Game Review: Divinity 2: Ego Draconis

Written by Joshua Hyles Friday, 22 January 2010 02:54

In the end, Divinity 2 just seems to be too rough around the edges to be considered good, heck it even barely makes it to the OK rating I'm giving it. What it does have going for it is an extreme amount of exploration, creative writing and quest trees, and an addictive style of gameplay. The fact that I was able to put up with all of its shortcomings and actually enjoy most of it is a positive in and of itself. If you're a fan of any RPG released and enjoy dragons, pick this one up. If not, don't bother. Get Dragon Age: Origins or Mass Effect 2.

Game Details		Loading Reality Scoring

Format	Xbox 360 (all Xbox 360 reviews)	Score Meaning: Slightly above average. There is nothing incredibly special about it, but there are enough good qualities to make it worth a look for fans of the genre.
Publisher	DTP Entertainment
Developer	Larian Studios
Category	RPG	Presentation
ESRB	M	Gameplay
Online Players	0	Graphics
Offline Players	1	Sound
Price	59.99	Value Factor
Release Date	January 5, 2010	Final Score

Become a Dragon Knight. Eventually.

Rarely does a developer have the cojones to release a title in close proximity to another major release of the same genre. Larian Studios must be packing, because Divinity 2: Ego Draconis is very close in relation to Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware, the RPG heavyweight, released DA: Origins about two months before Divinity 2. This could mean one of two things; either Larian Studios believes it can compete directly with the likes of Bioware, or they know that there is a certain crowd that will scoop up any RPG available and a devout following of fans that have been waiting for the game. They could also be trying to take advantage of the small hole between the holidays and the release of Bioware's next epic, Mass Effect 2. Either way, Larian Studios was mistaken if it thought it could garner the type of sales, scores, and hype Dragon Age would.

In Divinity 2, you start off playing a dragon slayer. Your goal is to eliminate the remaining dragon knights in the world, as they are the scourge of the Earth. A few hours in, your world is changed forever as one of the last dragon knights in the world gives its powers to you upon its death. From this point on, you see the world from the knight's point of view. Everyone you've known before is now your enemy and you must strive to achieve full dragon knight power. You do this by completing small favors for peasants, solving puzzles in various labyrinths, and helping others find and defeat pesky monsters. All the while you grow stronger and closer to your dragon form by gaining xp, acquiring new weapons, and building a stockpile of materials to use after you reach your Battle Tower. Seems like a pretty tried and true formula, but the execution of all its parts is undone by some annoying bugs and glitches found throughout.

divinity-2-dragon-combat

Oh how I want to become you...within the first 10 hours of gameplay.

The game is addictive in a weird, quirky way. The writing is quite unique and is filled with creative writing, especially when you decide to forgo some of your XP in exchange for reading a character's mind during a conversation. Most of the quests are pretty dynamic and allow you to complete them in multiple ways. For example, you could be told to go and kill a rabbit to settle a dispute. You can do this, or go find the person responsible for not killing a rabbit in the first place and tell him to go get one, or you can agree with the man's hesitation to kill a rabbit and report back to the man that you couldn't complete the task. Various avenues of completion make the game feel much more open and personalized. The world in which you reside is also a vast land full of quests to find, outposts to raid, and creatures to destroy. You'll sometimes find yourself having to make a key decision in the middle of running over a random bridge, or choosing to spare someone's life after finding a sphere of light. It's these type of encounters and the living, breathing world that make Divinity 2 a potential purchase.

Once you reach dragon-hood, the game opens up even more, allowing you to do things you'd been anticipating the entire game. You are able to create your own personal demon from bloody parts you have collected throughout the game and summon it to fight alongside you during battles. Potions and enchantments can be created to add extra power to your weapons or stats. Skill sets can also be expanded beyond the normal size and allow you to extend your powers beyond normal ranges. Best of all, when you have enough room to, you can morph into a dragon and fly around frying enemy battalions. Unfortunately, being a dragon ain't all it's cracked up to be. Flying controls are perfected, but you look sort of silly doing some of the gravity defying acrobatics you can perform. It's essentially a second-birth, unlocking the battle tower. The road to unlocking it is rough, and you can't rush it without leveling up properly, but it's worth the wait. Speaking of rough, the game is tough. Even at the lowest difficulty level, the game is hard. After completing every available quest I could lay my hands on, I still wasn't at the same level of my enemies during most of the game. Since enemies don't respawn, it makes it even harder to try to grind. You'll find yourself running out of easy ways to level up right after reaching the battle tower. It is frustrating, but I may just be used to making it through my RPGs without a problem finding things to do.

divinity-2-powerup

Isn't it just beautiful? No?

In the graphics department, the game is total mess full of ups and downs. The frames per second goes from 60 to 15 from enemy to enemy and location to location. Most animations are clunky and look completely out of place in some of the beautiful landscapes you are fighting in. If you ever play the game, try breaking a box or doing a roundhouse kick. It's almost comical in nature. Not only that, but it doesn't feel like the characters you talk to know what to do with their hands or head. They are constantly making awkward gestures while you're trying to address their needs. Luckily, the game is filled with lots of different voice actors and styles that make the gun fun and interesting to listen to. Each NPC has something important to tell you and an interesting way to tell it. The music that fills the air around the world is very, very unique...but can sometimes get a little annoying. It changes dynamically with your surroundings and provides a neat backdrop for the settings.

As I mentioned earlier, the game is not without its faults. In fact, it's filled with them. Most noticeably, and unacceptably, the game's save and load system is a mess. You know how you save before a big battle in an RPG? They are supposed to be there so you can load the game from the same place if you die, right? Well not so in this game! Most of the time, when you die and try to load a gamesave, you end up on a big red screen with the name of the last enemy that killed you and the inability to move or even load another game. In addition to that, sometimes when you load a game, essential elements like doors and ladders just don't load. In one instance, I got stuck in a refugee camp where I couldn't exit because the door out of it didn't seem to want to come into existence. Luckily, I had a gamesave right before I entered the camp, but I had to play through the entire camp a second time and hope and pray the ladders loaded this time. Completely unacceptable for any game.

Another warrior experiencing impending death.

Gameplay itself is composed of using various spells and weapons to take down packs of enemies while either trying to dodge their attacks or overcoming their defenses before they kill you. The combat order usually consists of attacking enemies from as far away as possible with arrows and magic, and then slashing up as many enemies as you can before running for your life. Many enemies you face travel in packs, and are often above your level. There aren't enough health potions to go around to help save you from the overflow of enemies. If you don't take this game extremely slow, making sure to kill every enemy you can at your level and complete every quest possible, you'll end up struggling to find a way to level up later on in the game. Trying to get through the game efficiently (as I did as a reviewer) did not work. The skill and abilities tree you are available to use is quite dense, allowing you to perfect any art you want. You can choose to try to be balanced in many skills, or perfect a few. I found it best to go after a small set of skills, but this didn't allow me to explore the other options. I just wasn't given enough power to enjoy the vast selections I was given. As you explore the world, you pick up loot from the corpses of enemies and from completing quests. I spent a large amount of my game time exploring my menu screens, trying to decide what to equip next or where exactly I needed to go or where I was.

In the end, Divinity 2 just seems to be too rough around the edges to be considered good, heck it even barely makes it to the OK rating I'm giving it. What it does have going for it is an extreme amount of exploration, creative writing and quest trees, and an addictive style of gameplay. The fact that I was able to put up with all of its shortcomings and actually enjoy most of it is a positive in and of itself. If you're a fan of any RPG released and enjoy dragons, pick this one up. If not, don't bother. Get Dragon Age: Origins or Mass Effect 2.

3 / 5

Also check out: Divinity 2, The Stream of Cakeyness - A humorous look at the Divinity 2 Demo experience.