Introduction

Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga is a remastered release of the original game: Divinity II: Ego Draconis, with the expansion pack Flames of Vengeance bundled into it. It is the third game in Belgian developer Larian Studio’s Divinity series. The problem with Ego Draconis was that Larian kinda ran out of money and had to wrap things up quickly. But luckily for us, the game sold well enough that they were able to not only finance the expansion, but also remaster the original game, optimizing the engine, adjusting the balance, altering some parts radically and ultimately changing it for the better. Ego Draconis was a good, if flawed game, but Dragon Knight Saga is unequivocally a great game.

The previous games were Divine Divinity (2003) and Beyond Divinity (2004). Click the links for my LP’s of those games. The backstory will be summarized in the post below.

Divine Divinity was a Diablo 2-like action RPG – isometric third person view, real-time combat, sprite-based art, simple and easy to understand attributes. However, this game was closer to an actual RPG than the combat-focused Diablo 2. There was a greater focus on quests, dialogue, NPC’s, and a high level of interactivity. All of which combined to make the world feel real and alive. The game didn’t have a fixed class, letting you mix and match your skills however you wished, and that remained true for the other games as well.

Beyond Divinity was also a Diablo 2-like RPG, except that you directly controlled two characters at once instead of one, and the mobile entities are all 3D models on 2D backgrounds. It was the title where Larian experimented with various things, trying to see what worked and what didn’t, and a lot of what they tried didn’t work that well. It was a side-story to the Divinity universe, most of it took place on a different planet entirely.

Divinity 2 looks, feels, and plays quite different from the ones above. It is a third-person action-RPG in full 3D, and it looks very nice as well. The previous games were action RPG’s, but Divinity 2 has an even greater focus on action. Dodging enemy attacks and hitting enemies is not based on stats, but on the player manually performing dodge moves and manually hitting the enemy. The third-person camera lends a greater sense of immediacy to the fluid combat.

There’s more to the game than just combat, though. This game has a lot of sharp, funny dialogue, including some really funny things the player character can say. Alas, they aren’t voiced.

The game also has some interesting quests, and a refreshing approach to good/evil. Many quests can be completed in two mutually exclusive ways, “good” or “evil” and you generally get identical rewards for either. This game doesn’t have a karma meter or multiple endings, so you can choose your approach on a per-quest level.

Divinity 2 is a surprisingly long game. Doing everything, this game will take about 60 hours to complete, if you know where everything is. That is not including “grinding” for experience, because grinding doesn’t really exist in this game (enemies don’t respawn). It also doesn’t include alternate quest solutions, and there are so many of those that you might as well do a separate playthrough to get those. The boast of “100 hours of gameplay” is actually right.

If you do everything, you should be at the same level as the final boss. Honestly that’s probably not really needed, given how powerful you’ll be before then, but I probably will end up doing pretty much everything, because that’s the way I’ve done my LP’s in the past, and apparently I never learn.

The game’s original version was either boringly easy or mercilessly hard, depending mostly on the difference between your level and the enemy level. Some bosses which were complete jokes because of level differences in Ego Draconis are now very hard, even when you out-level them by 5 or more levels. Overall, DKS is more forgiving, it’s still a hard game, so I will want to do most of the sidequests anyway.

Major differences between Ego Draconis and The Dragon Knight Saga

General graphical improvements all over.
Level no longer makes a huge difference in the difficulty of a fight. It's important, but it has a much less drastic effect on the damage you do and receive.
There are new set and unique items to be found in Ego Dragonis. The Hunter/Archmage/Scorpion sets have been scattered around from their original locations.
The Anti-Dragon barrier near the goblin village in Orobas Fjords is gone.
The Flying Fortresses have been simplified and all of the anti-dragon barriers except one have been removed. They are also much harder, so if you enter them at level 26 or lower, be careful.
There are fewer breakable barrels and urns and such. It was crazy how many there were in ED.
Projectiles move slightly slower, so it's now actually possible to dodge them.
The road between Champion Harbour, High Hall, and the Red Ore Mine has been redone. The imps are gone, replaced with Black Goblins.
It is no longer possible to enter the Mining Guild hall in Broken Valley before you get to a certain point in the main quest.
Rewards have been improved for main quests. You now get a lot more experience (at least for the first couple), and main quests offer 2 optional rewards instead of 1.

Format of the LP
This will be a hybrid – Video and Screenshot LP. The screenshots part will be a narrative-based story, although my interjections will be quite mild compared to Divine Divinity, and even Beyond Divinity. I’ll limit it to occasional short interjections, and give my main character some thoughts based on the personality type you select (see below). There will be a framing story of sorts in the form of a history book.

Because the text is too small to read in screenshots, conversations with people will be shown as a cropped section of screen, and transcribed in portrait form.

The videos will probably where most of the combat will be shown off. Screenshots can’t convey the fast-moving combat very well.

I’m not sure about how I’ll handle alternate paths or quests. I’m considering showing those off with the second-most popular character the thread votes on. They’ll probably be much shorter updates skipping all the content which is the same.

The videos will be subtitled, not done with voice because 1) The text in-game is too small for a viewer to read, 2) the game is extremely long, and I won’t have a lot to say even using subs, and 3) the music is really great.

Dialogue Legend

This is real dialogue said out loud.

This is fake dialogue said out loud.
_{This is fake dialogue which is a thought.}

_{This is real dialogue which is a thought.}

_{This is real dialogue which you get from Mind-Reading someone.}

[+1 Attribute point] /

[+1 Skill Point] – This indicates that when you mindread someone, you get a special bonus from them (possibly instead of thoughts).

This is the game's internal narrator speaking. This is either real dialogue or a summary of quest rewards (which are also real).

Sometimes when you mind-read someone, the internal narrator (or someone else) speaks instead of the person you mind-read.

I am the mystery narrator. This is fake dialogue. No one at all can hear me.

These are Stabbey’s out-of-character comments to the LP reader.

Previous Thread Title: Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga – Maxos! / I’m Laiken this shit!
Previous Previous Thread Title: Divinity 2 – Jumping off cliff is good idea. Get to ground faster that way!

Also, in case you were wondering, here’s where I got the idea for the first thread title.

Knights of the Old Republic 2 – Jumping into the pit is a good idea. Get to ground faster that way. (Divinity 2 has no falling damage.)

Spoiler Policy
There are to be absolutely no spoilers about the end-game of Ego Draconis and the plot of Flames of Vengeance, NOT EVEN INSIDE SPOILER TAGS. If someone speculates, don’t give hints based on your knowledge of the endgame either, please. Thank you for your consideration.

I will post one spoiler now because it is the “Rosebud was his sled” of this game. Anyone who knows anything about the game will know this, trying to avoid mentioning it is pretty much impossible, trying to censor it will make the thread read like a CIA document, and the title of the game even gives it away.

Spoiler: Eventually the player character gains the ability to transform into a Dragon himself/herself. That is your freebee spoiler. Please keep all other allowable plot stuff behind spoiler tags, thank you.

Kirill Pokrovsky once again returns to do the music for Divinity 2, and it’s fantastic. You can download a selection of tracks from the game from his website (via Rapidshare), and I’ll be providing links to Tindeck for them as well.

The music section was getting too long, so I moved it to a separate post here.

The Let's Play Archive

Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga

by Stabbey_the_Clown

Introduction

Table of Contents