Hi everyone,
I've played 51 hours of the classic edition (never finished) and 73 hours of the enhanced edition, which i have finished. I think this is a really great game and I would like to share my impressions:
1) Graphics
Overall, the game looks great and runs great. The camera can get really awkward in some positions (although you can move it) and zooming doesn't always work as expected. I would've liked more detail on the main characters. What I don't like is spell animations blocking the game. What i mean is that when you cast heal for example, you cannot move your characters, access inventory or pick up items while the spell animation is running.
2) Gameplay
Pros:
- The combat system. You need to take advantage of the battlefield, position your heroes in good places, control the order of combat, and use the environment to your advantage. This is, in my opinion, the single aspect which makes this game great.
- Multiple ways to achieve your objectives: kill everyone if you want, sneak around, use teleport tricks with the pyramids to overcome obstacles.
- Interesting crafting system which encourages experimentation and exploration
- Beautiful maps with lots of interesting places to explore and loot. Nice sidequests and secrets.
- Looong quest line. Many hours of original content and fun.
Cons:
- Tedious, tedious puzzles. Buttons hidden on walls. Lighting up candles/braziers (why??). Walking around mines. Puzzles requiring more patience and stubborness than intelligence. The only puzzle I liked was the one with the mirrored elemental caves. You will end up searching forums for some obvious stupid thing you missed (I thought the "cloud" on a tower meant air -- it was in fact water, the other one was air), followed by facepalm.
- Bad inventory management. You have to drag and drop or right click...send to for every single item. Arrows go to the archer, ingredients to the crafter, grenades to the tank, and so on. But wait you need to transfer all items you want to sell to one of your mains (they get better attitude from merchants), time to click everything again.
- Missing recipes: I only found a few things in books. Other than that you have to combine things exhaustively to see what comes up (but you lose your ingredients). Some bonuses cancel other bonuses and they don't stack (combining a sword with fire essence gives you fire damage, combining it with a tenebrium bar changes the fire to tenebrium damage). I still have no clue what to do with blank skill books :) Or how to make healing potions.
- Horrible aiming system, you often end up moving your character instead of hitting someone because of a mis click. Tactical view doesn't help. Gets very hard to target an enemy when they are clustered together.
- Dumb AI: moves around in circles, you can block it with fire/poison (if it cannot move around it, it will wait), you can confuse it with smoke (it will run off at random in some direction). The AI compensates with huge damage and lots of AP. I've won many fights because the AI was too dumb to beat me. Sometimes the AI keeps thinking for 30 seconds then does nothing at all.
- Binary trait system seems simplistic. After considering the bonuses, I just picked all dialog options according to what I wanted to get.
- Similarly with attributes, nothing complex. Just put all your points in your character's primary attribute (strength for fighters, dexterity for archers/rogues, intelligence for mages). I spent under 5 points for other things like speed & constitution.
- Understanding the mechanics makes the game very easy. If you play a balanced party (I played 2 tanks - 1 single handed + shield, the other two-handed, 1 archer - bairdotr with all poitns in expert marksman, bodybuilding, willpower and bow, 1 mage - jahan, points in crafting+blacksmithing, aerotheurge master, hydro master and pyro adept), you just have to focus on using your party's strengths and controlling the play order. Make sure you have enough initiative to start before the enemy. Then CC with grenades/arrows/electric, freezing and blinding spells, buffs and healing form mage, focus on area damage and putting as many statuses on the enemy. I bombed the sh*t out of attenberah in sacred stone by provoking her then staying outside the building and using the door as a choke point. Killed Jareth while all his summons were staying stunned most of the time. Butchered Grutilda and everyone in Hunter's edge. Killed the Hilberheim guardian simply by hitting him until it died. Immunity to mass fear was all it took. Bosses were all easy to kill. Boreas and Cassandra died in 1 turn. The only trick is to be no more than 1 level below their level when you fight them. Make sure you examine them to see their weakness. Use combinations eg lower willpower + charm, oil + fire, water + lightning.
Conclusion
Despite some shortcomings this is a really really great game, up there with dragon age: origins. I wanted to put this criticism out there in the hope that some of the things will be addressed in divinity: original sin 2. I would love to hear your impressions as well and sorry for the long post :)
