Divinity II: Ego Draconis

[Paulaner]

Comments? The graphics on Gamebryo engine look terrific. What about the gameplay? I don't like too much action in RPGs, and I think this is the case with Draconis 2.

EDIT: The music on the website is awesome: http://www.divinity2.com

 

[MRG]

PaoloM,
I highly recommend Dragon Age:Origins instead of Divinity 2. Less "Action" ( No hack 'n Slash ) Vastly more EPIC.

1) I have Divine Divinity. - An older, though excellent Diablo 2 / Sacred type RPG.
2) I have Beyond Divinity. - A more or less fun RPG game, though not as good as Divine Divinity.
3) I have Divinity 2: Ego Draconis. - Where do I begin? I am having an almost impossible time getting into, let alone enjoying this game. At it's heart, it is an action Hack & Slash RPG.

- I felt the combat left MUCH to be desired. Neither the Melee, Ranged Nor the Magic impressed me. Whats left then? The first time I got control of my character, I laughed out loud at the way he ran. With a melee weapon or unarmed, right from the start you are able to do a few unimpressive acrobative attacks, that were quickly dropped in favor of a more direct button mashing route. I was unable to block with a melee weapon while in combat & there are a great many encounters where that would really come in handy. I attack you. You attack me. I attack you. You attack me. The first several hours I played, I never saw/bought/used a shield & so I can't say if you can actively block with it or if it's a passive skill. The first quest I got was to clear a tavern of 4 Mercs who were bothering a cute bar maid. Without a shield & wielding a sword that only did 3-5dmg, I got owned in about 4 seconds flat.

- The games engine, Gamebryo, seems to be a serious system hog. While I never had any crashes or problems of that type, I wasn't impressed with the visuals I got for the way it ran. The games engine does not feel to be as optimized as it should be. Reminds me a lot of Gothic 3 when it was first released & how it did not run smooth until a later time after patches.

- I honestly didn't give the game a long enough play-time to judge how the story is, but poor performance, less than stellar combat & at times silly voice acting, makes it rather hard for me to continue wanting to play the game. One of the skills you get, Mind Reading, ( Not a spoiler ) can be used on almost any NPC with different results, though it costs exp to use it & more times than not, all I got was a silly message of what the NPC was thinking, not always useful information, so it's hard to tell who to use it on & who to not bother with. I believe a large selling point of this game, was the ability to ride dragons.

- The store @ the very first Town you go for training ( training is a loose word as well, since training is nothing more than getting a weak sword, Bow or basic fireball spell, a spell I might add that takes forever to cool-down enough to use again & does LOW damage, at which time you then have to use a weak club & attack melee-style ) has items that cost more than you'll be able to afford for a long while & since that's a single-time-visit town, whats the point of having a merchant if you can't buy/use anything?

My advice, would be to wait until the price comes down before you spend any money on it. I would also highly advise you to download the demo & give it a try to see if you like it. The demo is about 1.77GB. The "official" reviews for the game are mixed, though the user reviews rate the game higher than do the "official" reviewers.

Download Demo
http://www.divinity2.com/single_news.php?id=128
http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/12/21/download-divinity-2-demo/

-MRG

 

[Paulaner]

At it's heart, it is an action Hack & Slash RPG.

OK, this is a "no buy". Thank you.