Sword Coast Legends/Pillars of Eternity/Divinity - Original Sin

[Clistenes]

I have a question, if you would be so kind as to lend me a hand...

I am somebody who enjoyed Baldur's Gate I & II, Neverwinter I & II and Icewind Dale I & II.
I didn't enjoy Dragon Age - Origins as much; I found it kinda boring all that time spent fighting the same critters; the RP aspect was okay, despite feeling that the Grey Wardens were *******s for... tricking people into joining and forcing them to drink a poison that would turn them into ghouls...

I particularly like those games that mimic best the pen & paper mechanics, and dislike Diablo-like hack and slash stuff like Dungeon Siege.

I have some free time now and I am thinking on buying a new game. I'm thinking of buying Sword Coast Legends, Pillars of Eternity or Divinity - Original Sin...

Which of these would you recommend me and why?

Thank you very much in advance.

[Aotrs Commander]

Only played the middle one (I was one of the kickstarter backers), but I can highly recommend it. Base game took me about 80 hours to complete (albiet I take a leisurely pace and do EVERYTHING), plus time for the first half of first expansion. It's not quite BG 2 (and still a ways off from the Crown Jewel of Torment), but it's the first game since IWDII that actually does feel like an updated IE game.

(That said, I'm literally playing through KotR 1/2 right now and I'd honestly forgotten how good they were.)

The mechanics are P&P-ish, though obviously it's its own system. They've (in my opinion) struck an exellent balance between per rest and per-encounter (you start getting low level spells as per encounter at 9th level) and in removing the tedium of post-battle healing by having endurance (which regenerates out of combat) and health (which is several times your maximum endurance value and is lost whenever you take damage and is only restored when you rest (in-combat healing only affects your endurance) - and it caps you endurance once it gets that low.). It means you'll start every fight at full hit points, unless you've been through enough fights.

Anyone can use any weapons and armour (armour basically gives you an action speed penalty; Obsidian tried oh so hard to make there be more than one armour type that everyone used, but what you tend to find is you either have the heaviest armour or no armour, but they DID try!) All the weapons have their own slight perks so there is some reason for picking between them, but not enough that there is any massive reason to go for one type.

The companions are pretty good - no amazing stand-outs, this time, I felt, but they're all pretty solid. And if you don't like any of them, you can just make additional characters for a fee at an inn (so you can play the game like IWD if you want.

There's a fair bit of stuff you can do to tweak the difficulty, if you like it hard - or you can just stick with normal and enjoy all the modern quality of life enchancements (like spell areas markers) - or turn 'em off, if you prefer.

The ending to the game is pretty good (I say this as a point of note, since Obsidian DID give us KotR 2 (out of their hands) and NWN2 (which until MAss Effect 3 was the worst ending ever, unfortunately coming after still, I think, the best end-of-game boss fight in any of these systems, since you got to use EVERYBODY.)



There are a few areas where it's a bit short. The single biggest one, the stronghold, was fixed up when the first bpart of the expansion was released and now is actually feeling like it was worth spending all the money on. The weapons and gear are still a bit more dubious, since you can enchance them yourselves and even the unique items you find in the game have the same 12-point limit, meaning that they often aren't much better than anything you can make yourself - or that once you find one that is, you'll stick with it for the rest of the game.

But on the whole, considering this is basically the Baldur's Gate of what I would sincerely hope will be the franchise, it comes out with an outstanding start in my opinion.

[Clistenes]

Thank you very much for your imput! :smallsmile:

[The Hellbug]

I'd totally recommend either Pillars of Eternity or Original Sin. As far as my opinion goes on choosing between the two: I''l just give you what I thought was the best part of each since they are both at least competent across the board. In Original Sin's favor is the combat: it's a lot of fun and I think the turn-based stuff works better than the old infinity engine formula in general. While the game has a couple of frustrating moments (the stealth section should have been axed--no buts), it's an absolutely fantastic game. Now for Pillars of Eternity, and you can take this with a grain of salt since I am admittedly a huge Obsidian fan (KOTOR 2 was just this close to being an absolute masterpiece--unfortunately the last act of the game is just unfinished). I found that my favorite part of Pillars was the setting. When I finished the game, I found myself wanting to know more about the world that the game built. While the game is focused on one particular region, you get the feeling that you're just scratching the surface of what the world has to offer, if you know what I mean, and what you see there is great. Another bonus for Pillars is that the plot is a bit more interesting that Original Sin's.

God, it feels like I'm just rambling now so I'm gonna cut myself off; hope that helps.

[Inarius]

The game closest to the ones you listed is probably going to be Pillars of Eternity. Its pretty similar to the IE games, but its mechanics were built from the ground up for the computer as opposed to being transferred from one medium to another. All in all I really enjoyed it, it setting was interesting and it gave that feel of nostalgia while also being more modern than the games it was based off of.

Divinity Original Sin on the other hand plays differently from the games you listed but is still a really good game on its own. Its combat is really fun and it has some good puzzles in it. Though perhaps a bit too many puzzles for my taste especially since the combat is so fun I found myself usually wanting to just rush through puzzle pieces to get to the next combat sections. Storywise I would have to say its pretty unremarkable. I barely remember the story of it, but I do remember the fights and the tricks that I had to use to be able to steal everything that wasn't nailed down while in the room with a NPC.

[factotum]

Not played Sword Coast Legends. Of the other two, I think Divinity: Original Sin is a better game--combat is simply far more fun in it than PoE, and you'll be doing quite a bit of that in both games. Story and characters in PoE are probably better, but I found it a real slog to get through it.

[Abemad]

You know, the current humble bundle contains both Blackguards (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90zmV5-bE2Y) games. While they aren't based on the same system as the games you mention, they both contain tactical combat reminiscent of the old infinity engine games.

[Clistenes]

Thank you very much, people! :smallsmile: