Divinity Original Sin 2! What a gem that is!

Hello folks! I know I don't do these usually but I've been away from work and stuck at home looking at bearish markets for a week. I needed a bit of distraction while waiting for the consensus to come tomorrow.. Figured playing some games would do the trick and since my friends were obsessing over this game for quite a long while, decided to give it a go. As a huge fan of this type of old school rpg's I really liked the first Divinity Original Sin. My all time favourite game is probably Planescape Torment and Divinity and Pillars of Eternity did bring that genre back to life a few years back. As for the second game of Divinity Original Sin, I'm quite early in (10-15 hours in) and I can say I am very very impressed!

  

So what do you do in this game? 

Divinity Original Sin is an RPG game with turn based combat. Games similar to it are Baldur's gate, Neverwinter Nights, Pillars of eternity etc. If you are a fan of the old rpg genre this is definitely a game to try out! You create a character and play along creating his own story, having huge variety of choices towards any action you make. Will you be a hero, a villain or someone who just doesn't care? The choice is all yours and it will lead to many different encounters and possibilities. 

There is a lot of text but this is the first game of this type that has every single line voice-overed. This is huge because it makes it so much more engaging and the voice acting is on a great level! You can hear so many different voices and accents. 

As any other good old rpg you mould your character not only by your decisions but by choosing what he would be - fighter, a wizard or maybe a thief. You'll find companions to join you in whatever path you take.  The combats in the game can be quite challenging, specially for someone quite new to these types of games so it is very important what stats you pick at the start and as you progress through the game. 

  

Character creation 

You have the option to chose a race and class for your character or pick an origin character that already has a background story and quest line in the game. These origin characters can be found and recruited as party members if not picked. 

Races you can chose from:

• Human - As in any fantasy game of course we'll have the humans. There are two origin characters of this race. Ifan - once a Crusader, now a Lone Wolf working as mercenary and Lohse a performer and musician - a troubled girl who's body serves as a host of spirits and demons that are constantly trying to get control of her mind. 
• Elves - This is another obvious one. The elves here are as mystic as in most fantasy games, wise and mistreated by humans. There is one origin character here called Sebille - once a slave girl, now sworn to get revenge on her old master that left a nasty mark on her face. 
• Lizards - This one I quite like and it reminds me of Warhammer Fantasy. You clash with one straight away as the first character you meet and are able to persuade to join you (if you haven't picked him yourself that is) is the Red Prince. The Red Prince is a proud lizard that once ruled an empire but due to current circumstances ends up in the same boat as you (literally). 
• Dwarfs - Dwarfs are always a part of a fantasy world amongst elves, humans and quite often orcs. This is no different and we have a very interesting character representing them - Beast. Beast is a royal bastard (literal bastard.. and the other kind.. as he says himself) that started a revolution against the queen. Since then he was living as a pirate and through different circumstances ended up on the same ship as you. 
• Undead - Fane is one of the first characters I've encountered, even though he's quite hidden and very easy to miss. The moment I started the dialog I knew I wanted him as a part of my party no matter what! His dialogs are funny as hell and the game mechanics for undead are very different and interesting at the same time. For example they get damaged by healing spells or consumables and heal up from poison. Fane is on a mission to 'rip a face' in order to create a mask so people can stop jumping around and hide their kids when they see his bony face. That's where you meet him.. on top of someone who already died.. wondering how to take his face. 

Classes aren't that important since you can spec your characters however you want to. The starting classes are just giving you a base and from there on you can do whatever you like. You can chose the classes for each and every member you want to add to the party which is pretty cool too - not worrying about skipping an important role in the party composition in order to keep up with the role play.

You can pick between : Battlemage, Fighter, Knight, Inquisitor, Cleric, Conjurer, Enchanter, Metamorph, Ranger, Rogue, Shadowblade, Wayfarer, Witch and Wizard. 

  

The Story

You don't have to finish the first game in order to understand what is going on in the second one. There are some references pointing to old events but you can easily get to know what has happened with a bit more digging and questioning. As for the current story you find yourself on a ship where the Magisters (let's say they are the bad guys even though you never know with these games) have captured some source users (or sorcerers) and are leading them to a special prison. You wake up with a collar around your neck that prevents you from using your source powers. As soon as you leave the room where you wake up you find there was a murder on the ship and one of the inmates has been killed. 

After walking around and meeting most of the Origin characters that you will be able to recruit later on - you go to the room where you need to get some papers signed. There you find an old woman confessing to the murder you've encountered on the way here and before you can do anything she casts a spell killing all of the Magisters and setting the ship on fire. She afterwards disappears. As you wake up you are the only one conscious on the ship. You can't seem to wake up anyone and after you out - you encounter the Voidwoken.

The Voidwoken are creatures of chaos that spawn after people use source powers, or that is what is believed. You fight with the small monsters but there is a massive Kraken-like creature that is destroying the ship. As you find a boat, there is a kid and a dwarf waiting on it and the kid asks you to go back and save the others before you leave. You have your first decision to make here, that you can leave without them or go back to try and save them. 

Once you get back to the boat the Kraken destroys the ship and you sink deep into the water.

You wake up on the shore of the prison where you were meant to arrive anyways. From here your journey begins as you try to find a way to escape. 

  

Impressions so far 

I really like the game and even though I'm so far away from completing it, I already know I'd probably start it over again afterwards simply because I've missed a lot of things or wanna try different characters and party compositions. Voice acting makes it so much better - not that I didn't like reading and imagining the characters speak, but with that it is a lot harder to get distracted or miss out on information. Fighting system isn't too different from the previous game but it has quite a few tweaks to it and is quite challenging. Story so far is very engaging and the companions stories are pretty interesting too. I'd recommend it to anyone to try even though I've only just started playing a day ago.