Publisher: CDV Software Entertainment
Developer: Larian Studios
Genre: RPG
Release date: Available now

Japanese developers once set the rules for console role-playing games, but the video-game industry has seen a seismic shift towards Western-developed titles during the past decade, shaped in no small part by the massive success of games such as Oblivion, Mass Effect and the recently released Dragon Age: Origins. This has set the bar high for other developers looking to garner experience points with gamers eager to turn over a few hundred hours of their lives to the latest fantasy. It’s a gambit that Larian, developer of the formerly PC-centric Divinity series, finds itself confronting with the Xbox 360 release of Divinity II: Ego Draconis.

While this is technically the third entry in the series, despite the altered numbering, it’s largely a stand-alone game, meaning newbies who have only cut their teeth on console RPGs won’t have any issue diving in. The game takes place in the same world of Rivellon, but it presents players with a completely new adventure. In Divinity II, you take control of a newly graduated Dragon Slayer, who is initially charged with hunting down the foul beasts that terrorize the countryside. The catch is that soon after beginning his quest, your character develops the ability to fuse with his quarry, making the hunter and hunted one and the same. Using your newfound powers, you set out to eradicate the new Big Bad that is threatening to destroy all of Rivellon.

Ego Draconis is essentially an action RPG, in line with the Fable series, giving the player full control over their actions in combat. Early in the game, you choose a discipline to follow, split between three standard classes (archer, mage or warrior). While this class becomes your main focus, you can spend your experience points on contradictory class attributes to build out your character as you see fit. In addition, these initial classes branch out into extended skill trees, unlocking new classes and the abilities that come with them. The major hook to the game is the ability to transform into a dragon. This is a plot-driven development, it becomes available independent of which path you choose to follow, and it remains the central concept that elevates this game from being just another sword-and-sorcery clone. The world of Rivellon is expansive, making the dragon a perfect vehicle with which to seek out each hidden enclave and chase down those experience-boosting subquests. Plus, it adds a nice strategic element in battle, as you pepper your foes with flames from above before hitting the ground running with a all-out attack.

Divinity II benefits from the dragon mechanic, but stumbles in almost every other aspect. While the world of Rivellon looks great standing still, frame rates in action sequences drop to abysmal levels, making the journey hard on the eyes as the image constantly tears. The game is also vexed with a myriad of bugs that impact play sessions, including dropped speech, graphical errors and occasional game-ending freezes that require a reboot. I also experienced several instances in which my saved game was corrupted, forcing me to clear the cache and begin again. While the similarly themed Dragon Age: Origins might have the production muscle of EA backing it up (thus granting it a fine level of polish), it’s unacceptable to have to play a retail release in this shoddy state of development. The game has some decent concepts that really would have benefited with an additional six months of development and, more importantly, QA testing, as it simply becomes a bear to play. At this writing there was no fix available, but hopefully this will be remedied in the future.

Aside from the glaring bugs, the actual game mechanics are frustrating. In combat, which can get hectic with numerous enemies attacking in real time, the game’s targeting system goes haywire, randomly resetting and losing its lock, costing you precious hit points. While the script and voice work are done very well, conversations can become a chore, as it’s difficult to initiate dialogue with NPCs because of the off-kilter targeting system. Combat, especially when choosing to get up-close and personal with a sword, is clunky and unresponsive, bringing to mind the merely adequate fighting seen in lower market MMORPGs. It does the job, but it’s never really satisfying, as you don’t get the feeling that your sword is striking anything.

Divinity II: Ego Draconis is ultimately releasing at the wrong time. Just a couple of months removed from Dragon Age, it’s hard to avoid comparisons between the two, and this game doesn’t compare to the latter at any level. The dragon mechanics add something new and awesome to the action-RPG genre, but aside from that, the other elements feel cribbed from better titles, and watered down as well. Role-playing games can be a massive time sink, meaning you need to choose wisely where you want to spend your fantasy life. Based on my stay there, the land of Rivellon isn’t worth the travel or the expense.

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