Original Sin EE - Review
 

Mark's Game Reviews has reviewed Divinity Original: Enhanced Edition:

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Divinity Original Sin 2 is the better game.:p

Did the EE ever do anything to address the obnoxious pixel hunting? After becoming bored midway, I have yet to finish this first installment (though I only grudgingly forced myself to finish the ponderous sequel).

I've often considered revisiting this, I preferred its combat to the sequel's.

Yeah the combat was better in Original Sin due to Larian adding the armor system to Original Sin 2. Everything else was improved in the sequel. I just have to finish both.

The one thing I don't like about DOS games is how overpowered you become as you gear up and get your skills and such. The last third of the game in both cases you just use the same opening sequence and win before the enemies can contest.

I enjoyed both games for the rest, but when the challenge is not there, it just becomes a bit dull for me, especially since the story wasn't especially great in either game.

I played DOS 2 on hard on release and lack of challenge was definitely not an issue there. I thought the game was quite hard at times, In fact that was my favorite thing about it. But there was also a quest bug at the end of the second island that caused me stop the game and I never got back to it. So if the last third got easier I would never have known.

I felt similarly at first, especially Fort Joy felt quite challenging at the time. I think it may be because of not being ccustomed to the armor system. The system is nice in principle, but promotes piling on either physical or magical damage, which I think takes from the fun since what you really want in your characters is variety in your spells and abilities. As I went further, I noticed I was always using the same opening spells to remove enemy armours, and freeze them/stun them forcing them to just skip turns and watch me kill them, which feels satisfying for a while, but then it's repetitive. No combat depended on the situation or my judgement or analysis, every situation could be trumped in the same opening combo.

I did a single character playthrough in Tactical Mode just taking War/Necro with dips into skill trees with mobility feats (taking Lone Wolf, of course), and that was challenging, but even a duo lone wolf playthrough becomes trivial as soon as you understand that both characters should go either full physical or full magical damage to perma-cc enemies. They just can't fight back.

I really like Larian as a company but honestly, the D:OS games were as much of a set back as they were progress.

Their game engine is really good and they have really fine tuned their combat. Though arguable, one has to at least acknowledge a great deal of time and energy went into these two areas and I think they have been successful here though like with anything else, these things can always be improved upon.

Some of the things that made Divine Divinity so good largely disappeared though. The D:OS games are not a world but a collection of "Maps…" a big set back for me. The RPG simulation aspects also took a big step back… the two big ones are NPC schedules and day/night/weather, though there are others.

I am still maintaining hope that at some point Swen will make a return to his promised "RPG of all RPGs" that he would like to create in the spirit of Ultima 7.

Well that Dream RPG is dead Swen has moved onto another called BG III.:biggrin:

Great Britain the third? :D

Well, maybe after BG3… I can hope and dream anyway.

Yeah maybe but magic 8-ball says no and give up the dream.:)

On a serious note he hasn't talked about that RPG of all RPGs in many years. Last time I seen him mention that RPG was on his blog right before Original Sin was released.

The combat in the sequel is vastly improved by the Epic Encounters 2 mod.

Did the original version not allow you to highlight items? In the EE, you just hit the left Alt key if you need to.

I also never finished it. I got bored near the end of Luculla Forest and started playing other games. I might pick it back up and try to finish it soon since it hasn't been that long.

Hmm. He doesn't talk about that anymore because OSI & II *are* those RPGs. Not sure how you guys missed that.

Technically no as he didn't add PC schedules and day/night as he promised. Also someone never read his blog did you? Original sin was not his dream RPG.

Like I said above it's more then likely BG III. It's his biggest game ever.

I like Larian studios as well and I am very hyped for BG3. But I think that D:OS is one of the most overrated cRPG among the most recent ones. I have beaten the first but haven't played the second yet. That's how excited I am to play the second one (based on my impressions of the first).

I like both Original Sin games in general. The only thing I don't like is the item-leveling concept. Otherwise these games are worth playing. Especially, if you like finding little secrets and sidestories.

In the first game the combat system is fun as you have lots of build possibilities and tactical choices. In other words, if you lose your still having fun and you want to try something different next time. The environmental interactivity really added something but it was a little gamey in places with the over-abundance of barrels. I would of preferred a more natural level design that tended toward realism.

In terms of writing the tone of the first game is very whimsical and oriented towards cheerfulness which some people interpret as not taking itself seriously. I know what they are saying but I see it differently, more that the game has a positive bent rather than a negative one which is more realistic to me. Unfortunately other elements like the sneaking in barrels, bushes and rocks and gamey level design tips it over the edge.

Graphically I found the first game to be good but I would have preferred a more realistic style than the WOW style that they went for. I appreciated the use of colour and the music is awesome to listen to.

Overall the story and pacing of encounters needed tightening up and I feel like the game itself was longer than it needed to be but overall I recommend it.

Setting, ridiculous story, gamey mechanics and generinc loot were biggest downsides of OS1. Probably not really game for me, but in 2014 I wold play any isometric, party-based and story-driven cRPG. So I sunk over 70 hrs in vanilla and over 50 hrs in EE, but never finished it.

Luckily, today we have more similar games to choose from, so thats probably main reason why I didnt bother to even try OS2 yet. I hope BGIII will be more game for me, but if not, there will be other games to play.

Those two things are what most put me off.

The art style was extremely colorful and cartoonish/childish/WOWish. I just hate the influence of WoW (and Blizzard in general) on other games.

The item-level design is all over the place. I get this feeling with D:OS (and other games) when I see these big numbers such as "658 PHYSICAL ARMOUR" that game designers don't know what they are doing. They are just increasing the number as you progress. It's not meaningful. Usually, JRPGs tend to do that a lot. Once I read this post in which the developers of RB:AotF say something that makes a lot of sense:

"The core system design for a solid RPG is quite a challenging task and the many failed, unbalanced attempts are a testament to that. Computer game designers tend to underestimate the difficulty to create such a complex beast."

And that's why I like cRPG based on PnP RPG so much, they are based on more solid systems.

I finished both games, and I prefered the first one mainly because the combat was not so cahotic. My thought on the second was that they had overdue the enviromental complexity. No need to have in every combat pools of oil or water to have some fun. I have played both in the hardest setting (not the permadeath), and found that the first beacame easy halfway through, the second only the last 4/5 of the game were easy.
All in all both excelente games, a little too long.
My favorite of the series was the "gothic" one, I don´t remember the name (Divinity II?), but I loved the questing and exploring of that one.

Divinity II: Ego Draconis, also known as The Dragon Knight Saga when combined with the expansion. It's my favorite Larian game as well.

Absolutely. DKS was a masterpiece, but they spent money so foolishly that Sven blames DKS for their problems but it wasn't the issue. That game is masterful and the DOS stuff doesn't come close.

DOS isn't bad but should be called Endless Elemental Encounters instead. E3 has always been popular, so the title should work.

My big problem with DOS is the length of the combat. A fodder fight can take 3-4 minutes.

I never felt it that way. I abandoned DOS because I still had far more killed party members in each combat than otherwise.

According to you, I obviously did something very wrong ?