Divinity: Dragon Commander

You don't buy this game for its RTS - the RTS part is mediocre. You don't buy this game for its political (ahem) simulation - that is just a small stat modifier. You don't buy this game for its RPG - that is just a short filler story to give the game some ambiance. You buy this game to have fun. Rushing across the battlefield in dragon form and incinerating pesky enemy units is fun. Talking with everybody aboard your ship is fun - the voice acting is superb, and the colorful characters add to the charm of the game, which never takes itself too seriously. The problem with this game is replay value: The battles quickly become repetitive, and at full price, you want a game that you can enjoy playing more than once. But for a short while, it is great fun.

Man, I don't remember myself sucking this bad at RTS's. I have never been Korean in my mastery, but I used to be able, back in the day, to at least BEGIN to compete--in games like AoE, Homeworld, etc. In this thing, I get owned at Casual level in the first battle, no matter what the odds. I don't know what the problem is. I soooo want to like D:DC. I think it's one of the best-designed and executed games ever. But when I can't even get past the first battle--after numerous tries, using various approaches--I have no choice but to throw in the towel. Yeah, I guess I must suck, and THAT sucks because if I was competent at it, I can easily see myself playing this thing through to the end. Ugh. Four stars. Five for the idea and overall execution, one off for the gameplay difficulty. I don't know it it's the game's fault or mine, but it makes me sad.

First off, I've noticed several reviews and sites referring to this as an RPG which is hardly accurate. In reality it is a fairly straight-forward, bare-bones strategy game with an interesting risk/board-game style strategy map. -- The game is pretty well put together and I don't have any major complaints against its main components. No issues, crashes, or major imbalances in my run through of the campaign. The game isn't very long if your looking for a 'story' as the campaign only lasts ~15 hours... I had no difficulty running through the enemies and actually ended up letting the game sit quite a while before ending it. -- The only actual decision you make in the campaign is your choice of a 'princess'. You have 5 advisors, an engineer, a wizard, 4 generals, your wife, and a final character aboard your ship who I will leave a 'suprise', and they are all well voiced and thought out. You will have the opportunity to make various decisions both in government and in the lives of these characters, but none will have any real punch. You tell one of your generals to slay an Elvish archduke for murdering gays and all you get in return is a 'tsk tsk' from the Elves, a 'thank you!' from the general, and a useless 'card' for the RTS portion of the game. -- It is a pretty solid game... There just isn't much to it, and if your looking for a political RPG; look elsewhere.

But what does that mean? It means, for the most part, the three genres represented by Dragon Commander come across a bit watered-down. If you're a hardcore RTS gamer this game will probably be far too simple for you. If you love TBS games, it pales in comparison to the likes of the stellar XCOM and Civilization games. Dragon Commander does manage to make itself into a pretty decent RPG, though. If you're mechanically-inclined and love leveling and statistical progression, you'll have access to a variety of upgrades for your character and his forces. What the game does do well is immerse you in a steampunk fantasy world torn apart by war. The cast of npcs is varied and interesting, expertly voiced and scripted to be reactive to your character and his decisions. This, for me, was the best part of the game. In-between battle turns on the map you'll be back at your ship, making important political decisions for the realm and steering your new wife in her decisions. While some of the subject matter may not appeal to everyone, the game allows you to address it in the manner you'd prefer. Overall I think Dragon Commander is a solid 3.5, but I'm giving it a 4 because it has its own charm and I like what was attempted here, even if it did fall short in the execution (and because GOG doesn't allow half stars).

This game is a really ambitious project by Larian Studios, the makers of the Divinity series. The game takes place in a few different parts. The main gameplay is an RTS/Tower Defense game where you also have the option to transform into a dragon and directly attack the enemy army. Although it's hard to figure out how to do both simultaneously, I really liked this part of the game. There is also a turn-based war-game on a strategy board in your main keep where you decide where to move troops and which nations to attack. There's also boosts and effects that can be applied there as well. Finally, the game also has a bit of a relationship simulator between you and your advisors as you make political decisions that can curry favor with the various nations or piss them off. Although it seemed a little simplistic this was really well executed, and all the characters had decent writing and unique personalities. However, the game only has a barebones tutorial for the RTS and dragon controls, and no tutorial whatsoever for the war-room and diplomacy portions of the game. However, the reason I'm not giving this game a higher score, is because I repeatedly kept having game crashes during a certain battle. I'm not sure if this game just isn't optimized for modern machines or what, but the stuttering framerate and issues with simple combat was just awful. Also, as has been said in other reviews, there's no option to save during an RTS battle, so if you're spending a lot of time on one and the game crashes you're out of luck. If a better, optimized, version of this game comes out at some point I would absoltely recommend it. As of right now though, No.