience I've had so far...)

12 hours in, still in "Act 1" as far as I can tell. Co-op mode.

Some notes:

-The enemy AI is pretty hecking dumb.

-Tracking quests is a little bit complicated. I was expecting to have a GPS-style tracker like in many modern RPG’s/MMO’s. At least the game is generous with warps and teleports.

-We are both playing mages with min-maxed intelligence and our spider summons seem really OP. They can tank multiple hits from enemy archers/mages and when they finally go down, we can just cast them again.

-We are playing on Tactician Mode and the game still feels like a cakewalk up to now. Apparently the difficulty will spike in Act 2.

-Combat is starting to get kind of repetitive, but still fun.

Started a co-op campaign with a friend. After 6 hours, DOS has been basically a stealing simulator. We have sold so many stolen paintings that I lost count!

Story is kind of meh but the combat is interesting. We have encountered a few bugs already, yet nothing game-breaking. We are save-scumming a LOT so the fact that we both have fast SSDs is a blessing.

Having fun so far! I'm a little worried about the fact that we are both playing mages with little HP, so I really hope the summons + companions can carry us the whole game...

And thus begins a co-op experience between a pragmatic lib politician who doesn't understand how economics works named Tatsuki, and a sweet loving pyromaniac who actually knows what they're doing named Karma.

For some reason a tutorial didn't happen and I ended up throwing fireballs at myself, woops. It's OK my charisma is really high I'm sure things will work out.

Oh yeah I chose to be a Wanderer because animals are fucking cool and I like ranged combat. My spider shall commit slaughter while I say I have nothing to do with it like a good politician. I don't know if this game allows the character to go through a midlife crisis of "what have I done" but I hope so.

Apparently "let's sober them up" means killing them that is not what I meant holy shit I just wanted to knock them out oh god reload reload reload

Been dropping and picking this game back up a number of times over the years because life just sometimes gets in the way, but it’s still always a good time revisiting.

If you have a friend who loves a classic RPG or even a fan of tabletop RPGs, do yourself a favor and set aside some time a few hours every week and play this out together like a D&D campaign. Absolute fun.