Post by Phaseknox on Apr 26, 2011 15:05:04 GMT -5
Developed by: Larian Studios
Published by: Atlus
Rated: M
MSRP: $39.99
Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga is the ultimate Divinity II experience featuring a remastered version of Divinity II: Ego Draconis, and the Flames of Vengeance expansion pack all on one disc. The original Divinity II on Xbox 360 was a shoddy PC port that had so many technical issues that it was virtually unplayable. But this remastered version not only looks slightly better, but also runs extremely well and is balanced better so it's not as frustrating. The camera is also close behind your character, and offers a new dual analog stick control scheme that works better for the play mechanics. The game looks, performs and plays better. Now it looks like a game that was made from the ground up for the Xbox 360 instead of being a crappy PC port.
Divinity II is a third person medieval fantasy action RPG that's similar to Dragon Age, Fable, Gothic, Risen, Two Worlds, etc., but better IMO. The graphics are great, the game world is detailed and lively with lots of variety, the characters all have distinct personalities, the NPCs are varied looking, the voice acting is good and the music is excellent. It offers a fantasy world that you want to spend time in, and explore. And explore you will do since there's a lot of ground to cover. The game world is big and expansive with a lot of different areas for you to discover. And don't worry about content, because the game is packed with stuff to do. There's the main story missions, and tons of side quests as well. And there's lots of weapons, armor, accessories and loot. There's also leveling and skill/stat building. This is a hardcore RPG for hardcore RPG fans. It's not for casual gamers that like to be led by the hand, told what to do, where to go and don't like lots of customization.
You can choose to play as a male or female character, and you can customize their look somewhat. When talking with NPCs, you're given the option to choose different things to say. You can be a good, bad, or sarcastic character. How you respond can determine the relationship with characters, which can also determine how some side quests play out. Unfortunately, your character isn't voiced so you don't get to hear them deliver their lines to the NPCs. But the NPCs reactions are good at showing how they feel about the things that you say to them. All of the characters have different personalities, and voices that match. It's nice to play an RPG where all of the NPCs don't seem like clones of each other. The NPCs also have conversations with each other which you can sit back and listen to. It's little details like this that really add to the experience.
Combat is real time action. When you see enemies, you go up to them and fight them. You can choose to be a warrior, ranger, or mage. I like melee combat in action RPGs, so I chose to be a warrior. The sword swinging is sort of button mashing, but you can't expect to just run into a group of enemies and button mash. You can evade by jumping and rolling, and there are lots of different skills that help you in combat which are different for each class. Combat is pretty fun, and I always look forward to fighting enemies. The dungeons are well designed as well with good dark and creepy atmospheres, traps, platforming, puzzles and lots of loot.
On normal the game is challenging, but feels right. I dropped it down to casual at one point, but it was a little too easy. It's definitely a lot more fun when there's somewhat of challenge, because it's more about the gameplay and less about the story. There's definitely a good story, but you only get bits and pieces of it throughout the game. It's not a cinematic RPG. You only get cut scenes during really big story events, which are primarily at the beginning, middle and end. I admit that it would have been nice if more exciting things happened throughout the course of the game, because I like RPGs to have a cinematic feel to them since a big part of playing them is for the story. But you definitely play this game more for its gameplay since it's more of a hack-and-slash dungeon crawler than a narrative character driven RPG. For this reason it feels a little old school since it lacks a lot of cinematic flare.
The game is basically broken up into three different parts. There's the first half, second half and Flames of Vengeance expansion. The first half is the best because it's more of a traditional fantasy RPG where you set out on a big adventure across a massive lush land exploring and discovering. It has a town area, and some really stand out dungeons that include platforming and puzzles. The way that the first half ends, it could almost be a game by itself. The second half is when you get the ability to transform into a dragon, and a lot of it consists of flying so you don't do a lot of exploration on foot except for the dungeons. There's definitely some cool stuff that happens, but I didn't find flying around as a dragon and going to the flying fortress areas and shooting lots of towers, turrets and flying enemies very fun. It felt a little too much like a shooter, which isn't what I want my RPGs to feel like.
There's a brief visit to the city of Aleroth near the end of Ego Draconis, but you don't spend a lot of time there. However, the entire Flames of Vengeance expansion takes place at Aleroth. It's the third part of the game, and is quite different from Ego Draconis. It's more about taking on lots of quests for people in the city, solving mysteries, clue gathering, key item collecting and figuring out puzzles. While it's connected to Ego Draconis, it really feels like its own game. And it's the size of a full game as well.
While I enjoyed the whole game from start to finish, I still feel that it could have been a little more polished and tighter. There's more content in it than was really needed. Basically, they should have trimmed some of the fat a bit, and made less content that was more interesting. Bigger doesn't automatically mean better. The developers seemed more interested in packing the game with content than making a really polished and fine tuned product. However, the Flames of Vengeance expansion is a tighter more cohesive experience with more direction than Ego Draconis, which is somewhat vague with where you need to go and what you need to do. This is especially true for the second half of the game.
Even with some of my complaints, this is still one of the best RPGs that I've played this gen. It looks good, plays good and is packed with content. I would have felt that it was worth $60, but $40 is a steal for how much game that you get for your money. It also comes with an art book and music CD, which sweetens the deal even more. It's a shame that it will get overlooked by a lot of people since it isn't developed and released by big name companies, but RPG fans should definitely check it out. You really can't go wrong for only $40. It offers more value for your money than most games out there.
Score: 8.5
