YMMV / Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga

• Awesome Music: Kirill Porovsky returns to compose another Divinity game, and the results are predictably outstanding. You can download the whole thing off his website for free.
  • Broken Valley Village's theme goes incredibly hard for a lowly early-game town.
  • The piece Rambler from Slavs that you can get your tower's musician to play when you finally gain control over the tower is absolutely wonderful.
  • Battle Force, which primarily plays in Raze's fortress, creates a grim and menacing atmosphere for one of the hardest bosses in the game.
  • Madam Eve's theme is positively ethereal, creating a strikingly contrasted ambience against the murder-stricken brothel.
• Audience-Alienating Ending: One factor that led to the development of Flames of Vengeance was player dissatisfaction with the game's original ending. Essentially The Bad Guy Wins and Shoot the Shaggy Dog wrapped up in one, the story ends with "Talana" revealing herself to be Damian's dead lover Ygerna all along. Turns out her "soul-forging" to Damian was a lie, and by successfully resurrecting her you have secured Damian's immortality. She leaves you suspended in a Void Between the Worlds with none other than Lucian the Divine (long thought to be dead) as she and Damian leave to lay waste to all of Rivellon. While this twist likely meant to display the folly of the player character's arrogance from being made a Dragon Knight (alluding to the Ego Draconis title as well as deconstructing the all-too-common fantasy trope of an unremarkable person being granted fantastic power), most players didn't find this very impactful or compelling.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Archers tend to have the edge over other character builds because of the nature of the game's combat; melee characters get overwhelmed quickly and magic users have a low selection of offensive spells. Archers can easily evade most enemies by jumping and have a wide range of tools to handle threats, from Splitting Arrows and Explosive Arrows for crowd control to Stun Arrows and Poison Arrows for getting an edge on tough bosses. If you're a magic specialist, you're probably also using a bow anyway unless you're somehow relying entirely on spells for damage.
• Contested Sequel: Everyone agrees that it's much better than Beyond Divinity, but not so much on how well it holds up beyond that. Its fans appreciate the darkly humorous tone and the ability to play as a dragon, while detractors cite the stiff and monotonous combat and the laborious sidequests. It doesn't help that the game tends to be overlooked in favor of the Original Sin titles, leading to many newcomers not even knowing it exists nor having much incentive to play it due to its age.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Richard trying to murder the Seekers so he can steal the famine supplies Rivertown desperately needs. He even says out right that the innocent men, women and children of the village can rot for all he cares, as long as Aleroth prospers.
  • Any doubts about Damian being an Evil Overlord that needs to be taken out vanishes once you claim Lord Laiken's Battle Tower. As revenge for the death of his lover Ygerna, Damian kills every single person in the Broken Valley and even makes the land completely uninhabitable out of pure spite.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • You can find a bandit couple in the Bandit Camp who want to leave, because the woman is pregnant and they don't want this life for their kid. If you choose to do so, you can help them turn over a new leaf. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that they escaped Damian razing the valley.
  • A Really 700 Years Old philosopher in the Orobas-Fjords has lost his eyesight due to his age. By handing over two incredibly rare gems to him, you can restore them. It is a steep price to pay, but the joy in the old man's voice when he can finally see again makes it worth it.
• That One Boss:
  • Anburam the assassin is pretty powerful and quick, which can come as a shock considering what a pansy her partner was.
  • The optional bounty target Viper can't take many hits, but he has a very high level Poison Arrow skill, which can easily knock around 100 health off your character per shot. At that stage of the game you probably don't have more than 300 health total. Made worse by the fact that he's surrounded by two other archers and a mage, all of whom will blast you as soon as the mandatory introductory boss conversation ends.
  • Raze, one of the late-game floating fortress Black Ring generals, is notorious for his persistent healing. Emphasis on persistent — whenever you get his health down below half, he'll promptly step into one of two healing shrines at either end of the map and return good-as-new. The only reliable path to victory is to block his exit to the closest shrine and quickly overwhelm him. Though this fight is thankfully optional, it's required to complete Wesson's personal quest if you chose him as your enchanter. The fight is so infamous it's referenced in Divinity: Original Sin.

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