I spent most of this weekend playing Divinity: Original Sin, and I'm still only half way through. This is a really epic game, and that suits me just fine. In fact I find myself continually making plans on how I would make a different build and setup of characters for a second playthrough. I've been playing this first game with a relatively simple and efficient build, based on the talents Lone Wolf, Zombie, and Leech. What that means is that I'm playing with a party of 2 and can't use additional companions (the more "usual" game would have you controlling 4 characters), I don't use regular healing, and I heal instead of taking damage from two of the more common sources of damage. Even after the recent nerf to Leech that is still on the overpowered side, with some undead simply unable to damage me at all.

While efficient, I can't help but ask myself how the game would play if I would use a more "normal" setup, not being immune to poison and bleeding, using regular healing, and playing with 4 characters instead of 2. I'd also would like to try a character with dexterity, using ranged weapons and backstabs instead of my classic sword and board melee fighter. I'm looking forward to trying all that out, but first I'd like to finish the first game. While the "normal" setup is probably less easy, I like the idea of having to approach the fights very differently. I figure the combat experience will be much different if I play through the game with a build without those three talents.

Having said that, I'm not sure I'll manage a complete second playthrough. Curiously enough in Divinity Original Sin combat is relatively rare. This is not like Diablo, with monsters behind every corner. You spend a lot of time exploring, clicking through various containers for loot, dealing with traps, crafting, or taking decisions in dialogue. While I would take the talent that allows me to talk to animals, thus opening more dialogue options, in the second game, I am afraid that the replayability of the exploration part of the game isn't as good as the replayability of the combat part. The sense of discovery is much diminished by experiencing the same story in the same environment a second time, even if you make some different choices and some random outcomes are different.

In Dungeons & Dragons there are a few adventures (Ravenloft, Madness at Gardmore Abbey) in which major aspects of the story are determined randomly at the start. A player who plays through the adventure twice might be surprised when the story is not the same the second time around. I haven't seen anything like that in a computer role-playing game, although there are some examples where the ending of the story is determined by the actions of the player, which is already something. Until then we need to live with that disadvantage of story-heavy role-playing games having a diminished replayability.