Divinity: Original Sin II preview: Choose your own reactive, gloriously chaotic adventure

[Chiefcrowe]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3110...wn-reactive-gloriously-chaotic-adventure.html

 

[nakedfrog]

I do hope this one makes it to PS4 as well.

 

[Midwayman]

I kicked started this one too. I love how all the systems interacted. It was a harsh learning curve at first, but you can do some really neat stuff with it.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

There's an announcement trailer now too

 

[KMFJD]

Looks good, on my wishlist

 

[you2]

Early access on Steam (and soon after GOG) starts Sept 15. They don't have the exact date for GOG yet; but have promised it will show up there. THey have also indicated release date will be in 2017.

 

[Tweak155]

Was the first one any good? Always thought about giving it a shot but never did.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Was the first one any good? Always thought about giving it a shot but never did.

Yes, it was excellent. If you enjoy turn based games RPGs you will probably like it. Find a friend and play it co-op for the best experience.

 

[Chaotic42]

This is the only thing I've ever Kickstarted. Hopefully they don't go and ruin an amazing thing. Looking forward to the four-person co-op.

 

[Midwayman]

Was the first one any good? Always thought about giving it a shot but never did.

It has a bit of a learning curve, but once you muscle past that, its a very good game. The field effects take getting used to and Its easy to wander into areas you're seriously underleveled for by exiting the wrong gate in the city. Once you clear the city though those problems are gone.

 

[nakedfrog]

Yes, it was excellent. If you enjoy turn based games RPGs you will probably like it. Find a friend and play it co-op for the best experience.

Agreed.
We're on our third playthrough, we've got to be over 300 hours played now (I believe it was about 130 for the first run, granted we've spent a good bit of time on crafting).

 

[Stg-Flame]

Well damnit, I wasn't expecting to have another game on my wishlist. I absolutely loved the first D:OS and racked up over 400 hours with multiple play-throughs.

 

[Midwayman]

They have issued steam keys if you check your larian vault. Early access starts sept 15.

 

[Raduque]

D:OS is turn based? Now I know why I never bought it. I kept wanting to, but never quite managed to make myself pull the trigger.

 

[frozentundra123456]

First game was great, with a few annoying features. Did anyone else get really sick of the rock, paper, scissors minigame? They at least need a way to skip it if you want. Overall though, I strongly recommend it.

 

[NoSoup4You]

The first game was awesome, Steam shows I put 176 hours into it and that was just one play-through. I played on the hardest difficulty and never checked the wiki or anything else... the game gloriously doesn't hold your hand so let's just say I got lost several times and found myself in seemingly impossible battles that I had to improvise to win. Good times! Once I discovered the glass cannon trait though, my back-stabbing rogue started to trivialize every encounter.

I booted up the Enhanced Edition of Original Sin recently to check out the changes they'd made from the classic version, and this is the only reservation I have about the upcoming sequel because I actually consider the changes in the Enhanced Edition to have made the game worse. For starters, the voice overs were all over the place, more often than not they were mediocre at best but at times they can actually be infuriatingly bad. Second, the balance is just odd... they added grenades which are totally overpowered and are effectively "spells" that you don't have to be a mage to cast. This really waters down how special the mages played in the classic version. And then lastly they removed a ton of skills while adding a relatively small number of new ones, yet somehow one of the new skills (Winged Feet) manages to completely trivialize nearly all of the games obstacles/puzzles.

Maybe I'm just being grumpy about Larian tweaking the formula that worked so well in the classic version so that it suits a console audience... I'll still be buying DOS 2 at launch though.

 

[Borealis7]

early access is available on steam on 9/15, lets hope the finished game is not far behind!

 

[you2]

they already said the game will not be released till sometime in 2017 so at least 4 months after start of early access...

 

[zinfamous]

First game was great, with a few annoying features. Did anyone else get really sick of the rock, paper, scissors minigame? They at least need a way to skip it if you want. Overall though, I strongly recommend it.

that is why I again failed to get into it on my second attempt to get beyond the first several quests (well, one of the primary reasons) and went ahead and uninstalled it again a few days ago. The RPS thing is just horribly obnoxious

 

[NoSoup4You]

I'm pretty sure the rps was totally random, I just clicked through them as fast as possible. It's a bad system that should be reworked, still though that's an odd thing to fixate on as far as a reason not to play the game...

 

[zinfamous]

I'm pretty sure the rps was totally random, I just clicked through them as fast as possible. It's a bad system that should be reworked, still though that's an odd thing to fixate on as far as a reason not to play the game...

it's another layer of minigame that sits on top of the traditional point check system...which is already in the game. If the skill points are there to make RPS "easier" why not just have the points remove that crap in the first place? It's an immersion killer when all I want to do is get through these already endless diatribes where the game writers are clearly just having fun listening to their own words. Which, yeah--I guess I also realized that I have become too old to sit through these pointless expositions steeped in middle-English manners that seems all-too common for these type of RP games.

 

[nakedfrog]

Heh, after the first playthrough, I'd usually try to win the RPS situations that would let you avoid combat (get XP) and then kill everyone anyway (more XP).

 

[NoSoup4You]

it's another layer of minigame that sits on top of the traditional point check system...which is already in the game. If the skill points are there to make RPS "easier" why not just have the points remove that crap in the first place? It's an immersion killer when all I want to do is get through these already endless diatribes where the game writers are clearly just having fun listening to their own words. Which, yeah--I guess I also realized that I have become too old to sit through these pointless expositions steeped in middle-English manners that seems all-too common for these type of RP games.

I just skimmed the text when I grew bored with the exposition. I play these games for the fun combat, character leveling and loot system... the story's just a device for moving us forward to new levels and opening up new skills/ways to play. Ideally, the story would be awesome too... I actually don't think DOS has a bad story but you're totally on-point that the writers were having a bit of a laugh laying on the medieval-speak rather thick.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I would argue that the story enriched the atmosphere more than helped drive the player to pay attention to the lore. If a game has a truly great story, I'll read every text/book/parchment/etc. I come across, but when the combat and action drive the game, the story takes a backseat and just adds to the atmosphere and immersion. D:OS has a decent story and the writing is rather comical in most areas, so I just kept it on the back-burner and paid enough attention that I knew what I was doing and why. The rest... pretty sure it was all steam clouds, sneak attacks, and meteors in my memory.