Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga

[Tale]

For those that like Risen, do you feel that it started slow? Could you give a detailed description? The demo shows bugger all. From it I gleaned the important information that the game has 1) a monastary B) a camp III) rat-porcupine crossbreeds.

 

And a really freaky jump animation.

Edited December 6, 2010 by Tale

[Gfted1]

For those that like Risen, do you feel that it started slow? Could you give a detailed description? The demo shows bugger all. From it I gleaned the important information that the game has 1) a monastary B) a camp III) rat-porcupine crossbreeds.

 

And a really freaky jump animation.

 

I havent played it but from what Ive gathered from posts here is the exact opposite. The beginning areas were utterly fantastic while the latter parts of the game were either weak or suffered in comparison to the beginning.

[WorstUsernameEver]

The demo doesn't really show the bulk of the game though. If I recall correctly it stops before you can even visit the major quest hub, the city, so...

Risen is good. It's a pure Pyranha Bytes game and it certainly has its flaws but it's a very enjoyable experience.

[Tale]

The demo stops 5 seconds after you get a sword. It's literally "follow a path, whack a few birds and moths." That's not an exaggeration.

 

Box art is usually more informative.

[sorophx]

It's literally "follow a path, whack a few birds and moths."

that was the whole game for me, played for 10 hours, same picture at every turn. stopped right before going to the only town in the game, maybe that was my mistake. but it does start very slow, and most enemies are hard as hell if you take as much as a step off the path

[Hurlshort]

With Risen, you can approach the early game in a lot of different ways. I recommend avoiding the monastery for as long as possible. I went into the town first, and really enjoyed the quests their before committing to monastic training. Alternatively you can hang out in a swamp with a bunch of bandits. Yuck.

 

edit: You don't have to go nuts fighting everything early on. I avoided most combat because it was rather tough. Just stay on the beaten path until you get strong.

 

edit: Once you get to the town/monastery/swamp, the quests are almost all non-combat.

Edited December 6, 2010 by Hurlshot

[Labadal]

The first thirty minutes aren't very good. I was prepared to put down the game, but I continued playing because I wanted to give it a chance. In the end, I enjoyed it very much. It opens up and you are free to explore as you wish. The only thing that is really stopping you to visit certain areas are strong monsters. I don't know if you have played the Gothic games, but this is more or less a spiritual successor(imo). You can choose a faction you want to stick with, and that decides if you can use magic or not. I chose to stick with a faction that could not offer me any insight to magic. I played a warrior/thief type character with sword and shield, occasionally using a bow. Equipment is very scarce and armour is gained from the faction you join, advance in rank and they will offer to sell you better armor. For me, the game was mostly about exploring and it did that very well. I felt like it was possible to get killed at any time if I was not careful enough. I liked exploring the temples or caves, and the atmospere clicked with me.

 

My only real complaint would be the first thirty minutes + the last boss. Other than that, I would certainly recommend the game. If you are uncertain about it, wait for a price drop. I remember it being on sale for $15 on Steam some time ago, you could always wait for the price to drop again.

[HoonDing]

Risen is not very fun to play in the beginning if you plan to be a mage. You're forced to fight several guys in melee, slowly chipping away their health bar and blocking like a Roman legion while they can knock you out in one hit (especially that "boss" that's guarding the back door out of the city).

[Maria Caliban]

For those that like Risen, do you feel that it started slow? Could you give a detailed description? The demo shows bugger all. From it I gleaned the important information that the game has 1) a monastary B) a camp III) rat-porcupine crossbreeds.

 

And a really freaky jump animation.

 

Risen starts when you, a generically white looking dude with dark hair, wash up on a tropical island. There's one another female survivor of the shipwreck and your immediate task is to clear the area and make your way to a small shack for safety.

 

The major locations on the island are a bandit camp, a city, and a monestary.

 

Combat is like the Witcher in that it's about timing your swings. I found it repetitive and frustrating. The explorable land is small, the game is not that long, and there's padding towards the end.

 

In some ways, it's like Divinity 2, but not as good.

 

That said, I had fun playing it the first time. The story is basic but interesting, the factions are simple but fun, the quests are easy but fun, and I enjoyed exploring the island when my face wasn't being torn off by a random mob. Oh, and I liked the dungeons. The dungeons were well done.

Edited December 6, 2010 by Maria Caliban

[pmp10]

Combat is like the Witcher in that it's about timing your swings. I found it repetitive and frustrating. The explorable land is small, the game is not that long, and there's padding towards the end.

Combat also requires you to manually block and dodge so it's not exactly the same as Witcher.

[Maria Caliban]

True. I used the Witcher as an example because it's the only game I know of where you fight in a constant click-swing pattern.

[HoonDing]

In the Witcher at least you can flip over enemies and manually dodge, which is occasionally necessary when surrounded. Melee in Risen is clunky and controlling Nameless One feels like trying to steer a cement truck.

 

It's high time some action RPG developer copies Blade of Darkness combat, which was both highly tactical and fast-paced.

[pmp10]

It's high time some action RPG developer copies Blade of Darkness combat, which was both highly tactical and fast-paced.

While I played BoD to death I wouldn't call the combat any of those things.

Not to mention that differences between characters were absurdly unbalanced.

Besides there is no way today’s games can handle allowing monsters to damage one another.

Edited December 6, 2010 by pmp10

[Hurlshort]

Risen is not very fun to play in the beginning if you plan to be a mage. You're forced to fight several guys in melee, slowly chipping away their health bar and blocking like a Roman legion while they can knock you out in one hit (especially that "boss" that's guarding the back door out of the city).

 

It's not really designed to be played a mage, at least not for the first 20 hours or so. Magic require a bunch of training, which makes sense. You wash up on the beach as some former cabin boy, so it also makes sense that you can't throw spells around. Eventually you can get to that point, but I like that you have to earn it.

[mkreku]

I love hearing people whine about the difficulty in Piranha Bytes games. It makes me feel strong and manly.

 

Excuse me while I go and fap.

[Gorgon]

I got Risen, it's garbage.

 

 

I just can't get over the bad voice acting. Everyone talks very slowly, like they were hit on the head, or maybe a result of island in-breeding ?. They sure spend a lot of time going on about the bleedin' obvious. I have taken to pressing escape instantly and then trying to reverse engineer the conversation from my list of replies, then checking the journal if it was a quest.

 

I guess I can gift it. (j/k)

Edited December 7, 2010 by Gorgon

[sorophx]

we warned you~

[Gorgon]

Blade of Darkness was indeed awesome, and this time it's not just nostalgia talking. Too bad it can only run on win98 virtual machine, doesn't work in compatibility mode, and it's also very prone to driver related crashes. I wish GoG would give it a workover.

 

 

Two worlds 2 has the best melee system I have seen in a long while, unfortunately it was the only good thing about the game.

[mkreku]

Two worlds 2 has the best melee system I have seen in a long while, unfortunately it was the only good thing about the game.

Yes, because damn those graphics sucked. And the physics. And the world design. And the voice acting. Blah blah blah.

 

Sometimes this board makes me so tired. Are you all idiots?

[sorophx]

riiiiiiight, any person, who thinks, that Two Worlds 2 had bad physics, voice acting and design, is an idiot, obviously

 

anyway, collision detection sucked, animation sucked. so much for physics. voice acting... I don't even want to go there. design. most areas are awful. but there are some, that stand out. I liked the cursed grounds (what I didn't like was the enemy spawning every few steps). I didn't like that every town or location has a very distinctive design (ancient ruins to middle eastern, mixed with medieval european to south-east asian, all in first 2 chapters), too much contrast. I can buy the whole "a castle built on top of ancient ruins" thing, but having a completely different architecture, inspired but another culture just miles away is just awful.

 

so, what's left, graphics? graphics are good, I'll give them that.

[mkreku]

Sure, you're an idiot too. Was there something else?

[Gorgon]

Two worlds 2 has the best melee system I have seen in a long while, unfortunately it was the only good thing about the game.

Yes, because damn those graphics sucked. And the physics. And the world design. And the voice acting. Blah blah blah.

 

Sometimes this board makes me so tired. Are you all idiots?

No the graphics were good as well, that makes two things. It's all for nothing if it can't hold your interest though. You don't seem to be very demanding in the various elements that make up a good RPG, more power to you. Some kids play the best with an empty cardboard box.

 

Just don't go around calling people 'idiots' who need at least a small smidgen of things like characterization, plot, atmosphere etc. to get going. It's not fair. For me, in 99% of Two worlds two encounters my first sentiment was 'I don't care whether you live or die, get to the point or I'm pressing escape'.

Edited December 7, 2010 by Gorgon

[Orchomene]

I had the bad idea to take Two Worlds 2 in french. Well, voice acting in french is really awful, never seen a french voice acting so bad : monotonous, cut sentences, questions that sound like affirmations, strange accents,...

You can check french reviews of Two Worlds 2 and you will see that the scores are much lower than engish reviews because of this.

I think I will now stick to english versions of games, french localizations have become really bad in the last games I've checked. Some even have spellings and grammar worse than a google translation.

[HoonDing]

English voice acting is decent overall. But the subtitles of one major character stop corresponding with the actual voice-over someway half through the game. Basically, this character acts friendly & helpful in the subtitles, but as a snotty ***** in the voice-over. This made it pretty clear to me that at some point the devs did a retcon.

[Hurlshort]

I got Risen, it's garbage.

 

 

I just can't get over the bad voice acting. Everyone talks very slowly, like they were hit on the head, or maybe a result of island in-breeding ?. They sure spend a lot of time going on about the bleedin' obvious. I have taken to pressing escape instantly and then trying to reverse engineer the conversation from my list of replies, then checking the journal if it was a quest.

 

I guess I can gift it. (j/k)

 

Weird, I did play Risen after Two Worlds, so in retrospect that might have made me more tolerant of the voice work. Two Worlds was just horrific, Risen seemed serviceable to me.