[detuur]

Right now I'm playing Divinity: Original Sin 2, and I cannot help feeling that the timing between this book and the game is just unfortunate. It came out just too late (or the book just too early?) for it to have a worthy entry in and a worthy impact on the book, which is a shame. I genuinely consider it a benchmark achievement. Not only does it set the standard for turn-based systems and cooperative (or competitive, if you wish) cRPG gameplay, it oozes good game development which culminates in one of the finest RPGs of the 2010s, only really rivalled by The Witcher 3. I hope its quality and its mastery of its mechanics translates into becoming an influence for RPGs to come.

[sparq_beam]

Does 2 have huge walls of text like the first one?

When I tried the first one, I was very impressed by the combat system as shown on the starting tutorial, but as soon as you get to the first city there is too much dialog. I realize that dialog is part of cRPGs, but when the ratio of gameplay to dialog is too low, I'd rather read a book.

[detuur]

Oh yeah Cyseal was so much conversation and so little doing. While there's still a lot of dialogue in DOS2, there's a lot less filler now and the balance has done a healthy shift toward action. Writing in general has been tightened up with conversations actually being interesting, funny, and a lot of the time helpful towards solving open quests. Heartily recommend the pet pal perk which will allow you to talk to animals, since a lot of the time they've got very clear-cut clues towards your objectives.

[vanderZwan]

As other comments have pointed out, the book ends at 2014. D:OS2 is a milestone that came after that. Give it a decade and it can be in volume two of this history tome :)

[felipepepe]

Actually the book ends at 2015, and D:OS2 is mentioned on the D:OS1 review.