Divinity 2 is a huge open world game that is home to dragons, goblins, trolls and awful game design choices.
PROS:
- Huge maps. Both horizontally and vertically.
- You can fly around as a dragon.
CONS:
- Slow health regeneration as part of deliberate game design. My character eventually regenerated about 10 hit points per second. Still, it would take about a minute or so to go from 10% health to 90% health. What that means is you will constantly have to just stop and wait before you can proceed. Even during the most intense sequences of the game where you get the sense of urgency (i.e. storming the enemy stronghold while there is battle music playing in the background) you can still only kill 1-2 enemies at a time before you have to run away in the opposite direction, hide and regenerate - stare at your screen for a minute at a time. There is nothing to do during that time. You can't even browse your inventory because if you do that you won't regenerate health.
- Enemies' damage is too high. You can die in 3-4 hits. Even when you level up. That means you constantly have to reload maybe 7-8 times before you can get past an enemy. Now, you might think that I should have tried other areas first, leveled up some more, put more points into vitality? Not so. The deaths are often caused by bad level design decisions. For example, you move through a portal and once the loading screen goes away you discover that 40% of your health is already gone because you are surrounded by enemies and they were attacking you while the game was still loading. Sometimes you get stuck near a staircase for a few seconds. Sometimes when you want to dodge an enemy attack by backflipping, your character stops in midair and you will still get hit by an enemy.
- Graphics. They look bland and outdated. At least 6 years old.
- Dialogue options. 90% of the time it doesn't matter which dialogue option you choose, the result doesn't change. Usually it goes something like this:
Bad guy: An intruder. I will kill you!
1. Not if I kill you first.
2. Please don't attack me.
3. Is that a pixel in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
Bad guy: Now you will die.
1. End conversation
Divinity is pretending to have depth in the choices you make but it's just a mediocre illusion.
- Spells and abilities that stun or confuse the protagonist. When I get hit by one of those, I can't do anything. My character just stands still and gets attacked. I can only watch hit points disappear. It is not a multiplayer game. There is no need to balance towards other characters or NPCs.
- Homing missiles. When an archer attacks you, you will get hit. If you see an arrow coming and you want to jump over it, the arrow changes direction and still hits you. When there are multiple archers you might lose more than half of your hitpoints in just one shot. Some spells are designed to push you back when they hit you. The only problem is, they push you back no matter what direction you are facing. So if you are running away and somebody shoots you from behind, you will now get pulled towards the enemy instead of being pushed back.
- Death sequences. When your character dies, you will hear a super annoying scream. A noise that might make you press ALT+F4 after hearing it for the tenth time in 5 minutes.
This game is hard, but not for the right reasons. Divinity 2 is not a challenge. You are fighting against awful game design choices.