Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General D:OS Reviews coming in :)

Impressions video from Gametrailers: http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/gbxi3y/editorial-report--divinity--original-sin

AngryJoe is playing D:OS again!

http://www.twitch.tv/angryjoeshow

It's about an 8/10 if using the most common method of rating a game, although numbers never really do games justice. Deeply flawed games can still be amazing, technically near-perfect games can also be uninspired and dull.

I'd say when it comes to D:OS -

Main Pros:

Enjoyable tactical turn based combat
Solid non-combat gameplay
Well polished aesthetics
Good sense of humor
Functional/easy to set up co-op, at least in my experience

Main Cons:

Bad user interface
Poor/incomplete information for character building
Balance problems
Some bad/overdone gimmicks in both combat and dialogue

Gamespot review should be postive...

Prediction: 8.8 Metacritic Average.

You heard it here first guys

I made the 'mistake' yesterday and googled his coop partner.
Dem b...

And as there are still no reviews out from the big ones, the small ones deliver
Pretty good, i think ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKaQwE0viqg

Haha, never argue about taste. Megamanda is Joe's ex-girlfriend IIRC...


And well, for a "proper" review you should at least complete the game once imo (otherwise you can never properly evaluate whether the quality in the endgame is any good or whether the story is good at the end and everything else). The guy from the video you've linked only played about 30 hours and then made his "review" (he even admitted that himself). That's not professional. He probably just wanted some more clicks because he's among the first making a review. Every serious reviewer needs at leas 60 hours to complete the campaign. It's six days since release. Well , you can do the maths yourself...

Probably not far off. I'd guess about 2 points lower once big sites chime in. Bigger spread with user reviews, especially a lot of really high and really low user reviews. Not atypical for a reasonably well executed, but niche game.

60 hours? I did it in like 30, with a lot of backtracking, confusion surrounding the various puzzles, and reloading next to vendors to get useful items out of them (probably spent over an hour just doing that honestly), while completing most of the quests.

Most isn't all. If you explore everything in Cyseal and really read the dialogue instead of clicking everything away you need at least 15-20 hours in Cyseal. So you definitely rushed through and that's nothing you should do for a decent review.

Uh huh.

An 8/10 by today's standards? Really?

Metacritic

Dragon Age 2 = 82/100-Critic 4.3/10-User
Mass Effect 3 = 89/100-Critic 5.1/10-User
Diablo 3 = 87/100-Critic 3.9/10-User
South Park: Stick of Truth 85/100-Critic 8.6/10-User
Divinity: Original sin ??/100-Critic 9.3/10=User


So... you are saying an 8/10 by today's standards? Really? If we go by today's standards, anything less than a 90 is a flipping lie. While south parks mechanics did pretty well, and the game provided an entertaining experience for those that liked the show (I don't), its depth of system was shallow/simplistic and the game was really short on top of it. Divinity is above it in score easily.

Now for the others... umm... seriously, those games are why they made this game. It is because the market was saturated with complete garbage to which the user scores show. Seriously, 8/10? It is a minimum of a 9/10 IF we are going by today's standards.

8/10? Fucking dishonest all the way around.

If you meant for "proper" reviews to only include players who have literally completed everything you could possibly do in the entire game you should've specified that. Which incidentally is a comically absurd requirement to put on making a review "proper". That's like saying that a review of Baldur's Gate would be "improper" if the guy making it didn't import a character with pantaloons so that he could make the magical golem armor or whatever it was called. You don't need to do everything to get a good impression of the essence of a game.

I even went out of my way to do things like go back to NPCs to see if they cared about stuff I had done, like killing that old sourcerer warlord-guy (whatever his name was), but nobody seemed to care, so I stopped doing it after leaving Cyseal.

I completed all the quests except kitty love, headless nick, legend of the weresheep, the troll king's treasure cave-thing, and some irrelevant things in hunter's edge and sacred stone. Still made it to lvl 21 and was well on my way to lvl 22, so I can't have missed much, and I didn't even wipe out sacred stone or hunter's edge since it didn't seem to matter what happened in there, and the places were really immersion breaking. I killed like half the population of hunter's edge, including the orc leader chick, before I got bored and left since nobody seemed to care that I was wiping them all out.


By today's standards, sure, since there's nothing else out there. But by the standards of the games it's being compared to it really sucks. Well, the combat in D:OS is a lot better than the old IE games, but the writing and story and quests and the companions (lol) and all that stuff is utterly horrible by comparison.

Personally, I think 7/10 is generous, mostly gained because of the enjoyable combat. Writing/story/quests is like a 4/10.

Ahem, just for your information. You can love both Mass Effect and D:OS. Calling some games "garbage" just because you seem to not like their design is kind of insulting...

That being said, most of the user reviews for ME3 e.g. on metacritic are nothing else than laughable and not even really related to the game itself.

8/10 is a good score and well deserved. 7/10 would be poor and 9/10 great but a bit unlikely since D:OS is still kind of a niche game and so naturally doesn't fit ot everyone's taste.


@Simulacrum
You think way too much in categories, mate. Story is just not the most importang thing in D:OS. It's the first and foremost purpose of a game to be fun and not to fit in a certain category (like RPG or CRPG or whatever)...

You're the one who dismissed people's opinions as not "proper" if they didn't adhere to your categorization of what a "proper" review was...

Liking it is irrelevant. This is not entirely a subjective evaluation here. I still like reading the occasional Xanth novel, I enjoy it, but the writing is terrible, the stories are second rate. I certainly wouldn't refer to it as more than anything other than cheap poorly written fiction. I enjoy it none the less.

Mass Effect 3 is an action junk game that is nothing more than a means to entertain peoples virtual love interests. The writing is cheap Hollywood junk, the mechanics of the game are a cheap arcade thriller and the development and decision system is like a road that splits and turns back in on itself. The original may have been a good start, but they went down hill after. Nothing wrong with you liking it, but liking it doesn't make it quality.









Yeah, that is it. That is why most actual good games tend to have good user scores, but crap critic scores while the crap games have high critic scores and lousy user scores. Let us not fool each other. We both know darn well that the critics don't pan big AAA companies because they get punished when they do. /boggle




By today's standards, no. If we go by old standards, when they still used to make cRPGs, 8/10 would have been a fair assessment, maybe a 8.5/10. But we aren't going by standards of the past as to do so would be a dishonest evaluation that would let people think that the above games I listed were worth a shit to which they aren't. they are junk, products of big publishers and Hollywood studio gimmicks. They are the Boy Band generation of gaming. So, you have to judge it by the present standards, not the past as we are in the present.

Now if tons of good RPGs start coming out and become the norm, then... well... the standards will change accordingly. Until then, this is a 9.0/10 arguably a 9.5/10 compared to the complete and utter shit that exists today.

Wait, there is a big difference in criticising the technical execution of a review (how you make it and what should be the requirements for a "professional" review) and criticising one's opinion. I never criticised the reviewer for his opinion in any way here. I didn't even talk about his opinion.

And you not liking doesn't make it less quality. I think the writing is decent, the mechanics fun, the decisions engaging. Now what? Opinions, opnions...

Don't mistake opinions for facts.

But yes, Mass Effect is indeed an "action" game. Nobody denied that. There is nothing wrong with making an action game. But haters gonna hate anyway.

Here is a set of reviews for Larian Studios Divinity Original Sin.

Gambit Magazine, 5/5


In conclusion, Divinity Original Sin is an amazing game that manages to merge the brilliant PC RPG痴 of old and infuse it with many modern-day elements. It痴 not a perfect game, but it sure has a lot less bugs and glitches that plagued Skyrim and critics showered that game with needless praise. I can稚 recommend Divinity Original Sin enough and I just hope that other publications also take note of what I hope doesn稚 end up as a hidden gem for the PC

APG, 8/10


Not everything is great, though. While the graphics aren't bad, the models used for characters within the game are all very similar. I was disappointed by how difficult it can be to find specific npcs for quests and often frustrated by trying to figure out where I could find merchants that sell specific spells or skills. Certain items are only obtainable through specific spells or skills which can make the player frustrated that they didn't begin with this class or another.

Softpedia, 9.5/10


Divinity: Original Sin is not perfect by any means, but it attempts to reach perfection nonetheless and offers one of the most complex role-playing game experiences currently available. Developer Larian still has a lot of work ahead, primarily in the form of patches that iron out its various kinks, mainly of technical nature, but it痴 definitely a very polished experience as it stands.

AGR, 9.3/10


Overall, Divinity: Original Sin is a massive RPG in scope which takes on our usual tendencies for RPG's and smashes them high and wide. The combat is a massive breath of fresh air, the story is enjoyable and expansive, the music is fantastic while the length of play is large. If you enjoy RPG's of any kind, you'll love Divinity: Original Sin.

Subjective Gaming


Now, I致e had quite a lot to say about Original Sin, both good and bad, but I don稚 want you to come away from this thinking that I didn稚 enjoy my romp through the world of Rivellon. Overall I actually think that this is a very solid game and most of the problems I mentioned only show up enough to remind you that they池e there but don稚 stick around. The intricate combat is a blast to use and the world is vibrant and full of life, both hostile and friendly. It痴 available on the Steam store for $40 and you値l certainly get your money痴 worth in terms of content. The game even features an easy difficulty if you池e not sure you池e capable of handling the challenge, as well as a hard difficulty for those who aren稚 challenged enough

Some hotlinks would be nice.