Divinity II Review

Developer: Larian Studios / Publisher: Focus Home Interactive / ESRB: Mature (Blood, Suggestive Themes, Violence) / Played on: Xbox 360 / Price: $19.99

“This is only the second game I have ever seen frustrate you so much that you had to throw the controller,” my boyfriend says right after my pink Xbox 360 controller goes flying across the room. I scream, “I hate this game!” — yet I sit on my couch day and night playing and obsessing over it. So which is it? Do I love or hate Divinity II?

Both, I have to say. I love the game — I love the story and the environments, but I hate how terribly glitchy it is. I’ve encountered so many problems, things become literally unplayable at times. Even worse, I’ve lost hour and hours of progress over save-file issues. Looking around on the official Larian Studios Divinity II forums, I noticed that I am not alone in my frustrations over this glitch-fest of a game; many other gamers are experiencing the same problems.

How do you play a game that doesn’t seem to want to be played? Read on to find out.

Graphics

At times the graphics in Divinity II are average to maybe bordering on above average, but other times the frame rate is slow and laggy, causing the game to look cheap and worthy of a budget label — definitely not as smooth as we have come to expect from our current-gen RPGs. But for the most part, the graphics did not detract too much from the overall experience, and I still was having a ball hacking away at trolls and exploring the world looking for more chests filled with better loot. Character movement is fluid and smooth most of the time, but the graphics are at their best when flying around in dragon form.

The game offers a lot to see, from huge mountains to skyscraping towers. And because you often take to the skies, the vertical world is just as important as the land-based one. What could’ve been a pop-up-fest in terms of the graphics loading into view, however, is handled nicely with a cloudy world rife with backgrounds that fade in gently.

Gameplay

Divinity II has a storyline dripping with bloodshed, back-stabbing, and events that will cause your character to question his alliances. You can either trust what other the characters have to say, or you can spend a few experience points to tap into their innermost thoughts to read their minds and see what their true intentions are. Your limited telepathic powers can also reveal where hidden treasure and keys to unlock special chests are — you can even use your mind to lower shop prices so that your dragon slayer can shop thrifty.

Like a true RPG, Divinity 2 offers many different skills and attacks to level up; you can learn how to deal more critical damage, raise a dead warrior to fight by your side for a limited time, steal health or mana from an enemy, go into a rage-filled whirlwind of death and so much more. I did, however, feel like the powers within the skill trees are not as powerful as they could be. If using a skill eats up a good chunk of my mana, and I can only use it so often, then it should be more powerful then my normal melee attack, especially if it’s at a pretty high level. What’s the point otherwise?

Divinity 2 also offers an impressive amount of land to explore without feeling overwhelming. There are plenty of hidden side missions to find and tons of “off to the side” chests to loot for better gear. The dungeons never feel repetitive, and even well into my 20^th cave, it was still a new experience every time — none feel re-skinned or too similar to the last.

The only non-glitch-related aspect that had me fuming was the excessive amount of platform jumping. More than once did I yell at my TV screen, “You are an RPG, not a platform game! So stop making me do impossible jumps if you don’t have the controls to support them!” Let’s just keep our precision jumping to games like Mario, and not inter-mix them with our RPGs that have no business, or control setup, to support such gameplay.

The only other thing that some players may have an issue with is that once you clear a land or cave of enemies, they will not respawn. So no level-grinding for you, sir.

Sound

The music in Divinity 2 is exactly what you’d want from a huge fantasy role-playing game: an epic Lord of the Rings-style soundtrack that constantly reminds you that you’re…well, in a huge fantasy role-playing game. The subtle sounds of birds chirping or water running along a nearby creek give the world more depth and a living personality. Even the voice acting isn’t too bad, although it doesn’t compare to high-production titles like Uncharted 2 or Dragon Age: Origins.

Control

Divinity 2 has a nice, gentle learning curve — perfect for new RPG players. It eases you into combat and the switching between melee, magic or ranged attacks, which can also be combined with bonus moves and potions. The game allows you to “train” in different styles, so you can choose what you want to specialize in. At the same time, you’re never limited in your repertoire, so if you want to sling fireballs and swing a massive axe, you can.

The combat did leave me wanting more out of fighting my foes. I found myself passively button-mashing during my attacks yet staring straight at my health meter, ready to down a quick potion when needed. I didn’t feel like I was really participating — more like I was detached from the skirmishes. Also, forget trying to make effective ranged attacks in Divinity 2 — the auto-targeting is just too finicky.

Who wants to be confined to running around on the ground, however, when you get to take to the skies as a fire-breathing dragon? Once you get the ability to morph into a dragon, you will probably find yourself spending more time in the sky than on land. I am not one for flight simulators, but the dragon flight and combat controls are very responsive, and I felt more involved during dragon fights than I ever did in human form.

Bottom Line

Divinity 2 has everything a great and epic RPG should have: a deep story, interesting character development, the ability in integrate different fighting styles into your attacks, and plenty of different powers to level up as you get stronger on your journey. I extremely enjoyed Divinity 2, and I would recommend it to any action-RPG fan, but I would also warn them of the potentially disastrous glitches.

For example, upon dying, the game would prompt me to load my most current save. When I would try to load it, the game would instead overwrite my save with a save from 3+ hours ago. Other glitches include loading a save but not spawning in the same place (sometimes not even in the same map!) that the save was created in, and saving indoors could result in losing the doors to the house/shop which would then have you trapped with no way to get out to continue your journey. Those were only a few of the bugs that I and others have reportedly been running into, so if you choose to play Divinity 2 before a patch, save often and in more than one slot.

Because of the game-stopping glitches, this title feels unfinished to me — the developers should not have pushed it out the door in its current state. If Divinity 2 had been released without the bugs or at least with much fewer problems, then I would feel better about giving it a higher score, because the game as a whole is excellent otherwise. I just don’t feel comfortable giving a great game a high score if it feels unfinished and sitting on shelves with glitches that could potentially keep the gamer from being able to actually finish it.

6/10

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