'Divinity 2' struck me as somewhat of an odd cookie as it has the trademarks of a modern Action RPG but then it throws a curve ball, by removing some of the creature comforts game developers have been wrapping us in for years. 'Divinity 2' plays a little like 'Fable', though it looks less comical and certainly is a more fully featured RPG. Rivellon, a once beautiful world has been shattered by wars of the past. As a slayer in training YOU are tasked with the goal of eradicating dragons from the realms, supposedly the last great menace. Your initiation rites are interrupted by the report of a dragon, which is where the game really begins. As you progress, you find yourself imbued with the powers of a Dragon Knight, which, after another initiation, will allow you to transform into a Dragon.   This turns your slayers mates against you but that’s not so bad, as their order has been blinded to the real enemy, blinded by the machinations of Damian.

Damian is of course a powerful warrior with an armada of floating stone islands that pollute the lands around them. He draws his hatred from revenge for his fallen love, executed because she served the Black Ring.

'Divinity 2' has a relatively simple role-playing mechanism. Beginning as a generic adventurer, 5 stats govern your hit points and resistance and so on whilst skills are organised into 5 classes allowing you to follow a path as a warrior, ranger, wizard, necromancer or mix it up and be who you want to be. It works well and even with a few misspent points I didn’t break my character into an unplayable mess, by the end of the first chapter you can pay to un-assign your points and redistribute them since by that point you will know what works a lot better. You will also get your own Battle Tower, which has your minions and artisans and a bottomless chest for storing your stuff in. The whole set-up feels like the set-up in 'Fable 2' but with a lot more options and room to be different. Necromancy is also practised in the land and along with summoned creatures you can have a constructed from parts of your fallen enemies.

The graphics are crisp and well themed though repetition does start to creep in when you notice the same fallen trees and stumps seem to be following you round the country. The world is well detailed, rabbits and chickens roaming amongst forests of trees while ducks waddle around the rivers as the salmon jump with futility trying to get upstream. Your character can jump which sets it apart from Fable and, to my joy, they have no issues getting stuck in the map as the game will recognise your futile struggles to escape and teleport you a short distance away. The 3rd person camera doesn’t have a manual zoom feature, which works quite well and hasn’t left me with a screen full of wall at an inconvenient moment. Everything is spoken but the subtitled text often has a little more writing in it, particularly with the mission descriptions. Some of the battle sounds get a little repetitive particularly your characters constipated roar and instructions that the skill you tried to use hasn’t cooled down yet. The ambient environment sounds are subtle and not as rich as the visuals. The in game music is well suited with a mix between orchestral and folk styles.

Read the full review HERE.