An honest review from a non fanboy

[Lock]

My favorite game, or RPG, of all time is Baldur's Gate 2. Nothing has ever come close to surpassing its excellence in storytelling, immersion, sound and overall design. I've played every CRPG that came out since, and although many people might disagree with this, the only games that ever came close for me were The Witcher 2 and (yes) Skyrim. I kind of liked Dragon Age: Origins, but it just didn't grip me. I even liked Dragon Age 2, but again, it didn't grip me enough. I liked Fallout 3, and Fallout: New Vegas, but after playing Oblivion, they just felt like more of the same. Mass Effect 1,2 and even 3 were great, but they were not RPG's in the same way The Walking Dead is not an RPG. I've played Diablo 2 & 3, and they were fun hack&slash games, but nothing more. I've played Avernum and Abadon, but even though they came out a decade later, they felt older than the Baldur's Gate series and so I couldn't enjoy them as much. I've played many more game, but nothing ever came close.

Now as a Belgian myself (sorry about last night US people), I remember being all hyped up when Larian released Divine Divinty more than a decade ago. I bought it, played it, and... I didn't like it. It lacked all the good qualities the Baldur's Gate series had. An epic story with personal stakes, excellent companions with their own personal stories, and quests which would take you all over the world and would take weeks to complete. Divine Divinty was "meh". It tried, it did it's best, but it never came close to the brilliance that Baldur's Gate (or even Fallout) was. I remember Larian promoting it as if they combined Diablo 2 with Infinity Engine games. This was simply not true. It wasn't a bad game, not at all, it just wasn't great. The misplaced "humor" and unepicness caused me to not finish the game and simply to forget about it after 20 hours or so.

Almost a decade later, Larian released Divinity 2. It had exactly the same problems as Divine Divinity, and this time I didn't like it at all. The story made no sense, there were literally no interesting characters and moving from a topdown RPG to a 3rd person action adventure was completely the wrong way to go. Next came Dragon Commander, not an RPG, but again, they promoted it as a hybrid between an RPG and an RTS. I didn't like it at all, it had the exact same problems.

I have no clue as to why, but when Larian announced Divinity: Original Sin, I got real excited. A promise to go back to the days of the old infinity games. An epic story! Memorable companions! Top down perspective! Turn based combat! New graphics! This was almost to good to be true. I'm not for the whole Kickstarter, Steam Early Access, idea. In my opinion it doesn't work and I still have to see the first game that gets released through these mediums which is actually good. Against my better knowledge I decided to buy it anyway. This couldn't go wrong right? They promised all the right things...

And here we are, and after 15 hours in, I can safely say that Larian did it again. Once again they made a mediocre RPG which promises to capture the same feeling the old infinity games did, but fails in the execution. It's quite easy to pinpoint where this went wrong: the writing. Again; a dull story which nobody will remember in a few weeks. Bland characters you don't really care about. And a journey that will take you through 4 kind of the same maps with not that much to do. Where is our epic villain? Who doesn't remember Jon Irenicus? What about Minsc and Boo? Did Cyseal have a serial killer who escapes you but turns up 30 hours later in a different city? Divinity Original Sin doesn't have any of that. It's a pretty nice dungeon crawler with a sort of decent combat system and filled with forgettable characters and quests. I'm 100% positive that if they hired the right writers, this could have been a game of epic proportions. But once again they failed to attract the right talent and what we are left with is a game filled with "funny" dialogue where your actions have no consequences and your companions are the stereotypical "imma gud fiter" or "Im a very intelligent wizard". After all this negativity it might sound like I hate Original Sin, I don't. It's a good RPG, and I will finish it in the following weeks, but it is by no means the revelation it was supposed, or could, have been.

If you want a true successor to the old CRPGS, I suggest you watch Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity, that looks like the game (I for one) have been waiting for all these years. But still, congrats on a nice game Larian, I hope it sells well and that it brings enough money to the table for you to hire a decent writing team for your next game.

7/10

[Kain]

♥♥♥♥ ME!!!. Arcanum man, that game was AMAZING!!! Still not better than PS:T, but damn Arcanum was good, the only flaw it had for me was the high random encounter rate since you had a lvl 50 cap.

[Ml33tninja]

引用自 Kain：

♥♥♥♥ ME!!!. Arcanum man, that game was AMAZING!!! Still not better than PS:T, but damn Arcanum was good, the only flaw it had for me was the high random encounter rate since you had a lvl 50 cap.

dtill need to finish PS:T but for me Arcanum blew my mind(and I played that game YEARS after its release) the learning curve can be a bit high but loved the cast of characters) and Arronox has to be one of my favorite NPCs of all time. I could talk about that game forever

[Kain]

They were ALL great, do you remember the quest about the breeding Half Ogres which ended with a guy saying it was all a hoax, and there was not way to know for sure even with all the evidence gathered, that is a game that I would gladly play again if I could find a way to turn the random battles off after some point.

[Rei dos Vermes]

This IS a true successor to old-school RPGs.You would know if you had played the Ultima games, especially VI (1990) and VII (1992).

[hardwiredsin]

引用自 Kain：

BG2 was almost groundbreaking on its time, today it's a very meh RPG, with a good story but terrible story telling.

I dunno, I played Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 both on the days that they were released (oh man their manuals were nice!) and I played them again a few months ago and I think they still hold up very well.

[Kain]

That's nostalgia, I still love Out of This World, but then again, I played it as a child.

[Aelemar]

You have many problems in your review, I feel like, however I do not currently have the ambition to take on making a reply that is deserving of a thought out post. I will be back later.

[Jon]

But Baldurs Gate is garbage

[Lock]

引用自 Aelemar：

You have many problems in your review, I feel like, however I do not currently have the ambition to take on making a reply that is deserving of a thought out post. I will be back later.

I can't wait to read your undoubtably riviting critique of my beloved review. I sit here in full anticipation, like a kid on christmas morning... Or ... your post made me not care about it.

[Cutter]

BG2 is your high water mark? It was decent but there are much, much better CRPGs. I'm guessing you're in your mid 30s? So you missed the decade before that. Regardless given their time and budget it's a good game. And for the $15 most people paid it's a hell of a good deal. And of course who knows what the editor will bring.

[Morgoth]

Stick to chocolate Belgium, your quests and puzzles are nonsensical, your cheery cartoony style destroys all immersion, this game is above average, but to compare it to Baldur's Gate 2, or similar classics would just embarass Larian.

[Space Punk]

Agreed. D:OS is not a bad game, but it doesn't come close to being in the same league as Baldur's Gate 2. After the "OMG, an old-school Infinity Engine-style game!" hype dies down a few weeks from now, this game will be put on the shelf next to Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns and other "old school" CRPGs that promised to recapture the magic, but fell well short.

[Relnor]

Shadowrun Returns is woefully limited compared to D:OS, and Wasteland 2 isn't finished yet.

You're right that they won't recapture the magic though, since those games were made in basically a different age, as I said earlier in the thread I do think we should be focusing on what these games do right and how they can be better/evolve rather than how well they can mimic games from a decade ago.

[Morgoth]

引用自 Talby：

Agreed. D:OS is not a bad game, but it doesn't come close to being in the same league as Baldur's Gate 2. After the "OMG, an old-school Infinity Engine-style game!" hype dies down a few weeks from now, this game will be put on the shelf next to Wasteland 2, Shadowrun Returns and other "old school" CRPGs that promised to recapture the magic, but fell well short.

Wasteland 2 (in its current June update) is breddy breddy good. On par with Fallout 1 in terms of depth. They're getting there.

But I suggest you download and play "Age of Decadence" if you REALLY want a hardcore brutal successor to the Fallout style.

[Relnor]

引用自 Can'tLoseWithTheCruise：

But I suggest you download and play "Age of Decadence" if you REALLY want a hardcore brutal successor to the Fallout style.

Oh yes, what I played of AoD was great - are they ever getting around to actually finishing that?

Guess they want Dead State completed first.