Divinity: Original Sin II

After completing Baldur's Gate 3, I decided to check out other games from Larian Studios and the choice fell on Divinity: Original Sin 2. I didn't play any other parts of the Divinity series, including the first DOS, but my brain decided that since I could play BG3 without knowing anything about lore of DnD or the previous Baldur's Gate games, I could handle DOS2.
Imagine my surprise when, after just the first playthrough, I had an interesting epiphany – turns out, DOS2 is better than BG3. Don't get me wrong, I like BG3, I have 350+ hours in it, but there is something in DOS2 that Baldur's Gate doesn't have, but I can't specify what exactly…
I really liked the turn-based action game, it's still great. I really liked the division into physical and magical armor – this maneuver from the developers encourages the creativity of the players, because they will have to think not only about how many action points they have, but also be able to properly manage the situation and environment, weapons and spells. Speaking of spells, when playing BG3, I thought that all the spells were taken from dnd, however, that there is an intersection of spells in DOS2, including one of my favorites in both games – Chain Lightning. Now I have to sit and think about whether it appeared first in Divinity because of dnd or in BG3 because of Divinity. -_-
I liked the lore of the Divinity world and, accordingly, the plot of this game. For someone who has about zero knowledge about the other games from this series, I basically had no questions about the course of the plot, everything was presented as clearly and reasonably as possible. I especially liked the moments that I've never seen in other RPGs, like eating body parts by elves to get memories of the deceased, or using a Face Ripper to take off someone's face and wear it afterwards, as an absolutely adequate undead person that you are. The companions are just as great, at first there was a fear that they would not be as interesting as your comrades in BG3, but they did not let you down at all, each of them turned out to be an interesting character whose quests you really wanted to complete. It's even a shame that you can't make them all join you for the duration of your journey and you have to choose between them when to leave.
The game highly encourages the player's creativity and desire to explore the world, to look into its smallest corner. Sometimes, even now, after a few playthroughs, it seems to me that I haven't really seen even half of the game's content, and I can always discover something new for myself in a new playthrough. After all, no matter how many times you play, you still won't be able to talk to every npc, including animals and the dead. What can we say about all the possible secrets hidden here and there on the map?
The magic of games like this is that they allow the players to choose for themselves how they want to play it, who they wants to be in it, and Divinity Original Sin 2 does a great job of this, giving the players complete freedom of action, which makes each passage truly unique.
Definitely one of my favorite games I've ever played, easily top 10.
10 out of 10, I pray to Larian on my hands and knees to make DOS3, I really need it.

A word of advice about difficulty level: This game is a lot harder than BG3. Do not do Tactician unless you are the type of person who likes to pick up everything, obsessively upgrade your gear, optimize TF out of your builds, ruthlessly farm XP, and carefully position your units for every fight. And even then, don't do it unless you, like me, enjoy pain and suffering.
I think where people are most likely to have a bad time with this game is if they are too proud to play on Classic or even Story mode. Classic mode gives you a lot more leeway to not have to think about the most granular optimization aspects while still being PLENTY challenging. I'd say my experience playing this game on Classic is about comparable to what my experience playing BG3 on Tactician was, or maybe *slightly* easier.
So yeah, the biggest downside of this game in my view is that you really have to hunt down XP, and it's not intuitive about how to do that. Sometimes elaborate quests will only give you a fraction of the XP that other ones will. Other side quests won't give XP at all. Still others will wildly vary in reward based on how you complete them, and there's no consistent set of rules about how that works -- sometimes you must kill everyone, other times it's better to spare, sometimes you must be good or be evil and very often a lot of the XP hides behind extremely optional aspects of the mission. The game RARELY follows the principle that quest completion should be the lion's share of XP, which I think is it's biggest miss. It's hecking difficult to stay leveled in this game unless you look up online how to do it, which is the main reason I recommend Classic for most players. On Classic you can actually pretty easily punch a level above your weight if you're fairly cunning and good about hoarding gear + minmaxing. On Tactician it's WAY harder to do that.
That gripe aside I now want to ramble that I love this game. Every square inch of scenery is beautiful. I'm not just talking "good graphics" (though yes the graphics are great); this game bothers to add a ton of atmospheric detail that just delights the eye at every turn. Whether you're on a beach stumbling across talking frogs or in some rich lunatic's basement admiring every individual stone and torch between his mountain of excess riches, the whole thing is just packed so tightly that every single location feels unique even to a jaded cynical eye.
And now a word on NPCs -- DOS2 has a lot of them, and not since Fallout: New Vegas have I felt such a sense that not a single one is wasted space. The majority have unique dialogue; even those that don't contribute to atmosphere, commenting on current events or the smell in the air in a way that really makes every setting feel ALIVE. DOS2 follows a simple principle I've always believed in: the more you engage with every tiny detail, the more immersed it makes you feel. In other games looking around like that might collapse the illusion, but here it always enhances it.
DOS2's combat is a fun DND-like romp that mostly centers on crowd-controlling by using your minmaxxed party cleverly. Another word of advice: you will have one stat that you want to increase way above all your others, and that will be whatever stat you do damage with (STR, INT, or FIN). You will then probably want to dump the other 2, slightly boost Memory, and possibly dump or boost Wits depending on your overall build. Constitution is only worth an investment if you need it for shields.
That said, I do think my gripe is that the most effective way to do combat in this game is to do it in a predictable and boring way where you use the same tactics repeatedly to maximize damage. In that sense, it feels behind not just BG3 but also DOS1, both of which are a bit more focused on rewarding creativity IMHO. I want to emphasize that I'm nitpicking and still consider it one of the most fun combats in any game I've ever played.
And of course I can't ignore the companions. Full disclosure, I've not played with Beast/Ifan and I've also not finished the story of Red Prince, but I can say that all of what I've seen has been wonderfully engrossing. Sebille in particular is possibly my favorite-written character in an RPG party. If you liked Astarion or really any of the BG3 companions, you'll LOVE Sebille as she is the OG "breaking free of an old abuser" backstory executed to perfection. Honorable mention to Fane, whose academic snark is I think done 10 times better than Gale's -- and I don't say that as an insult to Gale, who I quite enjoyed.
Overall I do not quite enjoy this game as much as BG3 if I'm being perfectly honest, but that's like complaining your NY Strip is not a Filet Mignon. Face it, you can't eat a Filet every day, and if you're going to change it up why not try something else that's also really good?

One of, if not the, best game I've ever played. I'm 14 years old and i play this with my dad since he used to be a big fan of DnD when he was a kid so when we discovered this game we were immediately hooked. On PS i have over 300hs in this game and i could repeat that thrice over. It has infinite replay ability and I'm still figuring out stuff even now. Also this game has really helped me and my dad spend bonding time together. I heavily recommend this game to anyone, before i used to only play fps games or fortnite but even still this game has been an immensely entertaining game. To anyone reading this, thank you for reading my review and if you buy this game i hope it can bring you as much joy as it brought me.

New Larian player here, with some advise to other new players related to this game:

I have had 2 playthroughs.. One was unsuccessful and I lost interest / got burned out. I am on my second playthrough a couple years later with a different mindset and it's already been going great. I've even went ahead and bought the first Original Sin (enhanced) to play after this one. So here are my most important tips.

1) This is a Roleplaying game. So it requires a roleplaying mindset, otherwise you risk falling into a trap where you treat the game like a checklist.. Do not treat the game like a checklist, there are too many things, you will get burned out. What you do is you choose a character or create a character and try to decide that characters personality and motivations. All in your mind. When it comes to playing the game, play through the eyes of your character. What would this specific character do to achieve their primary objective? Would they rise up and fight everyone? Would they sneak around and avoid combat? Who would they likely party with or help, who would they avoid? The more focus you put on your character, the less weight there will be on your shoulders because you won't need to follow every single lead and do everything possible. By not doing everything under one playthrough, you A) Won't get burnt out easily, and B) You open yourself up to more playthroughs in the future where you can do different things, different choices, take different paths, explore different areas, etc..
Example: Your first starting area is Fort Joy. Your only real priority is escaping that island. First the fort itself and then the island. You are going in blind, you don't know how many different ways there are out of that place. But it's your top priority. So you pull some threads, talk to some NPCs.. and the moment you sniff out a way out of the fort, you take it. You don't stick around to find every possible way.. If you find a way, you take it. Your character doesn't know everything. They only know what they've experienced thus far. Trust me, always try to move the story forward. If you play through your character, I think you'll be surprised how many things fall into place.

2) I highly suggest playing with the Lonewolf talent. You get a few talent points at various levels plus the starting talents. Lonewolf allows you to play with one or maximum 2 characters, with a benefit of gaining extra points while leveling as well as extra action points during combat. The benefit to playing Lonewolf is that you don't have to juggle a bunch of companion characters, leveling them up, outfitting them, etc.. Maybe you'd like doing that, but at least Lonewolf lets you have one companion so you can sort of dip your toe into it rather than having 3 other companions to worry about. I also like playing a ranged character and if you have other companions you can often accidentally hit them with your AoE damage. For example, if the ground is wet and shoot lightning at the enemy, the lightning will travel along the water of the ground and hit other characters touching that water. So I find that being alone helps me not have to deal with that. It simplifies the game and buffs your character, knowing you won't need a full party of characters. Definitely a good choice for a first time playthrough but I could see myself defaulting to that talent for every playthrough, personally.

3) Play on Story mode. You can always increase the difficulty to Explorer and Classic at any point... but start off with Story.. don't be afraid to stick to that. I've heard from Baldur's Gate 3 players, coming to this game, that BG3's harder difficulties are bascially this game's Classic. So you'd be mistaken thinking that Classic = Normal. It's harder than you'd think. But also the combat works off an action point economy, so it'd different than BG3 in that regard too. If you aren't used to it, the combat might end up getting in the way of you enjoying this game. So simply making it as easy as possible, especially for your first playthrough, might help you get into the game far easier with little resistance.

Those are my 3 biggest tips. If you treat the game and play it like a story through the eyes of your character, the game will feel much easier to grasp and it won't feel as overwhelming. I think you'll have so much more fun. You don't HAVE to follow my 2nd and 3rd pieces of advise.. but absolutely try your hardest to follow my 1st piece of advise. Your mentality going into the game will make all the difference, trust me.

I know that Baldur's gate 3 is an overall better game because of numerous QoL features,
But DOS2 feels more satisfying in terms of mechanics and story.
Both games are way above the standard rpgs we have been getting.

I love it that the traders and merchants in this game want to buy my rotten eggs, severed heads, bloodied arms and legs, dismembered torsos, rotten chunks of flesh, and panties.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is more than a game that scratches your Baldur's Gate itch.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a game many will turn to in lieu of more recent Larian projects. While I understand why, I also feel like this game is much more than just something that can fill the hole in your heart that you will feel after finishing Baldur's Gate. A solid story is mixed with fun gameplay and really charming settings. This game has a sense of humor about itself that is also very appreciable, as it adds to the distinct charisma of it. There were parts that I didn't like as much however, those things being how I felt unguided at many times during the adventure. On one hand, I appreciate that the game doesn't hold your hand as much although on the other I did find myself lost and directionless at different points.

The cast of characters that accompany you on your adventure are interesting and have their own unique stories that are fun to explore. The multiplayer aspects, while I didn't explore them for much time, were very fun. It would definitely be fun to play with a group of friends. All in all, a fun game that deserves its own reputation rather than falling into the shadow of Larian's newest and most successful title.