The Tainted Source

Day 367

I didn't mention this when it happened thanks to the retrospective year-end entry and the Dissidia 012 binge that followed, but my co-op partner and I finally finished Divinity: Original Sin the other night. Our final game time was just about 76 hours, which is impressive considering how little time we wasted. This is not to say that we weren't very thorough, because we were. We did just about every quest we saw and at least in my case, read all of the dialogue. It kind of seemed to me that he skimmed the dialogue on a few occasions, but I can forgive him for that--mostly.

It's a great game. I've said as much before on this blog, and the ending did nothing to sway my beliefs. The dialogue and plot are interesting and well written and the recruitable characters have a decent amount of character development. The main draw is of course the strategic combat system, but there is also plenty to explore in the world of Rivellon, and lots to do outside of physical combat. Many fights can be avoided through diplomacy or charm--and by the same token, it is possible to start fights with those whom you might otherwise have exclusively peaceful interactions.

I could definitely see Divinity having a fair amount of replay value as well. One skill tree that I didn't experiment with at all was Scoundrel. I found it pretty interesting, but it wasn't a logical fit for any of the characters we were running. By the end of the game, our two spellcasters had just about every elemental spell in the game learned between them. My co-op partner covered Expert Marksman and Madora had Man At Arms. There just wasn't any room for Scoundrel there unless my co-op partner decided he wanted to switch from a ranged weapon to a melee  weapon mid-combat. That might have even been a cool thing to try, but I'm not sure how viable it would be.

I don't generally replay games all that often and when I do, it's usually only when it's been many years since I played it last. I remember replaying Suikoden II about a year and half ago or more, mostly just because I'd just finished playing Suikoden for the first time. In other cases, I'll start games over from the beginning in an effort to finish them, either because I lost the original save data or had lost complete track of what was going on the last time I played it. Even though I'm interested in replaying Divinity, it probably won't happen soon. But maybe I'll check in four or five years from now.

I've heard there's a couple more RPGs coming out sometime soon that hearken back to that Baldur's Gate playstyle, but I haven't heard they have co-op support. I'd like to give them a try, but unless it turns out they have co-op, I probably won't play them until I've finished a lot of other games first. I'm pretty committed to this whole backlog thing.