Divinity II Ego Draconis - RPG from Belgium
How often can we say that this will be a story of success after a long fall - with only R.a.r.e.r, and the reason is always the same, there are no easy ways in the gaming industry to reach the hearts of gamers, there will always be those who agree and those who disagree. Paradox but in most cases, it is the unpredictable factor that leads to success. Today, news about game developers and new projects is not pleasant to read or to hear, as more than 10,000 people around the world have been fired or have simply left game studios in recent years, of course, some of them will be determined to open new game development studios, while others will simply disappear, and that's a scary thought.
But what about Larian Studios, founded in 1996 as a computer game development company in Ghent, Belgium and an outline of their situation?
Well, it's no longer a secret that they had a hard time balancing between bankruptcy and staying afloat, but there was one man who never lost hope or his optimistic view of the Divinity success, the founder of Larian Studios, Sven Winke.
So, what is Divinity ?
Those who love D&D (dungeons and dragons) surely have played Divinity: Original Sin, those who are Old School players may remember the so-called Diablo clones, whereby Divine Divinity and Beyond Divinity are recognized.
Ego Draconis, compared to its predecessor’s and its successor, cannot be limited to a single genre, such as RTS, dungeon crawl or the usual hack and slash style of gameplay, it must be said that Ego Draconis has taken the best of these parts and revised them.
With unpredictable challenges, wonderful ambient music, a great perspective view on the world around you, in a surprisingly interesting story and funny or exciting side quests. Before we begin describing the game, we should reveal the meaning of its appellation Ego and Draconis, both words have Latin roots, where Ego means I or Me and Draconis means dragon, translating that means Divinity II – I Dragon.
Divinity II continues the events of its previous two games in divine and beyond, its storyline includes characters that were introduced in the previous games, as well as established lore and rules.
But there's no need to worry about getting bogged down in understanding the current state of the story, as many players are introduced to divinity series with ego draconis, maybe someday You too will consider the possibility to explore the divine and beyond, to take an interest in the world of Rivellon.
But for now, we'll click and launch a new game.
Character customization is a reflection of ourselves, its presence in the game won’t affect anything, and most of your choices won’t significantly affect the main storyline, and your moral etiquette, whether paragon or renegade, will mean nothing for the hero or heroine inside the game world.
Now let me explain the point. Your moral scale is your weapon as a player to see the results of your choices, for example You may encounter a random npc who may be a merchant but You can have a conversation with him, this character tells you not to ask him, “Why is he alive if he is dead?", because he replies that this question could end its existence. And guess what, curiosity got the better of you, you see the consequences, but it only affects the morale of your players, not your protagonist’s scale because he or she is a knight whose purpose was to serve and protect.
This means that, according to the game scenario, at a certain point you will become an enemy to your own comrades in arms. Moreover, Rivellon has a bigger threat to worry about than some dragon slayer who eventually turns into a dragon knight.
And so, the question arises, who is a dragon knight, what purpose is given to a dragon slayer and what threat takes over this world ? Each answer is in the following lines of the main campaign.
After creating Your character, the story reveals to us our origin, we are the Dragon Slayer, an apprentice who has completed its studies and trainings and knows that we will become a proud member of the Order, as our commander Rhode tells us about it.
Farglow is the place of initiation for every disciple, through the ceremony we will gain silver eyes, the knowledge to understand the language of dragons and one of the most interesting abilities the mind reading.
Dragon Slayers can read people's minds, but at a reasonable price, to read a powerful person's mind, the player will need approximately a thousand experience points to read it.
You will assign your exp points in exchange for revealing secrets, as an example of where is left a valuable loot or what dangers await you. But you often lose your level and with it, skills you’ve learned, as those looking to change their specs like from archer to mage can find it a valuable revamp.
Mage
Warrior
Ranger
Three base classes, ranger was my choice, but your skill tree will get bigger, obviously, you will get some new classes like priest, your protagonist will gain after ceremony base class abilities of the dragon slayer, you have trained in the past and now can improve with progression. Later with competition of main campaign will be unlocked the abilities of dragon.
Fun fact for those who like the mage class, you won't have to look for magical items, but can use Wooden club, and I'm not kidding.
You cast spells but use a melee weapon in combat. Being mostly tied to just one class skill tree and learning other skills later, such as wielding two swords, one in each hand, it isn't a bad strategy, but eventually fighting a horde of enemies in Flames of Vengeance will become much more difficult.
I had to learn some basic magic spells so that when shooting arrows and drinking potions while jumping or rolling, my fingers wouldn't react so fast and not make my gameplay even tougher.
You know what makes you happy about this skill tree, is that you're not limited by class choice, you can be a classical knight with shield and one-handed sword but shoot fireballs at groups of enemies and if you want shoot an arrow at someone standing too far away.
Of course, such a combination may seem difficult to understand at the beginning of the game and as mentioned above can be used with a mind reading system to take alternate paths, but if it suits your playstyle, definitely give it a try and find Your Way.
Someone would certainly mention that a similar system without limits versus class limitlessness already exists and it's nothing new, but I'll point it this way - can the controlled character often use Antigravity and defy the laws of gravity itself, NO :)
Let me explain that our protagonist can jump very high, run very far in a short time, roll perfectly from a high jump and one of strategies tactics to roll sideways while throwing arrows at your enemies. A less playable character can do these things and react very quickly when the player uses more than one combination of moves, but our hero moves smoothly, without struggle.
Ego Draconis is an excellent RPG built to old-school system standards, meaning that, if we often see a lot of useful tips in modern games, we often see a large amount of useful tips e.g. reflecting arrows or sparkles that show us the way, the mini-map always showing our destination place, showing mostly all places of interest in area, a small scripted overview of what to do to complete quest, but Your exploration in Divinity II, is an entirely different feeling to adventures that are awaiting for You the player.
Rivellon, a world filled with fantasy
Where at every step you take, You can't know for sure whether you’ll find a quest item or find someone who needs your help or assistance in the use of the subject, it was always the aim of pure play with satisfaction and adventures to plunge into the unknown.
Just like an important side quest, the completion of which is difficult but seemingly rewarding, for example, we will meet the necromancer Naberius, whose hobby is creating form of life from dead body parts, he asked for help to find a special skull that helps to control the creature's.
The search will be tuff and won't be easy to handle at first, but it's worth the effort, as you will be rewarded with one such creature, and it will become your summoning companion for the rest of the game. For me it was the best weapon, as already mentioned, I was an archer, and I kept my distance.
And here we come to the subordination of the main campaign, I won’t write any substantial spoilers, just a few that are necessary to reveal certain characters and storylines.
From Dragon Slayer to Dragon Knight - an interesting approach to changing the ways our hero or heroine, has lived its whole life. Dragon Knights are the chosen champions of real dragons, they have they have been assigned with special powers and abilities. The most famous of these gifts is the ability to transform themselves into dragons at will.
During the story, we will discover that once such Knights were highly respected among the common people, but at a certain point everything changed. The dragons were named traitors and were persecuted and killed ever since. One of the this knight's with power to turn into a dragon form, had become the real reason for our journey to the Broken Valleys village.
The question of why dragons are the most persecuted creatures, despite other terrifying beasts and monsters, is that only dragons were able to give power equal to their own to anyone they have chosen, and still not take away their will.
As an example, in dlc Flames of Vengeance we will find the cultist who dedicated his service to demons, he’s willingly sacrificing people, and at first, he looks like a not particularly different citizen from any other, but if you read his thoughts, you will hear voice resembling a demonical.
So, the hatred for dragons started with betrayal and most of the information revealing the truth was forgotten, but many didn’t even know the full picture, we will find some evidence from other knights and even an old dragon, but that would be just a few approaches and nothing more.
Our main enemies will be
Members of Black Ring, also known as Black Circle
Bandits
Trolls and Goblins
Skeletons and Ghosts
Some other Nasty Things
Now the question stands, who is the antagonist of this story ?
Damian the Damned One, whose followers we will stumble across very often, his story is revealed in the previous games of the series, but it doesn’t mean that we won't understand the main purpose of his action, instead all the articles attached to the story of past decades will be revealed, and important information will be told to the player.
Damian is one of those villains whose position has been established as an evil force that must be stopped by all means, but he has the other side to his identity.
He is a villain whose story is not only intriguing, but also revealing for understanding truth, at some point he generates a sympathy much like Saren from mass effect.
Yes, both are villains, but they both had better intentions towards humanity than we thought when we first met them. For the sensitive or emotional gamers to understand the reason of feeling sympathy for the villains would be easier.
And how does the story develop further ? Well, the hero saves the world from evil and proves that humanity wrongly accused dragons.
A simple point, but you know the journey that we will get through by all this time would be worth Your time, the people we met, the adventures we went through, the self-discovery we forged, it was a test of our succession, it was a wonderful story to discover in the heart of Rivellon.
And I would like to approach it again differently this time, because just like the beautiful music that has accompanied me all the way, it has captivated my mind and devoted my heart to this extraordinary tale. It is a story that not everyone will understand and find joy and fun.
As I write these words, I am writing the last points of convenience, I cannot make anyone play it, I can only influence your minds in Your desire to discover this world, because as many words have been written, I haven't described even half of an interesting things and approaches through them, because it is impossible, You must experience it yourself.
When you overcome the first objectives of the game and see what a wide world awaits you outside valley’s border's, You begin to enjoy this world and stayed in the game for a very long time, unnoticing how morning light has been changed to the evening sun. Divinity II Ego Draconis will be kept, so that it could be easier to return to the sensations that this unusual game gives you during the month of work. Indeed, it must be admitted that this is an unfairly and undeservedly forgotten or overlooked RPG, it is a classical approach that deserves your attention.
If you will be playing the game on PC, you will need this patch for the game to run smoothly, as modern technology often does not want to cooperate with old game platforms :)
