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Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga
I thoroughly enjoyed a little Rpg that came out in 2002 titled “Divine Divinity.” It had a few rough spots, but kept me captivated for many an hour. The sequel, “Divinity II: Ego Draconis” somehow escaped my noticed until I finally discovered this enhanced remake. “Divinity 2: The Dragon Knight Saga” not only bundles the game with its expansion, but also fixes a lot of issues that dragged Ego Draconis down.
The game is set in the immersive world of Rivellon where the player’s character starts out as a “Dragon Slayer.” The opens with the player character going through his/her final initiation. Things don’t quite go according to plan, however, leaving you in the shoes of the very thing you have been trained to kill, a dragon knight. Given a new mission, to thwart the plans of all-round bad guy, Damian (the so-called “Damned One”) you must content with new dangers as well as old friends turned foes. I was pleasantly surprised by what the Dragon Knight Saga had to offer and after completing it, it has become one of my favourite role playing games on PC, which is no small feat. Everything from the action-packed combat to exploration and puzzle solving is top-notch, which makes for an addictive adventure all the way through. The gameworld isn’t as large as the one in Oblivion, for example, but a lot has been packed into the available space and feels a lot more cohesive than Dragon Age. There is also plenty of waypoint shrines that make traveling around a breeze. The game has plenty of optional caves and dungeons, which is quite cool in an era where games are becoming shorter and more linear by the day. During the second half of the game, your character also gains the ability to transform into a huge, fire breathing dragon, which quite literally adds a whole new dimension to things. It truly is rare for a game to pack as many different aspects as Divinity II does, and pull them all off successfully. The game is viewed from a third person perspective and is a single player only affair. There are no party members, although you do get a ghoulish pet monster during the course of the game. Add in the amount of ghosts, undead and other creatures that can be summoned, and you’ll never have to be alone in battle. This is definitely a good thing, as enemies attack thick and fast, making the early levels quite tough. I’ve seen my character’s demise quite a few times after getting over confident in my abilities. Since it is almost impossible to die in most games lately, I consider this challenge a good thing. Don’t forgett to quick-save, however, as the auto-save feature only kicks in once every blue moon. Divinity II carries over one of the best elements from the original game and that is its sense of humour. Many of the conversations had me in stitches, and some of the replies you can give people are priceless. The characters are all fully voice acted and I think everyone involved did a pretty good job. The accents are all very thick British (or attempts at it) but it makes for a nice change from all the American or Japanese common to the genre. Your character has the ability to read other people’s minds (at the cost of xp) which provides some of the biggest laughs in the game. Some speech snippets from your character like “This poison is killing me!” become very repetitive very quickly, but that’s about my only gripe. The music was another unexpected highlight and I can honestly say that after 50+ hours of playing, I did not tire of the tunes. The music is suitably epic, with some rather cool vocal parts. The sound effects are also all very nicely done. The game runs on the Gamebryo engine, which is the same as Oblivion, and while not cutting-edge anymore, it definitely has its moments. Each area is packed with a lot of detail and you can even harvest plants and gems form the environment for crafting. Running through the wilderness with the sunlight glinting on your shining armour and shadows cast everywhere looks very good. Taking to the air in your dragon form demonstrates just how big the environments are and makes for some epic aerial battles. It’s a pity that it is impossible to attack enemies on the ground while in dragon form, instead they all just vanish. Still, there’s plenty of flying foes and enemy towers to unleash your fiery breath upon. The lush landscapes in the game are a bit at odds with the limited amount of non-player characters. This can lead to some confusion and a bit of déjà vu. The user interface is very clean and streamlined with easy access to everything. I really liked that every new item you find can easily be compared to what you have equipped in order to see if you should swap out or not. You get boosts for wearing complete armour sets and can enhance pieces with charms and enchantments. The skills in the game fall into warrior, ranger and mage categories, but you are not forced down only one path. You can mix and match skills to build a character that suits your particular playing style. The game even allows you to re-assign all your skill points (at a cost) if you change your mind. This is really cool and something I wish more games allowed. You also receive your own hard won battle tower in the game, which serves asyour base of operations which you can return to at any time to restock and regroup. You also get special quests to upgrade the various areas of your tower. At your disposal is a necromancer, enchanter, trainer and alchemist as well as three servants you can send off on errands. Like I said, there’s really a lot of great ideas packed into this game, and it pulls them off perfectly. Included in the package is the “Flames of Vengeance” expansion which offers something more substantial than your typical content light DLC. It continues directly after the main game, and I wasn’t even aware that I finished the main game and was playing the expansion, since it continued automatically. I’m very grateful I didn’t play the game before the expansion was out, but I can’t elaborate on that. The expansion takes place in Aleroth and fleshes the plot out a bit more. Completing it definitely gives the game more closure. The controls in the game work well and while you are continually swamped by mobs of enemies I found them easy to deal with. Strafing and jumping over enemy spells before retaliating with our own is a blast and keeps things action-packed. My favourite is the whirlwind attacks which send foes flying, but requires you to be in close range. You can also pause combat at any time to use items and abilities, which keeps things from becoming too overwhelming. Your dragon form also gets new skills and equipment as you go up in levels, but these sections remain some of the most challenging in the game. While the game isn’t perfect, it contains a lot of old school elements that are sorely lacking in the genre. The large amount of optional side quests and bounty hunter missions really flesh out the gameplay and performing key hunts in houses is something I haven’t done since the ancient days of the Ultima series. Since I haven’t played the initial release of the game I can’t comment on any improvements but the game ran very stable for me and I didn’t experience a single crash. In a game of this size and cope, that is pretty impressive in itself. If you enjoy a good single player fantasy romp where you don’t have to baby-sit any party members, then Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga comes highly recommended. The world of Rivellon is definitely a place that I would want to return to and I have a feeling that this saga is far from over. As it is this package is great value for money and you get a lot of bang for your buck. Hopefully it doesn’t require a remake to bring the next game to its full potential.
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System Requirements
TAGS: Divinity II, Slayers, Dragon Knights, Damian, The Dragon Knight Saga, Flames Of Vengeance
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