Game:

Divinity: Original Sin (2014)

Category:

Review

Duration: 6:37

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Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition - First Impression Review

This is a first impression review of Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition by Larian Studios based on about 20 hours of gameplay. It focuses on the gameplay (in particular the turn based combat) and the major changes in Enhanced Edition which were not present in vanilla Divinity: Original Sin. My thinking is that if you're interested in a review of Divinity: Original Sin, there are plenty to choose from already, whereas there may not be quite as many focusing solely on Enhanced Edition.

Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition on steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/373420/

Ending Music Credit:

"In Your Arms" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition First Impression Review key points:

The new Tactician difficulty mode makes meaningful changes to the gameplay of Divinity: Original Sin to make it more challenging. The encounter design is modified, and enemies are given new items and abilities. Overall, this changes the way the player has to handle the fights, and makes the game harder while also making it more interesting and fun.

Grenades are another new addition to Enhanced Edition. They give melee characters like fighters and rogues ways to make use of the excellent elemental interaction system in Divinity: Original Sin, which improves the tactical options these characters have. These interactions are what make the combat and sometimes even the noncombat gameplay in Divinity: Original Sin more engaging, so grenades add to the fun. They also add some resource management to the out of combat gameplay, which is nice to see as a fan of oldschool crpgs.

Wands are a new weapon type, which I think have a cool aspect to them in the form of limited spell charges. However, their basic attack is so powerful that it undermines this to some extent. If the spells were cheaper (in terms of AP) and the basic attack was weaker, that might make the wands a little more interesting. As it is, it's usually very effective to just spam regular attacks.

Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition claims to have improved writing and story. Although I haven't gotten far enough into the storyline to speak about the narrative, the improved writing doesn't seem all that much better. If anything, it just seems longer.

There are various other changes as well that are more subtle. My favourites are the faster load times, free camera movement, and the top down tactical camera view mode. Although they don't meaningfully affect the core gameplay, they certainly make the game more playable.

I did't touch on dual-wielding in the review because it doesn't feel especially novel. The dual-wielding gameplay doesn't seem very different from any other type of weapon proficiency, and it's the actual skills that determine which spells a character learns that are most important.


As always I wish to mention that this is called a First Impression Review because, although it is presented in a review style, the amount of Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition's gameplay I have experienced is limited. I also don't give review scores or talk in equal parts about every aspect of the game. Do not use this first impression review as the only stop if you're thinking about purchasing the game.

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