 So, I know Black Desert Online is supposed to be up next, but its character creator is so packed that I need a little bit more time, and also, you know, other videos need work as well, as well as school, and a bunch of other things, you understand. Meanwhile, here is Divinity 2, an isometric RPG, one that is lauded for its incredible amount of choice in the actual game. But how is its character creator? Note that I am only critiquing the vanilla definitive edition of the game, now that means no mods. No doubt there are some negatives that I will point out that can be alleviated by installing certain mods, but just for the sake of standardizing and keeping it fair with other games on the show, just the vanilla character creator. To start with, you can not only choose a handful of races, but even undead versions of them, which is pretty neat. Alternatively, you can also pick an origin, which means you get to play as one of the pre-written characters of the game. This means that if you don't feel like making an OC, you can just walk Rivalon in somebody else's shoes instead. Backstory and motivation all set and ready for you. Otherwise, these characters will appear as recruitable NPCs early in the game that can join your party. You can even listen to a short little origin story of the character narrating their backstory with some nice voice acting to boot. And after you select your race or origin, you can pick a build preset. Now, this is not a class in the traditional sense, but rather a set of skill points distributed for you. And I'll go into that later once we go into the presets. But still, this is here for anyone who just wants to find a nice pre-made set of skills without having to really delve too much into it. To that you have some appearance options, each one having around a handful of selections to choose from depending on the race and gender. Then there is a presets page. This is for anyone who wants to do any additional fine-tuning to their characters' attributes and skills. For example, let's say I wanted to play a more roguish, sneaky, backstabby kind of character with healing abilities. That's an odd combination, but whatever, we don't judge here. But then, when I scroll through the presets, there isn't a preset build that combines those two things. Well, if I so wish, I can go into the abilities and pick scoundrel and hydrosophist, whatever the water skill. Or say if I see there's a preset called battle mage, but I really want some fire skills. Well then, I can go to abilities and swap out aerotherge for something like pyrokinetic. From there, you can select skills from a pool that are available from selecting those skills. You may need some time experimenting in the actual game or reading up on a wiki to figure out more in depth what each of these abilities actually give you in terms of skills, since there are a lot of them and there's a lot that each one does. There are also these things called civil abilities for the less combat oriented portions of the game. Like persuasion during dialogue, lore master, for identifying items, thievery, for pickpocketing and trap disarming, all that good role playing game stuff. Next is talents, which you get one to start with and gain more additional talents as you level up. And these are additional passive abilities that can change the way you play fundamentally. For example, let's say I pick torturer, which enhances the abilities of status effects. Then maybe I want to start learning a lot of status skills to really capitalize on that. Or say if I want to go it alone or just with one other party member, I can pick lone wolf, which will make me much, much stronger with a smaller party size. It basically allows you to further customize the way you play, but let's be honest, the best skill has got to be pet pal. And then there are tags, which allow you certain exclusive dialogue choices throughout the game whenever you're talking with NPCs. You can pick two to start with and can gain additional tags as you play, depending on whatever actions you take within the game. For example, let's say I pick jester, well maybe there might be some comedic quips that I can throw out, or let's say I pick soldier and I can communicate with fellow guardsmen about their time in the army. And finally there's instruments, which will change the leading instrument that's playing the background music as you are both in and outside of combat. Now there is a way to respect your character after initial creation. After you finish the first act, you are given the ability to change just about everything about your character, including your stats, skills, talents, and even appearance. The only things you can't change are your race and tags. And once you unlock this feature, you can respect your character as many times as you want. So let's look at what's bad about this character creator. The menus. I am not a fan of how to change something, you have to select these little arrows. This means that not only can you not see your entire selection, but navigating through your selection is a bit annoying. Making comparisons in this game is really really difficult, and if I want to look at a specific item on the list, I have to keep clicking through every single thing on the list until I get to what I want. I feel as though perhaps a tile set or drop down list would have been better because this, I don't like this. Second, the quantity of your selection is a bit lacking. Like for human you get let's say 10 face options and then you get 11 hairstyles, right? But then you look at something like lizard and then you have like 6 faces and 7 hairstyles. That's not a lot. Ah, but quality over quantity I hear you say, well to be frank, I am personally not a fan of what you're given either. Admittedly, this is very subjective on my part because you very well might like every single option you're given. I do not. A great example is how the human male has about a dozen face options, but none of them look that good in my honest opinion. Whenever I pick human I feel as though there's only one good option for me, and even that one has a scar on it. And finally, there are no additional adjustment options, none whatsoever. You cannot change the character's height, weight, individual facial features like eyes, nose, mouth, etc. None of that stuff. Much like World of Warcraft, the face option determines everything about the face. Every single body of a given race is the exact same. That's always a bit unfortunate when someone like me who likes to play human male as a sort of self insert has to deal with the fact that a lot of the armor is going to make me look a little bit bulky, and I don't like looking bulky personally, but I guess I just got to deal with it. Overall, the visual customization of your character is somewhat lacking. Everything else, however, is pretty cool. Just to go in order, firstly the origins feature I think is really really cool. You get to play as any of these fleshed out characters and each one is unique in their own way. Some may be a little bit weaker than others comparatively, but every single one of them has something unique to offer in terms of character. And having these origin story things is just a cherry on top. Next, preferences of face and hairstyle selections aside, the actual design and quality of these models is really nice, especially considering this is an isometric game and the camera is going to be fairly zoomed out most of the time. There's a decent amount of detail here and there and a nice variety of good looking armors and weapon styles. And some minor praise here, kind of the opposite of a nitpick, I really really appreciate the designs of the elves, lizards, and undead. I can't say in all honesty that these races are the most original or that there is a huge variety even with the undead versions, but playing as a skeleton is pretty freaking cool. And it's not just appearance either, there are fundamental gameplay changes for picking an undead. If the elves will freak out if they see you without some sort of disguise, healing effects will actually hurt you, poison effects will heal you, you can fall flat on your face and play dead, it's really neat. As for the elves, these are the most unique looking elves I've seen in a video game. They're not just tall humans with big pointy ears, they're really tall humans. With voodoo cannibal magic and weird rib cages and ridiculously long necks, they actually look like an entirely different species from humans. And their equipment is worn completely differently. And even though this looks like there's a lot of skin being shown for the girl, it is unisex. Hell yeah, equality. But the race I appreciate the most has got to be the lizards, who I guess you can compare to D&D's Dragonborn or the Elder Scrolls Argonians. They're huge visually really cool to look at and they are a great example of sexual dimorphism that isn't done just to pander. Yes, there are huge differences between the male and female lizards, they're not in the sense that the women are just dainty or have huge boobs, puffy lips and thick long eyelashes. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with having sexy women in your video game, but it shouldn't be all women and or only the women. Nor should it be the only thing women are allowed to be. And now for the meat of the character creator. The actual gameplay customization you have is fantastic. And I guess it's more of a praise of the actual game design rather than the character creator itself, but whatever, this is my show, I can do what I want. This is the first character creator on the show so far that allows you to make gameplay changes that are more than just subtle stat changes. And it is definitely not holding anything back when it comes to that. You can choose to be an earthbending ninja or a tanking necromancer or summon an army of totems who shoot at people while growing wings and flying around the map. You can do it all if you earn the levels and pick the skills up. Most importantly, none of these skills stop you from using whatever weapons or equipment you want. Sure, some skills will require certain weapons, but there are plenty of huntsman skills that don't require a ranged weapon. In one of my playthroughs I made a sword and shield build, because of course I did, with scoundrel skills just because I like teleporting around and throwing chloroform at bad guys. It gives you that much freedom. The only issue I could see with how much freedom this does give is that it can be a bit overwhelming for first time players, but given enough time to figure them out, combined with the ability to respect however many times you want later on, and you've got yourself an endless amount of build possibilities. You can even go without any skills if you want. Just go full on auto attacks all the time. Talents as well do a really good job to further customize your play style. It's just super. Pretty much all of the skills are exciting and interesting in some way. It's not just additional damage or additional health, although there are a couple in there, but it's a little bit more interesting than that. I mean, this one lets you talk to animals. How is that not exciting? And finally, tags are fun. It's just a nice touch that allows you to pick unique dialogue options for that sweet sweet roleplaying experience, which I very much appreciate. It helps that in any other game this would be a throwaway feature, but because this game is so dialogue heavy and dialogue choice heavy, they come up more often than you would think. Conclusion. It's a good looker, if a bit limited in how it can look, but what it lacks in visual variety, it excels in tailoring your perfect desired play style. And you can talk to animals. That's pretty neat. This has been Character Creator Critique. Be sure to vote for which character creator you would like critiqued next. I'll see you then.