Divinity: Original Sin II

Teleporting 30 corpses into the boss room, then casting "mass corpse explosion" to instantly kill the boss is a perfectly valid way to play the game.

i know Fort Joy better than my own Flat.

I thought I would put down some of my thoughts on the game after over 150 hours of playtime.
DOS 2 is a single-player and cooperative multiplayer fantasy role-playing video game by Larian Studios.
Starting off, you immediately realize that it's taking a lot of cues from very old-school RPGs. You pick one of several classes for your character (Battlemage, Cleric, Enchanter, Fighter, Knight, Ranger, Rogue, Shadowblade, Wayfarer, Witch and Wizard), pick a few skills to go with it, and customize the look of them. You're then thrown into the world, trodding along a beach where you find many interesting things about the game.

This game require a lot of patience in Tactician mode or Honor mode.
I've restarted the game over 5 times to adjust and try out classes/stats/skills. Burnt over 20 hours there, until I made my mind and went for my final settings.
Playing the game initially feels similar to a bit of a slower-paced Diablo. You're running around and have to select items on the floor to pick them up. And there's lots of them. I started thinking to myself early on, "Why am I picking up these shells?" and couldn't really explain why, aside from that's just what I do in games with loot. Soon after, you come across your first fight, and this is where it differs greatly from most other RPGs out there.
The combat system is turn based, with each member of the fight, on both sides, having their turns in a set order (the order can be affected by turn-skipping status effects, such as being frozen or stunned). Each character, whether yours or AI-controlled, has a set number of action points they can use for their turn. You can move to a better position, whack a nearby enemy, cast a spell, etc. These all take up your action points, but you are able to end your turn early and save those action points for the character's next turn.
Positioning and strategy are vital for winning any fight in the game, and it's a tough one. It feels incredibly old-school in it's level of difficulty and really rewards players who go around gaining XP through exploration and side-quests, as well as those who are extremely skilled in thinking out how exactly to approach a fight.
There are many factors that can alter what happens when fighting does begin. Rain makes your characters wet, so you conduct electricity a bit better. There could be poison on the ground that could effect where you need to run. All of these can be affect by the player as well. Wanting the enemy to stay at a range? Throw down an ice spell so they have a chance to slip and fall on their backs if they try to move closer to you. Enemies are coming into melee range? Perhaps throw a firebomb in their path to start them burning and cause damage to them before they even get close. It's a fascinating system that I've never seen before in the game, and it makes every encounter so deep that you find yourself scanning the environment, your inventory, your spells and your party set up just to see what is possible for that fight.
In terms of quests in the game, there's little to no hand-holding or help. Your quest log is literally a journal, describing your heroes' journey so far in their own minds, essentially. It makes you explore and think, rather than blindly follow a marker to find your next objective. This resulted in me getting lost repeatedly, for a great deal of time, in the very first city of the game. The number of side quests I picked up was staggering, and the lack of direction just made me try to think outside of the box to try and find any way to progress with my murder investigation. There are even some incredibly fun encounters you can run across in your time with the game, which has a wonderful sense of humour about it.
Personally, i have found Tactician mode fun and challenging.
This game remains one of the most interesting RPGs I've played in a long time. It's well crafted, has a ton of content, and is a blast on your own or with a friend. I highly recommend this game!
#cioflix | iPLAY4FUN | myArtwork

This may just be the best game I have ever played. I hadn't played the first Divinity Original Sin game, but I purchased this because I enjoy rpgs, turn based games, and games that can be played local coop, but never did I expect what came next - my girlfriend liked it too. We played this game every day for weeks and weeks, loving the exploration, expansive story, and difficult but rewarding combat. Finally we beat the game, after maybe 200hrs, in what was a campaign where we thoroughly explored every corner of the game. So then we bought Divinity Original Sin 1, beat that, then started a lone wolf campaign on 2, beat that, and still we were finding stuff we missed through the first playthrough. I seriously cannot recommend this game enough. Also, the aforementioned girlfriend is now my wife, and I am not saying that is because of Divinity, but it certainly didn't hurt.

Short Review
Read this if you just want to hear what I think about the game.
I would recommend Divinity: Original Sin 2 to anyone who enjoys a good RPG. Its storytelling is fun and engaging, while the deep tactical gameplay is unlike anything I've seen before. The soundtrack and voice acting immerses you into this fantastic world Larian Studios have managed to create.
Pros and Cons
+ Unique take on turn-based combat that is both fun and challenging
+ Engaging main story that doesn't always take itself too seriously
+ Overall great voice acting combined with a stellar soundtrack
- The lack of guidance can sometimes be too much
RATING: Exceptional
Click here to see my rating chart
Full Review
Read this if you want all the details.
After being stripped of a powerful magical power known as Source, you're sent to prison by ship along with many other sourcerers from around the world. But not everything goes as planned, because not far from your destination, the ship is attacked by a group of mysterious creatures. The ship sinks, but right as you're about to meet your demise from drowning, a voice calls to you. This is the beginning of your journey to becoming Divine, an adventure littered with friendship, challenges to overcome, and lots of humor.
So where do I even start with this game? It's a great game, that much I can say already. The story might not be the most complex and mind-bending one to be told in a video game, but sometimes stories don't need to be littered with twists and turns waiting around the corner. It doesn't take itself too seriously either, but this approach to the storytelling actually works, and it doesn't interfere in the game's serious moments. I really enjoyed the story the game tried to tell, especially the moments spent with my fellow companions, who all had their own story and goals running beside the main story arc. My party consisted of The Red Prince, a lizard who was caught red-handed with a bunch of demons, Lohse, a bard consumed by a demon and Sebille, an elven assassin and a former slave. I was Fane, an undead, and one of the last of his kind. There's a reason I'm not going deep into each character because I honestly believe their stories are so well-told and certainly are something to experience for yourself. After spending so much time with my companions, it was sad to have to say goodbye to them at the end of the game. That's a good thing because it meant that the writers accomplished what they probably intended. But this is an RPG, so how well does the game incorporate choices? Pretty well actually. The choices you make often influence the characters in your current location, and sometimes even the whole location itself. I would say that the main direction of the story is mostly linear, but where you get to choose is how you accomplish the tasks at hand.
Now on to arguably the past part of D:OS2, as I will be referring the game as from this point onward: the gameplay. The game features turn-based combat, but its take on this is what differs it from most CRPGs. The game's combat scenarios revolve around the environment they take place in, rather than only the characters. The game's many magic elements leave behind a surface corresponding to the skill you used, affecting anyone standing in that particular field. Oil can slow down enemies, while ice can make them slip. But if you desire even more devastating effects, then you'll also be able to combine these elemental effects together. By cursing a field of blood, you'll apply a decaying effect to anyone unlucky enough to be standing in that area, causing them to take damage when healed. These environmental effects make for a much more believable and deep combat experience, making the game seem far more advanced than most turn-based games. Each character also has an amount of physical and magic armor. If you haven't guessed already, physical armor protects against physical attacks, while magic armor protects against various types of magic. Once you manage to deplete either, the combat begins to open up for the possibility of applying effects to your enemies. This could be everything from making them terrified to knocking them down. As you can probably hear, D:OS2 is really advanced when it comes to combat, and you'll need to make usage of all the tools the game gives you because the game is very challenging.
Just like any other standard RPG, D:OS2's stories are told through various quests which the player can complete. There's a lot of them in this game, and none of them involves boring chores, such as fetch quests. While the quest design itself is great, I did have some problems with how they are communicated to the player. The game doesn't feature any quest markers for locations you don't know of, which is of course a good thing, however, the game gets a little too greedy with information at times. A lot of quests task you with reaching a certain location or character, but never gives you any clue to where these might be. This means that I often had to use various guides online because I simply wasn't able to find whatever it was I needed to continue the quest. This became irritating as I really wanted to solve the quests on my own, but without any clues, it is very hard. I also found it a bit weird that I would sometimes have multiple quests with the exact same objective.
Next up is presentation, and by that I mean graphics, visual style, and audio. Let's start with the graphics. They certainly aren't the most stunning, most impressive on the market, but I didn't expect that because I already knew that this isn't a AAA title. There is a lot of detail put into the world, which really helps you immerse yourself in the many locations.
The visual style of the game is a mixture of photo-realistic and cartoony. Some of the character designs were really visually unique, which helps the game set itself apart from other fantasy titles. But what about the audio? The audio effects are just what you would expect, but the voice acting really exceeded my expectations. Especially the cast for the main characters did a fantastic job in their role, which might even be part of the reason why I enjoyed spending my time with them so much. RPGs can sometimes have really bad voice acting, but this isn't the case here. The best part about the audio though is easily the soundtrack composed by Borislav Slavov. The music fits perfectly with the style of the game and gave me the vibe of going on a grand adventure.
If you liked this review, I would appreciate it if you took the time to check out some of my other reviews here. Also, feel free to leave a comment on this review if you want to discuss it or feel like I overlooked something.

slept with a lizard

This is not my usual kind of game (I hate strategy and I hate turn based combat), and that's the reason I didn't buy it until now - I saw the reviews, I saw the praise, but I was scared I wouldn't like it. A few days ago I bought it in the sale to finally give it a go. It started off a bit rocky - the first few hours had a very steep learning curve and I remember ranting to my boyfriend 3 hours in that I should've stopped before hitting 2h because now I can't refund it anymore. I pushed through though, starting over one more time with better understanding of skills/party composition and not much later I got to level 3 (opening up a few more options), got some gear, and I was super hooked straight away. 3 days later and I'm 22 hours in.
So, if you're like me, and you're not sure: Get it, give it a few hours to sink in, don't stress it but really give it a chance, push through just a little longer if it doesn't hook you straight away. It's amazing!