Hands On: Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga

From the off it’s clear that ‘Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga’ is absolutely packed with content. On the disk is a re-mastered version of the fairly recent ‘Ego Draconis’ story arc, as well as the new follow up story ‘Flames of Vengeance’.  The press release claims over 100 hours of gameplay, and I can well believe that.

I’m not a massive RPG fan, but I do love a good fantasy story, and it’s this that has kept me hooked for the games first few slow hours.  Set in the world of ‘Rivellon’, you take on the role of a new ‘Dragon Slayer’.  These fearsome men and women are warriors whose sole purpose is to hunt down and destroy ‘Dragon Knights’, a bunch of bad eggs who have the ability to transform into dragons.  I can’t really go into much more detail than that without getting into spoiler territory.

At its heart Divinity 2 is a real old school RPG.  After a good 45 minutes of wandering around talking to people, only then do the opening credits roll.  At the start you are offered the chance to customize your character, choose their sex and generally tinker about with things.  After a bit of walking around you will then be given the chance to test out three different character classes, with the intention of choosing the one you feel best suits your play style.

‘Ranger’ relies on fist fighting and a trusty bow and arrow.  Rather than continuously spam the enemy with arrow attacks (not that I’m implying you would!), after every shot you have to wait a period of time for it to recharge.  ‘Warrior’ is your typical ‘smashy smashy’ type, relying on strength and a whacking great sword – not my cup of tea.  ‘Mage’, for me anyway, provides the best of both worlds.  Not only do they carrying a bloody big mace, but they can also cast spells.  At the start your spells are limited, and like the bow and arrow you have to recharge after every shot.  All classes are also gifted the ability to read the minds of characters you are talking to.  This can be used to gain information, or simply find the easiest way to make a shopkeeper like you and lower his prices.  Be warned though, reading minds will remove some of your hard earned experience points.  Speaking of experience points, you can earn these for a multitude of things, from vanquishing foes to completing tasks.  Eventually you will also gain a rather nifty power…lets just say the Dragon Knights aren’t the only ones who can transform.  Sadly as I have only played several hours of the game I haven’t accessed this yet.

In an attempt to streamline things, the control pad’s face buttons and D-pad are used as hot keys for items, equipment and spells.  This actually works really well and it means essential bits and pieces are never far away when you need them.

The graphics of Divinity II are certainly a mixed bunch.  Some of the vistas are lovely to look at, but overall the game is marred by wooden animation and some low-res textures.  It’s not an awful looking game, but it certainly could be better.  I think the key point is though that it doesn’t ruin the game what-so-ever.

Unfortunately from what I’ve played so far there are some negative points.  Combat really suffers from a lack of animation and collision detection.  If I hit an enemy with a mace I expect some form of impact and recoil, but in Divinity II there is nothing, they just keep chopping away at you.  The auto save feature is also extremely obstreperous, and seems to have a mind of its own.  Manually save your game on a regular basis, trust me, I lost over 30 minutes of play because I relied on the auto save.  The biggest omission for me though is the lack of any quest markers.  When I accept a quest I would normally expect it to appear on the map, but that doesn’t happen here.  This leads to a lot of aimless wandering which will either a) delight you, or b) enrage you.  It enraged me.

So far Divinity II seems to be an RPG fans dream.  It has stacks to do, almost everyone you speak to has something to say, or a quest to present to you, and the story is panning out nicely.  If you can live with the niggles you are in for a treat.

Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga is available now on Xbox 360 and PC