I've already beaten the game, just felt that this was worth discussing.

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I was really startled when I first faced Josphine, she was insanely powerful compared to everything else I'd come across- dropping a Death Knight who seems to have 100 resistance to everything but poison, shielding herself and then spamming Hell Spikes for massive damage.

After a few failed attempts to do any real damage to her- I made an unusual decision. I left. I said, "this isn't working, I'll come back later", this is the kind of decision I wish I got to make more often in games.

Honestly I don't even remember how I eventually overcame her, but what really stuck with me was after I defeated her the second time and then the Demon of Lies.

I LOVE the lack of balance in older RPGs, while it does set up an optimal strategy which makes other things less useful- there's so much DISCOVERY and figuring out what skills do what, what skills are really good, which are mediocre, which are worthless.

So, with that said, Josephine is not necessarily overpowered so much as everything else in the entire game is underpowered.

ABSOLUTELY NO ENEMY IN THE ENTIRE GAME IS ANYWHERE NEAR AS POWERFUL AS EITHER OF THE JOSEPHINE FIGHTS.

I obliterated the Demon of Lies in seconds without getting hit a single time, in the same way that the 4 non-Josephine members fell to me so easily and quickly. (Burning Wall + Curse).

It really makes me think Josephine got designed specially compared to any other boss enemies. Her repertoire and variety of defenses is so overwhelming that she really comes off as a special enemy you can't handle carelessly.

As ridiculous as I found her fights to be, I'm glad there WAS a worthy fight in there, otherwise the last area would have felt a lot more pointless in comparison.

The first time I played this game, I actually missed the starting village dungeon in the beginning, and had a very slow-burning "low level bowmanship" encounters with those orcs outside. You shoot, you run, even if you hit, your damage is quite low.

DD was probably my second RPG post Baldur's Gate series, which can be quite brutal, too.

But I do remember thinking to myself: is a game supposed to be this hard, on beginning levels? Really??? (I think it takes 30-40 attacks to bow down an elite orc when you still suck, because you miss a lot)

Well, not really, I later discovered, both to my amusement and to my expense.

Divine Divinity still had such imerrsion that allowed me to look for a solution relentlessly, as was with Morrowind, even when I was quite stuck.

I do characterize Josephine as the Hell spikes-queen, surely, but my greater issue was with that bottle-neck fellow in burial mounts' dungeon. I once abandoned a play-through because I just could not beat him... on easy,