I want to encourage you to keep making videos. One day you'll catch a break and start getting popular so just keep at it. I really like what I've seen from you already.
What I like about Divinity is how accommodating it is to your attempts to break it. In other words the "third options" that you wouldnt be able to do in normal rpgs are often fully valid alternate routes to your objective in divinity For example: The hot/cold puzzle--- if you have a marksman with tactical retreat or a mystic with high enough telekinesis [using the little pyramid items], or a wizard with teleportation, you can get into the arena with enough slack to teleport yourself to the end of the puzzle area without being vaporized by the trap, effectively side stepping the whole thing. 3 different options, none of which are solving the puzzle as intended. I love this series
I completely agree. I enjoyed how the game started, then you go to the inn, get teleported to the end of time, and it becomes this “end of the world” scenario that seemed sudden and forced. I would have preferred something more with a more gradual build up.
Heh I may have cheesed Bracus Rex to the point of making him look like a chump. Because he melted my team at the start with the firestorm thing, I decided "screw it, let's do something dumb and fun." and had Wolgraff, who had a ton of telekinesis run out and collect every box possible from Cyseal. Orginally I also grabbed a ton of Oil Barrels and sent them to my main tank but quickly learned that fire does nothing bad to Brac. So I ran around the room, locking off the pathing of each boss spawn while my other character simply held conversation. In the end, I made a death trap without realizing it for Braccus by trapping him at the spawn location of The-Ghoul-That-Used-To-Watch-The-Lighthouse with vases and let the poison spawn on the floor kill him while I focused down the Twins and the Baron- but separately via the box walls. All I needed was the pyramids, about 30 boxes sent to my strongest character to hold, teleport, and patience. Within 13 turns Braccus was on half health, 2 of the 3 spawns were dead and I had my archer pick away at him with her poison crossbow.
I agree with a lot of your assessment. I like the combat and creative problem solving mechanics, but as far as the story. I really enjoyed chapter 1 where you're just investigating a murder, but after than when it becomes this save the world epic I really had to force myself to get through it. and every time I had to return to the "end of time" for exposition dump it was such a drudge .
Oh, I'm also so tired of saving the world storylines. When I first started playing this game I was really excited to be dealing with a murder investigation, a siege by orcs and an undead infestation. And then I got teleportem to the god awful endod time or whatever and exposition was dumped on me. Turns out my characters are special and I AM going to be saving the world after all. I sighed loudly, my disappointment immeasurable. I didnt get to finish cyseal, because my laptop is nearly 10 years old and kept overheating from the strain of the game. Is the rest of the story good, deapite the world saving bullshit?
@@damianziokowski8421 The game mechanics are what kept me going. I honestly did try to immerse myself in the story, listened to all the dialogue did all the sidequests I found etc. but in the end specifically when I had to return to the end of time for what I referred to as a lore dump I never looked forward to it, as it was a slog. yet I did make it to the end and overall enjoyed the game as a whole. I would say divinity 2 has much better writing. It also does kinda turn into a save the world story yet again, but the way its told is much more engaging.
classic fantasy trope, same in drakensang (you wanna visit an old friend -> he's dead -> solve the crime -> suddenly an oracle tells you your the chosen one and while there's 4 chapters with grounded stories you still end up saving the world) on the other hand drakensang 2: you finish your education -> get mixed up in a conspiracy -> discover a secessionist plot and end up slaying 2 of the major players in it (you dont take care of the whole thing and 2 important conspirators get away, emphazing you being just 4 alneit important gears in a big machine)
I'm with you there. This is a game that felt so strange to me. But it eventually managed to click for me during this covid lockup. Now I'm 100 hours into the second one. Keep trying man!
Tried to play the game 3 times now and 2 times the sequel. There's just something that pushes me away. It's a combination of being way to open, as in, you have a general objective, but the game doesn't really tell you much about it, so at the start you can legitimately wander around for hours not knowing if you are making actual progress, if you are making a main or side quest and stuff like that. The other thing being that the combat, at least from my experience, relies massively on the use of the environment. Now, I like when games allows you to make use of the environment, but in Divinity it feels you are forced to in order to make encounters manageable. It doesn't feel like "Well, you could use the environment" but rather "Use it or die" and that just isn't fun in my opinion. Specially since I like to play as melee characters, which means if I electrify/burn/poison/etc around the enemies, then my character is just going to sit there or go in and share the same fate as the enemies. I dunno, maybe it gets better later on, but I just have never managed to put more than 10 hours into either of them. The writing also seems to be really "whacky and goofy" just for the sake of it. I don't mind jokes and light moments, but, at least the first game, felt more like a parody than anything, specially the whole being transported into another dimension out of nowhere because "so whacky, betcha didn't expect that!" - "Well.. no.. I didn't expect it.. because this while time I thought I was going to solve a murder mystery, not be turned into the chosen one and save the world". Honestly, think that's what pushed me away the most. The whacky almost parody like tone of the games.
@@TaigaGaoo For me, I found that if I stick to one area, my experience was much better. As a first timer, I thought I could just yonder but I found the literal gatekeeping kept me focused. By doing the quests in a town, you become more familiar with map and this keeps the game more grounded. Rinse and repeat.
To recruit Jahan leave everyone downstairs except your main. Bit of a pain but it works. Works for some dialog stuff too, leave your party off in the distance so just one character initiates the dialog and if a fight erupts run everyone else up to the fight.
Such a good video essay on Divinity Original Sin! I only played D:IS single player, and now I want to go back through it with another player to see how it changes the experience. I'm glad I found this channel. Definitely going to work my way through your other videos.
I played it in co-op a few years ago with my partner and we absolutely loved it. However, with regards to the story, we somehow managed to go almost right to the end of the story without revisiting the end of time area. When we couldn't make any more progress we remembered it existed, and when we arrived there we got about a 45-minute sequence of nothing other than information and story dumping. We've started the second, hopefully the story will be more closely interlinked this time to avoid the weird distance there.
LOL, something similar happened to me. I was about to finish Hunters Edge, & needed the whisky aged. It was my first return to the End of Time. Had loads of catching up to do before I could complete the quest 😆.
@@TheMarcHicks Every time you use a Bloodstone, a new room at the End of Time and sometimes a new part of the tapestry is revealed (cut-scenes). So if you haven't gone back to the End of Time after collecting many Blood Stones, this will happen.
It's intresting comparing Original sin 1 and 2 puts some of the complaints into perspective. I'd say personally I prefer loot upgrades being small with big upgrades being rare. In 2 where every piece of loot often is a big upgrade it leaves epics or legendaries to feel unimpressive as they will be replaced in only a level or two. And it also widens the gap in strength between each level meaning enemies only 2-3 levels higher can feel like unreachable gods forcing the game to be played even more linear.
Epics and legendaries are still more valuable because they give you more perks like strength, intelligence, wits... But normal loot doesn't, i often choose the perks over the armor upgrade, I won't sacrifice +3 strength to get 50 armor.
I think i have only one issue with the game over all, and that is its occasional lack of direction in some quests and puzzles. It appears the game is trying to create a sort of arbitrary difficulty in some ways that dont befit the game as a whole by leaving players without any real means of logical progression. For instance i have played for over 20 hours, scoured almost every inch of cyseal, yet cant find out any means of completing the murder mystery mission, and in turn the game has given no hints as to what to do in order to further this goal. Now, im sure I'll figure it out, but only because i know eventually ill probably stumble into the answer, not because i was given the opportunity to take clues and hints that would lead me to a conclusive answer to this mystery. Another good example is the black cove area, in which there are two mini puzzles, both are find the switch based. The first, being that you need to find two switches that open a trap door, the problem for me was finding the actual door itself, which took me almost 30 min of scouring to do. The second was the skull door puzzle which in my opinion is one of the worst puzzles ive ever seen, as it requires no skill, no means of logic, just scouring the area for more switches and trial and error. I can not express how annoying this puzzle was, it took me out of the experience in a way i wasnt expecting, because usually the game is wepl organized and its puzzles seem to hold to a sense of logic. However, this problem is rare enough that it doesnt hinder the game too much, but also occurs often enough that i have felt it necessary to keep an internet tab with a walk-through handy in case the game decides to simply leave me without a clue what to do and stuck in a puzzle that feels like its meant to annoy me more than anything else, and that is a shame. Edit, well... That and the end of time plot, which is just really dumb. Honestly i put the game down the first time i tried to play it because of how out of place and dumb it felt to me. I didnt want to be some chosen one in a grand journey, i wanted to continue on mu bounty hunting ranger quest to help the city under siege in a fantastic yet grounded journey.
Really? I never had any problem with that mission and actually liked exploring all of the city investigating, but I wil agree that some of the puzzles make no goddamn sense. As for the story saddly it never hooked me in but at least appreciated that dialogs were generally short and to the point unlike Pillars of Eternity that for some reason feels the need to describe with three pages of text how a farmer plays with his beard.
I got so annoyed with the murder quest I just looked it up on the wiki. The game has a shit way of laying out quests to make it even more confusing. I also found it kinda lame I had to break in and steal items( me playing a lawful character that does everything by the books) given you were tasked with an investigation by the Captain or whatever to interrogate and request access to houses to search.
@@thebanished87 same here! I explored and talked to every named NPC and got to the point where I had to prove esmeralda had something to do with the murder. went upstairs and unlocked the backroom on the first floor. I found the book and esmeralda said it was her dead husbands. I literally could not see the cellar door in the back room until I turned on the highlight feature. Then I found the bloody knife and I thought "well now I've got her" went back to her, guess what? The knife is her dead husbands. I'm like I know he was magically killed but that was the only way for her to call out the apprentice as a suspect and also progress the damn game. Also who the fuck checks bookshelves? They more often than not have nothing in them so you ignore them. I'd expect a diary to be in a locked chest or in a desk or hidden behind a book case. Girl had it sitting on a shelf.
I'm still having trouble getting around the combat system and leveling up... I just don't find it that intuitive. Also the writing and art style is kinda weird. At least in the first city which is being threatened by undead and orc raids with all it surrounding areas crawling with them. But the people in the city are very happy and jolly ... it really breaks my immersion. Not sure if I wanna continue playing it... I know you have your issues with pillars of eternity but when it comes to writing, Obsidian did it way better.
Yeah DOS is one of my favorite games of all time and I would give the story like a C+. And the combat becomes way better after the early game if you stick with it. I can't blame you for dropping though, it is kind of sloggy.
This video needs more credit for the awesome moustaches on the characters. Fantastic work :-) I'm just coming to D:OS now, and am enjoying a lot. The main issues I have is (a) abilities/traits/skills are extremely various, and all available - and there is very limited ability to respec if you get it wrong (b) I spend a lot of time micromanaging gear, and trying to work out what skill books I need. It's actually getting quite painful.
just now finished DoS1, and you're 100% spot, though I'd like to add, not only are the animations slow, but there is a 2-4 second delay when an animation finishes before you can before any action even with a different character, doesn't sound like much until you heal the whole squad at the end of a fight, or try to keep a perception spell going. Haven't played DoS2 yet, i hope this and everything else you raised has been addressed
I just finished the game my self and everything you say regarding the overall story: pace of the early game (especially with the murder mystery side quests etc), the amount of exposition for the main narrative, the over relied on tropes, you're actually spot on not too harsh at all. Its not bad, its just too bland and mostly a bare skeleton. Honestly as a veteran player who has been there done that, I just wanted to cast meteor storm as much as possible. Good game though.
Sven's story on how he continued to follow his passions, despite so many hurdles and setbacks, is the backdrop that I find most compelling and worthy of story, even more so than all the great games they make now or will in the future, Ravi Peiris M.D.
I've had the misclick issue so many times i've lost count. Also the Loot is just bad. I found a good sword then died and opened the chest again for a different item... WTF.. The difficulty balance early on is insane, like if you're 1 level below the thing you're attacking they get like double the AP you do and do essentially double the damage... Why? Same with % chances, i've seen my characters fail more often than not in certain instances and sometimes i've had to restart fights based on 1 missed action.
I loved this game for all of its...um... "sins", it's one of the few games I remember everything about. The music, especially was very wonderful. Also who is Vumli, I never found him... lol @ HAL btw :)
Interesting, how you opened up the video. And now, we expecting Baldur's Gate 3 from Larian, probably one of the biggest tactical RPG's in recent years after Divinity 2. Thanks for the great critique.
A friend and I played through the entire game 3 times together, and had a lot of fun. We ended up having an easy time finishing it on tactician mode by farming some respawning enemies from a warlock somewhere.
having more than 500 hours in this game, I agree with everything you say. There is a mod called xc_encounters that solves the difficulty problem by providing a superhard mode (without permadeath). But in the end, you play it for the combat, not the story. maybe the little stories.
You have a real way with words! My main concern with what you've said is that the games makes you powerful too quickly. Usually when a game does that I get bored and start a new character, rinse and repeat without ever finishing the game without forcing myself to get through the game as quickly as possible to finish it. Right now it costs about the price of a fast food meal so I think I'll pick it up regardless. I hope you critique a dark souls game to give another perspective to Anderson and Matosis. Keep at it.
Your videos are really well made. You really must put a lot of effort in the making of them and it shows. That along with your soothing voice really makes for great content. Keep up the good work my dude.
Stumbled upon this one year after the release of BG3, looks like this genre is thriving (mostly thanks to BG3) - indie games are trying to dive into the same sub genre, and another DnD game Solasta II is getting much traction on its trailer. I’m optimistic!
Damn why have I not had this appear on my feed.. I think theres a US vs UK bias going on.. Goddam awesome as usual dude, sorry I haven't seen it sooner.
Please keep doing more if these, hopefully you will get more views soon. Rather enjoyable. Remembers me of Josey ander and Matt Marthus, Perhaps Robs dungeon too.
I'm one of those people who can play through mediocre gameplay if I like the writing well enough. The reverse doesn't work for me, though; I can't suffer through bad writing and a nonsensical story, simply because the combat system is good. That's why I didn't manage to finish either of these games. The more I played, the more annoyed I became with the game's writing, and eventually I had to give up. Had I not played with friends, I probably wouldn't have stuck around for more than a couple of hours for either game.
You deserve way more views an your videos, your way of speaking is awesome and even though I might not agree with all of your points, its entertaining to hear them and you present them well. Keep it up.
Cannot get over how atrocious the start of this game is. I tried slogging through it. No. It's too bogged down in dialogue that isn't a fraction as witty as it thinks it is. If you want a combat encounter, you'll only find find yourself overwhelmed by high numbers of enemies and/or overleveled ones. This is a fatal flaw in Original Sin. There's no overlooking it.
I couldn't find the PDF that Larian posted a couple of years ago, but according to their survey only a minority of their audience cared for co-op. The part about AI interfering is something that I think was added later with patches, because initially you just had to choose for both characters which felt like some kind of schizophrenia.
What i like about these games is the striking contrast of humor and dark themes. Really makes it feel like a journey at the end, when you're forcing a laugh in a grim situation.
I’m working my way thru dos1 ee and that’s one of my biggest criticisms. The tone shifts from insanely lighthearded to serious and then back. Also I’m only 15-20 hours in but I can already tell how incredibly boring the main story is and how lifeless the player characters are. The writing is great in a few spots but mostly is really bad. All that being said, I’ve been having a blast be ause of how deep and interactive the combat is. So coming from bioware RPGs the writing and almost total lack of companions is way worse but the combat and general feel is amazing. A super mixed bag
@R same. Super serious plot, but none of the characters take it seriously. It makes it hard for me to take seriously. If this is a world ending thing, why are you jovial and laughing? It made me much less interested in the plot, tbh. Definitely the biggest complaint I have in an otherwise amazing game series (also an issue in 2)
Really good critics about the game. Good job man. The game is really good. Larian definetely redefined the genre. But yes the game has some really obvious problems. For a guy like me, who discovered these 2 gems from Larian in covid days, both game really worth the discounted price. I mean they might be the best money/hour spent on Steam. Both games took above 100 hours each and they offer really high replayability. But for me DOS2 was like 4-5 times better game than DOSEE. I mean the first game is still good; but second game is a masterpiece. It is definetely the best crpg ever created. They improved and mastered every mechanic they had invented in the first game. The environmental interactivity is so much better, characters are much more alive and story is definetely more interesting. I really look forward to BG3 release and im waiting for the full release :)
Bracuss Rex after fighting hordes of undead a couple of fire guys was such a huge jump because he had the first turn I didn't know how to space out my party when the battle starts and he chose to talk to my AI partner who was a summoner first. Which means that if they went down before they summoned anything I lost more than just a quarter of my party.
One of the great things about original sin is this guy said that he found telekinesis to be a waste , when I would never leave home without it and when used effectively can be OP
@@davidhujik6078 telekinesis only uses 2 ap in battle but free outside of battle so you can set things up (barricades, pinch points, cages, etc) before you initiate
I wish I would have seen this review before buying this game, but even if I think is a good review, it doesn't cover all the shortcomings this game have. I'm a fan of RPGs and I still haven't finished this game, since it's such a slog. I am at 92 hours and then I completely lost the drive to keep going, I kept playing until now hoping would get better but it turned worse instead. There are too many things I don't like it in it: random loot, the inventory, the trading system, the perks system, the crafting. Even the combat get tedious and repetitive after a while, and while you may try to different approaches, if you play on the hardest difficulty then you're just having bad time unless you CC everything and spread elemental zones on every single encounter. I can understand that many people liked it, and I'm happy for them, my only regret is that I wish I would have know all these issues beforehand, while every review I read just repeated over and over how awesome the game and combat is it is without giving any information on all its shortcomings. Please understand that if you like the game then that's totally ok, I don't want to bash the game or people who like it, but for such a massive time investement I feel that reviews should really tackle all the issues the game have, even if a reviewer think the game is awesome, taking the time to explain how the systems works and are implemented would be great to help a person decide if is worth buying or not.
Divinity Original Sin and Divinity Original Sin 2 are the only two proper same-system co-op RPG titles that I know of. Nothing else really comes close. It has a good turn-based, tactical combat system fitting for the genre and the game doesn't force you to one screen. Though the Switch version lacks the same-system co-op, which makes it in my opinion borderline a waste of money, all other versions have it and it's implemented very well. The game does crash sometimes, autosaving is shit so you have to manually save often after doing anything significant, and there are a few bugs, but it's mostly a very good experience especially if you have someone to play with. Not to say it's not a good title on its own, I played through it the first time on my own because my brother and I couldn't really schedule around it very well for a while, but it's so much more fun with someone else to play with. I *seriously* appreciate how the splitscreen works. You aren't stuck in the same area, you aren't forced to interact with the same NPCs at the same time, you can move around and explore like your own independent character as much as you like and meet back up later. It's a fantastic system and I wish more developers would implement things like this in their games. They put triple A publishers to shame with this same-system co-op system. They put triple A publishers to shame with this co-op system, *period.*
Divinity Original Sin was almost finished when they launched the kickstarter. They used the raised cash for some extra content but mostly for bug fixes and fine tuning.
19:20 The game has a very simple solution to the Jahan recruitment block. You just failed to figure out that very simple 'puzzle'. Just unchain the character who does not like him, and walk them away a couple screens so that they are not involved in the conversation. Jahan will now join with nobody around to object and there's no follow up problems when your party reunites. This type of detail is a huge plus to the game's design, rather than a point to be criticized.
@@peddazz2365 It is a huge plus because it teaches you about the fact that npcs maintain a reputation rating that can vary across the members of your party. Not having someone complain about something that happened when they are not there is not a workaround, it is reflection of realism. If they are not there, obviously they won't be complaining. This exact concept can be taken advantage of at multiple points in the game. It gives the game a greater depth to the interactivity.
You can also start a conversation with the other character, which is what i often did to get around it before eventually turning the ai off. Still while individual examples are easy to deal with, I found having the ai companion constantly trying to override my decisions to be very, very annoying and i really don't think it adds to the game. There's an interesting idea behind but i don't think it works well.
I agree. I really struggled at the beginning with the pacing and even though it picked up I eventually dropped it. Will go to 2 and maybe come back, maybe not.
I find the 1st DOS game fun and charming, if imbalanced and with a not very interesting world and characters. The game really shines in combat, but it can be too easy once you know what is broken. The 2nd game eclipses the first in every possible way, probably my favorite story-based RPG after Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins.
I've put over 100 hours into this game and I agree with almost all of your criticisms. Very good game that is not for everyone and requires a tremendous amount of patience.
I've also been playing for hours and going nowhere. The game is not without its faults. First hundreds for lockpicks? Then, when you place them for easy access, they disappear even though you paid 400 for them. Where do they go? Maybe another game? Aggravating.
12:25 If you lose your entire turn due to a miss clicked walk it is your fault. You should never lose more than 1 action point from that mistake. Just immediately right-click and it cancels the walk command. Also, instead of left clicking to attack with a ranged character, you should right-click and choose "attack" from the context menu. A missed right click does nothing. Hence, you can never accidently issue a move command if you right-click instead of left-click. For spells, you can instead target the enemy portrait up top in the turn order list.
@@peddazz2365 Once, fine you didn't expect it to be an issue. After that? Come on, take responsibility for your actions. Especially so when it can only happen when you choose the worst possible method of issuing commands instead of the other, foolproof method.
@@kenmolinaro cheap excuses no not once, there should not be sudden reflex checks in a slow turn-based RPG, reflex checks for the matter only because the game has problems with precise targeting yeah right klicks and extra steps for attacks and searching for portraits for spells again just a workaround for a problem that should not exist in the first place and searching for character pictures in the top bar is really not ideal when there are so many fights with identical enemies or a shit ton of extra clicks in every fight in a game with already very slow and long combat encounters my point stands there neither should be a reflex check for compensating the games technical issues and there should also not be a need to search through portraits or to go through 1 extra click for every basic attack you want to make in a fight
I wouldn't call misclicking and losing your turn as a result your fault. It's good that there is a cancel action command wasn't even aware of that but even then losing some AP because the targeting is sometimes awkward can hardly be considered the players fault. This would have been a big annoyance if it wasn't for right-click attack only command but perhaps that should have been the only way to attack. So there can be no mistake and the player is forced to learn the 'proper' way.
@@luckygozer In 400+ hours of playing I never accidentally issued a walk command. I know its an issue only because people have posted about it. Frankly, people either need a new mouse or they need to pay attention to what they are doing. But I get it. Blaming the game instead of yourself is just so much easier for the weak minded people out there.
Disagree on a few points - like the rock/paper/scissors was absolutely brilliant, and some story elements were great although it could've had a stronger finish - but agree on a lot of other points and you make them hilariously! Kickstarter has brought us so many cool things and its competition with publishers is why I think we're headed into a new golden age of gaming. FTL, Pathfinder, Sunless Skies, Banner Saga, Divinity OS, Battletech (solid game although the SJW politics injection near ruined it), Everspace, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Halcyon 6, Hollow Knight, Darkest Dungeon, Hand of Fate, Dex... so many unique experiences we would never have had otherwise.
@@utisti4976 You can already save the game in combat, so you can already cheese if you really want to. You can save and reload as much as you want. You can reload the game in combat 10 times until your charm arrow lands.
To be fair, the issues you mention with Co-op could definitely apply to Table-top roleplaying. I have had several instances where we had to ask someone to leave a group, because they were rule-rapists who refused to take the game seriously.
I dont know NKB's opinion but I've played both and I find divinity far more enjoyable. But I like slower paced, tactical rpgs with lots of options for customization If you played a lot of diablo back in the day you'd probably dig PoE, its far quicker paced and more traditional elemental rock paper scissors-y
Spoiler . . . . . . Somehow we couldn’t find the Hiberheim switch, so we ended up moving on, thinking there was something later to open that entrance, and played till we feasibly couldn’t. By the time we were in Hiberheim (I looked up how to get into Hiberheim) we’d leveled to the point where there was no challenge. By the beard of Boreas.
I completely understand your criticisms. Most all of them have valid points. Yet, because I love this game, I thought your criticism was too harsh. Yes, there is a huge plothole in the middle of the Story when the big "reveal" occurs. But, I did not think the whole story was bad. With the exception of the Big "Reveal", I thought the stories before and after it were good.
The part I thought was the most tedious was definetly the beginning of the Immaculate storyline where you go to that other dimension for the first time. The amount of Immaculate encounters got boring rather quickly, though I remember my buddy and I loving every bit of Cyseal and everything in the late game, or, in short, literally everything outside of that.
I liked the game but what I really dislike about some puzzles in this game is that the solution is literally just trying until it works, that's super annoying when you try to figure out what the strategy is when there is literally is none. You have no way of knowing in which order to press the buttons and no hint is given so you just press until it finally makes click, lol
I think with PoE it had some great dungeon crawler moments in endless dungeons and PnP feel in scripted events using tools to overcome obstacles and get loot. It also had beautiful graphics which I loved about it and the voice acting and Eder was brillant. But there was no proper healing and the fire arms took it away from a more traditionally D&D feel which some gamers were probably looking for. The plot was a bit bizarre, I thought. So PoE2 kind of flopped in the follow up and Divinity which steered closer to the BG path did well.
A fun game, it really is, I enjoyed playing it. It's also forgettable, I couldn't tell you what was going on in the story, nor did I care... I also don't remember the characters, fun but forgettable, which is why it will never be a classic and no one will be playing it 10 years from now
The stupidest thing in this game if you have selected an AI for the other main character is when trying to solve a quiz. They just give the wrong answer and fight you for it with rock paper scissors. Luckily you can just tell them to fuck off and stand somewhere else. Please tell me you've figured out you can do that without changing the AI... The rest can still be pretty useful as it will give you different traits. Even if it's a little frustrating when you lose or win the rock paper scissors while intending the opposite. It sometimes takes several tries loading your save. The other frustrating thing is stealing or moving items when trying to talk to people and they get pissed. It often happens with npcs that walk around. I click to talk and pick up what's behind them.
I really enjoyed D:OS. Though my experience was somewhat hampered by the fact that my 'main' character was pretty gimped by my not understanding the systems fully. I didn't really realise what a dumpster-fire he was until about 12-15hours in. I don't have huge amounts of time for gaming (I've still not finished Persona 5 for example, and I started it over a year ago) so I didn't really have time to replay that 'lost' time. Still, got it finished in the end. Only thing I'm not a proper fan of is the art style. A bit too Pathfinder-esq for me. You're pretty spot on with the story critique also. I can't really remember much of the plot, if any. Though I loved the end of time, as a concept if nothing else.
so true .. all you say its so true.. but still there is not enaugh games who can where good at that time.. so for the year it was realesed it was okey and good.
this game is so unappreciated even by those who enjoyed it ! there is no mention of how great atmosphere and locations actually were in this game and also you just covered the whole story that looked like you didn't even try to understand the sub plots of each location you are in , there was way more story content in this game than you mentioned specially with great voice acting and music ,this game actually became one of my fav of all time story and quest wise specially coming from pillars 1 ,you can easily feel what a masterpiece this game was add epic encounter mod and only flaw of this game which is easy late game content will be fixed as well there is a big ass charm in this game that div2 seriously missed despite still being good game
The reason is that it's not a game you can recommend to everyone. It's a great game but there's not too many players willing to read, learn the lore, thinking too much and everything that slows the game. It's like death stranding in a way you can enjoy it if you dive into the story and lore but you can't recommend it easily.
@@antoniosupan272 well I played it again just recently and you definitely have a valid point ,inventory management and over complicated crafting system and boring start can easily annoy a lot of players ,after that it will be such great unique game .I wonder why they made early game so slow !!kinda shot themselves in the foot ,great game otherwise
@@finix7419 it was because they wanted it to have practice or experiment arena for new players. However, they should have done it on a more simplistic way then add more as they progress. These kinds of games are dying due to western and European not really resonating with them. Asia is a fan of these kinds of games and same with other rpgs not being translated locally but instead translated by fans. With the Activision blizzard fiasco it is making it worst for other companies who makes these kinds of games because they're the most known company that makes these kinds of games. I still enjoy this game because of its coop which was a smart move for them. I love its uniqueness however, with the witcher 3, dragon age, diablo and many more other games that are kinda similar to this game are more attractive because they are smooth and faster. I still play fire emblems as well just to mix it up. Baldur's gate should make something like a witcher 3 level on their side quests to make it more attractive. Lessen the skills to a diablo and dragon age level to make it less intimidating for new players.
It's so true!! I restarted the game and put the companion as loyal or NO AI. I was swearing a lot when I lost the mini game and the companion made the shit choice.
Pillars of Eternity 2 in 4k hdr my fav. after second pass. In Divinity 2 too much freedom, telekinessis, verticality and slow turns after 25 hours become...
Playing for hours just to realize you are actually an npc and your ai companion is the main hero
Banner saga critique please
That’s just the ending of Witcher 3
@@MythicGriffin ?
@@thekxckup3854 ciri is a textbook hero in the witcher 3, you spend most of the game searching for her but the endgame mostly revolves around her
😂
I want to encourage you to keep making videos. One day you'll catch a break and start getting popular so just keep at it. I really like what I've seen from you already.
thanks, i appreciate the support
yea, one day day you'll be nothing like the scrub you are today :)
You were right.
How many subs did you have when you made this comment
damn, mans saw the future
You're good, really good. You write well and you express yourself compellingly.
Thanks
@@NeverKnowsBest Bonus points for referencing Space Odyssey
What I like about Divinity is how accommodating it is to your attempts to break it. In other words the "third options" that you wouldnt be able to do in normal rpgs are often fully valid alternate routes to your objective in divinity
For example: The hot/cold puzzle--- if you have a marksman with tactical retreat or a mystic with high enough telekinesis [using the little pyramid items], or a wizard with teleportation, you can get into the arena with enough slack to teleport yourself to the end of the puzzle area without being vaporized by the trap, effectively side stepping the whole thing.
3 different options, none of which are solving the puzzle as intended.
I love this series
I completely agree. I enjoyed how the game started, then you go to the inn, get teleported to the end of time, and it becomes this “end of the world” scenario that seemed sudden and forced. I would have preferred something more with a more gradual build up.
The tactical camera mode prevent missclicks. You can set the AI to always agree with you in dialogue.
This should be stickied.
Heh I may have cheesed Bracus Rex to the point of making him look like a chump.
Because he melted my team at the start with the firestorm thing, I decided "screw it, let's do something dumb and fun." and had Wolgraff, who had a ton of telekinesis run out and collect every box possible from Cyseal. Orginally I also grabbed a ton of Oil Barrels and sent them to my main tank but quickly learned that fire does nothing bad to Brac.
So I ran around the room, locking off the pathing of each boss spawn while my other character simply held conversation. In the end, I made a death trap without realizing it for Braccus by trapping him at the spawn location of The-Ghoul-That-Used-To-Watch-The-Lighthouse with vases and let the poison spawn on the floor kill him while I focused down the Twins and the Baron- but separately via the box walls. All I needed was the pyramids, about 30 boxes sent to my strongest character to hold, teleport, and patience. Within 13 turns Braccus was on half health, 2 of the 3 spawns were dead and I had my archer pick away at him with her poison crossbow.
I agree with a lot of your assessment. I like the combat and creative problem solving mechanics, but as far as the story. I really enjoyed chapter 1 where you're just investigating a murder, but after than when it becomes this save the world epic I really had to force myself to get through it. and every time I had to return to the "end of time" for exposition dump it was such a drudge .
Oh, I'm also so tired of saving the world storylines. When I first started playing this game I was really excited to be dealing with a murder investigation, a siege by orcs and an undead infestation. And then I got teleportem to the god awful endod time or whatever and exposition was dumped on me. Turns out my characters are special and I AM going to be saving the world after all. I sighed loudly, my disappointment immeasurable. I didnt get to finish cyseal, because my laptop is nearly 10 years old and kept overheating from the strain of the game. Is the rest of the story good, deapite the world saving bullshit?
@@damianziokowski8421 The game mechanics are what kept me going. I honestly did try to immerse myself in the story, listened to all the dialogue did all the sidequests I found etc. but in the end specifically when I had to return to the end of time for what I referred to as a lore dump I never looked forward to it, as it was a slog. yet I did make it to the end and overall enjoyed the game as a whole. I would say divinity 2 has much better writing. It also does kinda turn into a save the world story yet again, but the way its told is much more engaging.
classic fantasy trope, same in drakensang (you wanna visit an old friend -> he's dead -> solve the crime -> suddenly an oracle tells you your the chosen one and while there's 4 chapters with grounded stories you still end up saving the world)
on the other hand drakensang 2: you finish your education -> get mixed up in a conspiracy -> discover a secessionist plot and end up slaying 2 of the major players in it (you dont take care of the whole thing and 2 important conspirators get away, emphazing you being just 4 alneit important gears in a big machine)
I love your videos brother! You're really great at this and give the best critiques. I really look forward to seeing more new content from you!
I tried to play this game but the beginning part was insanely overwhelming, there is a lot to absorb and keep track of at the town right off the bat.
I'm with you there. This is a game that felt so strange to me. But it eventually managed to click for me during this covid lockup. Now I'm 100 hours into the second one. Keep trying man!
@Sarincrow Lol, I spent months calling it that and just now realized it's covid wow. I'm an idiot
Yes, I agree. So I slogged through it and I'm loving it. Literally gate keeping the game's beginning has.
Tried to play the game 3 times now and 2 times the sequel. There's just something that pushes me away. It's a combination of being way to open, as in, you have a general objective, but the game doesn't really tell you much about it, so at the start you can legitimately wander around for hours not knowing if you are making actual progress, if you are making a main or side quest and stuff like that. The other thing being that the combat, at least from my experience, relies massively on the use of the environment. Now, I like when games allows you to make use of the environment, but in Divinity it feels you are forced to in order to make encounters manageable. It doesn't feel like "Well, you could use the environment" but rather "Use it or die" and that just isn't fun in my opinion. Specially since I like to play as melee characters, which means if I electrify/burn/poison/etc around the enemies, then my character is just going to sit there or go in and share the same fate as the enemies. I dunno, maybe it gets better later on, but I just have never managed to put more than 10 hours into either of them. The writing also seems to be really "whacky and goofy" just for the sake of it. I don't mind jokes and light moments, but, at least the first game, felt more like a parody than anything, specially the whole being transported into another dimension out of nowhere because "so whacky, betcha didn't expect that!" - "Well.. no.. I didn't expect it.. because this while time I thought I was going to solve a murder mystery, not be turned into the chosen one and save the world". Honestly, think that's what pushed me away the most. The whacky almost parody like tone of the games.
@@TaigaGaoo For me, I found that if I stick to one area, my experience was much better. As a first timer, I thought I could just yonder but I found the literal gatekeeping kept me focused. By doing the quests in a town, you become more familiar with map and this keeps the game more grounded. Rinse and repeat.
Just saying what everyone else is. Keep doing reviews, you’re really good at this.
thanks
To recruit Jahan leave everyone downstairs except your main. Bit of a pain but it works. Works for some dialog stuff too, leave your party off in the distance so just one character initiates the dialog and if a fight erupts run everyone else up to the fight.
or just select "NO AI" when you begin the game and then you won't have any one question your choices.
Such a good video essay on Divinity Original Sin! I only played D:IS single player, and now I want to go back through it with another player to see how it changes the experience. I'm glad I found this channel. Definitely going to work my way through your other videos.
I haven't played any of the new ones, but back in the day, Divine Divinity was an awesome CRPG. It was more of an open world, non-linear thing.
I played it in co-op a few years ago with my partner and we absolutely loved it. However, with regards to the story, we somehow managed to go almost right to the end of the story without revisiting the end of time area. When we couldn't make any more progress we remembered it existed, and when we arrived there we got about a 45-minute sequence of nothing other than information and story dumping.
We've started the second, hopefully the story will be more closely interlinked this time to avoid the weird distance there.
LOL, something similar happened to me. I was about to finish Hunters Edge, & needed the whisky aged. It was my first return to the End of Time. Had loads of catching up to do before I could complete the quest 😆.
@@TheMarcHicks Every time you use a Bloodstone, a new room at the End of Time and sometimes a new part of the tapestry is revealed (cut-scenes). So if you haven't gone back to the End of Time after collecting many Blood Stones, this will happen.
It's intresting comparing Original sin 1 and 2 puts some of the complaints into perspective. I'd say personally I prefer loot upgrades being small with big upgrades being rare.
In 2 where every piece of loot often is a big upgrade it leaves epics or legendaries to feel unimpressive as they will be replaced in only a level or two. And it also widens the gap in strength between each level meaning enemies only 2-3 levels higher can feel like unreachable gods forcing the game to be played even more linear.
Epics and legendaries are still more valuable because they give you more perks like strength, intelligence, wits... But normal loot doesn't, i often choose the perks over the armor upgrade, I won't sacrifice +3 strength to get 50 armor.
I think i have only one issue with the game over all, and that is its occasional lack of direction in some quests and puzzles. It appears the game is trying to create a sort of arbitrary difficulty in some ways that dont befit the game as a whole by leaving players without any real means of logical progression. For instance i have played for over 20 hours, scoured almost every inch of cyseal, yet cant find out any means of completing the murder mystery mission, and in turn the game has given no hints as to what to do in order to further this goal. Now, im sure I'll figure it out, but only because i know eventually ill probably stumble into the answer, not because i was given the opportunity to take clues and hints that would lead me to a conclusive answer to this mystery. Another good example is the black cove area, in which there are two mini puzzles, both are find the switch based. The first, being that you need to find two switches that open a trap door, the problem for me was finding the actual door itself, which took me almost 30 min of scouring to do. The second was the skull door puzzle which in my opinion is one of the worst puzzles ive ever seen, as it requires no skill, no means of logic, just scouring the area for more switches and trial and error. I can not express how annoying this puzzle was, it took me out of the experience in a way i wasnt expecting, because usually the game is wepl organized and its puzzles seem to hold to a sense of logic. However, this problem is rare enough that it doesnt hinder the game too much, but also occurs often enough that i have felt it necessary to keep an internet tab with a walk-through handy in case the game decides to simply leave me without a clue what to do and stuck in a puzzle that feels like its meant to annoy me more than anything else, and that is a shame.
Edit, well... That and the end of time plot, which is just really dumb. Honestly i put the game down the first time i tried to play it because of how out of place and dumb it felt to me. I didnt want to be some chosen one in a grand journey, i wanted to continue on mu bounty hunting ranger quest to help the city under siege in a fantastic yet grounded journey.
Preach brother
Really? I never had any problem with that mission and actually liked exploring all of the city investigating, but I wil agree that some of the puzzles make no goddamn sense. As for the story saddly it never hooked me in but at least appreciated that dialogs were generally short and to the point unlike Pillars of Eternity that for some reason feels the need to describe with three pages of text how a farmer plays with his beard.
I got so annoyed with the murder quest I just looked it up on the wiki. The game has a shit way of laying out quests to make it even more confusing. I also found it kinda lame I had to break in and steal items( me playing a lawful character that does everything by the books) given you were tasked with an investigation by the Captain or whatever to interrogate and request access to houses to search.
Expecting a grounded journey from a game called DIVINITY is kind of a stretch tbh
@@thebanished87 same here! I explored and talked to every named NPC and got to the point where I had to prove esmeralda had something to do with the murder.
went upstairs and unlocked the backroom on the first floor. I found the book and esmeralda said it was her dead husbands. I literally could not see the cellar door in the back room until I turned on the highlight feature.
Then I found the bloody knife and I thought "well now I've got her" went back to her, guess what? The knife is her dead husbands.
I'm like I know he was magically killed but that was the only way for her to call out the apprentice as a suspect and also progress the damn game.
Also who the fuck checks bookshelves? They more often than not have nothing in them so you ignore them. I'd expect a diary to be in a locked chest or in a desk or hidden behind a book case. Girl had it sitting on a shelf.
The depth and breadth of your work is really impressive, I can only imagine how much work goes into each of your videos.
I'm still having trouble getting around the combat system and leveling up... I just don't find it that intuitive.
Also the writing and art style is kinda weird.
At least in the first city which is being threatened by undead and orc raids with all it surrounding areas crawling with them. But the people in the city are very happy and jolly ... it really breaks my immersion.
Not sure if I wanna continue playing it...
I know you have your issues with pillars of eternity but when it comes to writing, Obsidian did it way better.
It's intuitive if you are adept at turn based games. The writing is indeed all over the place, it's a staple of the studio at this point.
Yeah DOS is one of my favorite games of all time and I would give the story like a C+. And the combat becomes way better after the early game if you stick with it. I can't blame you for dropping though, it is kind of sloggy.
I thought only me thinking the story have problems, because it score almost excellent by many reviewers
@@malakatan3235 It took me 2 years to beat that game I doubt most of them ever finished it lmfao
@@DuckieMcduck And to think, the studio that can't do world-building, story, immersion and tone properly is now at the helm of BG3...
This video needs more credit for the awesome moustaches on the characters. Fantastic work :-)
I'm just coming to D:OS now, and am enjoying a lot. The main issues I have is (a) abilities/traits/skills are extremely various, and all available - and there is very limited ability to respec if you get it wrong (b) I spend a lot of time micromanaging gear, and trying to work out what skill books I need. It's actually getting quite painful.
Now, nearly five years later, were the glitches of the gameplay fixed?
just now finished DoS1, and you're 100% spot, though I'd like to add, not only are the animations slow, but there is a 2-4 second delay when an animation finishes before you can before any action even with a different character, doesn't sound like much until you heal the whole squad at the end of a fight, or try to keep a perception spell going. Haven't played DoS2 yet, i hope this and everything else you raised has been addressed
I just finished the game my self and everything you say regarding the overall story: pace of the early game (especially with the murder mystery side quests etc), the amount of exposition for the main narrative, the over relied on tropes, you're actually spot on not too harsh at all. Its not bad, its just too bland and mostly a bare skeleton.
Honestly as a veteran player who has been there done that, I just wanted to cast meteor storm as much as possible. Good game though.
Sven's story on how he continued to follow his passions, despite so many hurdles and setbacks, is the backdrop that I find most compelling and worthy of story, even more so than all the great games they make now or will in the future,
Ravi Peiris M.D.
25:59 A buddy detective RPG about investigating a murder, you say...
Well, Disco Elysium is awesome.
I've had the misclick issue so many times i've lost count.
Also the Loot is just bad. I found a good sword then died and opened the chest again for a different item... WTF..
The difficulty balance early on is insane, like if you're 1 level below the thing you're attacking they get like double the AP you do and do essentially double the damage... Why? Same with % chances, i've seen my characters fail more often than not in certain instances and sometimes i've had to restart fights based on 1 missed action.
The game is so difficult.. almost every fight for me needs to be move perfect to succeed.. one bad move or inoptimal tactic and game over
man that music getting me in the feels in 2020
Picked this up today. It scratches an itch I’ve had for so long. Anybody play Nox?
Sure did. Good comparison.
nox was very fun. stupid story but the game play was fast and exciting to keep you pumped.
great video! Hope to see D: OS 2 next!
Solid review with clear and to the point pros and cons. Keep up the good work! Really enjoyed the video and sarcasm xD
I loved this game for all of its...um... "sins", it's one of the few games I remember everything about. The music, especially was very wonderful. Also who is Vumli, I never found him... lol @ HAL btw :)
Interesting, how you opened up the video. And now, we expecting Baldur's Gate 3 from Larian, probably one of the biggest tactical RPG's in recent years after Divinity 2. Thanks for the great critique.
Because his critique is garbage and thankfully is not the norm
A friend and I played through the entire game 3 times together, and had a lot of fun. We ended up having an easy time finishing it on tactician mode by farming some respawning enemies from a warlock somewhere.
started loving this game, and by the final third of the game i started to hate it..true story, cause puzzles
Michael Thorton Right, felted kinda linear too
having more than 500 hours in this game, I agree with everything you say. There is a mod called xc_encounters that solves the difficulty problem by providing a superhard mode (without permadeath). But in the end, you play it for the combat, not the story. maybe the little stories.
You are one of the best users out there - always follow your content with great attention. Keep them coming
You have a real way with words!
My main concern with what you've said is that the games makes you powerful too quickly. Usually when a game does that I get bored and start a new character, rinse and repeat without ever finishing the game without forcing myself to get through the game as quickly as possible to finish it. Right now it costs about the price of a fast food meal so I think I'll pick it up regardless.
I hope you critique a dark souls game to give another perspective to Anderson and Matosis. Keep at it.
"I hope you critique a dark souls game to give another perspective to Anderson and Matosis."
Aw, that's a nice compliment. Thanks.
Your videos are really well made. You really must put a lot of effort in the making of them and it shows. That along with your soothing voice really makes for great content. Keep up the good work my dude.
So many aspects of the game are tedious and it makes the good parts inaccessible or infrequent.
Stumbled upon this one year after the release of BG3, looks like this genre is thriving (mostly thanks to BG3) - indie games are trying to dive into the same sub genre, and another DnD game Solasta II is getting much traction on its trailer. I’m optimistic!
Damn why have I not had this appear on my feed.. I think theres a US vs UK bias going on.. Goddam awesome as usual dude, sorry I haven't seen it sooner.
Love your vids man. Deep critiques on the best rpgs; it’s like this channel was made specifically for me hahaha
Please keep doing more if these, hopefully you will get more views soon. Rather enjoyable. Remembers me of Josey ander and Matt Marthus, Perhaps Robs dungeon too.
Brilliant i am enthralled. This is my first top down camera type game and this helps a lot. Thanking you kindly
I'm one of those people who can play through mediocre gameplay if I like the writing well enough. The reverse doesn't work for me, though; I can't suffer through bad writing and a nonsensical story, simply because the combat system is good.
That's why I didn't manage to finish either of these games. The more I played, the more annoyed I became with the game's writing, and eventually I had to give up. Had I not played with friends, I probably wouldn't have stuck around for more than a couple of hours for either game.
What's wrong with the writing?
Then you don't like videogames. Sorry.
@@BrokeNSings or they play video games for different reasons?
You deserve way more views an your videos, your way of speaking is awesome and even though I might not agree with all of your points, its entertaining to hear them and you present them well. Keep it up.
Cannot get over how atrocious the start of this game is. I tried slogging through it. No. It's too bogged down in dialogue that isn't a fraction as witty as it thinks it is. If you want a combat encounter, you'll only find find yourself overwhelmed by high numbers of enemies and/or overleveled ones. This is a fatal flaw in Original Sin. There's no overlooking it.
I couldn't find the PDF that Larian posted a couple of years ago, but according to their survey only a minority of their audience cared for co-op. The part about AI interfering is something that I think was added later with patches, because initially you just had to choose for both characters which felt like some kind of schizophrenia.
I bought the game earlier this year, & you can still choose to control both companions.
What i like about these games is the striking contrast of humor and dark themes. Really makes it feel like a journey at the end, when you're forcing a laugh in a grim situation.
I’m working my way thru dos1 ee and that’s one of my biggest criticisms. The tone shifts from insanely lighthearded to serious and then back. Also I’m only 15-20 hours in but I can already tell how incredibly boring the main story is and how lifeless the player characters are. The writing is great in a few spots but mostly is really bad.
All that being said, I’ve been having a blast be ause of how deep and interactive the combat is. So coming from bioware RPGs the writing and almost total lack of companions is way worse but the combat and general feel is amazing. A super mixed bag
@R same. Super serious plot, but none of the characters take it seriously. It makes it hard for me to take seriously. If this is a world ending thing, why are you jovial and laughing? It made me much less interested in the plot, tbh. Definitely the biggest complaint I have in an otherwise amazing game series (also an issue in 2)
It‘s great to see that Fitz‘s Chess review made channels like this possible.
He did a Fritz review?
I really liked the story until the end of hiberheim + maybe the tenebrium mine. It fell short for me after that except for Wolgraff + Arhu
Man pretty good video, pretty insightful, also the set piece with Hal, hilarious.
Really good critics about the game. Good job man.
The game is really good. Larian definetely redefined the genre. But yes the game has some really obvious problems.
For a guy like me, who discovered these 2 gems from Larian in covid days, both game really worth the discounted price. I mean they might be the best money/hour spent on Steam. Both games took above 100 hours each and they offer really high replayability.
But for me DOS2 was like 4-5 times better game than DOSEE. I mean the first game is still good; but second game is a masterpiece. It is definetely the best crpg ever created. They improved and mastered every mechanic they had invented in the first game. The environmental interactivity is so much better, characters are much more alive and story is definetely more interesting.
I really look forward to BG3 release and im waiting for the full release :)
Bracuss Rex after fighting hordes of undead a couple of fire guys was such a huge jump because he had the first turn I didn't know how to space out my party when the battle starts and he chose to talk to my AI partner who was a summoner first. Which means that if they went down before they summoned anything I lost more than just a quarter of my party.
One of the great things about original sin is this guy said that he found telekinesis to be a waste , when I would never leave home without it and when used effectively can be OP
How much ap?
@@davidhujik6078 telekinesis only uses 2 ap in battle but free outside of battle so you can set things up (barricades, pinch points, cages, etc) before you initiate
Murphy is my favorite thing about the entire game.
PoE, D: OS, Bards Tale 4 & Wasteland 3 are amongst some of my all-time favourite games, especially for an old CRPG nut like me :).
would you say D:OS1 is worth playing after having played D:OS2?
I wish I would have seen this review before buying this game, but even if I think is a good review, it doesn't cover all the shortcomings this game have.
I'm a fan of RPGs and I still haven't finished this game, since it's such a slog. I am at 92 hours and then I completely lost the drive to keep going, I kept playing until now hoping would get better but it turned worse instead.
There are too many things I don't like it in it: random loot, the inventory, the trading system, the perks system, the crafting. Even the combat get tedious and repetitive after a while, and while you may try to different approaches, if you play on the hardest difficulty then you're just having bad time unless you CC everything and spread elemental zones on every single encounter.
I can understand that many people liked it, and I'm happy for them, my only regret is that I wish I would have know all these issues beforehand, while every review I read just repeated over and over how awesome the game and combat is it is without giving any information on all its shortcomings.
Please understand that if you like the game then that's totally ok, I don't want to bash the game or people who like it, but for such a massive time investement I feel that reviews should really tackle all the issues the game have, even if a reviewer think the game is awesome, taking the time to explain how the systems works and are implemented would be great to help a person decide if is worth buying or not.
Divinity Original Sin and Divinity Original Sin 2 are the only two proper same-system co-op RPG titles that I know of. Nothing else really comes close.
It has a good turn-based, tactical combat system fitting for the genre and the game doesn't force you to one screen. Though the Switch version lacks the same-system co-op, which makes it in my opinion borderline a waste of money, all other versions have it and it's implemented very well. The game does crash sometimes, autosaving is shit so you have to manually save often after doing anything significant, and there are a few bugs, but it's mostly a very good experience especially if you have someone to play with. Not to say it's not a good title on its own, I played through it the first time on my own because my brother and I couldn't really schedule around it very well for a while, but it's so much more fun with someone else to play with.
I *seriously* appreciate how the splitscreen works. You aren't stuck in the same area, you aren't forced to interact with the same NPCs at the same time, you can move around and explore like your own independent character as much as you like and meet back up later. It's a fantastic system and I wish more developers would implement things like this in their games. They put triple A publishers to shame with this same-system co-op system. They put triple A publishers to shame with this co-op system, *period.*
The Knight's Tomb puzzle hot/cold puzzle is easy. If you have high perception or a perception spell you can see the path to follow.
Divinity Original Sin was almost finished when they launched the kickstarter. They used the raised cash for some extra content but mostly for bug fixes and fine tuning.
That build your own rpg with divinity engine thing. Is it still up?
This game has the most enjoyable combat of any RPG I've ever played. Dos 2 comes close but magic armor kills some of the strategy.
All the divinity games are great my fav is the first divine divinity.
19:20 The game has a very simple solution to the Jahan recruitment block. You just failed to figure out that very simple 'puzzle'. Just unchain the character who does not like him, and walk them away a couple screens so that they are not involved in the conversation. Jahan will now join with nobody around to object and there's no follow up problems when your party reunites.
This type of detail is a huge plus to the game's design, rather than a point to be criticized.
how is it a huge puls? if anything its a workaround and then it is still not good exactly because he does not object
@@peddazz2365 It is a huge plus because it teaches you about the fact that npcs maintain a reputation rating that can vary across the members of your party. Not having someone complain about something that happened when they are not there is not a workaround, it is reflection of realism. If they are not there, obviously they won't be complaining. This exact concept can be taken advantage of at multiple points in the game. It gives the game a greater depth to the interactivity.
@@kenmolinaro not complaining about an event could be logical not complaining about a character they dislike joining the party is not realistic
You can also start a conversation with the other character, which is what i often did to get around it before eventually turning the ai off. Still while individual examples are easy to deal with, I found having the ai companion constantly trying to override my decisions to be very, very annoying and i really don't think it adds to the game. There's an interesting idea behind but i don't think it works well.
I agree. I really struggled at the beginning with the pacing and even though it picked up I eventually dropped it. Will go to 2 and maybe come back, maybe not.
Just play 2.
I find the 1st DOS game fun and charming, if imbalanced and with a not very interesting world and characters. The game really shines in combat, but it can be too easy once you know what is broken. The 2nd game eclipses the first in every possible way, probably my favorite story-based RPG after Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins.
Mass Effect 2 has no real story, and the one it has is a rip-off of Star Trek Voyager Elite Force (2000).
I've put over 100 hours into this game and I agree with almost all of your criticisms. Very good game that is not for everyone and requires a tremendous amount of patience.
There no "writers" in this game. It was just one guy. The follow up game had some high profile writers
well... there was one head writer but there was a small team in charge of the actual story.
You can send your companion downstairs and talk to the one you are trying to recruit if they don't like each other.😊
I've also been playing for hours and going nowhere. The game is not without its faults. First hundreds for lockpicks? Then, when you place them for easy access, they disappear even though you paid 400 for them. Where do they go? Maybe another game? Aggravating.
Can somebody tell me please the RPG they show, the one after Witcher? That looks nice also
Timestamp would be helpful.
@@jesperburns It's at 3:58
That's Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
12:25 If you lose your entire turn due to a miss clicked walk it is your fault. You should never lose more than 1 action point from that mistake. Just immediately right-click and it cancels the walk command. Also, instead of left clicking to attack with a ranged character, you should right-click and choose "attack" from the context menu. A missed right click does nothing. Hence, you can never accidently issue a move command if you right-click instead of left-click. For spells, you can instead target the enemy portrait up top in the turn order list.
expecting fast reaction time in a game that is purly about slow tactical decisions yeeee tottaly the players faoult
@@peddazz2365 Once, fine you didn't expect it to be an issue. After that? Come on, take responsibility for your actions. Especially so when it can only happen when you choose the worst possible method of issuing commands instead of the other, foolproof method.
@@kenmolinaro cheap excuses
no not once, there should not be sudden reflex checks in a slow turn-based RPG, reflex checks for the matter only because the game has problems with precise targeting
yeah right klicks and extra steps for attacks and searching for portraits for spells again just a workaround for a problem that should not exist in the first place
and searching for character pictures in the top bar is really not ideal when there are so many fights with identical enemies or a shit ton of extra clicks in every fight in a game with already very slow and long combat encounters
my point stands there neither should be a reflex check for compensating the games technical issues and there should also not be a need to search through portraits or to go through 1 extra click for every basic attack you want to make in a fight
I wouldn't call misclicking and losing your turn as a result your fault. It's good that there is a cancel action command wasn't even aware of that but even then losing some AP because the targeting is sometimes awkward can hardly be considered the players fault.
This would have been a big annoyance if it wasn't for right-click attack only command but perhaps that should have been the only way to attack. So there can be no mistake and the player is forced to learn the 'proper' way.
@@luckygozer In 400+ hours of playing I never accidentally issued a walk command. I know its an issue only because people have posted about it. Frankly, people either need a new mouse or they need to pay attention to what they are doing. But I get it. Blaming the game instead of yourself is just so much easier for the weak minded people out there.
Disagree on a few points - like the rock/paper/scissors was absolutely brilliant, and some story elements were great although it could've had a stronger finish - but agree on a lot of other points and you make them hilariously! Kickstarter has brought us so many cool things and its competition with publishers is why I think we're headed into a new golden age of gaming. FTL, Pathfinder, Sunless Skies, Banner Saga, Divinity OS, Battletech (solid game although the SJW politics injection near ruined it), Everspace, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Halcyon 6, Hollow Knight, Darkest Dungeon, Hand of Fate, Dex... so many unique experiences we would never have had otherwise.
I feel like every turn-based RPG should have a undo button for combat mistakes! Miss clicking is unfortunately quite common!
But then combat would be wayyyy too easy.. :/
@@utisti4976 You can already save the game in combat, so you can already cheese if you really want to. You can save and reload as much as you want. You can reload the game in combat 10 times until your charm arrow lands.
To be fair, the issues you mention with Co-op could definitely apply to Table-top roleplaying. I have had several instances where we had to ask someone to leave a group, because they were rule-rapists who refused to take the game seriously.
Would you people recommend this more or pillars of eternity?
I dont know NKB's opinion but I've played both and I find divinity far more enjoyable. But I like slower paced, tactical rpgs with lots of options for customization
If you played a lot of diablo back in the day you'd probably dig PoE, its far quicker paced and more traditional elemental rock paper scissors-y
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Somehow we couldn’t find the Hiberheim switch, so we ended up moving on, thinking there was something later to open that entrance, and played till we feasibly couldn’t. By the time we were in Hiberheim (I looked up how to get into Hiberheim) we’d leveled to the point where there was no challenge. By the beard of Boreas.
I completely understand your criticisms. Most all of them have valid points.
Yet, because I love this game, I thought your criticism was too harsh.
Yes, there is a huge plothole in the middle of the Story when the big "reveal" occurs. But, I did not think the whole story was bad. With the exception of the Big "Reveal", I thought the stories before and after it were good.
The part I thought was the most tedious was definetly the beginning of the Immaculate storyline where you go to that other dimension for the first time. The amount of Immaculate encounters got boring rather quickly, though I remember my buddy and I loving every bit of Cyseal and everything in the late game, or, in short, literally everything outside of that.
Not sure what I did wrong, but Bracchus Rex managed to One Shot Kill my entire party!
I liked the game but what I really dislike about some puzzles in this game is that the solution is literally just trying until it works, that's super annoying when you try to figure out what the strategy is when there is literally is none. You have no way of knowing in which order to press the buttons and no hint is given so you just press until it finally makes click, lol
I'm sorry, but EVERY party whose goals are not alligned will not have fun. How is this the game's fault?
I think with PoE it had some great dungeon crawler moments in endless dungeons and PnP feel in scripted events using tools to overcome obstacles and get loot. It also had beautiful graphics which I loved about it and the voice acting and Eder was brillant. But there was no proper healing and the fire arms took it away from a more traditionally D&D feel which some gamers were probably looking for. The plot was a bit bizarre, I thought. So PoE2 kind of flopped in the follow up and Divinity which steered closer to the BG path did well.
A fun game, it really is, I enjoyed playing it. It's also forgettable, I couldn't tell you what was going on in the story, nor did I care... I also don't remember the characters, fun but forgettable, which is why it will never be a classic and no one will be playing it 10 years from now
I'm still playing it yearly and discovering new things each time. The combat is just so unbelievably much fun.
Man, your reviews are amazing. Remembers me a lot of Joseph Anderson’s. Keep it up brother.
I play this game co op with a friend and its an absolute blast
Great video. But you can turn off companion AI. Having it on is for RP purposes.
He says this.
Not in the mood for cheese?
That excuse has more holes than a wheel of this fine gorgombert
^ this guy knows
Thank gods old and new for Larian.
you make great videos. subscribed immediatly
The stupidest thing in this game if you have selected an AI for the other main character is when trying to solve a quiz. They just give the wrong answer and fight you for it with rock paper scissors. Luckily you can just tell them to fuck off and stand somewhere else. Please tell me you've figured out you can do that without changing the AI...
The rest can still be pretty useful as it will give you different traits. Even if it's a little frustrating when you lose or win the rock paper scissors while intending the opposite. It sometimes takes several tries loading your save.
The other frustrating thing is stealing or moving items when trying to talk to people and they get pissed. It often happens with npcs that walk around. I click to talk and pick up what's behind them.
Honestly, combat was so good I didn't care how poor the story or characters were.
I really enjoyed D:OS.
Though my experience was somewhat hampered by the fact that my 'main' character was pretty gimped by my not understanding the systems fully. I didn't really realise what a dumpster-fire he was until about 12-15hours in. I don't have huge amounts of time for gaming (I've still not finished Persona 5 for example, and I started it over a year ago) so I didn't really have time to replay that 'lost' time. Still, got it finished in the end.
Only thing I'm not a proper fan of is the art style. A bit too Pathfinder-esq for me. You're pretty spot on with the story critique also. I can't really remember much of the plot, if any. Though I loved the end of time, as a concept if nothing else.
Isn't there a way to relocate attributes and skill points on the end of time?
@@zzxp1 you can I believe (using a blood stone) but you also lose all skills learned and have to relearn them. It's also a waste of a blood stone.
Cool, that's actually such a clear analysis
Coop is good for a second playthrough tbh
I just bought Pillars 2. And it's great!
so true .. all you say its so true.. but still there is not enaugh games who can where good at that time.. so for the year it was realesed it was okey and good.
this game is so unappreciated even by those who enjoyed it ! there is no mention of how great atmosphere and locations actually were in this game and also you just covered the whole story that looked like you didn't even try to understand the sub plots of each location you are in , there was way more story content in this game than you mentioned specially with great voice acting and music ,this game actually became one of my fav of all time story and quest wise specially coming from pillars 1 ,you can easily feel what a masterpiece this game was
add epic encounter mod and only flaw of this game which is easy late game content will be fixed as well
there is a big ass charm in this game that div2 seriously missed despite still being good game
The reason is that it's not a game you can recommend to everyone. It's a great game but there's not too many players willing to read, learn the lore, thinking too much and everything that slows the game. It's like death stranding in a way you can enjoy it if you dive into the story and lore but you can't recommend it easily.
@@antoniosupan272 well I played it again just recently and you definitely have a valid point ,inventory management and over complicated crafting system and boring start can easily annoy a lot of players ,after that it will be such great unique game .I wonder why they made early game so slow !!kinda shot themselves in the foot ,great game otherwise
@@finix7419 it was because they wanted it to have practice or experiment arena for new players. However, they should have done it on a more simplistic way then add more as they progress. These kinds of games are dying due to western and European not really resonating with them. Asia is a fan of these kinds of games and same with other rpgs not being translated locally but instead translated by fans. With the Activision blizzard fiasco it is making it worst for other companies who makes these kinds of games because they're the most known company that makes these kinds of games. I still enjoy this game because of its coop which was a smart move for them. I love its uniqueness however, with the witcher 3, dragon age, diablo and many more other games that are kinda similar to this game are more attractive because they are smooth and faster. I still play fire emblems as well just to mix it up. Baldur's gate should make something like a witcher 3 level on their side quests to make it more attractive. Lessen the skills to a diablo and dragon age level to make it less intimidating for new players.
It's so true!! I restarted the game and put the companion as loyal or NO AI. I was swearing a lot when I lost the mini game and the companion made the shit choice.
Pillars of Eternity 2 in 4k hdr my fav. after second pass. In Divinity 2 too much freedom, telekinessis, verticality and slow turns after 25 hours become...