Divinity Original Sin 2 is definitely a game that I did not expect to like as much as I did, I honestly just bought it a while ago due to the low price and how people were praising Larian for Baldur’s Gate 3, and have been putting off playing it for a couple of months due to some aspects of the gameplay that I wasn’t sold on like how most of the story happens through narration (as opposed to cutscenes) and the isometric view coupled with the point and click gameplay.

Boy did I regret it.

Divinity 2 is probably one of my most favorite games that I’ve played this year, if not this decade. The gameplay loop is so addicting, from exploring the world, engaging in combat, managing your inventory, etc. it all meshes together so well into this coherent symphony, a one-of-a-kind role-playing experience.

The main campaign tells a story about becoming a god, I mean, what more can I say other than that it’s pretty epic. All the characters also have their own interesting questlines with each side story eventually mingling with each other and becoming part of the main story.

The character creation is pretty diverse, you can spend an hour or two just thinking about which character background you want to pick, which class are you going to give them, which innate abilities are the best and which stats are you going to focus on. Granted, it’s not as flexible when it comes to altering your appearance, but since you’re going to be looking at them from far away most of the time, I personally don’t think it really matters.

This flexibility in the character creation also applies to your entire party. Don’t like how a party member looks or the default class that they’re given? No problem! This game lets you respec almost everything about them, including their appearance, their stats and their traits. It is so flexible and allows for a ton of experimentation regarding different classes and party composition.

After you begin your campaign, finished the tutorial and landed in Fort Joy, Divinity 2 truly shines. This is because I believe that fort joy is one of the best first areas in any video game. It’s like the size of a lake with the depth of an ocean, not too big but still a very fun playground to play in with tons of secrets to discover. There’s lots of ways to escape fort joy, lots of characters to meet and interact with, a great deal of loot to discover, sidequests to complete, and so much more.

Some areas do need polish though, like how some of the characters have the same face with just different hairstyles/skin color, how some of the fights have these HUGE difficulty spikes (the final boss in particular is so damn hard compared to the rest of the game), and how the game also holds your hand so little to the point where I got genuinely confused and had to look up a guide online for some puzzle solutions and how to progress on certain missions (How is my dumbass supposed to know that there are spirit levers that's invisible to the naked eye?). I'll say this much, if you aren’t hooked on the gameplay of Divinity 2 after completing Fort Joy, then I’m afraid this game just isn’t for you.

Seeing as how Baldur’s Gate 3 is an improvement from Divinity Original Sin 2 in a lot of ways; if you’re planning on playing Baldur’s Gate 3, PLEASE try out Divinity Original Sin 2 first. I'd give this game a solid 9.5/10.