Divine Divinity Review

RPG reviewers often describe games in terms of other RPGs.  There are not as many RPGs released each year as there are games in other genres, so it becomes easy to say that one game is like Diablo while another is similar to Baldur's Gate.  If you tried to apply the same review by comparison to Divine Divinity, you would be able to find a lot of parallels to existing games, but calling it another Diablo clone would be selling it short.  It may contain elements effectively used in other RPGs, but the sum of Divine Divinity's parts add up to a unique game, and one that is definitely worth a look.

ScreenshotsThe game opens with your character awakening in a village of healers.  According to the game's opening cinematic, your walk in the woods was interrupted by a bolt from the blue which was released when three wizards confronted a strange entity in a cave somewhere.  Lucky for you, a cat was nearby and you were therefore rescued (don't ask, I'm just reporting what happened).  The village elder has been struck mad and the healers are losing their powers, there is a plague in a nearby town, evil undertakings are afoot in the catacombs beneath the town, and marauding orcs are rampaging the countryside around the village.  As a true adventurer, you volunteer to right all of these wrongs and with a bevy of quests in you log begin your adventures.

In Divine Divinity you can play one of three character classes: warrior, wizard, or survivor (i.e. rogue or thief).  This may at first seem like a limited choice, but the game's skill system allows for a lot of customization of your character.  Each class has 32 available skills, and these skills can be upgraded to more powerful versions.  In addition, you are not limited to using the skills of your selected class.  For example, you can play as a warrior, but add the survivor's lockpicking and identify item skills and throw in a few wizard spells for good measure.  Each time you gain a new level, you are given a skill point and can select to improve an existing skill or gain a new one, as long as you meet the skill's level requirement.

Since you have access to all of the game's skills no matter which class you select, choosing a class really determines your starting ratings in the game's four primary statistics: strength, agility, intelligence, and constitution, and which unique skill is at your disposal.  For warriors, the unique skill is a swirl attack that can be used to attack all surrounding enemies.  For survivors, the unique skill is the ability to sneak past creatures.  Finally, the wizard can swap locations with any creature on screen, which can be useful for getting out of tight scrapes.

Combat in Divine Divinity is a simple affair.  Left-clicking on a creature will cause your character to attack the enemy, hacking away until you or the creature dies.  You can also specify any active spell or skill to the right mouse button, and right click to target the spell or skill.  Combat is pretty frequent when you are outside the safety of villages, and you'll often face mobs of creatures led by the occasional boss or extra-strong creature.  Unfortunately, your weapons and equipment wear with use, and the frequent combat leads to constantly broken items.  A repair skill helps somewhat, but it would have been nice if the game's weapons and armor were more durable.  As it stands, things often break in the middle of pitched battles and you may find to your dismay that you are suddenly trying to pound monsters with your fists.

Divine Divinity is primarily a solo affair, but you will occasionally have a companion who will fight by your side, although you can not control him directly.  You can also summon creatures to aid you by casting certain spells.  Unfortunately, the companions do not do a very good job of following you and often get lost.  In the catacombs beneath the village, you are given a zombie to protect you on your quest.  My zombie promptly wandered off on his own into a room full of orcs and very shortly ceased to exist.

 

Screenshots

The game also features a lot of NPC interaction which is handled by giving you your choice of responses to the NPC dialogue.  The NPCs' conversation is driven both by your responses and your character's reputation.  Completing quests increases your reputation, especially with the NPC that gave you the quest.  You can easily have many quests active at any given time, but the game makes them all easy to manage with good journal and mapping features.  Not all of these quests are necessary in order to advance the game's story, but they do provide benefits in the form of increased experience, reputation, and bonus items.  Furthermore, the game does a good job of avoiding the ubiquitous "fetch an item" quest, providing quests with a variety of objectives.

In addition to conversations with NPCs, you can also barter with them for goods using the game's trading interface.  You can offer a mix of goods and gold and select what you would like in exchange for them.  The game will let you know the total value of both sides of the deal, and whether or not it will be accepted by the NPC depends on the equity of the deal, your skill in trading, and your reputation with the NPC.

The game world in Divine Divinity is quite large, although you wouldn't know it from the opening hours of play.  Most of the first part of the game takes place in a large series of catacombs beneath the healers' village, and it is not easy to slog your way through it.  Gold, new weapons, and health items are hard to come by in the early going, so you'll find yourself doing a lot of reloading early on.  This is too bad because it might frustrate some players too early in the game and discourage them from continuing on.  There's a lot to explore in Divine Divinity, with numerous optional quests and hidden locations for those who like to go exploring and stick to the game beyond the opening acts.

The game's graphics are a three quarters perspective, 2D affair.  While the graphics are certainly passable, they are not on par with leading edge 3D games.  One major complaint with the graphics engine is that it can be easy to lose an enemy under a tree or behind a wall.  Also, dark environments are particularly hard to navigate, especially when moving towards the bottom of the screen.  It is not always entirely clear whether there are doors or gaps in a wall, and they can sometimes be missed even with the automap feature enabled.

The game's engine does have some interesting features, though.  First, you do not need to break open every barrel or open every wardrobe you come across.  Holding the mouse over these items will let you know instantly whether or not they contain anything.  Another interesting feature is that most objects in the game can be moved.  You might uncover a key under a chair or a trapdoor beneath some packages.  When in the wild, it is best to take the saying "leave no stone unturned" to heart.

In The End, This Game Hath Been Rated: 81%. Although it suffers from a few problems and annoyances, overall Divine Divinity is an expansive and quite enjoyable RPG.  RPG fans should definitely consider adding Divine Divinity to their game library.

System Requirements:  450 MHz Pentium II CPU; 128 MB RAM; 8 MB Video RAM; 4x CD-ROM; 2.5 GB Hard Drive Space; Mouse.