Divine Divinity

Looking at comments leading up to this game, I was wondering how good this game would be. For starters, I feel that it actually has aged well for the most part. Even today you can still jump right in and have a good time. Other places said it was like Baldur's Gate, but I don't see that at all. It does use the spacebar to pause the game though, which is a most welcome addition. The story itself is decent and has some pretty humorous aspects at times, but this game is really more about the gameplay. You'll get a load of play time out of this one with some pretty massive dungeons to explore and several side quests for you to solve. The early game can be challenging and it stays challenging up until you get into the upper 30's for your level. I'd say this is more of a 4.5 out of 5 stars due to some negatives. The first and most glaringly obvious is the inventory system which is just a mess. Things can get cluttered real easily and selling items to the merchants is a chore. They use a bartering system and the merchants often don't have a lot of gold on them. You'll need a calculator handy to figure out the difference. Good idea in theory, but not in practice really. The weapons also don't let you know if they're one-handed or two-handed until you equip them. I wasn't a huge fan of the randomly generated stats on items either. Getting supposedly legendary armor that has a much lower armor value than your current gear can be a letdown. The game also is very random with the types of weapons that are dropped. The story slows down a bit when you're stuck in Stormfist Castle and some of those massive dungeons I mentioned before can be a slog at times also. That may sound like a lot of downsides, but you can get over them fairly easily. The game has that draw factor where you want to keep coming back to play. I played this with software rendering over D3D which ran better too. If you like Diablo style games, you can't go wrong here. Great value.

I kinda love and hate this game at the same time. What I love: 1. Music. It's absolutely amazing. I think there's no RPG with better soundtrack. Music in Divine Divinity is on the same level with Chrono Trigger 2. Game world. It's logical and looks alive. There's a poor quarter, and it feels like it's really poor. There's a big town, and it looks like a real medieval town. There are many caves and dungeons with interesting stuff inside. What I hate: 1. Combat. Divine Divinity clearly takes inspiration from Diablo 2, and that's a horrible idea. You need no tactics when playing as a warrior - you just exchange strikes with enemies and drink-drink-drink HP potions. You need no tactics when playing as a mage - just press the right mouse button and drink-drink-drink MP potions. You need no tactics when playing as a thief - just shot everyone with your bow or crossbow (yes, playing as an archer is a way easier than any other class). 2. Quests. Yes, quests feel promising at first (thanks to an amazing game world), but at the end they can be subdivided into 2 categories: the ones where you just need to fetch something, or the ones where you have to slain a ton of enemies. It becomes absolutely awful in the sewers of Verdistis, where you have to slain hundreds of lizards and assassins. How did they get there? Such a crowd of people require tons of food - how are they surviving here? It feels like the creators wanted to make a normal RPG, but their publisher said: "Quick, we have to make this game similar to Diablo 2! Multiply the number of enemies by 100!" For me it absolutely breaks the immersion. So... it's a nice game with some serious game-design flaws.

I first played this missed gem in 2010 and it quickly became one of my favorite games ever. Although gameplay is reminiscent of Diablo II hack and slash, world interaction, atmosphere and story brings to mind more traditional CRPGs. Graphics here are generally beautiful and I imagine with the higher resolutions they look fantastic. The huge array of quests and things to generally do in the open world of rivellon is at times amazing and if you tire of the main quest you'll have plenty to sidetrack you, most of well written and fun (rather than collect or fetch quests). The main quest is nothing new, but executed well and takes you on a fun journey. There is a lot of genuinely funny humour here, but it never feels forced or minimises the seriousness of the main quest. In terms of sound, the relatively sparse voice acting is inconsistent but overall serviceable. The music however is the best in any game I have ever played. period. The music really helps bring the game together and the atmosphere is just perfect in DD. This game is completely playable by the modern gamer and I would recommend to anyone. Just don't judge the game on its horrible title and play beyond the first dungeon (which is probably the reason it gets a bad rap as a crappy Diablo II clone) Enjoy!

This was the most memorable rpg i have ever played. An amazing detailed story; many different enemies; a unique system for usage of items. For the latter its unique because in order to use certain items you have to build specific skills. Like wanting to use a big battle axe - you have to improve your strength. If you are one of those people that is too lazy to go through the story, than don't bother. You might as well go play some mundane, boring, and repetitive game like Diablo which offers nothing but mindless clicking. But i disgress. Divine Divinity has a long and very enjoyable story. You always feel on edge because you don't know when you will be attacked in many instances. Exploring for items and such doesn't get tedious because ther is ALWAYS some tiny story with a villager or a priest et cetera, to keep your interest and even help you find items. All in all you MUST play this and its sequel Beyond Divinity. Far superior to an RPG out today in every way.

Choose one: Create melee character, carefully put together talents and collect good gear and still get munched by 2 equal level enemies. Or Create ranged character, dump everything into Agility, pick up composite bow at level 3 and add extended field of view. Now you can kill enamies doulbe of your level. I palyed so many games like this and never seen melee playstile being so terible. Additionaly quest log and map are both useless: map doesn't have names of buildings or even vilage names so you have to memorise this and quest log doesn't tell you next step what you need to do: you have to gess it...