Divinity: Original Sin II

After a 170hr playthrough of BG3, I approached DOS2 very skeptically because I thought no way any game out there can make me feel the same way that BG3 did for me ever again.
I was wrong. This game, despite being more than 6 years old, arguably packs even more content than BG3 did and has the same level of love, care and attention to detail put into it (No animated cutscenes with waifus though). It even suffers the exact same problem that BG3 did towards the end, where the last act felt painfully under-realized in the best possible way that leaves you imagining what could have been if Larian was given unlimited time and resources.
If you liked BG3 then this game is a must play. An incredible fantasy adventure from the beginning to the end. Thank you Larian for yet again making a game that would become one of my most favourite games of all time.
Final rating: BG3/10.

I came to this game from Baldur's Gate 3 cause I wanted to try another game from Larian Studios. I didn't expect much since it's an older game, but, I've been pleasantly surprised. It's very immersive! There's so many items to find everywhere, the music is great, and I'm enjoying the voice acting. There's so much attention to detail and the tutorial really helps to ease players into the game. I'm 69 years old and have never played turn based games like BG3 or DoS2 but I"m happy to say you're never to old to learn something new and discover the joy of a new genre in gaming. I highly recommend this game to everyone who loves rpgs whether you're experienced with them of not. This one will take you on an adventure you'll remember for a long time.

If you're someone who enjoyed BG3 and is considering playing DOS2 (much like myself 117 playtime-hours ago), here's how these games compare:
*Presentation
- DOS2 has a really nice artstyle, not too different from BG3, maybe slightly more cartoony, but really enjoyable. Artstyle is a matter of preference, but to me it really works.
- DOS2 doesn't have a cinematic presentation like BG3. So cutscenes are rare, not seeing your character up close acting the scene out is the only dissapointing aspect of the game when I compare to BG3.
- Amazing voice acting.
- The game runs smoooooooth. Specially compared to BG3 (which will probably improve with later patches, but currently DOS2 is a much more optimized game than BG3).
*Story
- The story is as good as BG3, with many story-beats reminding me of it.
- Choices matter. Various different endings and ways to approach situations.
- The companions are great in DOS2, but the interactions with them is not a prevalent aspect of the game, as it is in BG3. If you're looking to roleplay interactions with your companions, BG3 is way better for this.
- The game is of comparable length to BG3, with just about the same amount of side content (Both games took me around 120 hours to complete on my first playthrough). This is likely going to change with time (as more stuff gets added to BG3), but if you want a lengthy game, DOS2 might be it.
*Combat/Gameplay:
- BG3 is a great implementation of DnD combat, so many things are dictate by luck (if Shadowheart misses one more time I am going to scream!). DOS2 uses its own system, and luck is a much less of a consideration. That gives you a lot more control in combat.
- Combat encounters in this game are considerably harder than in BG3. This is potentially a great thing: harder encounters with less luck involved makes for a great challenge that rewards preparation.
- There is a lot of build variety and many things can work. But my limited understanding is that there are clear "better builds"/"better party compositions" that can trivialize portions of the game. BG3 has the same problem (and in my opinion it is worse in BG3).
- Interactions with the environment are way more prevalent in DOS2 (think burning oil, electrifying water, blessing surfaces, etc), and they are a very important part of combat. If you liked this aspect of BG3, this is even better here.
- Non-combat checks such as persuasion also appear to be a lot less random. If you have enough skill points in persuasion (in addition to another primary attribute, the game always tells you which one is relevant) you simply pass the check. I love this. In practical terms that means there is a lot less save scumming in DOS2. In BG3 you could simply ignore charisma and charisma-related buffs if you just decide to save scum. This won't work in DOS2, and you will have to actively spend points in persuasion.
- Pickpocketing is overpowered in BG3, you can completely ignore gold if you have a good thief in the group. In DOS2 you're limited to pickpocketing a NPC only once. This results in pickpocketing being still really good, but you have to think a lot more about collecting items for selling, gold management, etc. This is either good or bad, I personally prefer to not worry about gold, so BG3 is better in this aspect in my opinion.
- How gear works is VERY different from BG3. In BG3 you have a very limited number of gear options (for instance, there's an excellent Cleric armor halfway act1, that you're likely going to use till the end of the game. If you miss it, there won't be another chance to find anything similar). Where gear is located is also fixed, in every playthrough of BG3 key gear is in the same place. In DOS2 finding gear is a constant dopamine hit: every container/vase/lootable body can contain randomized gear that scale with the area difficulty level (think Diablo loot system in cRPG form). In practical terms you're always managing your gear and constantly finding new gear (so remember to have a character with the Lucky Charm trait, that will help a lot). Basically if you love checking every container, you're going to love DOS2 (and if you hate that, this is something that will annoy you a lot).
In summary, DOS2 is a masterpiece. It is 6 years older than BG3 and it certainly shows, as things like the lack of cutscenes are specially jarring after playing BG3. But other than presentation (where BG3 is the clear winner), those are both excellent games and depending on what you're looking for you may prefer DOS2.

OMG GET IT!!
I came from bg3, and heard that this game was not as beginner friendly. Turns out, after playing 200+ hours of turn-based combat, dos2 is super intuitive. If you like the combat in bg3, you'll love it in dos2. The only downside is there's no jumping!
I also heard that the companions weren't as fleshed out. I disagree! I LOVE the companions in this game -- there's just no cut scenes. The dialogue is so so so good though and the humor is amazing. I also think that bg3 was a huge improvement for Larian's graphics, but after playing dos2 for so many hours, I genuinely think the game looks great and has a lot of graphical similarities to bg3.
TL;DR if you loved bg3, you will love dos2! GET IT!

The difference between BG3 and D:OS2 can be explained pretty easily if you've ever looked at all the stuff that 5e has done to make D&D more simple and accessible-- all of that makes for a worse video game. D:OS2 is dense in systems, but it takes the time to teach them to you and by the time you get going, you really feel like a god of some sort. Combat is never about chipping away health, every turn has important decisions that can be made that affect how the combat rolls out, with enough dynamism to allow both you and the enemy to bounce back into contention from the brink of death at almost any point in the fight. Also, the music is better.

The quest writing and characters of BG3 are certainly more mature and more polished, but OS2 feels like I am sitting down with a bunch of friends back when I was a kid to make up a story on the spot. BG3 is the best version of 5e D&D as it actually exists, but OS2 is the game you thought you were playing when you first learned what Dungeons and Dragons was. Both are good, but damn I love OS2.

What an incredible turn based RPG. I've spent just less than one thousand hours on this masterpiece which means its my most played Singleplayer game in my adult life (admittedly some hours were playing multiplayer with friends but still). Now there's no way that I'm going to be able to list all the good things about this game in one review, but I'll try my best and highlight some really good aspects to hopefully encourage anyone reading this to give it a go.
Pros -
Firstly, the music in this game is AMAZING. It either sounds completely badass for fights or incomparably elegant for exploring the world. There were so many times during my many playthroughs that I had to make the decision of either humming along to the music or letting my ears fully embrace those beautiful instruments.
Visually this game is stunning, the details in the world and the particle effects of abilities/spells look so well done and make it feel so satisfying when you cast them. I also really appreciate that this games movement is very freeing for a turn based RPG. I've always disliked those games where movement is restricted to like a chess board with squares. Having your characters quite literally being able to move anywhere feels so much better.
Next up, the story. EVERYTHING has lore in this game. If you love reading and want to read pages and pages of lore, character backgrounds and potentially hundreds of books scattered across the game, then you can most definitely do so. But its not forced onto you. Most books that you find throughout the game aren't necessary to progress, and a lot of the time there will be an option to resolve problems by fighting if you prefer a little more action. Its completely up to you how you want to play.
Lastly, I want to talk about the character creation. The character creation in Divinity is phenomenal. Obviously you can change the look of your character to how you want but more importantly, there are 10 Skill categories that you can allocate points to. You can mix and match them together and pair them with *mostly* any type of weapon in the game. The combinations you can make are endless. For example:
Want to be a persuasive fire-wizard that uses daggers instead of the usual staff/wands?
Want to be a non-confrontational thief that escapes his enemies by turning the floor to ice causing them to slip?
Want to be an archer that fires love arrows to temporarily make his enemies fight for him?
Want to be a cleric wielding a giant axe who can explode corpses?
Well you can have all 4 in the same party! I could talk about this game for hours but at the time of writing this these are the aspects of the game that came to mind. Now I'll talk a little bit about some very minor cons that don't put the game in any bad light but I feel are good to know anyways.
Very Minor Cons -
Gift Bags: If you don't care about achievements then move onto the next con -- Gift bags are the developers way of giving their own made mods for divinity. They are free little game mechanics that you can choose whether to enable in your game or not. (I highly recommend that you do not enable any of these for your first playthrough as some make the game considerably harder/easier). Some of these settings are incredibly useful but the issue is since these are acted like mods, achievements are disabled if you enable them, so you will need to replay the game without them in order to gain any. I wish the devs would have actually implemented some of these into the base game rather than adding them as mod-like settings after.
Inventory: Inventory management in this game could be a liiiiiiittle better. There's nothing necessarily wrong with the inventory system, but there are definitely a few QOL changes that they could have added. One example being the ability to name bags. Throughout the game you will pick up individual bags that you can place in your inventory and put any item inside. They are incredibly useful in tidying up your inventory and reducing clutter, but these bags cannot be named. So you will end up having to repeatedly look inside each bag to find out which bags have which items. Additionally, when crafting stuff, if an ingredient is inside one of these bags, the crafted item may appear in the bag of the ingredient instead of just appearing at the bottom of your inventory for you to sort out. Again, not exactly a game-breaking problem but definitely slightly frustrating when you have lots of items in a bag and now need to find a random crafted item amongst them all.
Other than whats listed above I just wish the game never ended honestly. I want more cool spells, more races, more talents, more fights, MORE OF EVERYTHING. Truly a really incredible game, please give it a go because the developers deserve it.
Thanks for reading <3.

I'd say it was the best RPG experience I've ever had. 10/10
To remember it for the future, I'll just list some memorable things from our journey
- Friend didn't recommend undead... so I thought it'd be funny to be one and chose "undead".
- The only thing stopping me from unlocking every door in the game were puzzles.
- Eventually, I became a debuff overlord crippling any enemy I see.
- The first person we stole from was a crippled old lady struggling with several diseases.
- Black pits.... Well, everything else was a breeze is all I can say about the matter.
- FIRE! FIRE! AHHHHH IT'S EVERYWHERE!!!!
- One friend got pet pal, cause they like animals... but all the animals hated them :(
- That same friend was an elf. Things happened and they became to be hated by their entire race too.
- Bard Friend pulls out lute "LISTEN, DO YOUR HEAR ME? LISTEN, DO YOU FEEL IT? LISTEN-"
- My red lizard companion who I also got to play as eventually became a one shot, one kill boss killer.
- Made out with that same red lizard as an undead (somehow), but was later cuckolded... by his wife.
- Loading times were long, but I cannot forget the laughs we had while waiting.
It was a several month journey with my friends.
I cannot thank them enough for enriching my experience of the game.
I highly recommend this game to everyone who wants to go on a journey with friends!
Thanks for inviting me to play! It was a blast!