In video games, you definitely shouldn't try to lower your health on purpose, right? Yet here I am, in Divinity Original Sin 2, putting that logic right in the bin. At this moment, I'm actively trying to get hurt in the throes of a battle. I'm not even fighting back, I'm just spamming end turn for each party member until one character takes enough hits. Everything about it feels wrong – like I'm setting myself up to fall – but after seeing how this can play out if I do otherwise, I have to follow my instincts. If I just stick it out, I can avoid bloodshed. I just know it. I only feel confident to test this theory thanks to Larian's latest RPG, because if Baldur's Gate 3 has taught me anything, it's that the solutions or methods to resolve conflicts aren't always the most conventional ones.
Sure enough, the battle ends not with my death but when my character's health bar gets low enough. Everyone involved in the fight lives to see another day, and my resolve to hold back from retaliating is instantly rewarded as a result. I've been meaning to try out Divinity Original Sin 2 for years, and encounters like this one have me kicking myself that it took me so long. As a diehard RPG fan, I've long since had an interested eye cast on Larian's much-acclaimed adventure. After all, it has a lot of ingredients that speak directly to me: companions, romance, choice and consequence, and a hefty helping of role-play. It's been recommended to me several times over since it first released in 2017, but it wasn't until I mastered Baldur's Gate 3 that I truly felt confident I could get on with its systems.
A new beginning
After returning to Dragon Age Origins because of Baldur's Gate 3, the itch to try something new in a similar vein only intensified. My mind immediately went to Divinity Original Sin 2, and as luck would have it, the Definitive Edition just so happened to be on sale on PS4. All the stars seemed to align, and I had to take it as a sign; now was the right time to at long last dive in.
The first thing I had to decide was who to play as, which is no simple thing when you're welcomed into a game with a cast of intriguing established characters to choose from. Just like Baldur's Gate 3, Divinity let's make your own custom character or play as one of the premade origin characters. After reading many, many reddit threads, the consensus was that playing as an origin character was a good call for beginners like me, and while there are plenty of cases made online about who's best to pick, I decided to go for the origin that called to me the most. More often than not, I'm drawn to individuals with a silver tongue, those with roguish qualities, an air of mystery, or anyone with a creative flair. In Baldur's Gate 3, the bard is far and away my favorite class when it comes to role-playing.
With that in mind, Lohse ticked a lot of those boxes for me out the possible lineup. Not only is she a musician and performer with the quips of a Jester, she's also got a pretty intriguing secret. In Lohse's own words, her body is "a playground for sprites, spirits… and worse", and a voice that's louder than all others appears to be out to take over her body. In fact, as I would come to discover later on, that very voice is what led to the unfortunate skirmish where I had to let her get hit several times over to avoid killing an elf I'd helped save moments before.
I've barely scratched the surface of her story so far, but right off the bat, I love how Divinity Original Sin 2 presented me with dialogue options that are unique to Lohse and her talents. I already felt like I was role-playing in her shoes from the minute I awoke on a ship, captured and collared by Magisters. The entire set up of the adventure is just as tantalizing as Baldur's Gate 3, too, when my journey aboard the sailing prison takes a hard u-turn thanks to a mysterious figure unleashing havoc and a… kraken? I still don't know what's going on, or what's in store for Lohse, but I can't wait to find out.
A part to play
Having done a run in Baldur's Gate 3 as Astarion, I really enjoy how the origins have their own questline – it feels like you're experiencing their personal story and getting a different perspective on the world that's unique to them because of it. Happily, much the same applies in Divinity. For Lohse, a bad gig led to her capture, and the voice in her head is an ever-pressing concern as she vyes for freedom. Plus, you don't have to go it alone, with the other origins joining you as party members. Each one has their own background, motivations, and arc, and I love the way they react to actions – that kind of feedback just makes my presence in the world feel so tangible.
While Divinity Original Sin 2 is of course little more dated in comparison to Baldur's Gate 3, so much of it reminds of the adventure in the Sword Coast. It took a spell to get my bearings on the controls, but once I did, I felt right at home. The mechanics and systems share similar DNA, from the way you can interact with the environment to a narrator offering more detail about a character's countenance, or an object you're looking at. My time as Tav in Faerun also helped me quickly get to grips with Divinity 2's combat, which is also turn-based. The main difference is that fighting uses an action point system – whereby each character has a certain number of action points they can use each round that dictates how much they can move, use skills, and attack – but even then, it's not that far off the action-based set up in Baldur's Gate 3.
Larian's writing chops are here in full force too, and the storytelling and depth of the older RPG – even so early on – already have me thinking it will be my new obsession. I relish being able to dive into a new world, meet characters whose stories I've yet to explore, and have the freedom to experiment and make choices as Loshe that feel impactful. Despite how quickly I'm picking everything up, the amount of freedom it gives you when it comes to your approach means my first run in Divinity Original Sin 2 still very much feels like a learning experience, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I'm so glad my time with Baldur's Gate 3 helped me put my apprehensions to one side. Now I just need to make up for lost time.
11 years later, nothing has rivaled the swansong expansion for my favorite sci-fi RPG series.
