Divinity: Original Sin II - RPG Codex Review

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The RPG Codex have reviewed Divinity: Original Sin II.

The man with very few cheeses

The character system in DOS1 was one of the more often criticised parts of the game. It had clear problems when it came to the relative usefulness of various statistics, and it just wasn't very interesting or deep. Let us see how DOS2 compares.

Character creation is very basic. You get to create a single character (or a party up to 4 if you're playing in coop with other folks), assign a bunch of stats, pick a talent and three starting skills. Selecting your background is probably the biggest choice, because there's a total of 14 to choose from. 4 of them are basic races (human, dwarf, elf, lizardman), then there are 4 "undead" versions of the basic ones, and finally there are 6 pre-made "origin" characters, with their own additional in-game stories and quirks. Each background also varies in terms of two unique racial abilities. The last thing to choose are your two character "tags" - such as "noble", "scholar", "soldier", etc. - that you can use to further flesh out your protagonist. The tags are primarily used to unlock new dialogue options, but they have a few other uses as well. Tags for origin backgrounds are pre-set and can't be changed.

A word on origin characters - their implementation is a neat idea. Being able to adjust their stats at the start while keeping the potential quest and story benefits given by their pre-written backgrounds is the best of both worlds. It encourages you to dive in for the additional content they may bring without scaring you away with badly-made or unappealing stat profiles. Also, even though you only create one character (if playing solo), you will still be able to add three more to your party, and the odds of them being origin characters are high, since you get them before you are able to create new custom ones. Their builds can be tweaked to your liking even at the point when they are recruited, which lets you adjust your party profile as you see fit, without making story-related concessions.

This is roughly where the positives end when it comes to the character system.

Sadly, Larian's response to criticism regarding character building was making the system even more shallow and uninteresting than it was in the first game. Almost everything in DOS2, every attribute and ability, has been degraded to 5% damage bonuses and hardly anything else.

To start with attributes - there are six of them: Strength, Finesse, Intelligence, Constitution, Memory and Wits. Strength gives +5% melee damage per point and increases weight carrying capacity. Finesse gives +5% ranged damage per point. Intelligence gives +5% magic damage per point. Constitution grants +7% max health per point! How amazing. 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. Last we have Wits, which increases crit chance by 1% and initiative by 1 per point. Looks fairly important, but you have no idea how wrong you are, though I will come back to this in the combat chapter.

And that's it. You might be asking yourself, "hey, where's my chance to evade hits? Movement range? Action points? Damage reduction? Saving throws? Hello?" The answer is "just forget them", because they either do not exist at all, or are attached to specific "class" abilities (like Scoundrel) and increase by 1% per point.

[...]

More information.
 
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Panning an almost universally praised RPG is what passes for "hip" these days.
 
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He's hyperbolic in some parts, but I agree.
Larian games always feel "let's throw every cool idea into the pot, nevermind if it works".
And damn, some parts in writing felt like reading a softcore sex novel ( not that I ever read those, mind you ;)).
 
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This review reads like some kind of parody review.

He complains about crit chance is irrelevant because it is 1% but at the end of the game it is possible to get about 50% to crit chance from stats alone, how isnt that a big deal?

He complains about additional stats linked to classes, I dont see why that is a bad thing, this is like a complaint from a Oblivion player, why cant I be the master of everything? Literally no dev lets you do that anymore because it is a stupid idea like a mage wearing heavy armor.

He complains about skills that give you damage on top of being able to get abilities and skills that just give you damage like they should be the same and at the same ignoring the synergy between them. Like the way ranged and hunstman works is both multiply each other, levelling just one would be like having 6 damage and if yu level both it would be like 3X3 which is 9.

He argues that the defensive abilities are are bad when I used them extensively and are essential for later parts of the game.

And that is just the idiocy from t he first few paragraphs from the review. I dont think the reviewer played it on anything but the easiest difficulty and is trying to make an assessment on why the gameplay stats arent good. What an awful review, it boggles the mind.
 
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I found DOS1 underwhelming, mainly due to the lackluster story and level design. The combat was okay I guess. I played Underrail that same year and it was much better. So was AoD.
 
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There’s a lot of valid criticisms in that review. It’s a shame that their criticisms are largely lost outside their bubble… that’s the result when you’re universally known to dislike virtually everything. I could write a review of Gothic 2 NotR (an imperfect but still fantastic crpg), focusing heavily on shortcomings, and convince the unsuspecting reader to be glad they avoided that one… until they notice my review was a codex review where they’d then smile, knowing that every game on TheCodex sucks so they might as well give it a try.
 
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I have played some of the first game, which I do think is excellent, and none of the second. That said, I think this is a fine review. I've read similar complaints from others about D:OS 2 that are echoed in this review.

The one that bothers me the most is the deterministic combat change. Larian made a big mistake - in my humble opinion - by taking much of the randomness ("RNG") factor out of the combat system. I like the randomness of dice rolls, after all, it's traditional in rpgs, and really dislike deterministic type combat. If I want to play a game all about that, then I will play chess.

Furthermore, I really don't like the fact of how much Larian monkeyed with the combat system from the first game. What the Hell?? Why did they decide to rip out the combat system to such a degree, and put so many changes in it, that to me look less fun and not making much sense. I thought the combat system of D:OS 1 was awesome! Why change it so dramatically?

For me, combat is HUGE and one of the main appeals of these rpgs. That is why I'm harping on it so much. Hopefully, Larian will take some of these criticisms in this review and that are voiced by other players that I have seen elsewhere, and in the third game, put much more of the first game's combat mechanics back in!

Other things that I pretty much know I would agree with the reviewer on without playing the game are the way Larian changed the dialog system. I really don't understand why they did this, changing the way the dialog is phrased, it is a major turn-off for me personally. Again, call me a traditionalist, but I like traditional dialog a-la Baldur's Gate style, where the speech is presented as exactly what the characters will say.

Some of the other things in the review would be slightly annoying, but I can deal. Like, the sexual aspects apparently being so heavily present. Whatever. I don't like it, but I can skip it. Same with the AI and encounter design, that could be slightly annoying, but certainly not a game breaker.
 
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I thought the game was pretty great and an improvement over the first one.

Some of their criticisms they make are just hard to take seriously.

Having read various posts from other members around the codex, I was expecting a negative review. It seems like they just do not agree with the tone that Larian uses in their games, that funny, over the top and goofy at times dialogue.

I enjoyed the game very much and if i had one criticism, it would be the armor system. I didn't think it's bad, but sometimes it felt like too difficult to get around.
 
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Interesting. Back when I wrote my own review, I was actually curious what the Codex would write about it, as I expected some of the issues that prevented me from giving it a full score to be criticized more heavily over there. Seems I was right, though they're taking it a lot further than I thought they would, such as "a disaster one very front" and "almost everything about it is a clear step down from Original Sin 1".

It may not be a flawless game, but it's still a very good one, and I do think it's the easiest one from 2017 to recommend to most RPG gamers.

Edit: Also, D: OS2 got the GOTY of the Codex, just as it did here on the Watch.
 
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I'm not reading through that dissertation. I take it there was extra snark today?
 
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I'm not reading through that dissertation. I take it there was extra snark today?

Dont waste your time reading it, i will sum up the review for you : Playing Divinity original sin 2 will give you cancer.
Elex review last time was incredibly positive oddly, and that was quite mediocre as a game.

Site is run by someone who never play videogames except POE, and most people on forum are here for the lack of moderation, dont play anything at all either,nor seems to enjoy anything. Yet i am still surprised at how negative this is, larian probably forgot to pay for advertisement.Will be surprised if POE 2 get same treatment.
 
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While some of the points in the review have merits (combat could use a bit of something to make it more fun); overall I disagree with many points the review makes.
 
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I've endured somehow reading through this dirty laundry gossip based on, at least feels like that initially, halfarsed playthrough that didn't reach the finale.

I love to exaggerate when something annoys me but it's usually one or two things, not a whole lot of stuff. I mean, there is no way I could put myself through a torturous experience for days - the reviewer there describes a somewhat masochistic experience without explaining on what purpose. I'd uninstall what I hate and refund if possible.
Remember my disgust with critically acclaimed Neptunia? No I did not play that insult more than half an hour and perhaps even less than that.

But okay I guess, everyone is entitled to whatever makes their fancy. Until something poked my eye so hard it caused bleeding:
The inventory is inconvenient and opaque.
It sure is. If you play the game with mushrooms.

My guess is that the reviewer played the game on Nintendo Gameboy. To be honest, I'd hate the game on such stuff too.
 
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It's not so much a review of D:OS2 as it is a list of everything Roxor hates about the game and why it sucks. It does kind of fit with the theme of the Codex though, which is "Everything is shit, including all the RPGs we like."
 
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Guess that's why I never got into the Codex, their tastes and mine differ too much. To me DOS2 was excellent and much better than DOS1.
 
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