And I played the shit out of DOOM. This is still better.
How did I hear about it: Dirty. He already givin it shout outs casually and shit.
What is it? Divinity II is an isometric RPG in the style of Baldur’s Gate. I feel like everything ive read so far has underestimated and undervalued this thing. Probably because the company does the same
That feels weak to me.
Thoughts on the thing: What AMAZES me is how smooth Divinity II is with the path of their games. This game does that thing that Mass Effect 2 was trying to do and totally failed on with 3.
This game has figured out that magic thing of having every single one of your decisions mount up. You end up having only a few choices for the end of the game but how that fight will go is totally different based on how you handled everything before it.
You can totally do a playthrough where you kill everything in your path and salt the earth (my first playthrough). Or you can do a playthrough where you are an expert negotiator, use stealth and cunning, and just convince people to do the right thing.
It really feels open in a way that even true open worlds like Skyrim and WoW are not. The possibilities are endless.
For example, on my first playthrough, I killed the shit out of this one guy because he talked shit to me. Talk shit get hit.
Turns out, he makes the best weapon in the game, and I killed him 25 hours in. He’s gone forever. No best weapon on that playthrough.
You really get that feeling that what you did matters and impacts how you have to play the game. And how the NPCs see you.
The customization is also endless. I hate that customization means cosmetics these days. That annoys the hell out of me. This game’s cosmetics are minimal when it comes to faces, clothing, etc. But your character class customization has no bottom.
Battlemage, you can make it. Paladin, you can do that to. Necromancer, absolutely.
You aren’t locked into a class. They went full UO on putting points into whatever skills you want. First playthrough, I went ALL THE SPELLS. And even in the end game, I was still STRONG AS FUCK and could crush things in a variety of ways. You can go all in on one or two magic classes but I wanted some variety. As a result, I never ran out of options on how to handle a situation.
Lastly, the actual combat is so well thought out. You can completely lose a fight and get DEMOLISHED because you walked into it the wrong way. The opposite is also true. There is this one fight where if you walk in throught he back door, the fight is MUCH easier than going in through the front. The only way you would know that is if you try to break the game.
I think thats what I am getting it. Larian Studios was smart enough to know its players are going to try every god damn thing in the world to deal with a fight or situation. And they are ALWAYS ahead of the players. Even the 4th Act, which people bitched was too thin, they have now fixed with a FREE DLC.
I’m rambling but you get the point
Final Verdict
4/4 – This is a masterpiece. The game to beat. Every RPG from now on will be held up to this standard by me. Everything else sucks by comparison. Too bad.