Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition

Game Info

Top down dungeon crawlers have flooded the gaming world for quite sometime, but Larian Studios have managed to stand out among the titans like Diablo with their release of Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition.  This special brand of an RPG has a very classic D&D style to it with a new school look and feel.  Now this is the Enhanced Edition, which is an upgrade from last year’s release of Divinity: Original Sin that was a PC exclusive.

The game will start out as a typical RPG game does with you creating a character, but this time you must create two since you have a partner during the game.  The character creation isn’t as robust as most games out there and that’s ok because you get just enough options to make it seem worth the time making your characters.  The class system is actually quite extensive with multiple to choose from, for example being a Witch, Wizard, Rogue, Knight and so forth.  Each class will have set starting skills that can be changed later on once you have leveled up enough to unlock new and advanced skills.

Divinity: Original Sin has by far some of the most in depth gameplay I have experienced in a top down style RPG.  I keep trying to compare it to Diablo or Baulder’s Gate, but this is a game that has made up a new league of dungeon crawling RPG tactics that clearly separates it from the usual crowd.  The battle system isn’t what you’d expect at first, well by first looking at this game you would assume it controls and plays exactly like Diablo and that is 100% incorrect.  The exploration is vast and fun with the camera being able to rotate around 360 degrees and zoom in or out as you wish.  When you come to enemies on the field the game takes a new turn with an intriguing approach.  As you near enemies a battle encounter ensues and it then becomes a turn-based style tactics game.  You have AP (Ability Points) that help you determine which moves and attacks you can use.  When choosing to move across the battlefield or even using an attack it will deplete your AP for that character, but if you save some and end that character’s turn it will carry over to their next one.  This style of fighting will take a bit getting used to and is definitely rewarding once you have mastered your character classes and skills.

The inventory system is insane, simply because you can pick up almost everything and use it for something.  This also proves an issue as I didn’t like the constant inventory management where I am spending a lot of time cleaning it out and arranging items.  It is very easy to miss items and objects to search on the field, but if you press (R3) it will then flood your screen with the names of all items within your view that are able to be interacted with or obtained.  Another thing I didn’t enjoy was if you are picking up items that your other character could use, then you should use that character to pick them up.  Otherwise, you are met with constantly having to transfer items to their inventory.

Every character in this game including NPCs have a huge dialogue that is all 100% voice acted in the Enhanced Edition.  There are even times where you can create a moral or personality development between your characters.  For example, one of my characters I chose to attack these guys and my other character intervened with her point of view.  This turned into a disagreement and then you are met with a literal paper, rock and scissors style mini game to see which character’s decision will win.  As you can tell from that, your characters technically have a personality of their own and over time can create a more loving or morbid style to them.

The amount of quests in this game is absolutely overwhelming and it creates the sense of a neverending game.  That isn’t all bad in many aspects, being you get your money’s worth in this title and will have quite a lot of stuff to do all the time.  Since the game is massive and overly expansive, you will have portals that you can jump in and out of to move you from one area to another a lot faster.

Divinity has a coop mode that can be online or offline splitscreen and this is actually where this game seems to add even more depth.  Basically, you have your opinions and your friends have their own.  This can turn the tide of the dialogue severely in a good or bad way.  I am pleased to say this works really well with you both being independent on your character development within the story of Divinity: Original Sin.

The visuals are actually pretty impressive and it seemed that a lot of things on the screen had their own animations.  I really enjoyed most of the magic effects that took place during battles with their flashy lighting.  The sound is also very pleasing with the use of great voice acting and phenomenal atmospheric ambiance and music.

The Recommendation

Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition is an amazing top down D&D style RPG with a great amount of depth and content.  If you haven’t played the original release on PC then this is definitely the version to play since there are so many new quests and weapons, along with every character you meet being fully voiced.  Even though the inventory management is a bit clunky for my liking, it still holds a great torch to many great top down dungeon crawlers.  If you love tactic style or turn based RPG games with a touch of top down gameplay then Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition is exactly what you’re looking for!