Divinity: Original Sin
Developer: Larian Studios
Price: $40
Platform: PC
A Steam copy of Divinity: Original Sin was supplied to us
Larian Studios of Divinity fame dropped the super cool Divinity: Dragon Commander last year (read our review of that here if you missed it) and this year they’re going back to basics with a more traditional RPG in Divinity: Original Sin.
It wouldn’t be a proper RPG without some sort of ancient evil awakening to ruin everyone’s day. You start the game with your two source hunters who are there to rid the world of anything wicked when a (really fun) murder investigation eventually leads to the discovery of a bigger threat. In other words, it’s a traditional RPG story but the writing is incredibly sharp which more than makes up for the somewhat samey premise.
I’m a huge sucker for neat unnecessary details put into games that don’t need to be there; this game is full of fun little things in the environment and I love it. It’s the little things like figuring out you can use one character to speak to an NPC to turn their vision cone away from a certain direction then switch to your other character and freely steal everything that really hooked me into the game. Or realizing you can place lit candles into your inventory and use them to light oil on fire during battles for a lot less AP than a fireball spell would cost you. If a chest is out of reach you can even teleport it to you with the teleport skill. There’s a lot of really neat interactions you can perform with the environment and it’s super satisfying whenever you learn something new.
There’s also a lot to do in the game’s open world and while it’s not the biggest playing space ever, it hits that sweet spot of never feeling unnecessarily large or too small. I probably spent around 8-10 hours in the city alone doing every quest I could that didn’t require me to leave the safety of the city and slowly becoming the #1 art thief in Cyseal. There’s simply a lot of meat to chew through here and most of the quests are interesting thanks to the humorous writing. I really enjoyed how open the mission structure was too since you’ll sometimes come across the solution for one quest in another and some quests can be solved in a variety of ways that sometimes isn’t obvious at first. The lack of a waypoint was also a refreshing change of pace from other modern RPG games. If a character tells you to clear out the haunted lighthouse to the west your only clue is that there’s a lighthouse full of spooky things and it’s somewhere to the west. Actually having to explore the environment makes things a lot more rewarding when you finally find that one clue to a puzzle or just happen to come across a quest you had on your way to another without realizing it. It sort of helps give you that believable feeling of being on a proper adventure instead of just working your way from waypoint to waypoint like most modern RPGs.
Original Sin is an isometric turn based RPG and it proudly struts its way past its peers in the genre. When you enter combat each character will have a certain amount of action points (AP) to use per turn. All of your actions use up your points and there’s a strategic element of deciding whether to use most of your points or ending your turn early so that your points rollover to the next turn. Doing so will allow you to perform more actions in a single turn or perhaps give you enough points for a really powerful spell you really want to unleash. Despite being turn based fights play pretty fast and things can go bad real quick if you’re not careful. The game likes to repeatedly throw you into challenging battles that are actually properly difficult instead of unfairly difficult. Now you shouldn’t get cocky just because you can mess with the environment since your enemies can do anything you can, and they most definitely will; you’ll see enemies save up their AP to combo a rain spell with a lightning bolt to stun your characters and more. The way you approach a battle can change a lot depending on the weather or elements in the area; teleporting a barrel of poisonous gas in the middle of a group of enemies and then igniting it can tip a battle heavily in your favor and knowing the AI can pull the same trick helps keep you on your toes.
Now this wouldn’t be a proper RPG without some stat management and this game is full of that stuff. The game starts you out with close to a dozen classes to chose from but those just determine your starting skills and stats. If you want you can customize every inch of your character class and redistribute the points and skills however you want. For example I selected a witch for one of my characters, hopped into the class customization screen, and redesigned it into an elemental mage instead. I’m a huge supporter of RPGs that let you create your own classes and I really wish more games in the genre would give players this option.
I mentioned earlier how this game refuses to hold your hand through anything and I want to repeat how refreshing it is to play a game that doesn’t try to insult my intelligence. The brief tutorial walks you through various game mechanics but it’s up to your to tinker with the game world to see where you can apply the stuff you learned. The game’s not going to tell you that you can summon a rainstorm to put out a fire or that pools of blood can be electrified similarly to water; this kind of stuff you just have to discover yourself through experimentation and curiosity. For once in an RPG I actually had to read what NPCs said because sometimes they’ll mention something in passing that could be relevant for a quest you’re on or the dungeon you’re in. If you give a character the pet pal trait you’ll even be able to speak with animals to gain further insight on quests or even receive quests like playing matchmaker between two cats. This is the kind of game where everything you do feels rewarding and well earned.
An interesting mechanic in the game is the ability to develop the personality of your two main characters. Throughout the game you’ll be able to select various dialog options for them that will determine a variety of personality types like pragmatic or egotistical. Not only will these give nifty stat bonuses, but could potentially lead to bickering between your two characters if they have clashing personalities. This really starts to take center stage in the two player co-op with each player controlling their own character and that character’s decisions. Thinking you and your friend share the same opinion on a situation could lead to bickering and potentially a fight with an NPC if one player went for the more hostile option.
Now as amazing as this game is it isn’t without its issues. Larian Studios’ love of older RPGs is clear, but did they have to copy the clunky inventory menus of those games as well? Moving stuff in your inventory is slow and makes organizing things a complete chore. There are backpacks and containers you can place in your inventory to put things in (like having a backpack just for ingredients) which helps clean up your main inventory a bit, but then you have to deal with the super limited options of the backpack inventory since it has no sorting options.
I’m also not a big fan of the rock, paper, scissors mini-game either. It’s a fun way of making the intimidate/charm moments a little more engaging and with certain characters you can easily guess their pattern, but sometimes you get these really random choices by the AI which could end up making you lose the game even if you have the advantage in stats. When it works it feels like a nifty gimmick but when it doesn’t it feels like some straight up bullshit.
The Final Word
Despite some minor gripes, Divinity: Original Sin is easily one of the best RPGs in years and every hour I spend with it has it slowly climbing its way into my list of all time favorite RPGs.
– MonsterVine Rating: 5 out of 5 – Excellent
