Divine Divinity
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Video Game Reviews of Divine Divinity
Customer Review: Ignore the name, play the game. . .
Summary: 4 Stars
Those of you roleplayers who have yet to play ?Divine Divinity,? listen up: ignore the ridiculously awful title, the somewhat cheesy box art, and grab a copy of ?Divine Divinity? as soon as possible. Whether you prefer the depth of games like ?Baldur?s Gate? or the hack-and-slash action of games like ?Diablo,? ?Divine Divinity? is for you. This one manages to be deep and action-packed both at once. If you can ignore a few select problems, you?ll find yourself in very good hands. The storyline behind ?Redundant Redundancy? ? er, I mean ?Divine Divinity? is your usual fantasy setup. You are the land?s hero, chosen to defeat the Lord of Chaos before he utterly destroys the land of Rivellon (which contains your expected elves, dwarves, orcs, etc.). Despite this trite backdrop, ?Divinity? actually has a compelling plot with a few nice twists, and it?s loaded with characters that are more colorful than you might expect. All you have to do to leap headlong into this storyline is select a guise for your character: male or female survivor, mage, or warrior. It sounds pretty simple, and it is on the surface, but the good news is that your character isn?t completely restricted by the class you select. For example, warriors can learn mage spells, or the lock-picking skills of a survivor. In the end, this allows you to tailor make your alter ego as you see fit.
You begin the game pretty weak, and so much as stepping outside of the borders of Aleroth (a sleepy hamlet that marks the beginning of your quest) can get you killed very, very quickly. ?Divinity? is not an easy game, rest assured, and sometimes it can be frustrating. It is also baffling at first, since you can stumble headlong into so many quests that your journal becomes an overstuffed tome, and you just don?t know where to start. Stick with the game, though, despite its initial unfriendly assault, and you will be glad you did. A wide assortment of foes, locales, and NPCs will keep you interested in this place called Rivellon, and you will almost assuredly become hooked.
?Divinity? sports a pretty nice 2-D engine, albeit with some herky-jerky animations (player character notwithstanding). 3-D aficionados will probably be turned off by this, but I think the engine adds to the game?s colorful, ?hand-drawn? style, which, visually, sets it apart from the pack. The sound effects are a bit dull and repetitive, and the voice-acting ranges from decent to utterly horrible, but the score is positively excellent. The game?s dialogue is hit-and-miss, thanks to some bad translations, but the game?s unique sense of humor comes through this unscathed. Add, of course, some fine roleplaying and some decent point-and-click action, and you?ve got a real underdog champion on your hands.
Final Score: B+
(Keep an eye out for "Riftrunner," the next game in the "Divinity" setting)
Customer Review: A pleasant surprise!
Summary: 4 Stars
An old friend gave me this as a gift recently, saying only, "I'm pretty sure you'll like it." Boy, was he right. This is the most I've enjoyed playing a computer game in years. There are enough quests to keep your attention, but which quests you do are, for the most part, optional, and the storyline is only partially linear. You can make of your character whatever you want, so I, for example, ended up playing a thief who was too nice to steal things, but who did a ... of a job in battle. Go figure. :)The only reason I haven't given this game 5 stars is because it makes my computer drag, and after more than a couple of hours of gameplay, it gets visibly and audibly slower. This is a major deal becauase the game is a year old, but my computer is only three weeks old, and pretty close to top-of-the-line, so that simply shouldn't happen. Overall, though, the game itself is so excellent that I can overlook performance issues--and that's saying a LOT.
Customer Review: Free Form Character Development a Big Plus
Summary: 4 Stars
A truly fun RPG (role-playing game), very much in the image of the game Nox, but with a greater degree of in-game player choice. At first I was a bit put off by the dated graphics and bizarre name, but from what I read the developers of the game seemed devoted to giving the players the ability to choose a style of play they would find enjoyable. To accomplish this the game features a very free-style skill and stat development system.Though you must select a base class (mage, thief {survivor}, warrior) you have an amazing degree of control regarding the customization of your character. You can choose to learn skills from any of the three classes. For example your character could become a pure warrior, mastering the warrior skill set and maxing the strength and constitution stats; or a hybrid warrior with high intelligence and the ability to pick locks and summon magical creatures; or a mage who wields a bow and has a truly epic dexterity; and so on.
My one complaint... the story is simply too derivative. The more RPGs you play the more you will say to yourself: been there, done that. You will always be the Divine-Chosen-Holy-Messiah-Savior-{what's his face}, out to save the world from Lord-Emperor-Evil-Chaos-Darkness-Demon-{so and so}. This game is no different in that respect, the story has been told a thousand times before. Maybe that's how they ended up with a name like Divine Divinity... 4/5 stars.
Customer Review: If it were more polished, it would be 5 stars
Summary: 4 Stars
The very first thing that struck me about Divine Divinity is that it is not the work of a major games publisher. Almost everything about the game screams minor publisher. The game is simply not polished--there are numerous spelling errors, poor grammar, bad voice acting, and inexplicable graphical slowdowns (the game normally runs fine, but occasionally just goes choppy). It also has a poorly designed interface which thwarts all attempts at mastery--you can play the game fine but every now and again, you need to stop and think about the right way to click on something to do what you want.But beneath its rough exterior, this is a solid action-oriented roleplaying game. At the beginning, just as you're grappling with the interface, it launches you on a seemingly endless march through skeleton-infested catacombs. Once you get out of there, the game really opens up. Large towns and castles are available to explore, along with a large wilderness. The quests range from the typical FedEx type (deliver item X to character Y) to investigations of criminal activity, all the way up to the major save-the-world quest common to the fantasy roleplaying genre.
Divine Divinity uses a skill-based system, so as you go up in level, your character acquires new or enhanced skills according to your selections; if you wanted to play again, you could easily create a wholly different character. For example, there are basic fighter, thief, and mage skills, along with in-between skills, such as enchanting your own weapons with new magic, or creating healing potions from the local plantlife. As an action-oriented game, there is a lot of fighting, but the magic spells acquit themselves well, so there are options even on the fighting front.
Perhaps the best compliment I can give this game is that I'm really looking forward to the next effort from the developer, whether it's a sequel or not. Divine Divinity is fun and engrossing, and a great start for an roleplaying series.
Customer Review: A great surprise
Summary: 5 Stars
I am addicted to Div Div. I had to take time off from work to play this game. :) With many of the reviews comparing this game to Diablo, I was kind of skeptical of buying it. I have been very happy to see that the only comparison you can make to Diablo is the interface,and the life and manna requirements. But don't be fooled by the kids that say this is a Diablo clone. The story is a brilliantly unfolding drama every min you play. The side quests are numerous and meaningful, the graphics and the music are top notch. So far,I have nothing bad to say about Divine Divinity. This game should be recieving much more attention than it seems to be right now. If you are a fan of RPGs, or if you want to try out an RPG for the first time, this game will make you very happy!