Divinity 2 - Postgame impressions

[Intel_Hydralisk]

Since I'll be talking about the game from the perspective of having finished it so there are some spoilers. Also, this is a rather long post. Skip to the end for the TLDR:



I played as a ranger (although classes may be loosely defined, in my case I strictly used a bow / bow skills). In general, I found the combat and gameplay mechanics to be pretty good and enjoyable. The first 80% or so of the game was done very well I think. However, as I finished the last bit starting in Aleroth and leading up to/through the hall of echoes then proceeded to finish the game, it felt incredibly - Awful.

For starters, I thought I was very overleveled by the end of the game - level 34 (hit 35 somewhere during the last fight after killing some minions). However, a quick look online reveals that most players finish in the mid 30's. At some point in the game, it went from enjoyable / challenging combat to simply steam rolling the enemies. I found myself a good 4-5 levels above my enemies which was hardly enjoyable. I noticed that for the longest time, the enemies literally stagnated in the high 20's (28-29). I couldn't help but wonder if this was an utter design flaw.

Now leveling aside, the last few quests felt extremely unspectacular. The sheer number of sidequests in the game literally sidetracked me from the main quest for a long long time. When I got back to it, I found that it took less than 1 hour to finish the plot after reaching Aleroth. Really? The cutscene leading to Aleroth was pretty epic showing hordes of demons spewing forth into the city. Then you help the Wizard guy 1 shot a bunch of enemies 5 levels under you and it's done - the city's saved and you spent all of 10 minutes (if that) in it. The last dungeon - the hall of echoes was rather dissapointing. It seemed like they put it together in a day and just called it the end of the game. The entire game was wrapped up in a series of very unspectacular fights that left me wondering if leveling up exp bonus was an awful idea. Now the ending itself left me frustrated as well. But a plot's a plot... and I'm assuming Divinity 3 is going to continue this charade.

Turning into a dragon was a blast. However, aerial combat got very repetative. I wish you could level up your dragon stats kind of like your main character and maybe have a little more to aerial combat than breathing fire on a couple of buildings. One big disappointment was the apparently independence of ground / air units. At LEAST let me see the ground units when I'm a dragon. They literally turn invisible (why?).

The world was mysterious and wonderous... Until I approached the end of the game and realized that the canyon / gorge area was literally the only part of the world left. Suddenly the whole game world collapsed into a small shoebox.

All in all, as I was playing through it I was very excited about starting a 2nd character (new playstyle - some sort of melee mage perhaps?) especially since I found out that you can respec / train certain skills further after I finished the battle tower. Now, it all feels like meh since the end of the game is far from rewarding. It feels like the game started out so well but turned so half assed later.



TLDR: Game started out awesome. There were big pacing / balancing issues towards the end which ruined the feel. The latter part of the game felt rushed and half assed.

 

[John721]

Thanks for the review. I haven't played the game, but I guess it's possible they kept the end game enemies a bit weaker to compensate for some players choosing to avoid sidequests.

Have you played Risen? I was thinking about getting either Divinity 2 or Risen to mess around in an open world cRPG. I'd love to hear some comparisons of the two.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

I think some of your trouble came from the experience bonus skill. In Aleroth when you are helping the wizard, the enemies were 2-3 levels above me. It ended up being pretty rough in spots. I have yet to do the hall of echoes, but scaling has been pretty good for me so far.


One question I have, WHICH IS SPOILER MATERIAL:


To get to the hall of echoes, I have one task left: Find something in broken valley. Going to broken valley kills me pretty quickly as a dragon, do I do this on foot or did I miss something early on?

 

[Intel_Hydralisk]

To answer your question LeninGHOLA:

You have to open up a dungeon in Broken Valley somewhere near the east 'anti dragon' zone. If you remember way back in the game, there was a cutscene about some mines that Damian decided to occupy. In that fort you get a key to open the nearby dungeon that progresses the plot. I flew to the fort, landed, got the key... then had to find a way to monkey hop to the dungeon off some cliffs since it was in the middle of a no dragon zone.

You die pretty fast as a dragon from the poison or from the enemies? As a rule (I found this out pretty early...) the level scaling is pretty brutal in the game... as in if the level differential is anymore than 2 or 3 the lower level party gets rolled. So if you're just underleveled there should be plenty of quests to do to level up. I only picked up the exp boost skill after I respecced for the first time (which was like low 20's).

 

[Q-BZ]

TLDR: Game started out awesome. There were big pacing / balancing issues towards the end which ruined the feel. The latter part of the game felt rushed and half assed.

^^ That's pretty close to the way I'd describe Risen. I really like Risen overall but it definitely had some balancing and pacing issues and especially towards the last act.

 

[LeninGHOLA]

*snip*

Thanks, yea I had forgotten about the mine. The poison was what was killing me, also.

 

[SilverSliver]

Ending - Is - Horrible