English isnt my Native Language so please Excuse my grammar/Spelling mistakes
Here is my Small review about Divinity 2 that i posted on Steam and wanted to share with you guys:
the prolouge:
Divinity 2 beeing the 3rd game in the Divinity Series after Divine Divinity ( one of my favourite RPGs of all time) and Beyond Divinity ( cant really say too much about it although my memories about it dont say it was nearly as good as Divine Divinty), Showing us that counting to 3 is obviously not amongst the talents of Larian Studios....
But now for the Review:
The Bad:
The fist thing in the game you will notice is the Ridicoulus Animations, not really bad, but kinda stupid looking. it goes from really stupid jump animations for female Characters to Roundhouse kicks in Melee combat until you get the 2 handed Weapons.
A sommersault for standart frontal moving atack with 2 handen weapons looks REALLLY Stupid and shows that either the creators had no ideas how someone uses a sword or just said " we dont want anyone taking our melee fighters seriously anyways" But that is just the tip of the Iceberg. The Combat can at times be really frustrating due to Enemies Stunlocking the player for large amounts of Time. And Some Balancing Issues that make the game really easy after a while due to a health regeneration that constantly heals more life per second than the best Health potion in the game, (at about 50 health per second at any time) Which i felt i needed to get after getting stunlocked constantly while fighting 10 + enemies at a time and thus not beeing able to even use Health Potions due to stunlock.
Ranged Combat got Boring really fast for me since you have next to no influence to your aiming, which does not mean you cannot hit the enemie you want, but skill in aiming doesnt really get rewarded (by extra critical hits on head or something like that), since it kinda auto aims, so i changed to melee heavy Character after about 3 hours of playtime.
Another big Issue with the combat is that you cannot possibly know which class your enemy has based of his appearance. you meet enemy healers that charge at you with 2 handSwords as much as you meet them with bow and arrow, or Summoners that dual wield Sword/mace , or 2 hand weapon or bow and arrow. the worst thing happening to me in regard to this was in one of the Flying Fortresses where Enemies with the Skin of Deamons were shown to me as "Wizards". also The sometimes Unclear Difference between Summoner , healer , Soccerer , Wizzard and Ranger Doesnt help Either as it makes focusing dangerous enemies unecesaryly hard and makes the Combat sometimes Very Annoying, Confusing and Frustrating.
Then there is the Story:
The Games Story Suffers From some Really inconsistent Quality in Writing, event tough there are a lot of good written quests and characters in the game the overarching main-storyline suffers from many issues, plotholes and flaws. While some Characters From Previous Games return, most importantly the Wizard Zandalor that already Appeared in Divinie Divinity, zandalors main role is to breach the fourth wall, and spouting some things at the player as if it a 6th School Play , And A "Villan", a Term that i use rather loosely, that does appear as if he ist cut straight from a James Bond 007 movie, always appearing in front of the player, just to dump a few henchmen in the room and disappear leaving you to "die" in his Deathtrap, Which you of course escape rather easily, and after the third time he appears you just laugh at him for beeing so incompetent and it becomes impossible to take him seriously due to him beeing about as much of a threat as Team Rocket from pokémon. the Load Screen advice to Run from him whenever you see him becomes a complete mockery once you finish the game and notice that
there is not a single fight against Damian in the whole game, instead they recycle almost all of the previous boss monsters to step in as a "final boss fight"
Many other of my Complaints about Plotholes and mistakes in the Story i wont elaborate in this review to keep it spoiler free.
The end comes a bit sudden and is a bit confusing, as the Add-on automatically started i didnt even notice the base-game ended at first.
Aditonally:
The Game feels really unfinished or rushed at many points, which gets really obvious when you reach Aleroth and Notice that the big City got demoted to a Linear "run in, kill enemies, run out" mission, only to be expanded to its "orignial size" to be explored in the "flames of vengance" addon. also a large part of the world map seems to have been planned out as accessible area, but was never included in the game. In a Developers Video included in the "developers cut" they say that they were restriced by the xbox360s abilitys at the time of development, a possible explanation.
After so Much Bad i had s to say about the game you may say: "sureley you hate this game!
but no, thats not the case.
and here is why:
The Good :
Exploring the World is A LOT of Fun. If it is on foot with a good freedom of movement due to high jumps and only few "invisible walls". Or Soaring through the Skies as a Dragon, Its A lot of Fun Gliding through the beautiful Landscapes in Dragon From or exploring theground on foot. Additonally the world is Filled with great written and funny Characters and encounters throughout the whole world. at every Cornor you find an intresting side quest that motivates you to immerse yourself into the gameworld.
where the Main story suffers from many mistakes, the sidequest are made excellent and the real core of this game. Especially a travelling summoner named Bellegar always got a chuckle out of me and i really enjoyed the encounters with him or his deeds in the world. As well as the White Killer Rabbit (undoubtably a refernce to Monty Python and the Holy Grail) the crazy dragon hunter power rangers where the icing on top of the fun cake that was the side quests in the game.
Also There are Bunch of Riddles mixed in the Gameplay that really enrich the dungeons and gameplay experience.
Also the game has a few neat nods to Divine Divinity that i really enjoyed. for example the talking skeleton that you could kill by making him think about what exaclty holds him together with nearly exactly the same words as a conversation between 2 skeltons under the starting town of DivineDivinity.
Or a magical whishing well that complaints about another magical well that got arrogant after it fulfilled a wish to the hero of Divine Divinity.
All those things Made the world feel really alive and even tough the game was Annoying and frustrating at times i just couldnt stop Playing the game (which is a really good thing that not many games manage to do for me), beacause i was too much involved into the Game world. And all in all i had a great time with the Game and can really recommend it to others for playing
Conclusion:
Every Game has Issues, if some gaming webiste / magazine tells you a game has NO issues at all it is obviously lying, BUT what makes a good game is, that it makes you oversee the bad things beacause the good things outweight the negative things so it becomes an enjoyable experience
Divinity 2 is a good example for that.It is a Game with MANY issues, but Enough good Aspects and fun elements to make it Really worth your Time and a great game overall.
i can recommend the game to everyone who likes to dive into a fantastic world and explore every single part and sidequest of it and can turn a blind eye on the issues of the game.
I Hope i could give you an insight to my experience of the game and i wish you as much fun with the game as i had
