Divinity: Original Sin – Review

Featuring fully cooperative two-player action, which is how I played it, Divinity: Original Sin allows for a full custom creation of characters, or usage of pre-created heroes. My friend an I opted to create our own new characters, which comes with skill buildout and visual styles and has a lot of options, despite not being as deep as the newer Baldur’s Gate 3. We both then paired with one of the pre-made characters, so we had two to control each.

When not in combat players move around a gigantic map, free to do whatever, go wherever and you can separate meaning exploring separate areas simultaneously via co-op is an easy feat. The issue is you may not want to get caught in a fight without your whole crew. Combat is tough always, with each battle end giving the player a well-earned sigh of relief.

Before we tackle combat, we’ll finish with exploration though, as the rewarding maps are full of secrets, new characters, hidden treasures, new spells to find, and skills to learn. Exploration is ever-rewarding, however may stack up your unfinished quest list. Dialogue options are numerous, and ways to proceed sometimes endless.

Quests are often long and arduous, sometimes multiple steps are needed or the completion is not a clear route. Sometimes how to finish them is completely unclear, or can be solved via numerous methods. Maybe instead of getting into that locked door it’s just easier to set it on fire and hit it with swords until it busts open.

The towns and their folk are fun to interact with and learn from, or help out if you are a good guy. If not, you can always bust into their locked rooms and chests and pilfer how you see fit, or instill your evil will as you roam around thrashing everything in sight.

But, if you piss of the townsfolk too much, you may wind up fighting them. Any combat is the same and turn-based, but there is a laundry list of rules. Thankfully most everything does make sense logically, and trial and error can help learn.

There are armors and magical defenses to consider, but for the most part you have your physical attacks, and your spells. The major thing that this game brings however is environmental hazards and/or combat modifiers. Surfaces that characters stand in all enhance/modify attacks or can be utilized in numerous ways. Lighting oil on fire, freezing water, turning fire to smoke, making clouds of poison gas, spreading lightning through liquids, and more can all be considered. Or maybe you just have a gigantic strong man who wants to pick shit up and throw it at enemies.

The combat possibilities are almost as endless as ways to do quests, which leads to a significant replay value for this game and its sequel, which itself shifts some of the combat rules.