I recently found good deals on both Divinity II: Dragon Knight Saga and Two Worlds II, two major third-person action RPG releases which I've been wanting to try out on my new computer. Apart from having intentionally stupid titles and a light-hearted sense of humor, these European (Belgian and Polish, respectively) action RPGs both try to combine huge game worlds and a wealth of character customization options with relatively straightforward hack'n slash combat.

From what I can tell, TW2 and DKS have been fairly well-received among old school RPG fans - with more mainstream players being far less enthusiastic about the lack of strong narratives, breadcrumb trails and level scaling - and I think it's going to be very interesting to see to what extent these games differ in size, scope, specific mechanics and overall design philosophy. TW2 has been primarily praised for its extensive crafting mechanics and extremely flexible create-your-own-spell system, whereas DKS's main novelty lies in its dragon-related gameplay elements. Dragon Knight Saga also sports more traditional high fantasy aesthetics with stylized characters and lots of primary colors; whereas Two Worlds II attempts a relatively realistic, toned-down approach (at least as far as the environments are concerned) which can perhaps come off as a little plain at times. The first time I saw DKS last year I got something of a Might & Magic vibe out of the sunny, endearingly generic fantasy settings, and that's a good feeling I certainly would want to to hold on to...

A lot of so-called "action" RPGs base their subgenre classification on the rather basic fact that stuff happens relatively fast whenever the player clicks with the mouse, and in many of these games there isn't necessarily a strong sense of realtime action going on. Case in point is the quintessential PC action RPG of all time, Diablo, which is a curiously detached affair involving a whole lot of button presses but not much else to connect the player directly to the character he or she is ordering around.

While the Divinity series may have started out as Diablo clones back in 2002, Dragon Knight Saga introduces a new level of directness to the controls and overall combat mechanics. Even though clicking like a madman is still very much part of the experience, it's equally important to have quick reflexes and respond rapidly to changing conditions. Timing and movement is almost as important in DKS as it is in any third-person action game, and avoiding enemy attacks, projectiles and spells is therefore by no means relegated to the realm of mere dice rolls.

As a result of the genuinely action-oriented combat system, the player can defeat enemies of a higher level than his or her character (at least one at a time) by evading potentially lethal attacks and by utilizing long-range abilities. This kind of hit-and-run tactics can be theoretically possible even in action RPGs which place far less emphasis on the player's own agility than DKS, but it tends to be so tedious and time-consuming that it's just never any fun. By contrast, Divinity II's fast and responsive controls make for tense and exciting confrontrations with difficult enemy units, and while it's not quite as well-designed and balanced as in, say, The Witcher 2 but it works much better than in many similar games like Diablo or even Borderlands.

Note: I wrote my first very blog post on GB in response to a Quick Look in which Vinny and Dave gave a very negative impression of (the console port of) an earlier edition of Divinity II. While the GB staffers pointed out several things (such as graphical problems and sudden difficulty spikes) which the pre-Dragon Knight Saga version of Divinity II was heavily criticized for by a majority of players (again, mostly on consoles), I primarily reacted to just how quickly Vinny and Dave seemed to dismiss the game in annoyingly universalist terms due to a perceived failing to live up to their own very specific preferences. I realize that this is in many ways completely in line with the spirit of the "Quick Look", but when you're having a very different experience of watching the exact same gameplay (i.e. I thought everything they showed in the QL looked rather fun) it's simply hard not to react.

I recently found good deals on both Divinity II: Dragon Knight Saga and Two Worlds II, two major third-person action RPG releases which I've been wanting to try out on my new computer. Apart from having intentionally stupid titles and a light-hearted sense of humor, these European (Belgian and Polish, respectively) action RPGs both try to combine huge game worlds and a wealth of character customization options with relatively straightforward hack'n slash combat.

From what I can tell, TW2 and DKS have been fairly well-received among old school RPG fans - with more mainstream players being far less enthusiastic about the lack of strong narratives, breadcrumb trails and level scaling - and I think it's going to be very interesting to see to what extent these games differ in size, scope, specific mechanics and overall design philosophy. TW2 has been primarily praised for its extensive crafting mechanics and extremely flexible create-your-own-spell system, whereas DKS's main novelty lies in its dragon-related gameplay elements. Dragon Knight Saga also sports more traditional high fantasy aesthetics with stylized characters and lots of primary colors; whereas Two Worlds II attempts a relatively realistic, toned-down approach (at least as far as the environments are concerned) which can perhaps come off as a little plain at times. The first time I saw DKS last year I got something of a Might & Magic vibe out of the sunny, endearingly generic fantasy settings, and that's a good feeling I certainly would want to to hold on to...

A lot of so-called "action" RPGs base their subgenre classification on the rather basic fact that stuff happens relatively fast whenever the player clicks with the mouse, and in many of these games there isn't necessarily a strong sense of realtime action going on. Case in point is the quintessential PC action RPG of all time, Diablo, which is a curiously detached affair involving a whole lot of button presses but not much else to connect the player directly to the character he or she is ordering around.

While the Divinity series may have started out as Diablo clones back in 2002, Dragon Knight Saga introduces a new level of directness to the controls and overall combat mechanics. Even though clicking like a madman is still very much part of the experience, it's equally important to have quick reflexes and respond rapidly to changing conditions. Timing and movement is almost as important in DKS as it is in any third-person action game, and avoiding enemy attacks, projectiles and spells is therefore by no means relegated to the realm of mere dice rolls.

As a result of the genuinely action-oriented combat system, the player can defeat enemies of a higher level than his or her character (at least one at a time) by evading potentially lethal attacks and by utilizing long-range abilities. This kind of hit-and-run tactics can be theoretically possible even in action RPGs which place far less emphasis on the player's own agility than DKS, but it tends to be so tedious and time-consuming that it's just never any fun. By contrast, Divinity II's fast and responsive controls make for tense and exciting confrontrations with difficult enemy units, and while it's not quite as well-designed and balanced as in, say, The Witcher 2 but it works much better than in many similar games like Diablo or even Borderlands.

Note: I wrote my first very blog post on GB in response to a Quick Look in which Vinny and Dave gave a very negative impression of (the console port of) an earlier edition of Divinity II. While the GB staffers pointed out several things (such as graphical problems and sudden difficulty spikes) which the pre-Dragon Knight Saga version of Divinity II was heavily criticized for by a majority of players (again, mostly on consoles), I primarily reacted to just how quickly Vinny and Dave seemed to dismiss the game in annoyingly universalist terms due to a perceived failing to live up to their own very specific preferences. I realize that this is in many ways completely in line with the spirit of the "Quick Look", but when you're having a very different experience of watching the exact same gameplay (i.e. I thought everything they showed in the QL looked rather fun) it's simply hard not to react.

From what I've played of the Divinity II Demo, it seems like a game I would pick up for $20. The Single Player MMO complaint seemed valid, as did the "This game is kind of clunky and unresponsive" one. While I'm sure it's not totally awful or anything, I like to keep my experimental purchases of games I'm unsure about on the cheap.

@ArbitraryWater: $20 is more or less exactly what I payed for it, but from what I've seen so far (the demo area + a bit more) I think I could have paid more for it. As I've mentioned elsewhere, the "singleplayer MMO" comparison doesn't make a whole lot of sense to someone with my specific background (and, indeed, the same could be said for Larian Studios since they started the Divinity series in 2002 before that whole MMO thing became truly popular), and "clunky and unresponsive" is just about the exact opposite of my experience of the unusually fluid, action-oriented controls described above.

@Egge: I trust your opinion because of your Wizardry 7 avatar! Just wanted to say. ;)

Bought Dragon Knight Saga at the beginning of April, and I like the game quite a bit. It has its problems, but there are some interesting bits mixed in there. 
 
From what I have heard about TW2, it also sounds like a great game. The magic system in the game sounds amazing. You can create your own spells, but to do so you have to experiment to figure out how the spells work. That is the difference I noticed between european RPGs and american RPGs. American RPGs rely more on story and decision making, whereas European RPGs rely more on unique gameplay systems. A bit of a broad generalization, but that is what I got from my sorta limited RPG experiences.

@ArbitraryWater: Well, the game was on sale on Steam this past weekend (€19,99 in Euroland...and given the sheer lunacy of Steam's exchange rate policies I would assume the price was $20 in Americaworld), so I imagine it will keep reappearing in various sales from now on. And the best price I've seen online for a new boxed copy is around $10.

I found divinity 2 to be alot more fun after you gain your dragon powers.   The demo doesn't represent how the game actually ends up playing for most of the game.   It doesn't hold your hand  though, there are some rough aspects in terms of difficulty and what level you should be for certain quests.  I bought it for 20$ so i'm not gonna complain, it's becoming alot more fun once you get deeper into it.

@redbliss: I think you're right about American games being more story-oriented and, as a by-product of that, more interested in big narrative-changing decision points. European RPGs like Gothic and Divine Divinity (and even Fable can be used as an example here) tend to be much more laid-back and humorous in terms of storytelling. At the same time, Polish-developed The Witcher 2 contradicts this rule by being very story-oriented and having lots of choices & consequences which tend to have a huge impact on the gameplay.

Thanks for posting this, urged me to check out DKS and am having a good time playing it.

It was funny how you lumped strong narrative in with breadcrumb trails.

@Rolyatkcinmai: Well, in my experience what the more mainstream/casual RPG gamers want is primarily a strong narrative and lots of handholding. Longtime fans of the genre universally loathe handholding but in terms of the story, dialogue and character interaction the RPG enthusiasts tend to come in two variants; the ones who truly care about narratives (and choices & consequences in particular) even more than casual gamers and those (like me) who think the actual gameplay mechanics, exploration, stats-based character development and combat system is much more important to the overall experience.

I'm over-generalizing here, of course, but as far as the more casual audience go I think it's fair to say that story, level scaling and handholding are important things they expect from modern RPGs.

@Egge said:

@Rolyatkcinmai: Well, in my experience what the more mainstream/casual RPG gamers want is primarily a strong narrative and lots of handholding. Longtime fans of the genre universally loathe handholding but in terms of the story, dialogue and character interaction the RPG enthusiasts tend to come in two variants; the ones who truly care about narratives (and choices & consequences in particular) even more than casual gamers and those (like me) who think the actual gameplay mechanics, exploration, stats-based character development and combat system is much more important to the overall experience.

I'm over-generalizing here, of course, but as far as the more casual audience go I think it's fair to say that story, level scaling and handholding are important things they expect from modern RPGs.

I respectfully completely disagree. I've yet to meet a "casual gamer" who gives a damn about story whatsoever. The people who want more handholding in games generally have no interest in story at all, from my experience.

The only thing I care about at all in games is narrative, and I definitely prefer Neverwinter Nights over Fable, for example.

@Rolyatkcinmai: It's clear that we have very different ideas about what makes the RPG genre meaningful (for me a nice story is at best an added bonus, and I have been complaining about BioWare and other developers' increasing focus on narrative at the expense of combat/stats for many years now), but maybe our definitions of casual gamers are also different. Just to clarify, keep in mind that when I'm talking about the "mainstream audience" I'm still speaking of people who have an interest in RPGs at all...which I guess by definition makes them far less "casual" than the word is usually meant to imply.

A good example would be most professional game reviewers, who typically spend a lot of time in their reviews discussing an RPG's story, dialogue, voice acting etc. and who tend to have a much lower tolerance for games which, say, clearly focus on challenging combat at the expense of storytelling. These people obviously aren't "casual" in the "I don't know how to use two analog sticks at the same time" sense of the word, but at the same time they obviously have very little in common with the diehard genre fanatics at a place like RPGCodex, GameBanshee or No Mutants Allowed.