The story is that of role-reversal. The Slayer becoming the Knight and fighting against those principles for which he once stood is an old and yet satisfying tale that could have used some quality production touches to make it come to life. As it stands, the voice acting is mostly wooden and the animation in conversation is blocky and uncomfortable. After playing something like Dragon Age, this is even more noticeable.

Divinity II has its shares of highs and lows. The graphics on the PC, for the most part, are passable-to-good, with a few weird low-res textures and clunky models, but they don't detract too much from the overall game. As you wander the world you come across many mundane animals – rabbits, ducks, deer – that are just going about their daily business. That kind of touch helps add a sense of life to a world that, outside of the roving gangs of bad guys, might seem a bit stale without.

At first glance, this may appear to be a standard "swords and sorcery" style RPG, but there are a few things that are anything but standard. Early on, you wander into a cave and discover a bunch of the living dead. Once they've been vanquished, you find a necromancer who is dedicated to the art of creating new creatures from parts. This can be a huge help when fighting the hordes of monsters. As you progress, you'll find more and more monster pieces to be forged into a tougher creature companion.

The skill system in place will be very familiar to most RPG fans. Each level you advance, you're given a few stat points and a skill point to allocate. You have a class (warrior, ranger, mage) but you can switch freely between them. These skill points can be used to increase individual abilities. Speaking of abilities, there's quite a few of them, a set for each class and then the, ahem, special abilities.

So, you have a shambling heap of meat that kills for you and has special powers, what else could a crazy adventurer want? Well, being a Dragon Knight has its perks. For one, you can turn into a dragon. It's very pleasant to fly around and roast the bejeepers out of your foes; there are a lot of said foes – but you can't just fly anywhere. There are borders, invisible and otherwise, that impedes progress and keeps dragons out of places where, I guess, they might get hurt.

The sheer amount of monsters in the countryside assures you'll always have something to do but, hey, it gets a bit tiring being beaten to death by a large gang of ne'er-do-wells. I mentioned Gothic earlier and this is where the comparison is most apt – the monsters aren't your usual "around the same level as your character" fare. Oh, heavens no. You can wander into a large group of MUCH higher level enemies and, well, it doesn't usually end up in your favor.

While reloading the game repeatedly due to the slight monster population issue, the action is frantic and entertaining, if not a bit mindless. Firing off abilities while swinging a weapon or slinging spells is a good time, specifically because the game seems to have a quick pace of play aimed to hit the middle ground between MMO and twitch combat. Your attacks normally hit and there are very few skill shots that require leading or any particular aiming prowess. In fact, it doesn't take much actual skill to fight in this game. Many of the enemies you come across are easily exploited and most of the exploits are necessary to succeed without ripping your hair out.

What's not that grand, however, is the game’s interface. The quick save key should actually be renamed "The speed of this save could go either way" key, as the game stops and tells you it's preparing to quick save before it actually does so. Why? Please, just save the game and keep the details to a minimum. I'm also not terribly sure which way you're supposed to normally access your character screen. If you hit escape, it goes to the main game menu but with added character menu selections or, alternately, you can hit your inventory button and the choices are along the top. It's not that it doesn't work; it's just kind of confusing.

Divinity II is the kind of game that falls neatly into the category of "guilty pleasure" for me. It's an RPG that doesn't really break new ground, but plays well enough and provides a challenge. Any fan of the Gothic series might want to check this out, though the storytelling and combat finesse here isn't on the same level.

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