Product Details
 | Divinity II: Ego Draconis |
| List Price: | $29.99 |
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Product Description
Many years have passed since the darkness of Damians armies was repelled and Damian was banished into another realm by mans Demigod hero, the Divine. While men enjoy their first years of real peace, Damian breaks free from his bonds and returns to the world of Rivellon to take vengence on he who imprisoned him. To do so Damian takes control of the minds of the worlds rarest and most power beings: The Dragon Knights, whom he unleashes on to the world. It is one of them who kills the Divine. With the dragons now on the side of evil, many young men and women of Rivellon have taken up the role of ridding the world of these dragons - they are known as Dragon SlayersProduct Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #2243 in Video Games
- Brand: CDV Software Entertainment
- Model: 28015
- Released on: 2010-01-05
- ESRB Rating: Mature
- Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
- Format: DVD-ROM
- Dimensions: .45 pounds
Features
- The ability to build your own ultimate fighting creature from body parts collected in battle. This creature's power is literally the sum of its body parts, and once created it will follow your commands Golem fashion.
- Sequel to an award-winning Divinity RPG series, that makes use of the same classless system that was incorporated in earlier games, which allows you to choose your own path as you become a Dragon Knight.
- For the first time, an RPG unlocks the power of the Dragon. Climb high and vaporize all that stands in your way as you strategically use both your human and dragon forms to defeat Damian and become the ultimate Dragon Knight.
- Divinity II provides a wide range of moral choices while questing. When you make these choices, the consequences of your actions appear throughout game play, and keep the action exciting and intertwined.
- Use of powerful Battle Towers, vast citadels accessible via the relic known as the Dragon Stone. The Dragon Stone allows you to teleport to the Battle Tower at any moment so that you can utilize the powers within.
Editorial Reviews
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Description
Customer Reviews
A DIVINE GAME IN A WORLD OF SOARING DRAGONS
The end of this decade was a
small Golden Age for cRPGs. Oblivion, The Witcher, Fallout 3, Dragon
Age, Risen, even the humble Torchlight revived the genre with fresh
ideas and renewed vigor. And DIVINITY II: ERGO DRACONIS comes as the
cherry to this cake.
If one remembers the (excellent) Divine
Divinity, well gone are the days of isometric gameplay. Larian Studios
started with a clean state and the result is a beautiful third-person
action cRPG. The graphics are not cutting edge and yet they are
gorgeous. Imagine what a cross between Titan Quest and Fable would look
like today [by the way, ..."thank you" Peter Molyneux for snubbing PC
gamers with FABLE II!].
The trees and flowers move slightly to the
wind; the skies change in beautiful colors; the sunlight and shades play
tricks to your eyes; the characters and gear are very artfully
designed; and the fighting moves are impressive. If only the animation
of the NTCs were better I would be talking about one of the best-looking
cRPGs ever.
Nevertheless, what grabs you from the beginning is
not the imagery but the story. The first PC game to introduce flying
like a dragon was Drakan: Order of the Flame. But a dragon-slayer who
can shape-shift into a Dragon and back? That's some table-turning.
What
is more, character development runs parallel to your Dragon
development, on different skill trees. Diversification may satisfy your
curosity but do not specialize at your own risk: as you advance you
better have some well honed skills if you wish to survive and fight yet
another day.
In the best cRPG tradition, there are quick-slots,
inventory and life/mana/stamina levels as well as a small local map.
Other than that the screen is free of unnecessary clutter.
What is
more, I particularly appreciated the music, subtle or emphatic where
appropriate. The same care was exercised to the sounds of battle, from
unsheathing your sword to letting go of an arrow. As to the English
dubbing (the original game was in German) it was very nicely done.
Now
some bad news. The game comes with SecuROM 7.x DRM but it requires no
OnLine Activation so it is a mixed bag, barely making my tolerable limit
(with a star withheld though). Be wary of the Russian edition however:
that one comes with StarForce, an infamous DRM scheme (that simply
refuses to die).
Patch 1.02 is already out and I heard it to be
especially useful for Win7 users (I cannot speak from experience on this
one, I am sticking to my reliable WinXP until Win7 SP2 is released).
Nevertheless, after 20-25 hours of gaming I found no major bugs.
The
graphics are exceptional, the world is vast and beautifully designed,
the battles are absorbing and the gameplay immersing. All in all, an
excellent game and a major addition to any cRPG collection.
HIGHLY
RECOMMENDED!
Compelling story, good
gameplay, left me wanting more
Divinity II: Ego Draconis is
an action-RPG with a ton of customizability of combat skills, great
storytelling, a bit of a lonesome, tragic world setting, plenty of
exploration and side-quests to do in addition to the linear main quest
line, and a very abrupt ending!
In terms of gameplay, the game
has a good sense of movement. You can jump forward or backward or roll
to either side to evade enemies. This was especially fun when I was
outnumbered or facing higher-levelled enemies, as I could dodge away
when they come to attack, then harass them with a ranged weapon in
between movements. There are some moderately difficult platforming
puzzles (jumping from point to point to advance). The land is full of
valleys and cliffs, which become interesting to negotiate when the human
<-> dragon form-changing becomes available. The game reminds me
of Morrowind where there was varied 3d terrain and climbing and jumping
were useful to exploration.
Combat, although having a useful pause feature, is not as strategic
as in e.g. Dragon Age. One handy feature is a target lock-on, which
lets you swivel the view around your character while he stays focused on
the target you've selected. A few times, when my character was more
powerful then the enemies he faced, combat meant repetitively clicking
the left mouse button to bash one enemy after another, which got a
little tedious when there were lots of enemies. Also, the enemy A.I.
isn't all that great, and often gave up and ignored my character when he
jumped on a tall rock or ran just beyond range of the enemy's
"territory".
The touted dragon mode is fun and intuitive to control. Being in
dragon mode often means having to evade a swarm of flying enemies and
the projectiles of enemy anti-dragon towers, which makes flight exciting
and challenging. The dragon has several useful skills e.g.
enemy-seeking fireballs which are quite satisfying to use.
Disappointingly, land enemies disappear and become invulnerable when you
go into dragon mode, which takes some of the sheer practicality and fun
out of being able to strafe while breathing fire. Also, dragon mode
wasn't useful in terms of any major epic battles affecting the plot; I
was thinking I'd have to defend a city or take on an ultimate flying
villain at some point, but I guess they are saving that for the next
game.
Developing your character's skills is very satisfying. You get a
skill point and a handful of stat points on each level. The stats are
straightforward, but there are around 50 skills - some passive "buffs",
most active combat abilities - that make different styles of combat
practical. E.g. to heal yourself, you could choose a heal spell, or a
spell that summons a heal-casting ghost for a minute or two, or a skill
that drains HP from enemies on each hit, or a skill that increases your
yield from each potion used. Or you could choose multiple of those.
You don't have to pick skills from a certain "character class", and
skills do not depend on each other in terms of one having to be learned
before another. There are several skills associated with summoning and
magic, with archery, with melee attacks (including a few cool melee
moves), and with the various weapon type proficiencies. And each skill
is upgradable: you can put up to 5 points into each skill at first;
later in the game, you can unlock higher levels of skills. When
choosing which skill to put points into, there is a grid displaying the
skills with clear numerical and textual descriptions of how much benefit
the next level of the skill will provide. This skill system allows the
player a lot of freedom to customize the flow of combat, and is
probably the greatest source of replay value for the game.
The game has a quest system that never seemed annoying or tedious to
me. Each quest grants experience points and usually gold, but also
allows you to choose an additional one or more quest rewards: a nice
feature, again giving the feeling of having a choice how to approach the
game. Completing main quests and many of the side quests and fighting
lots of enemies is critical, as in each new area you find more difficult
enemies who you won't be strong enough to defeat without upgrading your
stats, skills, and weapons.
The game is set in seemingly frontier areas of a country called
Rivellon. Again the feeling was a bit like Morrowind in that you spend a
lot of time on your own wandering outdoors, battling monsters,
exploring caves and ruins, completing missions and side quests while
learning more about how to save the land. The game doesn't have the
crowded, urban feel that Morrowind and Oblivion had in cities like Vivek
and the Imperial City. This world feels less crowded; I wouldn't call
the effect desolate, but the world feels a bit lonely, especially after
the player becomes the last of the feared and hunted Dragon Knights.
That said, I felt quite drawn into the story. The main story takes
some time to get going, as the player has many side quests available to
gain experience and build skills working out of the starter village.
Eventually the player is introduced to the Dragon Knight identity, and
there and at couple of later events, dialogue and a couple of very
effective cut-scenes do a lot to move the story along.
The music for the game is great, and most of the tracks communicated
a compelling sense of where I was and how I was supposed to be feeling,
from the tribal music when fighting goblins to the epic music when
climbing the ruined citadel tower to the desolate music when flying over
areas destroyed by the invading evil armies. Battle music was good but
not as as totally engaging as in games like Ys. The music changes in
some areas to a more uplifting track when you morph into a dragon and
start flying around, which is energizing.
The voice acting was quite good, which really helped flesh out
characters like the other noble Dragon Knights, evil necromancers,
villagers who have so many quests and problems for you to solve, and
certainly the villain Damian, who came off as a strong, intelligent bad
guy with a strong sense of determination and a dark sense of humor.
There weren't a ton of major characters, but the characters in the game
worked well.
For all that it did well, the game felt a bit unfinished. The
Battle Tower, where NPCs upgrade and enchant the player's equipment
after he makes it his home, came a bit late to be of a lot of use for
much of the game. There should have been more time left in the plot to
make use of the Battle Tower. Also, there weren't substantial
dragon-specific missions that I was hoping for e.g. defending the good
guys against an enemy army. They should have made the dragon more
directly a central part of the quest line. Also, there were areas
toward the end of the game, mostly enemy fortresses, which the player
could attack and decimate but which had absolutely no bearing on the
plot line. It would have been neat to see those integrated more into
the otherwise well developed main quest line.
There were also a couple annoyances, even with patch 1.03.
Quickload often loaded the player in the wrong location, which meant
having to go through the regular load menu, an annoying waste of time.
Interface elements like inventory windows weren't consistent in that
some windows you can right click to close, while some you cannot. Also,
sometimes the player would attack more times than I wanted him to
and/or didn't fire the skill I pressed the key for when I want him to;
feedback of each click or keypress would probably help. While it was
pretty stable and only crashed like once or twice for me, I feel that
the game would have benefited from more beta testing.
Lastly, this isn't necessarily good or bad, but the game had a very
abrupt ending. The plot held together to the end, and the ending twist
and cinematic were quite impressive, but still I can't help but feel
that the story really should have kept going past the point where it
abruptly ended. It would be nice, although I have no realistic basis
for expecting it, if Ego Draconis were the first part of a continuing
story that I could continue with the same character when Larian released
the next part of the story a year or so from now. I have no knowledge
whether that will happen, though.
If Larian develops a sequel, I will definitely play it.
Unique game
Divinity 2 mixes elements of fantasy RPG with twitchy-action
fighting. I'll start with some negatives: I found the back-story
intriguing, but the in-game story development is rushed. Parts of the
story seem a bit stretched. The graphics engine looks dated. The combat
is VERY difficult on normal difficulty. I keep running back to old areas
to find any last little quest or goblin so I can get those precious EXP
points to level up. Once you level, you can blow right through the
enemies. Also, no multiplayer.
So why 4 stars? Because it's challenging. It doesn't hold your hand
through the game. You can actually fail missions, but keep playing on.
You get to fly around as a dragon.
This is like the Eve Online of MMO's... sharp learning curve and
high difficulty, but it really does make me want to come back for more.
I recommend this game, but don't buy it for $50 (price at the time
of this writing).
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