Into the breach - Pacific Rim meets chess

Few days ago I realized that I have not written about Into the breach. So I am here to fix this mistake.

In 2012 a small studio called Subset Games created their debut game - Faster than Light - FTL. Despite the small team and niche genre FTL was a hit and turned into classic, becoming benchmark for many people in the industry. In February 2018 Subset returned and on the market appeared Into the Breach.

Small piece of perfection

I usually like to separate my reviews into sub-sections about the different aspects of the game, but Into the Breach is too small and too simple of a game for such thing, so here comes everything.

In the game you take command of a special time traveling squad which goes into the distant feature attempting to prevent the end of humanity. Similar to  FTL Into the Breach is also roguelike where when you die you teleport back to the past, re-assemble your team and can try again. During the game by completing objectives you will unlock new mechs for your squad. 

When you choose from your mechs and you are ready to start, the game transports you to the future. The world consists of islands which consist of regions. Each island have its own climate which can lead to thunderstorms, earthquakes, sandstorms and erupting volcanoes. Each region have also different objectives, some with buildings which if you succeed to keep whole to the end of the battle will provide you with bonuses and sometimes even units. 

If in a run you cleaned an island next time you will be able to start from it. 

Speaking of battles...

When you choose an island you will have a choice between few regions on this island. Each region with different advantages and disadvantages for you. What is important about the island's regions is that you will not be able to save all, some of them will fall to the insects, so you will need to choose carefully what you want and what you need. When you choose a region it is time to squash some bugs.

The battlefield is a small 8x8 square and on it the whole battle takes place. Before the battle you will have the chance to deploy your troops and this can be crucial for the battle to develop in your favor. What was surprising to me was how simple the game is and what big variety of units ( both mechs and bugs) there is in the game. The first make the game really easy to pick up and the second make it tactical masterpiece. The two together make it the gem it is. Among the bugs and the mechs you will see melee, charging units, tanks shooting in straight line, flying bugs and aircrafts, siege cannons, units creating  lightning and dust storms, bugs which bind targets stopping them from moving and more and more. The combinations and tactics are enormous amount. You will unlock thematic squads of mechs, but you can freely combine mechs from the pre-made squads into a custom squad. 
But how do you win? ( or lose at that matter) A good question. In each region you have buildings and you have power grid stat. If your power grid reaches zero you lose the run. When a building is destroyed you lose one grid and it is not restored after the battle. To win a battle you must survive X number of turns only, even in the bossfights, BUT in most battles you will also have side objectives which in some cases will give you grid, stars for unlocks or upgrade cores for your units. 

Conclusion

Into the Breach is simple game with simple mechanics. What make it so good is how well the mechanics are picked and how well they work together. It is not overburdened with complicated stats, skills or units, it is clean, only what is necessary and at the same time the game will make you bang your head against the wall and carefully plan every click you make. 

Where to find:

GoG
Steam
Humble

Ash of Gods - Looking like someone is not enough

This review is based on the release version of the game. Since then AurumDust have shipped many patches and updates.

In March 2018 under the hands of the studio AurumDust came out the game Ash of Gods: Redemption. The title both attracted me and worried me, because it reminded me of Banner Saga. Ash of Gods is mildly said inspired by Banner Saga and in the following text I will do something that I avoid usually and that is to heavily compare two titles. Is Ash of Gods imitating Banner Saga, is it better, is it worse? All these questions will be answered in the following text.

But first - what makes Banner Saga the awesome game it is (opinion me, as always)? Two separate reviews are written on the topic, but in short what make Banner Saga so good are it's hand drawn gorgeous world, it's captivating narrative with tense story, realistic situations, hard, meaningful decisions and real, breathing characters. The battles in the game are challenging, the game has polished, deep mechanics, vast roster of warriors and a bunch of viable play styles.

The above mentioned characteristics will also be the ones I will use for the comparison with Ash of Gods.

Visuals and Sound

Ash of Gods has its faults and I will talk about them in a little, but how it looks is not one of them. In it's looks Ash of Gods greatly remind me of Banner Saga with it's hand-drawn style. The difference is that unlike Banner Saga, Ash of Gods take place in a more medieval setting. In battle characters have nice fluid animations when attacking or using skills. For some reason though everyone while fighting calmly stride around the battlefield and when stricken their knees buckle. I clearly understand that animations are one of the things that gives the feeling that your attack is doing something, but  when everyone react the same way...it does not work so well.

The sound is in general good although you can hear it bug off when some skills are used in certain situations. For example AoE sword skills used on less than the maximum targets. The music is good but unimpressive without much value for immersion. 

Stories and Characters

 This is where Ash of Gods fails and it fails hard. The story idea is decent, but the characters feel flat, the dialogues are awkward. The game tries to set up dark, gritty atmosphere, but it manages just a bit of a tense situations where few action heroes through a lot of swearing and killing manage to get stuff done. Even one of the main characters feel weird as his lines are contradictive and make him feel like two different people. I know that the original script is written in Russian and all this might be because of a poor translation, but this does not change the facts...it makes it even worse. 

Also the choices you make do not feel as important. Stuff depend on what you do, but first the resolutions of your actions are long time after making the decisions, second they do not feel as impactful. Banner Saga will kill off characters of importance if you are not careful.

Traveling and Battles

After I talked about the worst in Ash of Gods, let me tell you about the best. Biggest flaw of Banner Saga is its linearity. You do not have a choice where to go, you just follow the story. In Ash of Gods you have few choices, mainly what way to go on the map toward your goal. These choices while minor still breed in some fresh air as they bring different events and some replayability of the game ( If you can get past the horrible dialogues and boring characters.). Sadly all the traveling is done on the map alone and there are no gorgeous views to enjoy while wondering what crisis the game will hit you with. When you arrive somewhere you can choose between places in the area which to "explore". Again, very similar to Banner Saga where instead of places to visit, you had people to talk with.

But I said I will talk about the best and this is far from the beast. The best are the battles.

The battle is turn based, where your chosen before the fight warriors fight against the enemy. So far nothing new, right? What makes it different are two main mechanics - power cards(or whatever is called in the game) and that you can choose with whom to act when it is your turn. The power cards are exactly what they sound like - every turn you can play one of limited number of cards. They are either buffs or harmful for the enemy effects. During your playthrough you will be able to find, craft and buy more cards. The really interesting mechanic is the second one - you choose who to use when it is your turn. Of course when you play with some one you cannot use them until you take turn with everyone else from your squad, but what this does is gives you immense freedom during battle, you decide how and when your men and women will act. You need your archers you got them, you need your melee to intercept someone, great, done. The mechanic feels great and it was the sole reason I enjoyed the combats in the game so much. Other than that the units have two stats - health and magic and both can be attacked. To use skills you will need to pay either with magic or health, but if you do not have magic you take double damage to your health. The characters have good, variable pools of skills including stances which give enough freedom how to and for what to use your fighters. Speaking about them, in the course of the game you will be able to level your guys, improve their abilities and equip them with items. From the whole game this is probably the best part even if it has its flaws like the speed and how everybody walk calmly around and the animations when someone is struck.

Conclusion

As much as I do not want to say it, Ash of Gods is a copy of Banner Saga which lacks most things that make Banner Saga the great game it is. It almost seem like AurumDust have made a checklist for their game but first of all have not polished each peace of the game and second they have missed to make the separate things from the checklist to work well with one another. 

Where to find:

Official site
GoG

Steam

Top 10 games reviewed for 2017

This post is so late, that by now is just proving a point. But is still a list of my favorite games, published last year and reviewed on the blog. This time they will not be even ordered. Just ten awesome games. Detailed reviews in the links of the game titles.

Torment - Tides of Numenera

Torment: Tides of Numenera is squad based RPG with turn based battles, but you will almost never be pressured to fight as there are numerous ways to resolve a crisis. Torment is a game focused on talking and learning about the world in which you have fallen(you literally fall from the sky). It is a game targeted at people who like long dialogues, hard choices, intriguing world and exploration. Oh and have a lot of free time. Torment: Tides of Numenera as most games of the genre is between 25 and 30+ hours of gameplay. But every hour invested is worth it, even if you do not finish it play it if not for another thing then for the rich palette of characters you will meet. Torment is like a how-to to anyone who is in the business of creating characters.


Battle Brothers 



Battle Borthers is ok looking game. No flashy effects, no high detailed models, nothing visually impressive. But oh my how deep is this game! You will have to manage your company, be careful what brothers you hire, to have enough money, food and supplies. Which brothers you will take to battle, who will you hire, how will you arm them, what formation you will use. There is a ton of things, ridiculous amount of depth. The biggest downside for me was the lack of overarching story, but you can easily make your own. You will meet enough strong enemies, you will have more than enough epic battles to do so if you want to. You will even have the chance to get into a war between the royal families. Plenty of material to make your own story. Another nitpick which might turn people away is the low fantasy profile of the game. You will fight orcs, goblins and undead, but there is very little magic in the world of Battle Brothers.
If I have to compare Battle Brothers to another game it is definitely Mount and Blade with bigger focus on the fights and turn-based, but similar in many ways. Great, sadly niche game which will not get the attention it deserves. It is hard, it is far from casual and takes a lot of time to progress. But great, great game nonetheless.

Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight is an epic 2D action-adventure. You’ll explore twisting caverns, battle tainted creatures and escape intricate traps, all to solve an ancient long-hidden mystery. In this review I have compared it to Dark Souls and I know a lot of you are thinking about Salt & Sanctuary, but this is a totally different game. Salt was an action platformer, but it was still centred around the hard fights and there was very little platforming or exploration. In Hollow Knight you will have your share of jumping puzzles and great amount of exploring the unique world in which you have descended.  It's a healthy mix of Ori's jumping puzzles and Salt & Sanctuary's fight without taking any of those two to the extreme.
A must play for the fans of the genre.

Old Man's Journey 

Old Man's Journey is amazing, charming, filled with bittersweet feelings small game which might make you think about life in different light. Give it a chance it is barely a two hours journey each minute of which is worth it.

Pyre 

Pyre bears many of the Supergiant's typical characteristics. Great music, good atmosphere, interesting story (reminded me a bit of “Fahrenheit 451”), looks gorgeous and alive. At the same time it is not on par with Transistor or with Bastion. It felt a bit repetitive and on rails. True, the world opens up a little after certain point, bit it turns into a grind basically which is bearable only because more lore is revealed during this part. On another hand it is a short game with its 12-15 hours length. 
The strangest part? I loved it. I did not like some things, but the more I played Pyre the more I liked it and I do not know why or how it happened. I guess Supergiant is Supergiant after all.

Divinity: Original Sin 2

Any explanation will fall short. Divinity is a game which creates not just experiences which is the point of most games, but it creates stories, memories. It is a world so vibrant and full of treasure, mystery and miracle that you want to see every corner of it, speak to every man, woman and animal just to hear their story and learn more about what surrounds you...
If you the time and like massive RPGs just go and play it. You will not finish it probably, but even 20-30 hours are worth it. Divinity OS 2 is like that place everyone need to see for themselves.  

And here I am not even talking about the modding which the game supports or the gamemaster mode where you create your own story campaign. Sadly I still have not tried neither of those...

Hob

Hob is not revolutionary game, but neither it was Torchlight. But Torchlight were well made games and Hob continues this trend showing that the people at Runic knew what they are doing. 
Hob is beautiful and charming, bit at the same time cruel and dangerous of the unwary. It is not a long game with its 7 zones it will take you around 30 or so hours to finish but in this time you have the pleasure to wander in one unique world which will challenge your wits, patience and fighting prowess. 
We can only wonder what other great worlds Runic could have made if the studio continued to exist.
Pit People

Pit People is weird silly game, by the giant Behemoth(you see what I did there?). At first the game may look a bit random and strange but you will realize that all those silly stuff click together really well. In other words the developers had not just poured random ideas in the game, they had clear idea what they wanted to make. 
In it's core Pit People is fast paced RPG adventure game with turn-based battles where you will have to help the poor blueberry farmer Horatio to succeed in his revenge against the horrible space bear. 
The game is still in early access, but its already quite polished and have its core mechanics in place. For now it lacks content and the story quest line will probably be the main thing(aside from the co-op and the 2v2 arena modes) which will make you play the game, but Behemoth have gotten the formula and now they only need to develop its full potential.
The game is not for everyone and its probably even target at very specific audience, but if you like your games a bit silly I recommend you to try Pit People when it is out.
And yes, I know I cheated with this one. Hehe...
Night in the Woods

Night in the Woods explore the problems of growing up, failing, parents expectations, clash of past and present and many more, it is a game which will have biggest impact on players which are around Mae's age and they themselves are having the same or similar problems. Other audience to which I recommend the game are people who have gone through this in the past. Another side of the game is the mystery and Mae's weird dreams, but most value from the game you will get if you play it because of the things I mentioned above as this is the main purpose of the game in my opinion. To touch these sensitive topics which few if any games does. 

Gorogoa

If you are into puzzle games even just a little, go and play it its a game which need to be experienced and no amount of words will represent it fairly. 

It's never too late @Willian Cross. About this proving of a point I was talking about.  Be immortal, dear readers!

Gorogoa - A life told in pictures

For varied reasons this blog has little by little become a place for hidden gems. This does not mean you will never find opinion on bigger title, but it has become a rarity. Why I am saying all this? It is clear already I think,  you have seen the title after all. Today I am here to tell you about the puzzle game Gorogoa. 

Gorogoa is puzzle game developed by Jason Roberts and published by Annapurna Interactive in December 2017. 
The game starts with a panel, on the panel a boy, observing part of an ancient monster. He look it up in his book and finds something about it. This finding sends him on a journey...through life. 
Gorogoa's story is unclear one, told in pictures with no speech, the game leaves it up to you to take what you want from it. It explores themes like war, religion and meaning of life, but in subtle and elegant way with more than little symbolism the game's story is open for interpretation. And while this is nothing short of intriguing especially for a small puzzle game like Gorogoa(the game is developed by one guy and is no more than 2 hours.) what really takes you back are the puzzles in it. In other words...

How Gorogoa works 

You have four places on your screen. Those you will use to arrange pictures in such way that you help the protagonist find five "fruits". And by arrange I do not mean you will just put them next to each other. Oh, no, no. You will surely put them next to each other to make path for the character to move on, but this is usually at the very end of each chapter. Before that you will take part of a picture, put it in another, zoom in third, rotate it and take the new rotated piece and place it in the second. Then put the second under the forth and finish the puzzle. !!!!SPOILERS!!!! I mean, there is place where you will make a tram moving on a map, move on a ladder and then you will align the map so you can become smaller and go through a little gate and then connect a small ladder to a big one, so you become normal size again. Take that Alice! !!!END OF SPOILERS!!!!  But solving a puzzle in Gorogoa does not just make you feel good, it will also often come with expressions or thoughts like "Wow..."; "No way..."; "Are you kidding me..." etc. And this will not be because of how hard the puzzle are, but because how genius and imaginative they are. Truly the game can be beaten with random clicking and trying stuff until something works, but then it becomes tedious and you will ruin the whole experience for yourself. The expressions will be replaced with "Uph, at last...jeez" and trust me you do not want that. 

There will be no Conclusion for Gorogoa. If you are into puzzle games even just a little, go and play it its a game which need to be experienced and no amount of words will represent it fairly. 

Where to find:

Official site

GoG

Steam

Hob - The power to change the world

Among all the great games and things in general, which happened in 2017, there were also some unfortunate events for the industry. One of those is the closing of Runic, creators of the Torchlight series. But before their end, they managed to finish something people were waiting for long time - Hob.

When you create two games which are similar in many ways you want a change. You want something new, different, something that has nothing to do with your previous creations. This pretty much was Runic's explanation why they have decided to make adventure game with puzzles and a lot of exploration. Have they managed to do it when they have made only ARPGs? Read on...

The power to change the world

In many games you can argue that your actions change the world. And in many they does indeed. Wars are waged, villages are burned, people are killed, even worlds and galaxies are saved or doomed. But in none of the games I have played I've been able to change the landscape of the world. In Hob you can. And what is more amazing is that you can not because you are almighty hero who can deliver blows powerful enough to bring down mountains, but you can because the world of Hob is one huge, intricate machine. An artificial world a lot like the one in Terry Pratchett's  "Strata" or even Douglas Adams's "The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy". A world where thunderstorms fall around field sized power generators and valves the size of houses need to be turned for new regions of the world to be risen and become accessible. It can hardly be described in words and you must see it to appreciate not only how awesome it is as an idea, but also how well it is accomplished. And because a mechanical planet built by robots is not enough there are also hidden beautiful vistas, a lot like in a real world. 

The topic of changing the world can also be found in the story of the game. The great world and civilization of the robots is invaded by unknown evil, spreading across their world destroying both them and the nature, twisting and driving creatures mad. After you are touched by this corruption you are saved by one of the surviving robots. He cuts your infected arm and replaces it with his own thus giving you some super powers. This is interesting moment as the robot in typical for a machine, cold manner judges that the best action is to cut your arm without you even have a chance to say something about it, but then he sacrifices his own arm so you are able to keep on. Your task is to fight the corruption and free the world of this blight. You must change it/return it back to healthy state. The whole story of the game is told without a single word and much is revealed through exploration. Not forcing you to seek it, but there if you want to know it.

Fighting the baddies, exploring and some issues

Hob is not an intense game. This goes for both exploration and fighting. This does not mean the game is boring, no, quite the opposite. What I am trying to say is that the game will never forcefully push you forward, instead you are let to do everything at your own pace. Wander around, look for collectibles, go forward, return later, whatever you wish. And as for fighting - the game is a lot more about waiting for the right time to attack than rushing and mashing buttons until everything dies. Smaller enemies while easy to kill on their own often will come in groups and your shield will protect only from attacks coming to your front so be careful to where you turn your back. Big enemies will need a lot more effort on other hand, even when there are only one or two of them. The game offers good amount of different opponents with new ones popping often enough for the fights to not become tedious and repetitive.  As for skills you will collect green orbs from fallen foes and hidden statues and with these orbs you will unlock new skills for Hob. You will also be able to upgrade your sword by finding fragments in the world and even increase your maximum life. 

Exploration is rewarding business in Hob, it brings lot more than beautiful vistas and meetings with weird wildlife.

Speaking about exploration. The world of the game is separated in zones which need to be unlocked in order to be accessed. That usually will include fighting a boss and solving a bunch of puzzles. Your exploration often will be hindered by puzzles and this is where few of the problems of the game come. First Hob is close to unplayable with mouse and keyboard. The battles are ok, but the good amount of platforming and the tight controls needed for it will quickly make you plug in a game pad. 

Second problem of the game is its map. The world of Hob is vast and interconnected and you will often backtrack around when you go for collectibles. The problem is that the features of the world are not shown clearly enough on the map and you will literally need time to get used to the map and zoom in on it so you can better judge is the collectible shown next to you on the map is really close to you or you will have to backtrack zone and a half to get to it. So be prepared for some pointless wandering back and forth trying to figure how to get to the place you want or need to go. 

Conclusion

Hob is not revolutionary game, but neither it was Torchlight. But Torchlight were well made games and Hob continues this trend showing that the people at Runic knew what they are doing. 

Hob is beautiful and charming, bit at the same time cruel and dangerous of the unwary. It is not a long game with its 7 zones it will take you around 30 or so hours to finish but in this time you have the pleasure to wander in one unique world which will challenge your wits, patience and fighting prowess. 

We can only wonder what other great worlds Runic could have made if the studio continued to exist.

Where to find:

Official site

Humble Store

GoG

Steam

Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Some immpressions(And oh am I immpressed!?)

I delayed this article for long time and in general had my doubts if I will write it at all as I wanted to finish the game before writing about it. But as I was getting more and more into the game I realized that it will be one of my GOTYs. But if I wanted to include it in the Top 10 for the end of the year I will have to write on the blog about it. And here it is. Eighty hours into the game - what I think about Divinity OS2. Wait, I already said that...then let's try what is this game about. Because the game is really huge and I can actually talk about it for few days probably, here I will try to talk briefly about core components of DOS2. If you want more, go watch some gameplay or even better - go and play the game! Here it comes...

What is this Divinity thing?

The Divinity saga starts really long ago and it will take few articles to talk about the old games, so I will cut to the last two games by Larian - Divinity Original Sin and Divinity Original Sin 2. 

In the first game you played as a duo of Source Hunters which had the heavy task to rid the land of the dangerous magic called Source. Now you will have the chance to see things from the other side. Yes, you are a Sourcerer. As such you are captured by the Divine Order and are send to Fort Joy to be "cured". And there...no, no, this is lore rich and complex story and relations between characters is half of the game so I will stop here with the story. Find it for yourself.

"Ok, it has awesome story, but what else?" - you ask. Divinity OS2 is massive CRPG where you will recruit companions, explore vast territories, solve mysteries and grow to be the next Divine. As I mentioned I am eighty hours into it and I am barely in the middle of the second zone. This should give you some clue for how big and rich the world is. But let us put some order into this preview. 

Characters and Battles

At the beginning you will create your character. The character customization includes class and race but also background and several skills and perks which will be important for your interaction with other characters and the world in general. For example you might be Scholar and be versatile in several languages and know foreign customs which will allow you to know how to talk to other races or even how to handle ancient temples and the right prayers for them. Or you can be outlaw and be streetwise and know how to talk to other bandits and such or even how to scare them. These skills and perks will not just give you more dialogue options, but will also define how you will go through the world and how will interact with it. Your race will give you few race characteristics and skills and your class will define your starting skills and spells. The cool part here is that you are not bound to your class. Skills in Divinity are learned through skillbooks which can be easily bought from merchants or found in the world. So at any point if you do not like your class you just need to learn the appropriate General skill and buy skillbooks and voa la you have a new class. Or two...there is no other restriction than the amount of skill points you get on level up. 

One of the new things in character creation is that now you can be a Origin Character. That is someone well known in the world of Revelion with built relationships, backstories and skills. There is also a new race - undead which comes with few benefits and some severe downsides like taking damage from healing spells and items for example.  

In general they have taken the previous game system and have built on top of it giving it some more depth.

After you create your character you are free to go(in your current zone), act and fight however you wish to. Only bear in mind that people you meet during your adventures will remember how you have treated them and this have consequences. A lot of the characters are also part of factions so mistreating one of them may ruin your reputation with all of them. The opposite is also true - you might be their friend if you help them with their problems. If you act right you can even find love and romance in the world of Rivelion and having the key to someones heart can open more than few doors for you. You can be a hero or you can be a villain.
You will make many important decisions in the course of the game, but one which will define your whole experience you should make from the beginning - you will travel alone(with one companion maximum) or you will go with whole merry band of misfits. Both ways of play are viable and possible and offer different experience of the game. There are even skills which give you bonuses while there are only two of you. And while at the start those bonuses seem quite huge and overpowered, there are some really tough battles up ahead and you will need all the overpowerness you can get.
Something which I will like to see is more non origin characters for the player to recruit for the party. True there are two in Fort Joy and there is a lizard selling mercenaries at some point of the game, but there are also a ton of other fighters you meet and some of them are cools guys. Speaking about cool guys... As I mentioned the origin characters have their stories and relationships already built so it is absolutely possible for you to enter a town and if a certain character is with you, to get jumped by the guards because of that guy. Which is cool...and not. But enough about the characters lets talk battles.

The battles continue the tradition of being turn-based, with each character having action points to spend on movement, attacks and skills. What I noticed is that here the battles are even more crowd control oriented or at least for me was easier to win when I knockdown, freeze, turn into chickens and stun my opponents constantly.  There are also few more types of "basic" surfaces which you can create by casting spells on the ground and a lot more "advanced" surfaces which you can create by casting spells of different elements on already created surfaces. The most notable being the cursed variant of everything which is more powerful often volatile and almost impossible to remove from both characters and from the ground and the blessed variants of some elements which heal and cure when you stand into them. Other examples for surfaces which will make both your life and the life of your enemies harder include steam, water, blood which can be electrocuted, frozen or in the case of blood absorbed to heal, oil which slows and burn, ice which forces a skill check and you might fall on your butt while trying to pass through it. But I derailed, the important thing is to experiment with surfaces they are useful and fun to play around with.
Big change is that to prevent dropping heavy objects on enemies and one hitting them now there are two new stats - magic and physical armor. Both are given by the equipment your characters wear. In general it can be said that equipment for intelligence characters give more magic armor and for strength characters give more physical. For characters which seek balance between the two like battlemages and some rogues there is balanced equipment too but is a bit harder to find. But these two stats does not just protect you from the their corresponding types of damage, but also resist effects from these types of damage. For example while you have physical armor you cannot be knocked down or while you have magical you cannot be poisoned or burned.  
The idea of "magical shield" given by your clothes is not new to the RPG genre, but here it has interesting twist which combines both armor and resistance in one stat. These two stats may also lead your characters builds as you may want to quickly destroy physical or magical or try to have balanced party able to shatter both.

With the new stats, surfaces, types of enemies and skills the battles have been brought to new height in Original sin 2, but they have also become longer and harder. Almost every battle will feel like a boss battle as all enemies after Fort Joy are strong and you will be often outnumbered. You will need to carefully plan each of your moves and take advantage of all weaknesses your enemies might have. Often you will even fail and replay battles until you learn the tricks of the constant flow of new monsters.
I have only one little complain related to the battles in the game(they can be reaaaally long and while this is annoying sometimes I do not really mind). There few occasions where AI controlled characters will fight on your side and they are really bad at prioritizing who to attack sometimes acting almost like they try kill themselves on purpose. This is especially true if the fight have some condition, for example protect someone for X number of turns. The AI does not care about the one you must protect and just attacks whoever they want.

Quests, Stories, World

As I already mentioned the world of DOS2 is separated zones. In which zone you will do part of your main quest. Аs usual despite the fact that everybody tries to convince you that your task is urgent have all the time in the world to explore the wondrous world surrounding you. And while it is not needed to see every corner of the map you will miss a lot of amazing places and characters. Whole parts of the map shattered bu usage of source, burning pigs pleading for help, silly cursed cows looking for your аssistance, demon ridden islands surrounded by deadly fog, undead looking for a way to kill herself(may be) a witch flying crucified on a burning cross and many more. The world of the game is grim with the danger of a apocalypse upon it, but at the same time is living breathing place filled with truly magical places and people each worth of visiting and meeting. To me there was pure joy in just exploring the world and seeing its wonders with the added benefit of a hundred side quest, each a fully fledged story. Mentioning quests here is the place to say that if you did not like the Log in the previous game you will not like here either as it is basically the same. Often it will even be of no use if you do not remember dialogues and such. As I said it is a Log, not a Questlog... 

Conclusion

How can I even begin this conclusion...Any explanation will fall short. Divinity is a game which creates not just experiences which is the point of most games, but it creates stories, memories. It is a world so vibrant and full of treasure, mystery and miracle that you want to see every corner of it, speak to every man, woman and animal just to hear their story and learn more about what surrounds you...
If you the time and like massive RPGs just go and play it. You will not finish it probably, but even 20-30 hours are worth it. Divinity OS 2 is like that place everyone need to see for themselves.  

And here I am not even talking about the modding which the game supports or the gamemaster mode where you create your own story campaign. Sadly I still have not tried neither of those...

Where to find:
GoG
Steam
Larian