Divinity: Original Sin II

For those coming from BG3 here are some important tips to make your first DOS2 experience a lot easier and less frustrating:
Choosing an origins character will give you a more involved story with more dialogue options and interactions with companions. Overall it can provide a better narrative if you're interested. If you choose Fane just keep in mind his little quirks, like needing to keep his face covered at all times (he starts with a hood in his inventory)
Don't be afraid of building your character incorrectly as you'll have opportunities to re-spec down the line, in the form of glowing green mirrors.
Pick up a bedroll ASAP, as you can right click and 'use' it to fully heal your team between battles.
Pick up a cooking pot and mortar + pestle immediately as well as they're required for crafting
Read books! Certain titles will give you skill upgrades or crafting recipes, and some offer unique quests. (Also make sure Sebille eats body parts for the same reason! ... don't ask)
Pick up a magnifying glass so you can identify items without begging for a vendor to do it.
Physical Armor prevents physical effects, magical armor prevents magic effects. Melee enemies often carry more physical, mages carry more magical. Use this to your advantage.
Levels matter. If you're getting annihilated by a fight, take a look at the enemy level and you may realize you're in over your head. Same goes for items! As you progress in the game even common weapons will start to outclass your early uniques - upgrade your loadout often!
You will get a quest that gives you gloves of teleportation very early on. ABUSE IT. Big guy too close? teleport him away, in a fire. Archers annoying you? teleport them in front of your fighter.
Finally, I think Sword and Shield fighters do the lowest damage in this game and using multiple hand-to-hand characters isn't very viable. (Keep in mind you can't shove people off ledges in this game!). I would recommend the typical melee, ranged, caster, and rogue for your first playthrough.
DOS2 is old school turn based CRPG goodness but its difficulty can be a turn-off for some. Don't be afraid of choosing story mode if you need to.

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.

It only took me 50 hours, but I'm finally out of act one. What a game!

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.

It would be redundant to be the millionth person to discuss the merits of this game so I'm going to share a short story instead, how the AI pulled a play so insane that me and my friends are still bringing it up whenever we discuss strategies in turn based games. During a late game fight an enemy casted Shackles of Pain on our ranger, the squishiest member of our party. The spell makes it so that every point of damage taken is reflected onto the target, discouraging targeting that specific person until the spell expires to avoid causing damage to another party member. After taking a couple hits our poor ranger was very low on health and I gave the suggestion to just try to run away from the fight and hopefully get far enough to disengage from it. Two enemies, a fighter and the caster started to give chase, but due to their lack of mobility skills they couldn't make it to him. Noticing the distance and the fact that shackles of pain would expire the following turn the AI did the unthinkable: the fighter hits (and crits) the shackles of pain caster, reflecting the damage on our ranger and killing him. The only think that stopped us from screaming in amazement was the fact that we were playing very late at night.
On that interaction alone I give this game my highest recommendation.

I dislike turn-based games. Getting 100+ hrs on this game shows how good divinity is.

Never sell the teleport gloves.