Divine Divinity - PC

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.

I've played Diablo II for many, many (way too many!) hours, and if you liked Diablo II, you'll like this game. There's a little bit more of a story there, and there are some unique items that make the game special. The only major complaint is the accuracy of pointing on items with the mouse - I think others have mentioned it before. But if you keep a finger near the "Ctrl" key for attacking your nearest foe automatically, that helps alleviate most of the risk associated with the difficulty of some of this. Also, this game isn't as hardware-intensive as some of the newer games, so you don't need the latest-and-greatest cards and chips to play it. And at the current price, this game is definitely worth the money. Since the part of my life with Diablo II, I've bought and tried Baldur's Gate II, Neverwinter Nights with all the expansions, Gothic II, Dungeon Seige and the Legends of Aranna, Morrowind and Icewind Dale II. Of all of these, I've only completed the original Dungeon Seige, put aside all the others, but I'm going to spend some time with "Divine Divinity". Good luck with it.

I bought this game back in 2003 from Amazon to try to replace my addiction for Diablo II (which I had played for over a year and was growing tired of). I put the game away and never played it. Just recently I stumbled accross it and decided to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun it is and how addictive it is. Beautiful 2D graphics (much better than DII) that really show an attention to detail by someone, fun gameplay, a bit of brains and humor in the story and a great musical score. All in all, it's like Diablo crossed with Morrowind. And I love it. It's hard to believe it didn't get more attention considering how great it is. If you don't mind the dated graphics do yourself a favor and buy this game. It's a great single player RPG.

Divine Divinity is a great game. The best way to characterize it is 'Diablo II with a plot.' Your character goes up levels and chooses skills in a similar fashion as Diablo II, has the familiar 'life' and 'mana' counters, and even many of the graphics look similar (some are better and some are worse than Diablo II). But the Devil, they say, is in the details, and Divine Divinity gets many of them right and a few of them wrong.Pros:1) Lots of quests and character interaction. Instead of just having a few NPCs standing around for quests and shopkeeping, you have a wider world.2) More real-world items. Unlike Diablo II, here you have plenty of items not in the 'Weapon', 'Armor', or 'Gem/Potion/Scroll' category. Lots of different types of foodstuffs scattered around the place, including homes and campsite, as well as bushes and shrubs, lend a bit of a 'Morrowind' or 'Gothic 2' feel to the game, despite the isometric character view.3) Lots of clever, tricky quests. Many of the quests are quite challenging, and hidden caves, trapdoors, secret passages, and other thing abound to confound the player.4) Humor. I often find myself grinning at books or parchments I pick up along the way, unlike Diablo II which is savagely unfunny.Cons:1) Somewhat uncertain gameplay. Gameplay is very similar to Diablo II but also allows you to pause the action and give orders (not a negative). However it also feels a bit less manageable than Diablo II. My character often swings almost at random, or tries to go after something it can't reach while being gnawed on by other things. You have to be quite precise with your control, which gets tricky when enemies pile up.2) More danger. This could also be seen as a 'pro' but I'll put it here. Diablo II can get challenging at higher levels and difficulty settings (Divine Divinity also has different difficulty settings) but early on your character is unlikely to get eaten right away. That is emphatically not the case in Divine Divinity. What makes this worse is the wide range of armor qualities and weapons you can get. For example, in the very first village there's a sword that does over 100 damage (not that you have the stats to use it). Monsters are powered accordingly. So it's much harder to know whether something will kill you in a few hits, since the damage ranges are much wider. For example, I started a Fighter that had 200 hit points by level 8 or so, and still died in a few hits from a nearby orc chieftain. This degree of sudden murder was reserved on Diablo II mostly for end bosses or very high levels. Here, every critter could be your last..made harder by the fact that they're rarely alone.3) The difficulty of the monsters would even out if they dropped appropriate loot, but they don't. Perhaps I've turned into a powergamer due to Diablo II or something, but I find the degree of goodies dropped by monsters to be exceedingly sparse. Most of the valuable items my characters get are from chests or just lying on the ground, rather than generated by monsters. There's nothing like killing an 11th level orc, nearly getting yourself done in in the process, only to get 2 gold pieces (if you're lucky). What happened to that enormous axe he was just hacking me with?4) Teleporting stones. In an effort (successful I think) to ease gameplay, your character is almost instantly granted a pair of teleportation stones. These cleverly allow you to drop one and use the other to recall back to the first. This lets you travel around quickly between points. There are also waypoints. However I find it a bit odd that while I'm scrounging for a ruined dagger and a rope belt for equipment, I already have a pair of super powerful teleport stones. A minor gripe, yes, but frankly why anyone wouldn't sell them for a suit of platemail is beyond me.5) The interface is a bit overwhelming. You can completely blanket the screen with subwindows if you're not careful. The minimap is very useful but is not translucent and instead takes up a chunk of the screen. You can move it around, which I inevitably do by accident instead of escaping when I'm trying to navigate a fight.All in all, Divine Divinity has a lot going for it. It has a much better storyline and overall RPG feel than Diablo, but (perhaps necessarily in order to avoid lawsuits) gives up a bit on the adventuring aspects. It's definitely worth checking out if you've enjoyed Diablo or more RPG type games such as Baldur's Gate or Fallout/Fallout 2.