When I first lost myself in the world of Rivellon last year, it was a fun trip, though one I never quite finished. With the release of Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition on PS4, Xbox One, and PC, I believe I will be seeing that journey through to the end.
It’s been quite a surprise to return to Divinity: Original Sin a year later and see how much has been tweaked and improved for this version. The full list of changes is so long that I’m surprised Larian posted it at all, but there are four key points that stuck out to me as I’ve begun my venture into Divinity’s depths once more. Specifically, the improved dialogue/story, the reworked areas, the inclusion of context appropriate tutorial tips, and the controller support. The better looking graphics are a nice improvement and there’s a definite difference when comparing the enhanced to the original, but I’d play an 8-bit RPG if the game was compelling enough.
I enjoyed Divinity: Original Sin’s story when I played through it the first time; it was the exact kind of fantasy I grew up with in books, movies, and TV. It was fun with just enough mystery to keep you interested. It was not, however, always coherent. NPCs wouldn’t always react to certain in-game events or they just came and went without much reason. The Enhanced Edition has significantly improved upon this in a few ways. The first is to make all characters voiced. This can get annoying at times, such as hearing the vendors in Cyseal repeating the same couple of lines over and over to attract customers, but overall serves to give everyone a bit more depth and personality. What’s more, those spoken words will be noticeably different to anyone who’s played the game previously. Informational dialogue flows much more smoothly now and is more consistent across NPCs. The text in journals, letters, and other written word items scattered throughout the world are also more consistent and do a better job of providing you with context of what’s happening, particularly those related to specific quests. These are subtle changes and yet are the largest part of what makes the game feel brand new.
The other part of that formula is the reworking of some of the game’s areas and encounters. There were times when I was making my way through a dungeon that I remembered quite well from before, only to find that things had changed. In some cases, this would be something small like adding a new room and a new group of enemies; in others, enter sections were changed and new puzzles were added. The first time this happened, I found myself scratching my head and trying to recall a solution to something that I had never encountered before. Once I realized that my memory isn’t quite as bad as I thought, I took a moment to appreciate the way all of this had been done. Many of the puzzles in the original version were a matter of finding the right person with whom to speak, or the right book to read. Some of the new puzzles, on the other hand, present you with the solution right there in the environment itself and may require the application of some of your character skills in a slightly different way.
If you’ve played through the game already and are wondering if you should play it again, I feel the two aforementioned items are reason enough to do so. A good game has only been made better with these improvements, and the reworked dialogue/story ensures you’ll get to enjoy something new even on a second run. If you’re looking for more of a challenge this time around as well, the two new difficulty modes, Tactician and Honour, will see to that. Both were designed by Larian in response to watching Twitch streams and YouTube videos of players beating encounters, taking notes on the strategies (and/or exploits) used, and then reworking those encounters to make them tougher. Honour adds the extra twist of only giving you one save for the game and if your party ever wipes, then the save gets deleted.
For any newcomers, those improvements are nice and may make the game more appealing, but the real hook now is the game’s accessibility. Previously, the game had a bit of a barrier to entry; players with previous cRPG experience so they were (at least conceptually) familiar with the game’s crafting, equipment, levelling, and combat system had a far easier time than those that didn’t. While you could eventually suss everything out with enough time spent experimenting and saving before every battle, a little bit of help would have gone a long way. That help is now in the Enhanced Edition with tutorial tips, which pop-up on the screen within the appropriate context. These tips aren’t going to give you all the answers, but they at least point you in the right direction enough to make it a bit clearer why you would want to pick up certain items and combine them. This is still an open-world game, after all, that gives you almost absolute freedom to go anywhere and interact with anything, so the tips aren’t going to be able to cover everything.
The other feature that makes the game more accessible is the added controller support. Despite growing up on PC games, I find myself wanting to play games more and more using a controller. No doubt some of that is due to a lack of interest of having to memorize 20 different keyboard shortcuts, a concept that does demur some folks (understandably) from getting into PC gaming. While Divinity isn’t as bad as that, playing the game with a controller just feels a bit better. Pressing the right trigger brings up a radial menu of all the various, pertinent in-game menus, i.e., inventory, equipment, quest log, and character sheet, while the left trigger allows you to switch characters. Character and camera control is handled by the left and right sticks, respectively, while the d-pad is reserved for certain special commands, such as attacking the ground and enabling “sneak” mode. While I’ve had a couple moments of confusion with bringing up a particular menu or accidentally attacking the ground instead of moving during combat, the controller support feels well implemented and has become my preferred way to play.
The addition of controllers brings with it another feature: couch co-op play. It was always an interesting point to me that when the developers of the game were first talking about their inspiration for it, they spoke of how they wanted to make an RPG to play with friends/significant others in the same room. Yet the initial release only supported LAN and online play, meaning your friend/significant other needed to have his/her own PC. Now that the game has finally realized that vision of playing together in the same room, I can’t imagine playing this any other way. There is always something special when it comes to the kinds of interactions you have when gaming with friends when they are right there next to you versus on the other end of a Skype call; there’s more energy and perhaps even a little more camaraderie. For a game like Divinity, where playing co-op is all about two people roleplaying their way through an adventure, that energy is needed to make the 15th hour of the game as fun as the first.
The best summation I can give to all of this is that Divinity: Original Sin was a game I could easily recommend to any cRPG fan looking for a quality cRPG to play. Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition is a quality game I can recommend to anyone.