Divinity II: Developer's Cut

This one was another case of a sale bugging me many times until I finally decided to buy the Divinity bundle from GOG. What actually made the purchase decision was probably the chance to get some insight to the Divinity universe for Divinity: Original Sin that I will likely buy at some point.

The bundle came with three games, but I decided to skip Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity, since they are fairly old (2002 and 2004). Even if they were good at the time, it is unlikely I could appreciate them due to missing modern features. And so I jumped straight into Divinity II (2009). I was not expecting much from it either as I do not recall anyone mentioning it outside its own specific forums.

The beginning sure was not promising. The menus seemed to be locked to 30 FPS -- a worrying fact for certain -- but once I got into the game, the number climbed to satisfactory 60. There was even an option to change the FPS cap to one's liking. That made me think that maybe Divinity II did not have technical issues and the 30 FPS menus were just some oddity. Unfortunately, that was not to be the case.

Once I started playing and tried panning the camera, I noticed this very jarring stuttering. It was like the game was suddenly running at a very low framerate, even though it was staying at stable 60 FPS according to Fraps. And the weird thing was that all the while my character was still animating smoothly.

I tried searching for a solution but all I found was few people having the same issue and no way to solve it. Apparently it is a fault in the Gamebryo Engine the game uses. Too bad Larian Studios (or at least Divinity II) does not enjoy the popularity of Bethesda who also uses the same engine but has had modders fix the stuttering in their games.

I tried the game on my other computer but the issue was there too. Eventually I decided to just force myself through the game by trying to focus only on the character when moving. I guess I became more tolerant to the stuttering as it started bothering me less.

Divinity II plays much like World of Warcraft with the exception of lacking auto-attack and having to instead press a button to swing your weapon(s). The action bar did not see full use by me as I focused on the passive skills. Mostly I used Rush Attack that works like the various charge abilities in the aforementioned MMORPG. Skills like it are a must in games such as this for me as I feel they make melee combat more fun by making it more fast-paced, allowing you to jump quickly from an enemy to another.

The game has a classless skill system, meaning you are free to pick whatever you want. However, once you have put one point in a skill, that is all the excitement you are going to get as further points only increase its effectiveness in a linear manner. What the skills would have needed were ways to add new effects and alter the old ones. The progression system is simply dull.

I read that Divinity II was rather difficult when it was originally released under the subtitle Ego Draconis. The version that is now sold -- Developer's Cut -- includes the expansion, Flames of Vengeance, and also has the game's difficulty level greatly re-adjusted. With the exception of certain enemy, I found nothing too hard to beat. But there was still challenge at times on the default difficulty setting. I sure am happy they made the endgame flying fortresses easier, though. Even without no-fly zones, they were quite the drag.

The one enemy giving me serious trouble was Ba'al, a boss monster, who would throw a very fast-ticking damage-over-time debuff on my character as soon as the fight started. I never got even a chance to drink a potion before it would kill my character. It appears to be a bug according to some forum posts, and one suggested solution is to run the developer exe and enable god mode. Another solution is to push your creature in front of you to take the debuff meanwhile you quickly dispatch Ba'al. That worked for me both times I faced him.

Speaking of the creature: to me the summon felt slightly out of place. It did not really seem to fit the dragonic theme of the game. You just suddenly get this upgradable necromantic minion to aid you.

Mindreading was another odd thing but since it was introduced from the start, it did not feel as sudden. A fairly shallow feature it was, however. In dialogues, at the cost experience debt you can mindread the person -- sometimes for a benefit, sometimes not. There is no way to know if you should mindread, but you might as well since the debt gets significant only in the Flames of Vengeance part of the game. And by then you can freely start investing in the mindread skill that reduces the experience debt gained as the game starts throwing skill books at you at every turn. It was also odd how the last, 15th, rank of the skill surprisingly raises the reduction percentage from 70% to 100% when before it only gave +5% per rank.

I disliked how skill levels increasing gear bonuses stop mattering if your skill is already at its cap. The other stats have the same issue. Optimizing enchants can be tiresome. I bothered to enchant my gear only twice -- once before the Hall of Echoes and again before the expansion's point of no return. Both times my character's effectiveness was greatly boosted, which makes me think enchanting more often might be beneficial. But that would make one spent more time playing the game and I think it was long enough already.

The world and characters in Divinity II are extremely boring as well. I did not get engaged in the story and its events at any point. The game is also filled with dreadful busywork, which you are better off doing or the game will probably get too hard due to your low level.

After act one you are teased with the ability to take on a dragon form but then you still have to clear two more areas of busywork before you actually get it. And then the dragon form turns out to be bit of a disappointment. Its function is mainly fighting boring enemies specifically made for it, such as ballistae and lightning towers. The form is pretty handy for moving about the place in the following Fjords area though. It reminded me of druid's flight form in World of Warcraft.

Flames of Vengeance has to go onto my list of bad game expansions. In the first part you are trapped in a small city area, doing more busywork which feels quite a letdown after basically having returned from the dead. Then you finally get out of the city, only to find yourself in a tedious escort quest in the dragon form. I had to actually attempt the quest twice as I had not noticed the new powerful skill they added. After getting the airship to its destination you are back in human form for the final showdown that probably did not last more than 15 seconds for me as the Thousand Strikes skill kills even bosses very quickly.

Divinity II did not really make me confident in Larian's ability to make good games and as a result I am less interested in getting Original Sin. I read D:OS has the same boring lore but apparently the mechanics are good. So maybe it will be a better experience. They recently released an enhanced edition of the game that evidently has a different discount schedule. I think I will have it remain in my wishlist for the time being -- no use to buy it at 33% off to only have it wait at the end of my backlog. There will be another, better discount in the future.