The engine clearly does not help the situation. The Gamebryo engine powered Fallout 3 and Oblivion, one with washed out textures and dull environments, the other needing sunglasses to play. Divinity 2 has alright level decoration, with skulls and candles lining crypt walls, and the sky looks nice enough through the trees. But it overcompensates boring level design--forest paths and dungeons making up the bulk--with extremely high contrast while maintaining drab texture. So blindingly sunlit towns are built on monotone bitmapped creeks, which gives the image of a floating torso when submerged into, jerky arms twitching as if being electrocuted. But the music is alright, if not overdone during cutscenes. I would like to suggest Divinity as a cult classic, but the unintentional amusements are simply not worth the timesink and frustration. Comical lighting and boring conversations are abhorrent to any immersion or credibility. Players need a believable world through the images or words delivered. Aliens, talking skulls, mutants: action and conversation has consequence, comprising more than just a sprint towards [End] with your choice of loot. The discovery in crypt crawling loses its edge when you lick the boots of linearity disguised as an NPC.
Divinity 2 isn't a bad game solely because of its throwaway writing and the unfortunate game engine, but because it suffuses every design with hate for the player. It's like a lonely MMORPG: you must kite enemies and interrogate those with exclamation marks over their heads. Quests are comprised of logbook entries that merely hint at objectives, and Larian Studios confuses open-ended with wandering. Suspense in Divinity 2 means awaiting a bug ranging from hilarious to game-breaking: upon load up, all the game text, menu screens, subtitles, dialogue, were vertical rectangles; the left button was inoperable, so not speaking or collecting; items I finally did collect were deleted from my inventory. Listing all the problems in Divinity 2 would take all day. It seems grand in scope, with airborne ships and dragons for Pete's sake, and the voice acting is solid enough. But the interface and combat is just a nightmare made worse as a port. A few other reviews suggest sticking it out until you get the dragon. That could be neat. And to the crowd who make their own maps and grew up on Gothic and Wizardry considering Divinity 2 a game that speaks their tongue...play Wizardy! Trust me when i tell you to forget Ego Draconian, a soulless, cruel toil.
