Tiamatini

This is yet another game I found while perusing the offerings of the Xbox Live marketplace.  I wanted a new RPG so I thought I’d give the demo a go, and before I knew it I was ordering the game for next day delivery.  I looked up the reviews and saw that it largely seemed to be the overlooked RPG of 2009, a victim of bad timing as much as anything, so I thought I’d give Divinity 2: Ego Draconis the benefit of the doubt, and to be honest, I’m glad I did.You begin the game as a newly trained Dragon Slayer, and have to visit the town of Farglow to, among other things, choose your initial specialisation.  You can play as a warrior, ranger or mage, though you have the opportunity to learn all 3 as soon as you leave Farglow.  The purpose of choosing is to give you a basic mana skill straight off the bat.  Although there are lots of different ways to play the game, and I’m not a massive fan of telling people what to do in such an open ended game, I’d strongly recommend you start the game as a ranger.  The magic attacks are too weak to be of any use to you after you leave the town, and you are too weak to withstand much in melee combat as a warrior until you level up a bit.  Ranged attacks give you an advantage early on that the others don’t.  I tried all 3 in the demo and mistakenly went for warrior on my first real playthrough, and it makes the early stages really tough.  This is partly because the enemies don’t level with you, they are what they are, which meant that at level 1 I was facing level 4 or even level 7 enemies and having to get right up close to them before I could even begin to do them any damage.  This is a bad plan.  However, this also works the other way round – at L34 you take out whole groups of L26 enemies with a single exploding arrow – on the upside, I die far less, on the downside, you get about 100 exp per group of enemies and it takes about 60,000 exp to move between the higher levels

The levelling up works the same as in any other game – the more exp you get, the higher your level; you get exp from completing side quests and killing enemies.  The upside of the higher level enemies is that you do get more exp for each kill, but there was an awful lot of reloading from the last save when I died…  There is one small hitch when it comes to gathering exp however, though it is one that the game, in fairness, warns you about every time.  You can mind read as a Dragon Slayer, which can open up new quests, lower traders prices, give you bonus stat or skill points, but each time it costs you exp.  This is part of why I was stuck at level 1 for so long – there I was mind reading everyone who came along and sure enough, I was never levelling up!  This is another bad plan.  The developers had said they did not intend the game to be easy, and in that, they succeeded!

However, despite the challenges this game presents, for RPG fans this is a great way to spend many, many hours.  I have no idea how long I spent playing it, but it’s gotta be into the 90 hour range.  The opening, that is, Farglow, is brief, and then you make it to Broken Valley, where a dragon has been sighted.  Your task – reconnaissance while the more experienced members hunt for the dragon itself.  Whilst carrying out this reconnaissance you can complete various side quests, but I would advise that you leave things like the Captain’s board quests until you are a higher level – not because they are particularly hard, but because each one gives you a set amount of exp when you complete it which stays the same regardless of your level.  This is great if you’re Level 1 and trying to get to Level 2 quickly, but the higher your level the less exp you get for the other enemies, so kill them first, get the exp, then do the side quests and get the set amount of exp for those.  Make sense?  Yes?  Dandy.

The game is, as I mentioned, very long indeed if you play all the side quests, so I won’t go into much more detail on the story itself, but I will give away the fact that you do get to become a dragon, yes, you seemingly change sides.  I thought I’d gone horribly wrong when it happened to me, but then I realised that there is no way to avoid it, in fact it’s essential to progress the game, so just go with the flow…

Having completed the game I can categorically state that as RPGs go, this is a damn good one, but there is a big ‘but’…  I won’t give away the details, but frankly the ending sucks.  I can sort of understand that they did it in order to leave it open for a sequel, but at the same time I was left sitting there after nearly 100 hours of gameplay, building up the ultimate fighting machines (both human and dragon characters) staring at the screen, unbelieving of that being the ending.  I need there to be a sequel, I need there to be a way to change what happened, because regardless of the decisions you make how strong you are, what methods you use, the ending blows.  I did look at some online forums after I’d finished, to check and see if there was any way of avoiding this disappointment, or any definite plans for a sequel and sadly the answer to both is no, but it was reassuring to know I wasn’t the only disappointed fan out there.  I do hate to end on a downer, so I’ll wrap up by reminding you that prior to these few minutes of disappointment there had been countless hours of enjoyment and enthralling gameplay.  You can really develop your character, complete personal quests for your team in the Dragon Tower (your base which you can return to at any point using your Dragon Stone, even mid-fight if it all gets too much), and admire the, at times, really quite impressive artwork and scenery.  So if, like me, you’re looking for a new RPG to get lost in, then this could be exactly what you’re looking for.  With one small flaw this game has everything you could want in an RPG and will captivate you as you battle goblins, ghosts and skeletons, so don’t let it continue being overlooked, get out there and buy it, borrow it from a friend, rent it, whatever, just play it and enjoy it.  Oh, and don’t forget to kill the bunnies, just take it slow til you hit Level 20 – you’ll see why…