Divinity: Original Sin II - Compared with Ultima 7

Richard Cobbett compares Divinity Original Sin 2 with Ultima 7 on PC Gamer:

RPGs may never top Ultima 7, but Divinity: Original Sin 2 comes close

Ultima 7 bears a heavy crown as the king of computer RPGs. Original Sin 2 proves Larian may have what it takes to usurp the throne.

It’s no secret that from the start, the Divinity series has had its sights set on respectfully dethroning Ultima 7. "Everything out there after Ultima 7 never did it as good as Ultima 7," Larian founder Swen Vincke once said. It's for RPGs what The Secret Of Monkey Island is to adventures, what Doom is to shooters, and what Shakespeare is to English literature, and not just because it's the last time a game was able to get away with 'thou', 'doth' and the rest of ye olde English without the world justifiably taking yonder piss with a catheter.

It hasn't been an easy road. The first Divinity game suffered from trying to do Ultima 7 without the lessons of first making Ultima 1-6. The passion was there, but the time wasn't right. Similarly, later games soon set a trend of having phenomenal ideas—psychic powers, turning into a dragon, being soul-bonded with a death knight and so on—but without the budget or RPG foundations to really make them sing.
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Personally, I didn't find the first Divinity:OS to be anything like Ultima VII except in largely superficial ways. The number one reason is the lack of a "living, breathing, reacting world." There is no day or night, no meaningful weather system, no NPC scheduling, and virtually nothing the PCs do has any effect on the world or the behavior of the NPCs. Fire up Ultima VII and take a stroll through Britain; watch the NPCs wake up in the morning, open their windows, eat breakfast, go to work, etc. Then take a walk through Cyseal and tell me if you see anything like that.

I haven't played D:OS2, but I'm told it's mostly the same on that count. And don't get me started on the outdated, OCD-inducing, Diablo-style loot system. If I find one more "something something sword of the something" I'll puke. I spent about half of my playtime in the first game running back and forth to the various merchants. Fun.

Obviously these are all just my own opinions, and I intend no slight to anyone who enjoys the Original Sin games. They do have their charm.

Originally Posted by Clocknova
Personally, I didn't find the first Divinity:OS to be anything like Ultima VII except in largely superficial ways. The number one reason is the lack of a "living, breathing, reacting world." There is no day or night, no meaningful weather system, no NPC scheduling, and virtually nothing the PCs do has any effect on the world or the behavior of the NPCs. Fire up Ultima VII and take a stroll through Britain; watch the NPCs wake up in the morning, open their windows, eat breakfast, go to work, etc. Then take a walk through Cyseal and tell me if you see anything like that.

I haven't played D:OS2, but I'm told it's mostly the same on that count. And don't get me started on the outdated, OCD-inducing, Diablo-style loot system. If I find one more "something something sword of the something" I'll puke. I spent about half of my playtime in the first game running back and forth to the various merchants. Fun.

Obviously these are all just my own opinions, and I intend no slight to anyone who enjoys the Original Sin games. They do have their charm.

I think pretty much what you said.

I've played around 100 hours of DOS2, including Early Access and I must say it's a very good game and I'm enjoying it very much.

As someone who did not enjoy DOS1 (giving up after about a dozen hours), I will chime in here with my view that DOS2 is much more enjoyable and I am having fun after approximately 50 hours.

OCD loot is part of the enjoyment of the game for me, and seeing the direct effects of having better gear makes it worthwhile. I haven't once gone to a vendor specifically to sell something (I sell when I happen to be there) as fortunately there is plenty of carrying capacity with the 4 characters.

There is still the issue in which NPCs do not change what they are doing, but I don't consider that an important issue at all for me in this type of game. The storyline and writing are good, that is what counts to me more.

As I am playing I am struck by the notion of whether or not OS 2 may be the G.O.A.T. cRPG. Perhaps hyperbole, but I am compelled strongly by this game and from a more objective standpoint I can't point to another that does what it does better. I am a huge early Fallout fan (Fallout 1 & 2), best I can say is that Fallout bests OS 2 in setting and *maybe* in story. Everything else OS 2 does better, far better in many ways.

Gwendo, sounds like you are agreeing with the first poster but disputing him at the same time. He is clearly saying Ultima VII is vastly superior. Personally I disagree. That said, I hope it helps fuel Larian on their path towards the really big RPG to rule them all.

I agree with Clocknova on most points. The Original Sin franchise while tons of fun lacks a contiguous world, day/night cycles, a real weather system, and NPC schedules. If you had these features in the Original Sin games I think you'd make these already excellent games quite epic. The "map" design of the Original Sin games is for me, one of the series' biggest sins, pardon the pun. Still, the games are top notch and hopefully just represent the tip of the iceberg as to what Larian will create next. I'm hoping the RPG of all RPGs Swen dreams about happens someday soon.

I think it's a rather strange comparison to be perfectly honest. D: OS2 doesn't really share a lot of qualities with Ultima, other than being a top down RPG. That's about it. A game like Gothic has more in common with Ultima than D: OS2 does.

Hmmm, I find comparisons like this to be extremely misleading, utterly cynical and potentially damaging.

Misleading, because it suggests that the Ultimate Game was Ultima (geddit?) -- which is far from the truth (in fact, there is no such thing as the "ultimate game").

Cynical, because it suggests that the key to success is to emulate an old classic, and everything will be fine. Well, no.

Damaging, because it that D:OS is nothing more than a modern revamp of the old classic, and its original merits will go largely unnoticed. (InXile with Tides could say a thing or two here)

Conclusion:
IMHO, D:OS is a modern RPG, and has nothing to do with U7.
Do I like it? Not much … and not because it fails to imitate U7.
I don't like it because of its very own problems.

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
I agree with Clocknova on most points. The Original Sin franchise while tons of fun lacks a contiguous world, day/night cycles, a real weather system, and NPC schedules. If you had these features in the Original Sin games I think you'd make these already excellent games quite epic. The "map" design of the Original Sin games is for me, one of the series' biggest sins, pardon the pun. Still, the games are top notch and hopefully just represent the tip of the iceberg as to what Larian will create next. I'm hoping the RPG of all RPGs Swen dreams about happens someday soon.

Maps system killed D:OS 1 for me. I got more and more irritating and I just quit at some point. It started feeling like playing one of the Warcraft 3 RPG custom maps that also had huge maps filled with mobs to kill on every other screen (or how MMORPGs do it).

Ultima 7 bears a heavy crown as the king of computer RPGs

No it doesn't/isn't.

Originally Posted by TheMadGamer
I agree with Clocknova on most points. The Original Sin franchise while tons of fun lacks… day/night cycles

If they add that in DOS3, I'm not buying.

Originally Posted by joxer
If they add that in DOS3, I'm not buying.

Clearly the OS games have a market for whom they scratch all the right itches. And I'm glad for that. I'm just not one of those people. To be honest, I hope they keep making their games for people like Joxer; there are already many RPGs that are more tailored to my tastes.

The things that were really dealbreakers for me, though, were the loot system, which I abhor, and the map design, which always made me feel like I was wandering through a dungeon with trees rather than through an actual world. Both points made the game feel too "gamey" to me. I could have enjoyed the game far more without those two issues, and would have gone on to play the sequel. I'll likely bite on OS:2 when the price drops to bargain levels, just to see how much better it is. But maybe not.

I actually don't necessarily consider Ultima VII to be vastly superior to D:OS, I just think that the comparison between the two is misplaced. I do love U7, though, and am grateful for the Exult project which made it playable again. It is most certainly no longer a modern game, though. And D:OS did combat waaaaaaaaay better.

I do agree with you about looting. I prefer the hand-placed over randomized loot. Though it hasn't been a huge deterrent for me thus far (50+ hours in).

I like DOS mechanically but it is too generic and indistinctive to leave a long-lasting mark on the genre. It is an upper-tier mediocrity and cannot be truly differentiated within the post-KS sea of isometric RPGs.

Yea, it's not Neo Scavenger.
Wait… But being *not* that is exactly why it'll remain cult classic.

I loved the first Original sin, but the second…..well, I'm likely to never replay it, and couldn't get it off my hard drive quick enough. It is certainly no Ultima Seven, either. Not even close. Not even in the same paragraph.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
I loved the first Original sin, but the second…..well, I'm likely to never replay it, and couldn't get it off my hard drive quick enough. It is certainly no Ultima Seven, either. Not even close. Not even in the same paragraph.

Why? From what I read and seen DOS2 is like DOS1 but more and better.

No. Different does not always mean superior, or better. This series totally proves that axiom. I would never go so far to say I dislike the second, but I was expecting something other than what I got. Do I regret playing it all the way through? No, not at all, this simply added to the lesson earned.

Haven't played yet DOS2, but my guess was it was a typical project hunting too many rabbits at the same time. If they was supermen we already knew it already.

I never played Ultima 7, but I think the Divinity Original sin games are too light-hearted and "goofy" to be considered a pinnacle of the genre. This goes to my own particular taste, but I prefer fantasy that is deadly serious and takes the setting and world seriously. Even the art style of the D OS games shows the goofy and wacky humor factor is too heavy and prevalent in the games.

Don't get me wrong, they are great games, and I find the games very fun with great combat, but the overall design aesthetic and goofy humor factor and atmosphere has always been one of the biggest flaws in my opinion, and off-putting to my taste.