Larian Studios

I've been playing the Demo on XBOX 360 and have some comments.

Voice Acting: Excellent.
Mindreading via Giving up Experience points: Very, very cool.
Music: The jury is still deliberating. Some it seems very, very strange.
Graphics: Um, not the best I've seen.

If I could make one recommendation before releasing the game, it would be to smooth out the graphics when rotating. Please, please do this. It isn't smooth. Some of the buildings seem to jump when rotating around the main character or moving from place to place.

Smoothing that out would make it a phenomenal game. Take a look at how smooth Assassin's Creed 2 is and you'll know what I mean.


Will I buy the game when it comes out for XBOX 360 in the United States?: Yes.

In the US at least Gamestop and Best Buy are already selling it (bestbuy.ca still lists the release date as Jan 7th for the Xbox version).

I got my copy of Divinity 2: Ego Draconis for the xbox 360 today

I was enjoying the demo until I got told to pop into a back room of a church and fight some undead as a final part of my initiation, where I repeatedly kept getting my arse handed to me by the ghost and his minions in the main room. I chose to play as a fighter so had no option but to try and get in close, however unless I'm missing something there seems to be no way to block attacks and it would only take one or more of his fire attacks to kill me. All I could do is use my rush attack (which by the way seemed to have a mind of its own as to when it would activate) and then my whirlwind attack and then spam some rather ineffectual normal attacks and then run away to try and get my health back. But if I got caught by one of his AOE fire blasts, then that was it, dead. Also if I pulled the left trigger to lock target it would often point me off in some random dirction away from the action. To make things worse it auto saved me in right the middle of an undead attack you encounter when you first enter the crypt. I tried setting the difficulty down to the lowest but it didn't seem to make any difference. Is all the combat in the main game like this?

I was only level 3 and had really only just completed the training. But this was significantly tougher than the goblins in the training area. I could understand it if it was a hard area in the game that I had to come back to when I was a higher level, but the character and plot made it most specific that I complete this trial rather sharpish.

Potentially I wouldn't mind buying this, but hitting that combat brickwall has given me cause for concern.

That was your problem. You have to level up your character before taking on main questlines.

Yeah but as I said "the character and plot made it most specific that I complete this trial rather sharpish", as it was supposedly the final part of my basic training after having just completed the other bits back in the starter village. Had the story said go off and prepare yourself for the final part of your trial I could buy that, but it didn't. After having just done the other simple bits, there was no indication that this required my hero to be substantially more boosted before attempting it.

I presume you know the part I'm on about. We're talking barely an hour or more in. You have just been given your dragon memories, chosen a discipline, got off the zepplin and been tasked to find info from the locals on the dragon sighting. Which I did, plus a few other little things in the village as I went around questioning the locals. Then I met back with the boss lady, who then told me I needed to get out the back of the church and down the crypt quickly to complete my training before my dragon memories drive me crazy.

You see to me it doesn't follow that I should then go off and spend a while beefing myself up first, as part of the story that just doesn't make sense given the urgency of the instruction. Which is when I ended up down the crypt getting repeatedly blown away like a piece of snot. I guess the solution would have been to back out the crypt and level up, but like I say it just seemed rather counter intuitive to what my instructions were.

Up to that point I was rather enjoying the demo and thinking of buying the game, and I'm still kind of on the fence. But I just have to wonder how many other moments like that the game has to offer.

Throughout the game, you will see or enter areas where enemies are of higher level than you are. If that is the case, you could try and go in and take them on. If you succeed, you'll get more xp. But chances are that you'll die horribly, so you should wait and quest some more till you're of a similar level.

I do realise that there will be areas of higher level etc, rather akin to a MMORPG, but that wasn't really the case here.

Surely someone has played through that bit that I have commented on and can explain to me quite why that bit was so much harder, even though it seemed obvious to me that this was still supposed to be a minor starter quest.

I just got the feeling it was a poorly worked out part of the game and was assumed that I would have gone off and done a few more bits before getting to that point, and I was wondering if there were any more bits of the game like that?

Well, you'll see a lot of that in the game. You'll wander in an area and notice enemies much higher level than you. It's a sign that you're meant to level up before proceeding. Personally, it never bothered me to hold off on the main quest and do other stuff because that's what I like the most about these kinds of games; exploring and leveling up and trying to stretch out the experience.

Not that I want to turn someone away from this game, but if that sort of thing bugs you in the demo, you'd best not get the full game, because you'll see plenty more of this in the levels ahead. Divinity II is that kind of game, and if you don't dig that sort of thing which is fully understandable, then unfortunately game isn't for you.

Just as a side note, the lack of urgency in the main missions despite what the story suggests or portrays has been a staple to the genre for years, with a few exceptions of course.

First on Pc, then on XBox360.
Let the money come in for the larians!!!!
they deserve it!