Game News Divinity II - Ego Draconis Demo

[Jason]

Tags: Divinity 2

The English, French, and German <a href="http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=395956" target="blank">demos for Divinity 2</a> have arrived. You'll need 1.8 GB worth of space and a high tolerance for all things scaly to play.
<br>
<blockquote>Explore Rivellon: the PC demo version of Divinity II - Ego Draconis is available! As of now, you can download the official PC demo at the links mentioned below. The approximately 1,8 GB sized demo gives you a glance at the first hours of the game. After the tutorial, you can start exciting adventures in the "Broken Valley".</blockquote>
<br>
Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamebanshee.com/">GameBanshee</A>

 

[Andhaira]

The game seems way to actioney to me. Much more actioney than DD ever was. And the shape shifting into a dragon thing just doesn't work for me.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

I did not remove this game from the inventory and I must say that it was reasonably fun... I got bored after a while though.

 

[Malakal]

DD was quite fun so I'm going to try this one too. Unfortunately all I heard about it is bad... Well, lets see.

 

[reaven]

The game seems way to actioney to me. Much more actioney than DD ever was. And the shape shifting into a dragon thing just doesn't work for me.

Wasnt DD a hack & slash ?

 

[Phelot]

The original was pretty much action packed, in fact the second game does a pretty good job of mimicking the first one in terms of combat.

That said, the whole Dragon thing really blew it for me... The whole second half of the game seemed so hollow.

 

[ecliptic]

Yeah, saying the first one isn't actiony...

I don't know what you'd call single-handedly slaying a camp of 400 Orc warriors..

 

[Panthera]

I like scalies.

 

[Texas Red]

The original was pretty much action packed, in fact the second game does a pretty good job of mimicking the first one in terms of combat.

That said, the whole Dragon thing really blew it for me... The whole second half of the game seemed so hollow.

Please don't tell me it's another RPG with a reasonably good beginning and huge dungeons in the middle and the end.

After DA I just don't have any more strength to invest interest in an RPG that will become basically unplayable and, as Skyway wout put it, shit.

 

[Mackerel]

I tried out the demo and got a never-ending loading screen. Checked their forums and quite a few people have had the same issue, even with the retail version. Good job Larian!

 

[Lesifoere]

Please don't tell me it's another RPG with a reasonably good beginning and huge dungeons in the middle and the end.

After DA I just don't have any more strength to invest interest in an RPG that will become basically unplayable and, as Skyway wout put it, shit.

No huge, fucking boring dungeons.

Just huge, fucking boring flying segments with terrible controls. I think there're... five? Six flying fortresses owned by the big bad's generals? I gave up after the first.

 

[Twinfalls]

Have to agree, I found this very enjoyable until I became a dragon and found myself playing some kind of shitty throwback to Space Harrier.

 

[Kron]

Art direction looks fucking awful.

 

[bhlaab]

Art direction looks fucking awful.

any game where a wizard looks like this is okay by me

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

His hand movements in-game are spastic and awful.

 

[Murk]

should have seen the puppet style animations in the original then

 

[Lesifoere]

His hand movements in-game are spastic and awful.

They're all like that. I don't know why the NPCs in this game are so damn spastic all the time.

 

[Andhaira]

I never said DD wasn't actioney, I said DD 2 is MORE actioney. Or seems so to me. The dragon segments look like an arcade shooter.

 

[Felix]

except arcade shooters have far better controls

EDIT: Andhaira's posts disappeared.

 

[Gragt]

His hand movements in-game are spastic and awful.

They're all like that. I don't know why the NPCs in this game are so damn spastic all the time.

Same thing as Stan in Monkey Island 1 and 2?

 

[Forest Dweller]

any game where a wizard looks like this is gay by me

Fixed

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I just finished Divinity 2.
I rate it 7.5/10.

I think it's a RPG/Adventure hybrid. The art direction beats e.g. DAO easily, regarding Wizards only Zandalor looks like this btw and you see him maybe 3 or 4 times in the game. Outstanding audio. Would play again.

 

[doctor_kaz]

I'm really torn about buying this. I loved DD but it I'm hearing really bad things about Divinity 2 and Beyond Divinity was not a very good game.

 

[Good Ol' Drog]

Just got my dragon form.

It's a pretty nice action RPG with great exploration mechanics and good combat (although it's pretty tough in the beginning). The game is nowhere near as interactive as Morrowind or even original Divine Divinity, but the world is very detailed. The graphics and the art direction are very enjoyable (although the game has no facegen, so many NPCs have identical faces). Some people complained about performance issues and stuttering, but my laptop (Intel T6600, ATI HD 4650, 3GB RAM) runs it mostly on high settings with HDR on and FPS never drops below 30. Perhaps, they fixed the performance issues in the English version. But sadly the game's engine won't let you have both anti-aliasing and HDR on for whatever reason, so you have to choose either the jaggies or poor lighting. I chose the jaggies, since they don't bother me that much.

I haven't played much with the dragon form yet, but it seems to be a mixed bag. While you can equip armor on the dragon (many pieces: from a helmet to a tail piece) and there are dragon specific skills, the actual gameplay is limited: there are many areas where you can't turn into a dragon, and even if you do, all on-ground stuff disappears (including enemies and NPCs), so you can fight only flying enemies. Still though, it looks awesome, great animations.

Most quests have multiple solutions and there are a plenty of lose-lose situations and gray morality. E.g. at one point in the game you have to choose 4 servants for your Battle Tower. There are 8 candidates and half of them have to die. All 8 are innocent. Also, there's the mindread ability, you can mindread almost every NPC and it usually results in some extras.

Oh and one more thing. Unlike the first game, this one has pretty good writing and very good voice acting, featuring a large variety of accents (mostly British).

I recommend this game.

 

[Twinkle]

Sadly this game with lose all of it's steam fast after destruction of Broken Valley. Potentially interesting consequences for some quests (like alchemist assassination or food supply one) will never appear. Aleroth is a bad joke and Rivertown, well, just isn't there. Killing Black Ring generals is extremely repetitive, as you'll face the same enemies over and over and over. Wonky dragon controls. Not to mention poor WTF ending. It seems that they ran out of money and had to rush the game to completion.