Divinity Anthology Review

Divinity is a name in RPGs that’s unfortunately neglected. The first title in the series, Divine Divinity, probably didn’t help, with the title looking like some sort of Zionist self-published novella, but now, the three games are bundled together in one affordable package with lots of extra goodies, just in time for Christmas. You can buy it for the Dragon Age fan in your life and show them where BioWare might have pinched some inspiration from.

To be plainly honest, Divinity and its’ spin-off Beyond Divinity are not titles most of you are going to visit unless you’re packing a nostalgia boner. If you didn’t play these games ten years ago, you’re not going to be able to stick at these despite how cracking they are. So put your retro stiffy back in your jeans, RPG McGee, because you already know how good these games are.

For my first Divinity experience, I chose to play a male warrior (You can choose between three classes, Warrior, Mage, and Survivor – essentially the game’s own rogue class). I named my hero Steve, and together we set out to explore Divinity. There’s something undeniably immersive about it for such a basic looking game and all of the charm lies in its retro feel.

The Anthology set is gorgeous by itself, complete with some high quality art prints, all for an affordable price. The first two games should be considered bonuses (Albeit, bonuses that might take hundreds of hours to complete) rich with backstory and hundreds of quests to plow through. For now, though, we’re just going to focus on Divinity 2: The Developer’s Cut, because that’s what will demand most of your time out of this collection.

You play your own hero, a Dragon Slayer trained from an early age to kill dragons – this mythical world’s apex predator. And so it was that Steve was reborn unto this thinking man’s hack-and-slash, replete with a champion’s beard and some undoubtedly prison-inflicted scars to boot. “You’re awesome” everyone in the game’s starting village tells him. “But you’re not finished yet”. Depressed and feeling some tension from his days back in ‘Nam, Steve the Second trots off to complete his training… and conveniently lose all of the skills he’s supposedly been training up for the last decade in the space of one short spell. He learns that to be a dragon slayer, he has to give up his combat skills in exchange for the memories of a Dragon, enabling him to understand their language and motives, and use their powers – WAIT A MINUTE. Have I been playing Skyrim this whole time? No? Good. That would have been awkward.

Okay, so the game’s plot is a little preposterous, and rushed at that, but it all just feels like fluff around the edges of a very well-developed RPG. It’s surprisingly fluid and graceful – you pick between three trainers at the start of the game and this decides how your character grows. It falls into the same three class archetypes established in the earlier Divinity games. You choose between a sword, a bow, or some magic powers, and go off to fight some goblins.

A big part of how your character fights is down to you, and all the facilities are available to craft your own warrior. Close combat players can charge in headfirst, clearing hordes of enemies out of the way with a few blade swings, mages (the typical glass cannon) have a variety of tricks to keep enemies at a distance so their limited health pool doesn’t shatter under a single strike. Archers can dodge and roll and use the environment to their advantage, launching vollies of arrows on an unsuspecting group of foes from cliffs and hills before diving in to despatch the remaining few. It’s wide open, and there are so many ways to complete quests and kill monsters that you could spend hours just messing around with each different character type – they all feel distinct and highly playable, and don’t end up merging into one homogenised mess by the end of the game.

Then, of course, there’s the chain of inexplicable events that end with you gaining the ability to turn into a dragon. I wish I could explain it without spoiling the plot entirely, because it’s obviously pretty significant. Someone’s going to get a beating back at Dragon Slayer Academy, though. “Dammit Steve, that wasn’t the point of super-secret Dragon Club”.

It’s quite a free and fluid experience all around and the dragon gameplay enhances it, complete with flying and firebreathing. Divinity as a series is a little rough around the edges but it’s well worth playing, with a core system that’s rich and rewarding. The original games might serve to enrich your Divinity II experience if nothing else, but it all deserves at least some of your time – and the Anthology is going to look great in any games collection.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.