Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Use more elements than Captain Planet!

I agrre. It’s a great and fun game, but perfect? Not even close imho.

Sigh. I feel like we get into this debate pretty regularly, but does any outlet mean for their their max review score to mean “perfect” and totally without flaws?

How did you get so far in the game after only 40 hours? I’m at 80 hours and just hit level 16.

The score doesn’t mean perfect, it’s discussed in the review and on the Gamestop site, perhaps even in the page linked. Their reasons for giving it a 10 made sense to me, and I thought it was a fair score given my 80 hours with it so far.

Well if something scores 10/10 it usually means it is beyond reproach, damned perfect. That said, here’s Gamespots own definition..

So, “essential,” whatever that means.

Of all the games on that list I have played 3.

So, no, right?

But to achieve a 10/10, a game needs to be essential, and it needs to have something so meaningful to offer us that it simply cannot be ignored. Regardless, a 10/10 review score is always determined by the personal opinion of its respective writer and always reflects as such.

Edit: I literally can think of no paid reviewer that think s their 5 stars or 10/10 or 100% equals “beyond reproach, damned perfect” Like, none.

Then why rate it so highly? Someone looking in from the outside is going to assume that something with such a high score is at the very least a standard bearer for the genre or the hobby as a whole.

You can quibble over semantics like perfect or essential, but my point is that as much as I like this game, it is neither perfect nor essential and doesn’t deserve a 10/10.

In fact there’s a lot that will turn people off.

I’m agreeing with @abrandt when s/he said

If you want to go on a rant about what ratings mean or don’t mean be my guest, but this game doesn’t deserve a 10/10.

I would disagree, it is pretty essential if someone is asking for a modern isometric RPG this is it, rather than harp back to BG2 this is it, a great game with some issues of which all great games still have some.

Again it might not be a 10/10 from you but you didn’t review it which is cool but this whole it should be a 5,6,7,8,9 or whatever is still a pointless exercise unless you are doing the review.

LMAO that list. Nearly fell out of my chair as I scrolled through.

Because Gamespot’s reviewer loved it?

Yes?

You’re welcome to your opinion. Just as the Gamespot reviewers have theirs.

Sure, that’s what this discussion thread is for.

Sorry. It’s just a tired and worn criticism that I see all the time on the internet. The idea that a 10/10 means a game has to be perfect is one of the weakest arguments used against reviewers. Once a person understands that a review is literally the opinion of the reviewer, and that a disagreement over that review is not inherently a personal attack, it gets a lot easier to read and digest criticism.

I understand what a review is. I read that review and not only is it too short for me, it seems to gloss over the bugs (quests not completing), some strange design decisions (the arena in fort joy can’t be progressed after the first fight unless done with another human player, but there’s nothing to tell you this in game) the opaque quest structure (I figured out how to heal the historian through perseverance and luck) and mentions this:

Confusing journal makes it hard to keep track of individual quests and the plot

as the only negative, in the summary.

That’s simply not true.

As to why I think it matters, well you’re telling people what the game is like, but omitting information, ergo not a good review for me.

I much prefer RPS’s system, with a simple ‘recommend.’ Ditto Explorminate.

How kind of you. Last I checked though this was supposed to be a professional review?

A pointless exercise indeed, so please tell @Telefrog who seems to have taken it on himself to defend scored reviews.

Anyway, moving on, as I feel this is a largely unconstructive digression, and am threfore not going to devoter more energy to it, the game itself is mostly fun, but the quest log is terrible.

There is one thing they’ve done that gets mentioned sometimes but doesn’t get quite enough praise imho, which is how quests have different ways to go through them, and I haven’t managed to “break” a quest yet, even having Sebille and the Red Prince in the same party (there’s a character they both want to speak to in Fort Joy, for…different…purposes).

I played a bit of the original again just before this one released, and I can happily say that the sequel, so far, is simply a more enjoyable game all round.

Oh, I can’t let this one go. Please tell us how this isn’t a professional review.

Divinity: Original Sin 2…

That’s his point - it is a professional review, not merely an opinion. And as such it should be more thorough.

Oh boy.

Oh boy what? You can subjectively opine on a product and list the (in this case very objective) faults at the same, these two things are not mutually exclusive.

I was reading some console war thread and thinking still?

Who said you couldn’t? You can also not do that. It’s the prerogative of the reviewer (and editor) to write a review however they want.

Is this a professional review to you?

If Tom was paid for it, then yes. How good it is I cannot tell because I haven’t played the game myself but at a glance it seems like it provides enough relevant information (interface, level of challenge). Considering it’s an artsy game I think the depth of the review probably matches the depth of the game (gameplay/interactivity wise).

To be a fair, as far as professional reviews go that DOS2 review isn’t bad, it actually provides more relevant information (character creation, quest structure, combat type, elemental combos & interacting with environments, etc) than I’ve seen in most rpg reviews. But nowhere is it mentioned that major character progression mechanics (skill books) are scattered all over the place, the stat inflation that starts occurring in act2, the controversial initiative system or the tedious as shit micromanagement that is the result of poorly implemented civil skills and inventory/bag system. These are the things that will waste player’s time like nothing else in the game and considering how long the game is I think it would be prudent to mention them.

I hesitate to call this controversial unless you’re trying to look at people who call it perfect vs those who say it’s awesome despite some small UI / Inventory flaws. There are some people who don’t like it, and that’s OK because not every game is for everyone. I try games that get a lot of press and excitement only to sullenly say it’s not for me. (Mad Max, Batman for me)

For me, it’s really a fun experience that hits a huge number of pleasure points - The character creation allows for a huge amount of variability from your base skills and talents and the evolving game play really feels so much better than in DoS 1 - In DoS, I got so frustrated getting out of the starting town because it seemed every road led to being way under leveled. In DoS 2 in contrast, there have been some dungeons that I back out of and come back, but it never felt like I was searching for the “right” path.

My son & I are playing a COOP and I fired up SP campaign in addition and am playing them concurrently because I like it so much. It’s a game that does a great job of keeping you on the knife edge of over-leveling / under leveling (although I’m barely at Level 10 right now and I’ve read from others in this very thread that say some gets rather easy).

Complaints about the UI are not unfounded, but they aren’t THAT bad. I mean, I can’t recall a game where I didn’t complain about the inventory system!
→ For the record I think some people are missing the fact you can swap between characters simply by cycling through the character portraits while in trade windows and it’s quite simple to swap between characters when in the inventory screens. So a part of me thinks that people are being overly pessimistic about it when it does make a lot of things easy.

The voice acting is a nice touch although I’ll admit I routinely do not listen and fast forward so I can get out of the dialogue and to the next battle.

I think the one complaint that has merit is that there is simply too many things to think about and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. For example, I’ve chosen to completely ignore all food and drink and just vendor them - a bedroll is all you need and you can get that right from the beginning. Crafting to me is just too much. I’m limiting this & focusing solely on healing / armor potions that will actually help me in battle, but I may very well be missing lots of other things. If you are a person who can’t pick and choose what to ignore, I can see how this game would just completely overwhelm you, so that is a valid complaint - just remember they are all optional!

With the ability to respec anytime after you get to Chapter 2, FOR FREE I might add, is awesome. You no longer have to stress out whether you’re picking a good path.

Great game. Can’t wait to get home & play more!