Divinity: Original Sin

[Quantum Glass]

I would actually probably really enjoy hearing this guy (Girl? I don't really know much about sexual dimorphism as far as skeletons are concerned. I'm going to go with girl)'s story.

She seems really cheerful!

 

[SnakeTrousers]

There's always a good method of delivering exposition in such a way that the player is not only not bored to death by it, but is actively interested in learning more. That said, Dragon Age seemed to deliver by truckload and dump it all over my character without any preparation. I couldn't keep up with all the lore entries and after a certain point I thought, "I'm just gonna kill things; let the chips fall where they may." Sometimes I wished there was a more expedient way to read lore, like flipping through the journal during the loading screens.

I feel like TES games are some of the best in regards to how they present the lore. It gets brought up in conversation from time to time, but you're rarely told more than the basics needed to contextualize current goings on, and if you want to learn more you do so by reading the books that are scattered throughout the world. This adds a certain element of exploration to learning about the history, because you actually need to track the information down.

 

[SnakeTrousers]

I feed on the tears of people too impatient to read the text, eager to "just play". No wonder we have so many shitty games today.
While not all of Divinity: Original Sin is that immersive or interesting, I'm savoring every minute of it, dragging the co-op session out as long as we possibly can while we discuss the content.

My issue with text/talk heavy RPG's is that much of the dialogue winds up being exposition, and the setting is rarely interesting enough to justify it. I really don't care about the mountains of backstory behind Middle Earth Knockoff 5467 and dry, lifeless presentation does nothing to help.

 

[Imre Csete]

I guess most folks missed out on the previous Divinity games. The stories are always generic, but they revel in it with snarky self awareness and wit. If you dig the quirky humour, then the franchise will be quite a unique experience for you.

 

[Fat Hippo]

It's a good thing I have a natural +10 for tolerating cheesy fantasy. It really has to be quite terrible to bother me all that much. I'm planning to co-op this with my brother starting tomorrow, and boy am I looking forward to it after everything I've heard about it.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Now, if you were to suggest that an RPG had too many tigers, then you'd be talking crazy.

Come to think of it, there aren't very many RPGs that have tigers in them at all, are there? Somebody needs to get on that. (Far Cry 3 does not count, by the way.)

 

[unacomn]

In this game, my underwear is magic and speaks.

It also has the same basic plot as Arcanum.

 

[Darth_Payn]

I wonder if they play by Finn the Human's Rules for Dungeon-Crawling.
"Hey, look! I found a key!"
"To the treasure chest from earlier?"
"Yep."
"Do we have to go back?"
"We don't have to, we get to!"

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

all these flesh priviledge jerks holding the calcium-people down

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

When I'm finished with Witcher 2 I'll play this next. I picked it up on discount in the SSS, when it was still technically early access then was released the day after the sale ended.

 

[Blade_125]

While I will agree this is a far wordier game than a lot of RPGs, I don't think it is as bad as the authors seem to think it is. Not from a good or bad thing, but that there isn't that much exposition aside from when dealing with specific NPCS. And it is very easy to skip all that dialogue if it isn't your thing.

I'm 25 hours or so into the game and I have to say it is one of the best RPG's I have played. Not as good a story as Dragon age, but the overall game mechanics are fantastic.

 

[The Wooster]

I guess most folks missed out on the previous Divinity games. The stories are always generic, but they revel in it with snarky self awareness and wit. If you dig the quirky humour, then the franchise will be quite a unique experience for you.

I don't quite know about "wit." It has that goofy trying-really-fucking-hard-to-be-monty-python humour going on a lot of the time. It's not great, but it's bearable. Baldur's Gate pulled off a similar tone while being far more grounded. When it gets all serious it takes a detour into trite town and quickly becomes unbearable.

So you're waiting for someone to make a mod for the game that has an amazing story?

Remake Planescape: Torment in the Divinity Engine (albeit better optimized) and you'd basically have the best game ever made.

 

[gamegod25]

That kills a lot of Japanese games (particularly RPGs) for me, far too much talking/reading that often comes off as just redundant and melodramatic. It takes a lot of skill and talent to turn a phrase and do more with less, that's why when someone can pull it off it really is worthy of praise.

 

[Erttheking]

I have heard good things about it but I never really felt motivated to try it out. I guess the combat might be fun but eh... a non-action RPG without a good story is like a burger joint without good burgers. They might have the best fries in the world, but that's not what I'm there for.

 

[lord.jeff]

I guess most folks missed out on the previous Divinity games. The stories are always generic, but they revel in it with snarky self awareness and wit. If you dig the quirky humour, then the franchise will be quite a unique experience for you.

I feel in a way that generic stories that make fun of themselves are worse then just bad stories themselves, it's admitting to a problem and choosing to do nothing about it.

 

[KazNecro]

Remember the good old days, when villains would monologue, and we heroes were able to take advantage of it and defeat the villain in time to make it to our movie date with someone who doesn't know our secret identity/organization, so we have to juggle our dual lives in a futile effort to live a normal existence; even though history has shown that it would have been much easier if we had disclosed our identity to said romantic interest to begin with, and it ultimately leads to our lamenting our lost love when a) they are killed off by a super-villain or b) they find out our secret and feel betrayed at the lack of trust on our part, leading to them leave us, which classically begins our "Dark Phase", where we shoot first and ask questions later, only to find that our love interest returns/rises from the dead, and is even more upset that we strayed from the righteous path, and we go through a "Redemption Phase" to win back our love interest and win the hearts and minds of the world we abandoned?

Ah, yes... good memories...

So yeah, sometimes monologues suck!

 

[JimB]

It is a sad indictment of education when you need to explain something as obvious and foundational to all knowledge as that skeletons make "gynaah" sounds.

 

[RJ 17]

Ahhhh, the dreaded "1" on the ol' Twenty Sider...nothing kills more adventurers than a simple number.

More to the actual comic: gotta say I love the joke. If only some games actually came with the ability to roll for a save against exposition.

 

[michael87cn]

eh I dunno. I think it depends on if you allow yourself the time to enjoy the game.

it's impossible to have too many words if you want it to have endless words!