An Epic Mythical Game
Divinity II: Ego Draconis re-invents itself in Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga with new graphics, more quests, and more than 100 hours of game play in an epic, satisfying, and entertaining role playing game that combines the best—and sometimes, the worst—of old school and new school RPGs.
Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga is essentially a 're-mastered' version of the original game that also includes a high-level expansion/continuation of the original game called Flames of Vengeance. In addition to updated and improved graphics, Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga adds many new quests, items, and other goodies to the game.
You begin by creating a character cut from familiar RPG molds: Warrior, Mage, Priest, or Ranger. However, you can freely spend points on skills from any class you choose, so you’re never locked into a particular skill tree. As you gain levels, you also purchase characteristics points and spread them among Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, Intelligence, and Spirit.
The StoryDivinity II puts you in the role of a Dragon Slayer turned Dragon Knight. Dragon Slayers are sworn to kill dragons, but early in your career a dragons turns you into a Dragon Knight—a human chosen as a champion that serves dragons.
What it all really boils down to is that you’re a heroic knight that can shape shift into a dragon—although you don’t gain this ability until a good ways into the game. We won't spoil the specifics of the game's story; though it starts out a little cryptically, part of its charm is the way it reveals itself to you.
Old School RPG meets Action RPG meets MMORPG Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga plays a bit like an old-school RPG along the lines of Wizardry combined with a modern action-RPG mixed with a dash of MMORPG (though it’s strictly single-player). No matter how you slice it, Divinity II is a satisfying role playing game.
However, the ‘old school’ elements of Divinity II work both for and against the game depending on your own fondness (or hatred) for such games.
Simply put, Divinity II doesn’t hold your hand much (less common now in modern games), so it's more difficult for new players. There is relatively little guidance in the early game, and even character creation is a bit of a guessing game as to what will and won’t work effectively (although you can always retrain later for a price). It's not a major problem, but it may catch some players a little off-guard.
And be prepared to die a lot, at least in the early game if you’re either new to this style of RPG, or you just haven’t encountered one for a while. (Once you adapt it gets much better.) Even the story is a little bit cryptic the way it unfolds, and you might feel a little confused about who you are and what the heck is going on—but it all sorts itself out in fairly short order in the early game.
Another hallmark of 'old school' RPGs is that Divinity II will throw quests at you that you may have no hope of completing without ‘grinding’ a little to level up. For example, early on you’re told to go into the back of a chapel and kill a ghost, which is must be completed to advance the story. But if you run off to accomplish this too quickly, you’ll get your ass handed to you on a silver platter—probably before you ever get to the ghost, too.
And don’t expect the game to warn you. The game’s way of 'warning' you is killing you in the face. Repeatedly.
You did save, right? Thankfully, Divinity II lets you save as often as you like. But because it only auto-saves once in a blue moon, the game demands nigh religious devotion to saving your game, lest an inconvenient death cost you minutes or hours of progress. But the good (and also bad) news is that Divinity II can really pull you in and make you forget to save as you continually delve a little further to see just what lays around the bend...
Old School is a good school Just because Divinity II eschews some modern game design sensibilities (which some PC gaming ‘Grognards’ might call ‘candy-assed’) doesn’t mean it isn’t a great game. Once you understand its ‘old school’ leanings and adapt, it has a lot to offer, and it's all packaged in a generally beautiful game with superb music, voice acting, an interesting story, and a huge world just waiting to be explored.
Tossing aside tutorials, hand-holding, and a more linear story allowed the developers at Larian Studios to create an enormous ‘sandbox’ style world to explore and play in—Divinity II actually plays something like an MMORPG, giving you near-total freedom to wander and explore to your heart’s content. There are more than 100 hours of game play (including side quests) between the primary game and the included expansion Flames of Vengeance.
At times Divinity II almost seems to channel the spirit of games even as old as the Ultima or Wizardry series, as well as games such as Daggerfall and Morrowind. Divinity II re-introduces the thrill of exploration and discovery that is often missing from more linear RPG games—wandering off the beaten path into a lost valley, stumbling upon mysterious ruins, and then finding a hidden door to a cavern, for example. None of it may have anything to do with the primary story line, but you can find entire dungeons, quests, and other interesting locales (and monsters and treasure, of course) if you’re game to look for them.
Your wanderings are only limited by your ability to handle the variety of monsters inhabiting the areas you wish to explore—but once you clear them out, they don’t respawn.
Plenty of new school One thing that immediately impressed us with the game was the overall quality of the story, voice acting, and writing—all of which are excellent, and matched by an equally stellar soundtrack.
Combat is action-oriented and not turn-based, so you can dodge and (to a degree) button-mash your way to victory, although there are plenty of ways to crush your enemies depending on the class you choose. Because you can freely pick skills from any class, you can tailor your abilities to your preferred mode of combat and mix various ranged skills with melee skills. For example, you can freely mix some of the Ranger class' bow abilities, the mage class' fiery spells, and the warrior's melee abilities.
Another interesting ability that all classes have is the mind-reading skill, which you can use (for a price in experience points) on characters you talk to in order to learn secrets. These can often clue you into side quests that may not otherwise reveal themselves, or give you information such as passwords or clues to the location of items that may be of interest to you.
Divinity II also adds several mechanics similar to many MMORPGs. Characters with quests are marked clearly (!), and there is even a crafting system of sorts. You don’t need to buy any specific skills to harvest items, but spread throughout the game are stones, plants, and other crafting materials just waiting to be mined, picked, or found and later combined through various recipes. You can also collect (ahem) body parts and have your good friend the Necromancer assemble a "pet" for you.
And finally, there is the whole dragon shape-shifting thing, which adds some interesting variety in the form of aerial combat via fire-breathing dragon. It’s pretty fun (if relatively shallow) action game play. It definitely looks (and feels) cool, and provides an added dimension to an already deep game.
Overall Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga can be a harsh mistress in the early game, but it is a rewarding, entertaining, and well-crafted game that will keep you playing for many, many hours. At $40 on Steam, Divinity II is well worth the investment.
And if you already bought the original game (Divinity II: Ego Draconis) from Steam, you can get Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga at 33% off and just play the included expansion, Flames of Vengeance, which starts you at level 35 and picks up the story after the end of Divinity II: Ego Draconis.
Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga is essentially a 're-mastered' version of the original game that also includes a high-level expansion/continuation of the original game called Flames of Vengeance. In addition to updated and improved graphics, Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga adds many new quests, items, and other goodies to the game.
You begin by creating a character cut from familiar RPG molds: Warrior, Mage, Priest, or Ranger. However, you can freely spend points on skills from any class you choose, so you’re never locked into a particular skill tree. As you gain levels, you also purchase characteristics points and spread them among Strength, Dexterity, Vitality, Intelligence, and Spirit.
The StoryDivinity II puts you in the role of a Dragon Slayer turned Dragon Knight. Dragon Slayers are sworn to kill dragons, but early in your career a dragons turns you into a Dragon Knight—a human chosen as a champion that serves dragons.
What it all really boils down to is that you’re a heroic knight that can shape shift into a dragon—although you don’t gain this ability until a good ways into the game. We won't spoil the specifics of the game's story; though it starts out a little cryptically, part of its charm is the way it reveals itself to you.
Old School RPG meets Action RPG meets MMORPG Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga plays a bit like an old-school RPG along the lines of Wizardry combined with a modern action-RPG mixed with a dash of MMORPG (though it’s strictly single-player). No matter how you slice it, Divinity II is a satisfying role playing game.
However, the ‘old school’ elements of Divinity II work both for and against the game depending on your own fondness (or hatred) for such games.
Simply put, Divinity II doesn’t hold your hand much (less common now in modern games), so it's more difficult for new players. There is relatively little guidance in the early game, and even character creation is a bit of a guessing game as to what will and won’t work effectively (although you can always retrain later for a price). It's not a major problem, but it may catch some players a little off-guard.
And be prepared to die a lot, at least in the early game if you’re either new to this style of RPG, or you just haven’t encountered one for a while. (Once you adapt it gets much better.) Even the story is a little bit cryptic the way it unfolds, and you might feel a little confused about who you are and what the heck is going on—but it all sorts itself out in fairly short order in the early game.
Another hallmark of 'old school' RPGs is that Divinity II will throw quests at you that you may have no hope of completing without ‘grinding’ a little to level up. For example, early on you’re told to go into the back of a chapel and kill a ghost, which is must be completed to advance the story. But if you run off to accomplish this too quickly, you’ll get your ass handed to you on a silver platter—probably before you ever get to the ghost, too.
And don’t expect the game to warn you. The game’s way of 'warning' you is killing you in the face. Repeatedly.
You did save, right? Thankfully, Divinity II lets you save as often as you like. But because it only auto-saves once in a blue moon, the game demands nigh religious devotion to saving your game, lest an inconvenient death cost you minutes or hours of progress. But the good (and also bad) news is that Divinity II can really pull you in and make you forget to save as you continually delve a little further to see just what lays around the bend...
Old School is a good school Just because Divinity II eschews some modern game design sensibilities (which some PC gaming ‘Grognards’ might call ‘candy-assed’) doesn’t mean it isn’t a great game. Once you understand its ‘old school’ leanings and adapt, it has a lot to offer, and it's all packaged in a generally beautiful game with superb music, voice acting, an interesting story, and a huge world just waiting to be explored.
Tossing aside tutorials, hand-holding, and a more linear story allowed the developers at Larian Studios to create an enormous ‘sandbox’ style world to explore and play in—Divinity II actually plays something like an MMORPG, giving you near-total freedom to wander and explore to your heart’s content. There are more than 100 hours of game play (including side quests) between the primary game and the included expansion Flames of Vengeance.
At times Divinity II almost seems to channel the spirit of games even as old as the Ultima or Wizardry series, as well as games such as Daggerfall and Morrowind. Divinity II re-introduces the thrill of exploration and discovery that is often missing from more linear RPG games—wandering off the beaten path into a lost valley, stumbling upon mysterious ruins, and then finding a hidden door to a cavern, for example. None of it may have anything to do with the primary story line, but you can find entire dungeons, quests, and other interesting locales (and monsters and treasure, of course) if you’re game to look for them.
Your wanderings are only limited by your ability to handle the variety of monsters inhabiting the areas you wish to explore—but once you clear them out, they don’t respawn.
Plenty of new school One thing that immediately impressed us with the game was the overall quality of the story, voice acting, and writing—all of which are excellent, and matched by an equally stellar soundtrack.
Combat is action-oriented and not turn-based, so you can dodge and (to a degree) button-mash your way to victory, although there are plenty of ways to crush your enemies depending on the class you choose. Because you can freely pick skills from any class, you can tailor your abilities to your preferred mode of combat and mix various ranged skills with melee skills. For example, you can freely mix some of the Ranger class' bow abilities, the mage class' fiery spells, and the warrior's melee abilities.
Another interesting ability that all classes have is the mind-reading skill, which you can use (for a price in experience points) on characters you talk to in order to learn secrets. These can often clue you into side quests that may not otherwise reveal themselves, or give you information such as passwords or clues to the location of items that may be of interest to you.
Divinity II also adds several mechanics similar to many MMORPGs. Characters with quests are marked clearly (!), and there is even a crafting system of sorts. You don’t need to buy any specific skills to harvest items, but spread throughout the game are stones, plants, and other crafting materials just waiting to be mined, picked, or found and later combined through various recipes. You can also collect (ahem) body parts and have your good friend the Necromancer assemble a "pet" for you.
And finally, there is the whole dragon shape-shifting thing, which adds some interesting variety in the form of aerial combat via fire-breathing dragon. It’s pretty fun (if relatively shallow) action game play. It definitely looks (and feels) cool, and provides an added dimension to an already deep game.
Overall Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga can be a harsh mistress in the early game, but it is a rewarding, entertaining, and well-crafted game that will keep you playing for many, many hours. At $40 on Steam, Divinity II is well worth the investment.
And if you already bought the original game (Divinity II: Ego Draconis) from Steam, you can get Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga at 33% off and just play the included expansion, Flames of Vengeance, which starts you at level 35 and picks up the story after the end of Divinity II: Ego Draconis.
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