That was a close one! Almost didn't get to write something about any new games this month. Of course with the 12 hour shifts going on that might still happen in September.
Anyway...
This has been on the backburner for me for months. I loved Original Sin, and unlike most people I find the genericness of the setting is played with a certain charm not seen in most other worlds. I had stopped due to frustration with the choppiness of the XBox version, and picked it up after finally deciding to buy the PC version. It actually wasn't that much less choppy, but better is better. As far as my opinions in general? See them after the break.
I was kinda unimpressed with the base game. Because of healing abilities and potions being way too powerful and the game seeming to be entirely balanced around it, the game starts out unforgivingly difficult and gets easier and easier as you get access to more ways to reliably heal. Life leech is the biggest culprit of this, as it starts out being nearly worthless, but by the end of the game I reliably healed for about half my health every other hit, trivializing all combat that didn't involve crowd control. All fights devolve into 'hit it until it dies and use a potion if it hurts,' with no other depth to speak of. They obviously wanted you to dodge around a lot, but it never felt reliable to me, and after a certain point you can just face tank everything anyway.
The story also feels a bit...lopsided. You're a dragon slayer. Oh wait now you're a dragon knight. HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE THE VERY THING YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO HATE? the game asks. Well, considering I had been a dragon slayer for all of 20 minutes, and didn't slay a single dragon during that time...Well, I can't say it feels very much of anything. Next thing you know you're doing their dragon knight trials, suddenly you're claiming a tower in the middle of a deserted island and choosing who gets to serve you while the others are arbitrarily killed off. Then suddenly the big bad says 'I haven't actually done anything evil yet, guess it's time to be bad' and destroys the first area for some reason. Then you seek four macguffins, go to the afterlife, and revive the bad guy's wife. Which turns out to be a bad idea.
The end.
...
Yup, that's the end of the base game.
On the bright side, this all segues into the much better DLC. Aleroth has very nearly Clock Town levels of coolness going for it as you explore it. The whole thing really has a very Majora's Mask vibe - there's impending doom approaching the town, and you have to retrieve the macguffin buried beneath the town or everyone dies. It helps that your 'helper' is much cooler in the DLC too, I enjoyed having an evil wizard voice his thoughts on the happenings much more than Miss Notactuallythedragonknight. And while the base game was still flavorful and charming, I found Aleroth to be even more so.
Want to add, few games do being a dragon justice. This one...kinda does. I mean, you typically just use the form to demolish flying fortresses, which is fun. But that's about all you use it for. I mean, regular enemies just outright disappear when you enter dragonform. I feel there was a lot of missed potential there. It's not as satisfying raining down fiery death when you can't rain it down on more traditional enemies. That said, the final dragon segment of the DLC was phenomenal, and it's clear that Larian put a lot of heart into the making of it. Unfortunately, it still ends on a strange note, since you never actually fight the actual bad guy and he's still at large. I can only imagine how people who freed the evil wizard instead of siding with Bellegar felt.
If the game just had better storytelling, and combat that didn't rely so heavily on healing and achieved depth through other means, this may have been one of my favorite games. I still enjoyed it immensely, especially the DLC, but the shoddy combat and odd storytelling hold it back.
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