Two role-playing games staring dragons released just months apart. What are the odds? Dragon Age: Origins might have beaten Divinity II: Ego Draconis to release and stole some of its fire, but can Divinity II coming roaring back?

Divinity II: Ego Draconis is an action RPG, with an emphasis on action. You control a trainee starting to undergo the final ritual to become a Dragon Slayer. As you absorb dragon memories, you lose everything you knew previously. Before your ritual ends, the last Dragon Knight is spotted and your trainers run off with you in tow to slay the beast; in your vulnerable state, the dying Dragon Knight passes his powers onto you. With the insight of the dragon, you have to learn how to unlock your powers and put an end to “the damned one,” Damien, and save Rivellon.

Combat in Divinity II is fast-paced but also a little bit clumsy. At times it feels like you need a third hand to target, aim and activate an ability at once; the crude targeting and jumping mechanics don’t help in that respect either. As you level up, you gain some statistic points and a skill point — though you are also able to gain both points in other ways — and invest in combat skills. The problem I had with Divinity II combat is that you really need to specialize in just a couple of skills to be effective, which leads to quite the repetitive combat experience. While your character has no fighter class, you are effectively limited by how you place those skill points and statistics.

For example, my character had a jump attack and whirlwind attack along with the two-weapon combat skill maxed out. The rest were more passive skills, so I did the same two attacks over and over and over. I also found the world to be strangely laid out at times, where lower-level enemies were surrounded by higher-level enemies, which leads to the realization that level is more of a factor in your power than actual skill or equipment.

The main quest in Divinity II is rather short for such a long play time, but because of the effect of character level on combat performance, you are nearly forced to roam around and complete the large amount of side quests that lay hidden around the land. Quests are nearly all combat-oriented and aren’t all that original — from bounties to retrieving items in crypts and tunnels. The main story may feel a bit short when things are summed up, but it really is packed full of twists and tension that made me want to keep playing.

One of the largest selling features of Divinity II is the ability of your character to unlock the knowledge and form of the dragon. Transforming into a dragon and engaging in aerial combat is much different than human-form combat; the dragon tends to face overwhelming odds but has incredible power at its disposal. Attack using your fire breath, spit balls of flame, summon a friendly wyvern to your side or whatever other way you want to attack the giant flying fortresses belonging to Damien. The aerial combat feels pretty damn cool, but the inability to attack any ground targets feels like a cheap way the developers used to get out of proper world design.

Another awesome thing about being a Dragon Knight is that you gain access to your own battle tower, a base of operations that you can work from. In your battle tower, you can finally get to store materials and have a good area to charm, enchant and organize your equipment so you can be a more effective fighter. The battle tower allows you to train up skills to very high levels, consult your alchemist, work with your enchanter and build a creature with your necromancer. Necromancy in Divinity II is pretty unique. You can find body parts around the world — from enemies or just those laying around — that have specific characteristics. Your necromancer will be able to assemble these parts into a fully customized loyal servant to fight alongside you. He also pees a lot, but that is another thing.

There is something strange about Divinity II that I haven’t been able to explain to myself. The game has a notable lack of polish in numerous areas. There are little things all over the place that could use tweaking or even radical changes. The dialogue and scripts for characters feels amateurish, the combat system doesn’t really seem to work well at all and for a good portion of the game, I felt completely abandoned. Despite those things, there is something a little magical in Divinity II; the world and sense of discovery I had as I explored it were fantastic. The history of the dragons and lore of the world along with the very memorable plot twists combined to pull me in.

The graphics, music and sound in Divinity II were all high-quality, but nothing really blew me away. The voice acting was similar; there weren’t any real weaknesses, but then again, there was not a whole lot of exceptional acting either; though I think a lot of this was hampered by poor dialogue. I did come across a couple of bugs but nothing game-breaking.

Divinity II: Eco Draconis brings you on a journey from a Dragon Slayer to the last Dragon Knight in a rich world. The lore and mystery in the game combined with a sense of exploration really let me enjoy my time playing. While the game does have quite a few rough edges, I found myself often forgetting all about those and just having a lot of fun. Whether it was reading people’s minds or swooping down and destroying goblin towns in dragon form, there isn’t anything quite like it. Divinity II is definitely a unique RPG that is worth a try.