Divinity Original Sin – Enhanced Edition Review

If you’ve somehow been living under a rock for the past year, Divinity Original Sin is an isometric RPG that released last year and is easily one of the best modern RPGs in years. Since we reviewed the game last year (you can read that here) I’m going to spend this review discussing what’s actually new in this updated version of the game.

Divinity Original Sin – Enhanced Edition
Developer: Larian Studios
Price: $40 [PC] / $60 [PS4/XB1]
Platform: PC, PS4, and Xbox One
MonsterVine was supplied with a PS4 code for review

So the first thing you’re likely to notice is that the game is a lot chattier than before. Every character in the game is now fully voiced which really helps immerse you into a reactive game world. A fully voiced game does have its downsides here with things getting somewhat overwhelming at times when there are various NPCs in a small area. All of them shouting over each other is somewhat annoying as you sit there trying to listen through the chaotic chatter. Thankfully this sort of thing is only prevalent in a few areas, mainly the busy areas of towns, but the issue is still there.

The most notable change in the game, besides the fully voiced cast, is the inclusion of controller/console support and for the most part the game plays pretty smoothly with a controller. Your basic actions are mapped to the face buttons with menu items like inventory, equipment, character sheet etc. are brought up in a radial menu that’s opened by holding the right trigger. Holding the left trigger will allow you to switch between characters, sort their order, or split them into groups. Pressing square/X will give you various ways to interact with objects in the environment like examining them, picking them up, or moving them. Navigating your inventory is still a pain in the ass though, but I had no delusions that a controller would fix this problem. It was a bit odd at first, going from the keyboard to a controller, but after an hour or two I got the hang of it and while I still prefer the keyboard controls, the controller is a very nice alternative. I will say though, assigning your group layouts is still kind of iffy and they either removed formations from the console version of the game or hid it somewhere I still haven’t been able to find.

Besides online multiplayer, the game now includes local split screen for those of us who prefer to yell at our friends in person than over a mic. The game cleanly splits the screen straight down the middle and the two of you can basically go off doing whatever you please. I was expecting something to be lost in the transition to split-screen co-op such as the split screens not completely filling the screen or the menus not fitting and having to constantly move it around (looking straight at your Borderlands Collection), but everything was shockingly perfect. I didn’t see any sort of performance drop when the screens are split, menus all fit cleanly in each player’s screen, and you’re even able to customize which player gets to control which companions. The only minor annoyance I had was that if you set the screens to combine together when both players are close enough to each other, the transition between split-screens to a single one looks a bit janky unlike the seamless way the Lego games do it. Besides that, playing the game in local co-op is a blast and it’s fun having another player in charge of the second protagonist since they might make some dialog choices that work against you, or take a quest that you might not have wanted completed the way they did it.

The smaller changes in the Enhanced Edition include a reworked crafting system, new quests, new areas, a new ending, and some previous quests have either been tweaked or completely rewritten. An early example of this is the Headless Nick quest line. If you played the game before you’ll recall that you’ll get this quest after traversing through the pirate cove dungeon and you then have to decide whether to force Nick to reunite with his body or not. This time around, Nick actually begs you to rescue him from being a carnival prop and take him to the pirate cove. There are other quests that just have slightly new dialog, but a good amount have been totally reworked which makes replaying the game a little more interesting. Divinity Original Sin was already a massive game where you could easily spend 40 hours in the first of four major areas, so new quests and areas makes an already massive game gargantuan. A new inquisitor class has also been added to the game along with new skills, a dual wielding specialization, and one-handed wands. Classes obviously don’t matter too much in this game though since you can start out as a wizard and then build yourself into a rogue archetype, but being able to dual wield weapons and the new skills are a very nice addition. Also included are two new difficulty settings: the tactician mode with completely reworked AI and honor mode which erases your save the moment you die.

The Final Word
It’s hard to believe that Larian was able to make Original Sin better than it already was but they did. This package is a must-buy for any console player looking for an RPG to sink dozens of hours into, and there are enough changes to warrant PC players jumping back in.

– MonsterVine Rating: 5 out of 5 – Excellent