Well, that didn't take (too much) long(er)! I've enjoyed jamming on Divinity: Original Sin and cruised through the final act. To summarize up front: it was a lot of fun. I think D:OS2 is better, but this prequel is already a great game, and they already had really strong systems that would later be perfected in the sequel. And the unique mechanics in D:OS1, particularly the dual-protagonist design, let it breathe and be its own thing, so even playing this after D:OS2 doesn't feel like a step backwards.
As usual, let's start with a few technical and gameplay notes before venturing into plot-land!
One thing I neglected to mention in my last post was a change that had a big impact on my experience playing the game. I've whined in the past about fully-voiced isometric RPGs. The "classic" ones like Baldur's Gate were partially voiced, so if a character spoke a paragraph, you would hear the first line voiced, and the rest were merely printed in the dialogue box. This was almost certainly a financial and technical constraint: those games shipped on CDs, and the audio files were competing with space against the pre-rendered backgrounds. But I really like the effect, since the voice gives a strong impression of the character, while you can still read at your own pace. In more modern AAA games like Dragon Age Inquisition, all dialogue is fully voiced, not printed in a box, so it's more like watching a movie than reading a book. Some of the recent resurgence of isometric RPGs like Divinity and Wasteland try to combine those streams, with both full voicing for all lines and on-screen dialogue boxes, and... I kind of hate it. The voice acting itself is very high-quality, but I can read more quickly than I can listen, and I just get so impatient, so I'm either waiting for the dialogue to catch up or I'm awkwardly skipping through the audio.
ANYWAYS, I kind of resolved this in D:OS EE by opening the Controls menu and dragging the "Voice" audio slider all the way to the left. That effectively turns off the voice-over dialogue, which noticeably improved my enjoyment of the game, making it more like a low-budget-but-well-written CRPG. It isn't perfect; in particular, I would have appreciated continuing to hear combat barks and ambient dialogue while just skipping full conversational dialogue, but I'm very happy with my choice regardless.
A correction to my previous post: I had mentioned that when crafting you can only have upgrade one of each type of "slot" for a given piece of equipment. This isn't necessarily true. I think I'd gotten that impression since, if you try to add a Tormented Soul to a weapon that already had a Tormented Soul it will consume that second Soul but not upgrade the stats on the weapon again. But if, say, a piece of armor already has Water Resist on it, and then you add a Ruby, the ruby will add to the Water Resist in addition to the other elemental types, not replace/overwrite the existing Water Resist. It's probably more accurate to say that you can only add each specific upgrade once... or, rather, you only get the benefit the first time you add it. There may be some other exceptions, I haven't done extensive testing around it.
But speaking of upgrades, I will say that you're probably best off upgrading equipment whenever you have the opportunity. I'd been saving Tormented Souls for end-game gear, but I finished the game with maybe 8-10 or so spare Tormented Souls, and I'd stopped buying new ones from merchants when they randomly appeared in stock. It's a mild bummer to upgrade a piece that you know will be replaced, but on average I was probably only upgrading pieces maybe every 4 levels or so, so you will get a lot of use out of an upgrade (and you won't for surplus inventory that never gets used). The one potential exception that comes to mind are rubies: they do seem to be genuinely rare, I hoarded them all game and only had maybe 4-5 at the end, which I slapped onto my Level 19/20 equipment heading into the endgame. But most other things will show up eventually at vendors, so go ahead and use it.
As I mentioned previously, I followed a very useful GameFAQ on profitably crafting and selling to get a lot of money. It worked very well, perhaps a bit too well, and by the end of the game I probably had around 400k pieces of gold, despite buying everything I wanted, even expensive pieces that were only marginal improvements over what I already had. Looking back over the game, I think my time would have been most usefully spent crafting equipment for myself in the early levels (like making my own belts, amulets, etc. maybe around levels 2-10); then following the guide to craft for sale in the medium levels (maybe 10-17 or so) and buying all the stuff I wanted along the way. By the final act, you're finding tons of Legendary and Divine pieces that aren't useful to you and sell for a lot of money, and you have really good equipment already that doesn't necessarily need to be upgraded, so it's probably best to just focus on selling loot and ignore crafting new items. By then the shopping/crafting/selling loop was a deeply-ingrained habit that I was unable to kick, though.
I don't have hard measurements for this, but based on my impressions, this is how my time in this game was spent, ranked from most time to least time:
- Traveling back to places I had previously visited
- Futzing around in inventory menus
- Futzing around in vendor menus
- Futzing around in the crafting interface
- Exploring/looting new places
- Combat
- Dialogue/plot
- Leveling/outfitting characters
And here's how much I enjoyed these aspects of the game, ranked from most enjoyable to least enjoyable:
- Combat
- Exploring/looting new places
- Dialogue/plot
- Leveling/outfitting characters
- Futzing around in vendor menus
- Traveling back to places I had previously visited
- Futzing around in the crafting interface
- Futzing around in inventory menus
None of this was bad - I felt more resigned than exasperated about inventory management, and got into a sort of zen rhythm with the crafting and vendoring that, while not exactly fun, was at least relaxing. But still, I'm struck by how much of the game - or not even this game, more RPGs in general - is spent doing things that I personally don't find very fun. Which is probably part of why I have such a soft spot for Disco Elysium and the Harebrained Shadowrun games, as they completely eschew some of these complex systems and focus on doing a few things very well.
I avoided any walkthroughs for my playthrough, but did generally follow the build guidance of the GameFAQ, and so had a kind of min-max-y build. I tried to do all of the sidequests I could, but probably had about a dozen left in my log at the end of the game - I think maybe half of those were basically complete but not removed, while the others were things I just never figured out. I think I hit Level 21 shortly before the point of no return; from what I've seen online, you can finish the game at Level 23 for a totally completionist playthrough (which includes a lot of unnecessary slaughter).
Anyways, with my min-max-y build combat was feeling really easy in the final act of the game. The tipping point is getting access to Master-level Skills. Casting something like Meteor Storm or Hail Storm can completely obliterate a whole group of powerful enemies. You can't always do this, but if you have multiple Master-level abilities odds are you have something that can ruin your opponents, and even very powerful bosses tend to go down after a couple of these skills. Which, if you have high enough Initiative, means that boss fights end up being underwhelming.
I generally have mixed feelings about this. It does make the game feel a bit more boring; after so many well-tuned battles that require careful thinking and strategy and that feel risky and exciting, you start to feel like you have a "Click To Win" button that just deletes enemies and ends battles. But, I mostly have myself to blame for that: nobody forced me to pick a min-max-y build (or, really, four min-max-y builds for my entire party). And I'd been doing all these side quests, and spending time earning lots of money and buying the best gear. The whole point of getting XP and gold is to be better at combat, and my dreams were coming true in a spectacular way, just not a way that felt especially fun.
Without going too deep into spoilers, they do a good job at mixing this up in the finale. While some early bosses still go down easily, later boss fights have phases of invulnerability, or multiple waves of enemies, or other mechanics that force the battle to stretch out over multiple turns. I really appreciated this, in no small part because it's a good excuse to use things like Haste and summons that are kind of pointless in one-turn fights. Interestingly, there isn't much of an environmental angle to these late fights. Quite a few other RPGs lean on you figuring out some puzzle aspect to beat enemies, like destroying pillars or venting poison gas or lighting crystals or whatever; and earlier battles in D:OS often benefit heavily from making use of nearby water or poison or other surfaces. Here, the last battles have mechanics but (at least from what I saw) they're all based on the characters and not the environment, which, again, I kind of like: it doesn't feel at all gimmicky.
It did make me think back to my own Shadowrun campaigns and the occasional criticism I get about them - in particular, multiple people are annoyed at the use of multiple waves of enemies in CalFree in Chains. I think playing D:OS has made it even clearer to me why these sort of turn-based games with cooldown-based abilities almost demand the use of waves, since otherwise you'll just pop all the abilities on your first turn and end the combat before it starts.
The final fights also gave me a chance to use a couple of the hundred-plus scrolls and potions I'd hoarded over the course of the game. This is partly because of phases where all the enemies were unreachable and I still had AP to burn, but I still appreciated the opportunity. I also got to use some to clear negative status effects, although that surfaced an annoying micro-managing issue: while I split Healing Potions and Resurrection Scrolls between party members, otherwise my lead character ended up carrying all of the party's scrolls and potions, so if, say, he got petrified or stunned during a turn, none of the other characters would be able to restore him.
Not specifically talking about plot, but plot-related: I'd alluded to this before, but while there aren't many branching-plot decision points, you are constantly making choices throughout the game, which get reflected in your character's Traits. These are things like Independent vs. Obedient, Romantic vs. Pragmatic, Cautious vs. Bold, and so on. There are direct gameplay effects as a result of this, like Cautious boosting your Sneaking while Bold boosts your Initiative. Later on in the game, there are indirect influences as well: the game recognizes your characters' traits, and the solutions to certain puzzles will vary based on your prior choices. You are "playing a role", and rewarded for how consistently you follow that role and how well you recognize the role you're playing, regardless of what specific role you've chosen for yourself.
MEGA SPOILERS
I was a little surprised by just how puzzle-heavy the latter part of the game is. There are puzzles scattered throughout the whole game, but most of them are optional or have alternate solutions, while the ones in the Temple of the Dead, the Source Temple and the nightmare King Crab Inn will absolutely block your progress. I peeked at a few hints online when I was feeling stuck; I was able to get most of them figured out, but didn't have endless patience. In a few cases I felt silly - "Oh, yeah, I totally can teleport someone through that portcullis" - but in a few cases I knew there was no way I would have figured it out on my own.
I have mixed feelings on the use of Perception in this game. If your character has a high enough Perception to spot something, they'll say "I see something!" and it will be highlighted on your screen, along with a label if you hold down Alt. This could be a trap, but also could be some valuable treasure (like a diamond), or a hidden button or switch to progress in a puzzle. That thing is still visible on the screen and interactable if you don't have the Perception; I, and probably most players, won't notice it, but if you've played the game before or are following a guide you can manually sweep your mouse over it to disable the trap, pick up the golden goblet, open the exit door, or whatever. So it feels like you're playing the old game of Hunt The Pixel with low Perception, and having a streamlined experience with high Perception.
That all feels good and balanced to me for traps and treasure, but did annoy me when it comes to puzzles. By the end of the game I had gotten in the habit of manually inspecting walls and floors when I felt stuck and was unsure how to proceed. Again, if this was one of several ways to proceed (like opening a locked chest via lockpicking, bashing, or searching for the key) then it wouldn't bother me, but often times it seemed like a hard gate.
Going back to choices: I said before that there aren't many branching choices, but you do have quite a few as you approach the end of Act 3 and throughout the finale. As a side note, I'm not really counting whether to complete a quest or not as a choice, but that's another thing that can impact the progress of the game. One of the first real branches I noticed was deciding what to do with Arhu after he had been imprisoned by Cassandra. I opted to use the spell to keep him in cat form, and defeated Cassandra. I am curious what would change if you went another way; presumably he wouldn't show up at all in the finale if he was still in her cage; if you turned him human, perhaps he would appear in that form, or maybe Cassandra would join you in a revenge/redemption arc over the wrongs done to her by Braccus Rex?
Somewhat similarly, near the end of the game you choose whether to trust Icara to restore the Soul Forge between her and Leandra, or follow Zandalor's warning and keep them separate. I opted to restore the bond. I really liked how this decision played out. The reunited twin is more powerful, and she helps you out during the battles in the First Garden; but during a particularly long and challenging fight against various Death Knights, Leandra takes over for a few turns and transforms her from an ally into an enemy. I really like how this choice resulted in a gameplay impact, but not a clear "superior" solution: indeed, as Zandalor warned, it's risky to forge them together, but that risk comes with some strong advantages as well.
The meta-story as a whole turned out to be one of redemption. Your dual protagonists are basically the reincarnations of the Guardians, who millennia ago failed in their duty and allowed the Void Dragon to escape. You put that wrong back to right by defeating the tricky Trife who unleashed the chain of events (after a particularly nightmarish and suitably creepy sequence - Larian does pretty darn good horror when they put their minds to it), freeing the goddess Astarte, and working with her to defeat the Void Dragon, re-chain him and return him to the Godbox.
I was a bit surprised by just how directly the storyline ended up adhering to Judeo-Christian theology. As you learn more of the backstory, a lot revolves around a trickster convincing an innocent to release evil upon the world; that's the Adam and Eve story, but also the story of Pandora and other mythologies. But there's a lot about The First Garden, and you see that it's explicitly labeled "Eden". I'm not sure exactly what to make of that, it kind of reminds me of 90s Japanese anime and RPGs lifting names and tropes from Western religion in the same way we lift names and tropes from Norse and Greek mythology. But, again, Larian is Belgian, so I don't know exactly what to make of it.
After posting this, I'll probably poke around to see what variations are possible in the ending. I do like how all of your companions show up to briefly chat in the end, and it was nice to see everyone, even Bairdotr and Wolgraff, acknowledge having done their personal quests. At the very very end, Zixzax says that the two Redeemers parted ways and never spoke to one another again; I'm curious if that's just based on our very last dialogue (where Rion said that he wanted to relax while Noor wanted to hunt and crush evil), or if it tracked the overall divergence in their traits, or some earlier plot decision, or if that's just a fixed outcome.
END SPOILERS
I did have a blast with this game, and am really happy to have finally returned to finish it after all these years. Larian has been tight-lipped on what they've been working on since Baldur's Gate 3, but most people suspect that one of their games is Divinity: Original Sin 3, and if so, playing this makes me even more excited to see that come true. There aren't really any major plot or character continuities between DOS1 or DOS2, which tends to be my main motivation in following a sequel, but these games are so well-crafted, with such extremely entertaining combat, amazing environments, a unique sense of style and humor, that I can't wait to see what would come next in this series.
