Starting a review for a RPG game is always difficult, as you don't really know how or what to tackle first. And well, Divinity: Original Sin being an old-school one falls right into that category so please bear with me. After a glorious success in the PC gaming market, Divinity: Original Sin comes to the console world with the Enhanced Edition version and people are liking it to say the least.
See I used people cause I am not one of those people, if that makes sense. As I have previously stated, I don't really like old-school RPG games all that much and unfortunately I did not like Divinity: Original Sin from the moment I started playing it. My main gripe with the game which totally ruined the experience for me are the controls and inventory management. Divinity is pretty much an old-school RPG with a heavy emphasis on the "old-school" part.
An being such a game, to me, it doesn't feel right especially when played with a controller. For me it just doesn't work. Moving around the vast maps is easy, just use the left analog stick and you are good. However if you try to interact with an object in the world, attack something, change an equipment, do inventory management, all this stuff is incredibly hard to do or better say remember how to do for the first 10 hours or so. For example, to attack something while roaming in the world you have to click on the right pad, select the attack, move the cursor thingy on top of the object you want to attack and execute the attack. I mean, why? Why for such a simple action go through this "endless" process?
Diablo 3 did this right and the game just felt perfect with a controller, move with the left and wreck everything in your path using everything else on the controller right on the spot, no crazy combinations, just clean and simple. Another thing that bothered me more than it should have was the inventory. Again, to access the inventory, you must keep pressed a button, use the right analog to hover on top of the inventory or whatever other tab you want to access and press another button to "open" it. Again, why?! Things get only crazier when you have 4 characters on your party system, so just imagine the hassle of back and forth the radial menus just cause you hadn't selected the correct character, ugh...
All of this sucks cause everything else in the game is really good. The story, although a mix of clichés and tropes you've come to love or hate from every other RPG out there, is funny, witty and intriguing. You will embark upon a journey with up to three companions as Source Hunters bending the very fabric of time, where what seems like the case of a simple murder unravels into hours of quests facing fiendish foes, magical polymorphs, and dastardly bosses. In the expansive world you will meet interesting characters, friends, foes, other NPCs fully voiced that will give you quests ranging from the usual ones of collect X things to some intriguing ones with beautiful twists. Oh, also there is one quest line for your underwear, so look towards that.
Another thing that Divinity: Original Sin does exceptionally well is the class system or in this case I guess "classless" system. In other RPGs, most of them, when you create a character you have to choose a class, mage, knight, thief, whatever and for the entirety of the game you are stuck with it. You cannot change it, you can only equip a specific type of gear and you have a small pool of powers to choose from. Divinity: Original Sin says "f*ck it" and allows you to mix and match what you like, use what you like, cast whichever spell you like no matter your character archetype. You are a knight but wanna shoot fireballs? Yeah why not? Or a rogue skinny gal with a desire for a ground-pound attack? Yeah, you can do that and anything you like pretty much. There are no limits to the customisation.
Depending on how you built you character, the combat will differ. What do I mean by that? Well, the combat system in Divinity does not happen in real-time meaning that it's a turn based one and although at first I hated it, the more I played the game, the less I hated it. The combat system is very similar to that of XCOM or Transistor, where you have a limited number of Action Points to use per turn and every move empty this meter. Going back to the character build you made, you will either attack from afar with magic, go close quarters beating the sh*t out of them or you can mix and match for a middle ground. I found that the first strategy was really good and really effective for pretty much every scenario I encountered, but again, it is up to you.
Everything’s more fun with a friend and Original Sin is no different! Drop-in, drop-out multiplayer lets you play online or in your living room, with local split-screen co-op across all platforms. Adventure together or explore completely different places, right from the same sofa! Not many games do split-screen anymore so seeing it here, it's a nice touch.
From coastal towns to haunted woods, war-torn farmlands to frozen hellscapes - Original Sin has it all. Each and everyone of these locales looks beautiful and plays really smooth on the PS4. More challenges and more foes - but also more weapons, equipment and magic for you to use against them. Rewarding exploration, each of these locations hides secrets and special events that only the most thorough adventurers will uncover. However I did not uncover these promised secrets. This, probably, is the first game I did not play till the end or some end.
See I didn't want to play it, I didn't want to explore this vast world. I played around 25 hours, just for the sake of the review, which is way below the supposed 80+ hours of content it has to offer. So am I the guy you should listen to when it comes to buying or not this game? The answer is just no, I don't know what happens later in the game story-wise, I don't know what other quirky characters you might stumble upon, I don't know what other cool magic combinations you might be able to do later in the game. But I do know that if you are into old-school RPGs, you will definitely get your money's worth. If you are a casual console pheasant (:P) when it comes to RPGs, like me, you will have a hard time justifying the purchase.
