Граф Орлов
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Divinity OS EE
I dropped it many times, usually after a failed attempt (I was playing on one save), but even after I stopped failing, I was very reluctant to resume the Walkthrough. In the very end, I dropped it completely due to a bug – apparently some script broke when I killed Icarus. But that's not the main point; the important thing is why I dropped it before that.
The world is just mega-boring. The setting aspect of the game is annoying in every way: the plot, which can be summarized in one sentence, the characters in general, the dialogues in particular, the drawn cutscenes that are out of place, and, excuse my French, the atmosphere – it's just very, very unpleasant to be in. And yet, this is what the RPG genre was created for, not only, but primarily. You can fight and admire the numbers in tactics games, explore locations in action games; there are even games where you have to press buttons while walking, just like in Divinity, only usually they are more intelligent in action games. I'll get back to the buttons later.
The RPG genre also has a component called the role-playing system. Well, it's okay, to be honest. You can even say it's very good, but first you have to endure endless stuns from invisible spots, then there will constantly be a 50% chance of being controlled, defeated, and having to reload, and so on until luck smiles upon you, but then you can easily crush not only mobs but also bosses in the second half of the game. If, of course, you occasionally change your equipment. This is the kind of game that will appeal to those who like to loot, go shopping, and see how stats progress. But even that is not certain, because tactics are the only thing that provides at least some enjoyment in the gameplay.
The rest of the gameplay consists of traps, quests, and puzzles. Traps will ruin the playthrough for those playing on one save a couple of times (one of them is bugged, and the second is so obviously-not-obvious that it's as if Reven himself set it up), and then they will simply be slightly annoying because they require you to spend time healing and reloading. Quests... something on the level of "fetch quest." They are only needed for farming experience. There is zero variability in the Walkthrough – literally zero; it's just "go to point B, then hand in the quest at point A," and neither B nor A can be avoided; the game is more linear than the average platformer. Sometimes there is a parody of a moral choice (read: sometimes you can level up some useless stat by saying something meaningless). There are no consequences for choosing or skipping a quest. There is no motivation other than the infamous experience. There is no need to remember anything, think, or explore further – no. Point A, point B, a couple of traps and a combat encounter along the way, a choice of a couple of phrases at the end.
Puzzles... This is the best part. There are essentially two types: "use a skill" and "find a button." Find a button. In an RPG from a third-person perspective. A gray button on a gray wall. Brilliant. So brilliant that the whole game is filled with these buttons – every time I got stuck on a "puzzle" and couldn't solve it, it turned out that it wasn't because I was stupid and couldn't figure out the developers' idea – it was because I didn't see the button. In addition to pressing buttons, you can also pull levers if you like. And here's an example so you understand the level of the famous puzzles in Divinity.
Introduction: there are three buttons with symbols (priest, fish, warrior), three statues (priest, fish, warrior), and three barrels (oil, poison, water). And a lever to pull. Well, I pull it, of course... Nothing. Okay, let's use our brains. There is poison spilled near the warrior statue. There is a fish near the priest statue. And there is a torch next to the fish. Well, I think, we solved more difficult puzzles in the first grade, but this was the most difficult one in the whole game (and we're near the end), I even had to think and explore the location... We put the barrels on the buttons: the fish button – oil, the warrior button – poison, and the priest button – water. And... Nothing. It turns out that you just need to put the statues on the buttons. Apparently, they decided that the target audience of the game couldn't handle a chain of three links, so they abandoned the barrels...
So, that's it. The world is bad, buttons instead of exploration, a teleport button instead of puzzles, clicking through numbers instead of quests, zero replayability. So, what's the point of all this? Probably just for the combat, but even that gets boring quickly. And a couple of fun moments, like killing an NPC in a quest, then telling another NPC, who was standing near the corpse, and taking all his stuff and increasing my capital fivefold, but if this is almost the only memorable moment besides the combat for a couple of dozen hours, that's kind of sad. It's completely unclear where the game got such high ratings. Although "Pillars of Eternity" also has high ratings.
Let's say 4/10
Added 10 minutes ago
Ah yes, an important question: given all this, is it worth trying to play the second part?
I dropped it many times, usually after a failed attempt (I was playing on one save), but even after I stopped failing, I was very reluctant to resume the Walkthrough. In the very end, I dropped it completely due to a bug – apparently some script broke when I killed Icarus. But that's not the main point; the important thing is why I dropped it before that.
The world is just mega-boring. The setting aspect of the game is annoying in every way: the plot, which can be summarized in one sentence, the characters in general, the dialogues in particular, the drawn cutscenes that are out of place, and, excuse my French, the atmosphere – it's just very, very unpleasant to be in. And yet, this is what the RPG genre was created for, not only, but primarily. You can fight and admire the numbers in tactics games, explore locations in action games; there are even games where you have to press buttons while walking, just like in Divinity, only usually they are more intelligent in action games. I'll get back to the buttons later.
The RPG genre also has a component called the role-playing system. Well, it's okay, to be honest. You can even say it's very good, but first you have to endure endless stuns from invisible spots, then there will constantly be a 50% chance of being controlled, defeated, and having to reload, and so on until luck smiles upon you, but then you can easily crush not only mobs but also bosses in the second half of the game. If, of course, you occasionally change your equipment. This is the kind of game that will appeal to those who like to loot, go shopping, and see how stats progress. But even that is not certain, because tactics are the only thing that provides at least some enjoyment in the gameplay.
The rest of the gameplay consists of traps, quests, and puzzles. Traps will ruin the playthrough for those playing on one save a couple of times (one of them is bugged, and the second is so obviously-not-obvious that it's as if Reven himself set it up), and then they will simply be slightly annoying because they require you to spend time healing and reloading. Quests... something on the level of "fetch quest." They are only needed for farming experience. There is zero variability in the Walkthrough – literally zero; it's just "go to point B, then hand in the quest at point A," and neither B nor A can be avoided; the game is more linear than the average platformer. Sometimes there is a parody of a moral choice (read: sometimes you can level up some useless stat by saying something meaningless). There are no consequences for choosing or skipping a quest. There is no motivation other than the infamous experience. There is no need to remember anything, think, or explore further – no. Point A, point B, a couple of traps and a combat encounter along the way, a choice of a couple of phrases at the end.
Puzzles... This is the best part. There are essentially two types: "use a skill" and "find a button." Find a button. In an RPG from a third-person perspective. A gray button on a gray wall. Brilliant. So brilliant that the whole game is filled with these buttons – every time I got stuck on a "puzzle" and couldn't solve it, it turned out that it wasn't because I was stupid and couldn't figure out the developers' idea – it was because I didn't see the button. In addition to pressing buttons, you can also pull levers if you like. And here's an example so you understand the level of the famous puzzles in Divinity.
Introduction: there are three buttons with symbols (priest, fish, warrior), three statues (priest, fish, warrior), and three barrels (oil, poison, water). And a lever to pull. Well, I pull it, of course... Nothing. Okay, let's use our brains. There is poison spilled near the warrior statue. There is a fish near the priest statue. And there is a torch next to the fish. Well, I think, we solved more difficult puzzles in the first grade, but this was the most difficult one in the whole game (and we're near the end), I even had to think and explore the location... We put the barrels on the buttons: the fish button – oil, the warrior button – poison, and the priest button – water. And... Nothing. It turns out that you just need to put the statues on the buttons. Apparently, they decided that the target audience of the game couldn't handle a chain of three links, so they abandoned the barrels...
So, that's it. The world is bad, buttons instead of exploration, a teleport button instead of puzzles, clicking through numbers instead of quests, zero replayability. So, what's the point of all this? Probably just for the combat, but even that gets boring quickly. And a couple of fun moments, like killing an NPC in a quest, then telling another NPC, who was standing near the corpse, and taking all his stuff and increasing my capital fivefold, but if this is almost the only memorable moment besides the combat for a couple of dozen hours, that's kind of sad. It's completely unclear where the game got such high ratings. Although "Pillars of Eternity" also has high ratings.
Let's say 4/10
Added 10 minutes ago
Ah yes, an important question: given all this, is it worth trying to play the second part?