Review: Divinity: Original Sin (PC)

Over the last decade, there's been a shift in a lot of RPGs toward more stripped down, cinematic affairs. A lot of the meat and potatoes of the genre were removed in favor of a more streamlined experience. Some folks really warmed up to this. Others did not, though, instead longing for days of old when we had huge, open worlds to explore a la Ultima, or complex tactical combat like Baldur's Gate. This is where the deluge of Kickstarter projects swept in with games that would hark back to those days. One such title promising these experiences was Divinity: Original Sin, and now that it's out it has very handily delivered with a huge world to explore, interesting characters to meet, satisfying combat, and it looks pretty darn good to boot.

The game starts off on a fairly traditional fantasy premise where long ago a group of powerful wizards tapped into a powerful source of magic (conveniently called Source), which managed to corrupt them and plunge the world into terrible, dark times. Eventually a group formed called the Source Hunters who were able to defeat these people, and ever since they have been on the lookout for anyone attempting to tap into Source. Players take control of two Source Hunters sent to investigate strange happenings in the town of Cyreal, and from here things spiral in a number of directions as they must solve mysteries, tackle threats to the city, and over time even learn things about their own past. The pacing of the story is very good, and it throws a lot at the player just from the main quests. Factor in the side quests, and suddenly there is a ton of additional color added to the game's story. I very much enjoyed the narrative. While there are no lack of fantasy conventions in it, some of the twists that the plot took were quite nice, and all along the journey it really felt like we were building toward something. There was a constant sense of anticipation in me as I wondered what would happen next.

Making one's way through the story, one can see that Original Sin has a very large world in it, and there are countless things to interact with. This was one of the charms of the old Ultima games where players could wander around far and wide, discovering all sorts of interesting places while taking the time to rummage through whatever was strewn about a house or lair, and it is something very much present here. There are a lot of areas to explore, many of which are optional, and the game does make it worth one's while to tread off the beaten path with interesting loot to find and characters to meet. All the while, there are plenty of objects to fiddle around with along the way. Read some books, toss around some chairs, take that painting off the wall and sell it to some merchant. Making such a large world filled with interesting people and things that can be interacted with makes the game feel far more alive. It's a nice change of pace from the more cinematic affairs out there where things can feel far more controlled and sterilized.

Of course, with all of this wandering around there will be no lack of opportunity to bash evildoers over the head (or do-gooders if that's how you wish to go about things). Battle is engaged either by simply attacking someone, or, in the case of creatures who already have a low opinion of your party, by walking into their field of vision. This requires players to be extra careful while wandering the countryside. Don't just march around all willy-nilly unless you like the idea of constantly being at a tactical disadvantage in fights. The game encourages people to be cognizant of their surroundings. This can come about from hearing a conversation off to the distance, or just taking heed of where one is. If you seeing huge burning patches on the ground, pools of blood, or some such, it's probably best to tread lightly, sneak up on enemies, and catch them by surprise. I will say, though, that sometimes this can be abused. I would often have magic users creep up ahead while stealthed, lob a spell that set a large pool of oil on the ground, and the enemies wouldn't notice this. I could surround them with a sea of oil, and so long as they weren't targeted directly, combat would not start. Even if I followed this up by shooting a fireball into the oil and setting it ablaze, this would not alert the enemies. They'd go so far as to walk through the flames, catch fire, and not for a moment think that things were amiss. Only if I began to directly attack them or pass their field of vision would combat officially engage. While it's nice to get the jump on enemies, this did make me question the AI a little bit.

When a battle does begin, though, it can be quite fun, especially against bosses. Combat is of a tactical, turn-based nature. Players need to be mindful of where their characters are positioned, using choke points, dangerous objects in the area that they should stay away from (and that can also be used to their advantage), make note of the types of enemies on the field along with their strengths and weaknesses, basically all of thing things people have come to expect from a tactical RPG. Group compositions that I've gone with have tended to be quite magic user heavy, so much of my strategies involved crowd control to keep baddies away from my squishy mages, and blowing up, freezing or electrifying the immediate area in order to inflict as much environmental damage as possible. There are a ton of other ways to approach combat, and it will vary greatly depending on what classes you have in your group, but it is extremely satisfying what with all of the means available for handling a fight. About my only complaint is that as characters get to higher levels they begin to get rather overpowered and can demolish pretty much everything in their path, making the game a little to easy.

Regardless, it's still good fun creating a party and developing them over the course of the game. Players will have two main characters that they will need to create at the onset of their adventure, and these guys will be there for the entirety of the game. After that, they will come across the occasional individual who is interested in joining their cause as well as a person who can arrange for the procurement of hirelings. I prefer going the hireling route because it gives me a lot more options in terms of character classes at my disposal. There are quite a number of classes to choose from including knights, clerics, rogues, wizards, witches, and others. While they do have distinct names, the customization is quite robust, so as they level players can spend various attribute points in several ways resulting in interesting characters. Just because someone started as a warrior, it doesn't mean that they can't eventually become proficient in magic or lock picking. Original Sin leaves things wide open for the player to create just the sort of character that they want, and if they aren't happy with the results it's possible to reset the character's stats and spec them a different way.

An interesting feature present throughout all of this adventuring is that the whole game can be tackled as a two-player cooperative experience. While there is obvious teamwork in fights, what can make things particularly interesting is the role-playing that is accommodated during conversations with NPCs. A choice may be presented and the players will disagree on how to proceed, so it can make for interesting situations in terms of how things proceed. If players do come to loggerheads, the situation can be resolved by a game of rock, paper, scissors, to an element of chance comes into play, but it is a nice touch. A lot can be accomplished in the game via discussion and sleuthing, so this sort of thing can have quite an impact on the direction certain events unfold. This is also present between the two main characters in a single-player game if you assign them both AI whereby they may not see eye to eye on matters during conversations either. However, if players don't want to deal with this, they can just have no AI here and force the two characters to get along.

While character development is a big part of shaping your band of merry adventurers, gearing is also important. Like many RPGs, loot plays an important role. There's a ton of it to find, some hidden in chests, some dropped from fallen enemies, and some created through crafting. It's really up to the player to decide how they would like to approach this. There is some degree of random stats at play here but nothing too obnoxious. For the most part there is quite a lot of useful equipment to find with all sorts of snazzy stats that will get most people oohing and awing. The crafting system is quite robust as well, allowing players to make weapons, armor, tools, potions, spell books, and cook stuff. So there is ample opportunity to DIY one's way to a nice stash of items.

As much as I've heaped praise on the things one can do in Original Sin, the game should also be applauded for its aesthetic. Its world and its inhabitants both look quite nice. Just like the story, there is a very obvious adherence to traditional fantasy all the while throwing in some more exotic bits along the way. Some of the enemy designs in particular were pretty neat like some of the elementals as well as a peculiar undead minstrel that I happened upon. Meanwhile, the music is also quite nice with a number of tracks that are easy to get stuck in one's head and others that make for very nice ambient background pieces. Even the voice acting is pretty good. There isn't a huge amount of it, but when it does happen the acting has been pretty enjoyable.

So, on the whole, I quite enjoyed my adventures in Original Sin. The main appeal for me has been the vastness of the world and the generally entertaining combat. The somewhat questionable AI and lack of challenge late game are only minor quibbles, and not enough to irreparably damage the experience, while the character development adds another interesting layer to things to such a point that I can see myself playing again in the future just to try vastly different party builds. All the while, the game's story and aesthetic add a very nice fantasy veneer to everything. People who want a very deep, huge RPG to explore should seriously consider diving into Divinity: Original Sin.

Pros:
- The world is huge
- Tons of things and people to interact with
- Tactical combat gives players a lot to think about
- Character development is quite open
- Story is quite good
- Nice aesthetic

Cons:
- AI can be a tad questionable at times
- Characters become very overpowered late game making things a bit too easy