* denotes a replay
January (2 Games Beaten)
I first bought Divinity Original Sin II several years ago to play with a few friends who had played it before but never finished it. Well, as is often the case when you have a group of adults trying to play the same co-op game while living in different cities, we never finished, either. We never got past Act 1. I never touched it after that because I couldn't really get into it. I didn't "get" CRPGs, so I hadn't been enjoying it that much. Years down the line, however, and I've now played a lot of DnD which got me into Baldur's Gate III which, as a CRPG, was when the genre finally clicked with me, so I decided to revisit Original Sin II after I finished Baldur's Gate.
I haven't played the few games in the series that released prior to this, so going in with zero franchise context, the premise is basically that anyone who can use Source (magic) is rounded up and sent off to a concentration camp island called Fort Joy by the Magisters - basically a cross between the Knights Templar and the Gestapo. This is because they're blamed for the appearance of "Voidwoken," big monster bugs from another dimension. It's believed that using Source attracts the Voidwoken, so we have to contain you for the good of world, they claim. You and up to three of six main characters set off on an attempt to break the collars that prevent you from using your powers, hijack a Magister ship, and escape the island. As with most CRPGs, you have a number of ways of getting yourself to that end goal, and as with most games of any genre that I play, I chose to go full chaotic good and kill every single Magister I saw because they're basically just fantasy Nazis. That's Act 1. The three subsequent acts have you investigate the powers calling the shots and eventually, because this is the endgame of every RPG, opposing the Big Bad Evil Guy and saving the world.
My game disc obviously says Xbox One, but I only ever actually played the Series X version, so that's all I can personally attest to, but it looks fantastic and runs beautifully on Series X. I've seen footage of the Switch and Switch 2 versions, and while the Switch version definitely looks like one to avoid with how blurry the graphical cutbacks made it, it looks like a pretty solid port on Switch 2, so Nintendo gamers aren't left out in the cold here. Switch 2 actually seems like a pretty ideal platform for this kind of game, I think, because it's a BEEFY RPG that took me around 80 hours to beat, and being able to play anywhere I have a little time would be a big boon. It is, sadly, only available digitally on Switch and Switch 2 (unless you want to cough up $175 for a copy of Limited Run's Switch printing), but that's increasingly unavoidable these days.
When you start the game, you can either choose one of the pre-existing main characters to play as, or you can make your own custom character. Most people on Reddit seem to suggest picking a pre-made character because that way you get to go through four character-specific quest lines instead of only three, but I always go with a custom character when it's an option. Since I'd just finished Baldur's Gate III, I just remade that character; the dragonkin Vorkath Ironscale became the lizard Vorkath the Virtuous. I definitely get the point the folks on Reddit were making when they suggested playing a pre-made character, but for me, part of what immerses me in an RPG is playing a character is my own creation, so that's always going to be the preferable option for me personally.
If you don't have any experience with CRPGs like Baldur's Gate, the old school Fallouts, or Tides of Numenera, Divinity Original Sin II might take some acclimation to get a feel for. It definitely did for me. After having Torment: Tides of Numenera and Baldur's Gate III under my belt, though, I started to appreciate the genre and was able to get fully immersed in Original Sin II. It's not a masterpiece - I ran into a few bugs I had to quickload to fix, and the quests are a bit too easy to miss and lock yourself out of for my taste - but it is excellent. It's definitely got me eyeing eBay for a copy of the previous Original Sin game, that's for sure.
