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Better than Diablo II but not quite perfect

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 79 / 82
Date: February 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

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.

Divine Divinity may be Divinly inspired

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 36 / 37
Date: November 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm almost tempted to believe that Divine Divinity was divinely inspired. This is probably one of the more addictive and fun single person RPG's available. Period.

As a D&D player and Game Master for several years, I highly recommend Divine Divinity to anyone that wants the same kind of "feel" as tabletop games.

Although there are only three character types (Fighter, Mage, and "Survivor" [or "Thief" if you prefer]) you can choose to be either a female character or a male character, making six choices altogether. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Once you have this simple decision made, you are thrust into a vast world that you have to find out about before you can solve all the possible quests. I have a list of over 27 pages of quests and sub-quests so far, and I may not have discovered them all. This world is absolutely =huge= for a computer RPG.

The graphics are great, although a little resource intensive. The game recommends a 450mhz computer with 128MB of RAM, (256 is "recommended"), a DirectX 8 compliant video card with at least 8MB of memory, an 800x600 monitor, and a few other features, as well as the most important item - 2.5 GIGS of free Hard Drive space. I suspect you should at least think about doubling =all= of that. I'm running a 800MB computer with 256 MB of ram and a 64MB DirectX 9 compliant video card, and I find loading times a little slow even on that.

But it's worth it. I've played for about 200 hours of game time now, and still haven't found everything I need to complete some of the quests. I find my knowledge of RPG's invaluable. I can't wait until I get to the end - and I have no idea where that is.

People, this game hardly got anywhere near the advertising that it deserved. Most people are discovering it by word of mouth. And this review is here to help you decide to try it. If you are into computer RPG's at all, I think it's worth buying.

Occasional crashes and resource intensive

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 22 / 25
Date: September 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

After reading such great reviews on Amazon about Divine Divinity (it's a redundant name for sure), I went out to buy it. I could only find one at my local Best Buy store at a fairly afforable price. I am a definite Baldur's Gate/Icewind Dale fan and I hope that DD will give me my "fix" for 3/4 view isometric RPG.

This game is a lot like Diablo and resembles a Diablo clone. There is nothing wrong with that; if it's a good thing, you should jump on the bandwagon, right? The map is HUGE and there are some great stories and funny scenes in the game. I have devoted nearly 40 hours so far and I'm not 1/4 done yet. Humor is quite noticeable here and there is even an "easter egg" to meet the developers.

I would like to point out some negatives about the game that prevent me from giving this game 5 stars. As a disclaimer, it's more of my own taste of how I like RPG today. First of all, the character selection could be more in-depth. You have basically 3 classes: warrior, rogue, and wizard. However, unlike Diablo, they are not "specialized." The warrior, rogue and wizard can mix-and-match skills and spells from the other class. Thus my warrior can be tailored to cast the same powerful elemental magic like a wizard. It is unlike Diablo, where each class has a specific character skill tree to devote to (i.e., the necromancer has a different set of skills and role than the amazon). The character creation in Diablo is more thoughtful and I appreciate that better. In essence there is just one character in DD, it doesn't really matter which of the three I choose since there are very small differences between them.

On another situation, the game can be repetitive like Diablo and most RPGs of today. I prefer "Darkstone" since that game have randomly generated quests. DD does have a huge map and some quests are optional. In terms of game play, I really like the inventory system better here, since I don't have to worry about space (as in another game). Another plus is the availability of the PAUSE button (a la Baldur's Gate). I love that feature!

Lastly, my biggest gripe about this game is the system intensive requirement to get smooth gameplay. For maximum installation, the game took 2 GB of hard drive space. Each saved file took another 50MB or so of hard drive space. So by the time I collected 20 saved game files (which is not hard to do), I have used another 1GB of hard disk space. This is definitely something to consider for those with limited disk space. The game supports 640x480, 800x600, and 1024x768 resolution. Choices of graphic drivers are: software, DirectDraw, Direct3D (if applicable) and Glide (if applicable). My system is rather old but exceeds the minimum requirements (733 Mhz, Voodoo3 video card, and 640MB RAM). Trying the game at 800x600 or 1024x768 yields choppy gameplay and occassional bottlenecked slow-down. On occassion, there were some crashes as well. If you want to take advantage of the higher resolution, you should have at least a 1Ghz CPU with a rather new video card. Overall, I love RPG and I am biased to give this game high marks for its fun gameplay and addictive nature. I recommend it.

Divine Divinity : best new rpg out there

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 21
Date: February 23, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Well, seems like everyone wants to compare this game to Diablo 2 so what the hey guess i will too. I bought the diablo battle chest (diablo, diablo 2 , diablo 2 expansion and guide) about six months before i got this and was astounded by how little depth there was. The whole game was just a hack-and-slash nightmare, fun for a while but got boring quite quickly. Divine Divinity literally has somewhere around 80 quests in it. It has an amzing amount of depth, the characters are funny, interesting and best of all realistic. You'll be sucked into a fantasy world filled with many different kinds of races and monsters (orcs lizards, imps and so on)but though the monsters are fun to kill whats more amazing is all the character interaction in Divine Divinity. There are hundreds of people that you can trade with and talk to. The people face some realistic troubles in the game (one poor guy steals cows for meat and you are asked to find and expose him, dont have to though d:))but also there are the classic rpg type quests, aka kill this guy, get this thing but most of the quests are quite more interesting than that. On the cover of divine divinity it says "create your own destiny" well this is basically the main thing larian was trying to do make an rpg where you could be 3 different classes ( warrior, survivor and wizard) male or female and either be a good or a bad guy. You can decide to become a member of the theives guild and rip off poor people or you could be a hero who pays the poor's debts and helps everyone out. It is very much like baldurs gate in this way, for instance you can walk up to someone with a sword and start attacking them, which makes the gaurds go after you. If you do things like that your reputation goes way down and gaurds will attack you. Reputations go -100 ( if someone likes you that little they'll kill you) to 100 ( give you good prices love you.) mine currently is 33 which means regular people like me 33 some like me 100 because of all the trading i do with them. Your main goal is to become the divine one and kill the god of chaos ( some crazy god who loves spreading discord.) but on the way there you get to do tons of interesting and fun quests. Well ive been kind of wandering about so ill just do a pro- con list. PROS-Tons of character interaction, non player characters are funny and realistic with great stories to tell. Can trade with almost all npcs - Alot of humour. Many books lying around in the world that tell about funny and interesting things. lots of funny people too. - Great story line story unfolds and is beautiful masterpeice of a talemuch better than diablos -just right amount of hack-and-slash -tons of different armor and charms and spellbooks.
- amzing amount of control in character development ( for instance i am a warrior who can pick any lock, lay down deadly traps, turn people into frogs summon demonic knights and do amazing combat moves) - all skills rule
- The three amazing skills deadly gift( a steel scorpion is sweet takes down any boss) freeze well obvious that one and poison weapon.
Cons
-Major glitches game may go very slow
-Game is a bit too easy
thats all read the divine divinity walkthrough by steve meltzer or sumat for more info

Keeps your Interest and FUN!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 17 / 18
Date: December 14, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Divine Divinity is an RPG with more than just the usual 'find the magic stuff' type quests. In fact, there are a plethora of interesting things to do within the rich world of this game.

You have the option of playing a male or female character; and one of three types: Magic-user, Warrior or "survivor" (thief). I've not gotten too far in the game, and yet it is of such a quality that I am drawn to it, even though I have tended to get tired of other RPG's quite easily. This one is holding my attention probably because the options for play are extensive. Skills, that in other games are tied to one character type, are wide-open in this game. Perhaps you'd rather play a mage that can kick-butt? You can do that here.

The score is a perfect accompaniment to the atmosphere of where you are in the game, and the NPC's interaction has been intelligent.

It's a great game, and I recommend it... and just for reference, I'm a 44 year old female. :)

Reminds me of playing Ultima V or VI

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 12
Date: January 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was a big fan of Diablo 2, and read a nice article ... that said they were having more fun playing Divine Divinity. DD had already been out a while, so I was willing to take the ..gamble and try it out.

It's been A LOT of fun so far. It's an RPG with plenty of non-linear quests. Any of the character classes that you select can learn to use spells or pick locks or advance in weapons. The music is good. The sounds are good. Many if the quests are fun. You get to poison water supplies, blow up supply trains, help soldiers commit fraud, find lost cats, and wash dishes!

The graphics are reasonable. Colorful and nice. They're not trying to blow me away with a 3D environment. There are several nice big maps to explore. You can find and manipulate all kinds of object. You can rob people blind. You can be a hero, or a smart-alek. You can wear a pot on your head for a helmet, and fight with a broom. You can turn enemies into frogs and hack them up.

Fighting is free form. By that, I mean it's not like some games where all of a sudden the adventure stops, and you must complete a battle. In this game you can fight, or run away, or use magic, or avoid the monster.

Overall, it's reminded me of the good times I had playing Origin's Ultima IV, V and VI, back in the 80's. I've enjoyed Divine Divinity, and am still enjoying it. I'm looking forward to the sequel, Beyond Divinity. Enjoy!

The down side: Buggy, even after being patched. Lots of NPC interaction makes it seem as if some quests are still ongoing, when they've actually been solved. Poor voice acting. Takes up about 2GB HDD space, more if you save multiple games.

A great game that slipped under the radar screen

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 14
Date: January 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

You may have never heard of "Divine Divinity", and that is a shame, because the game is excellent. The game has hardly any faults -- it's biggest might be the name, which is about as catchy as Corn Flakes. This offering from Larian Studios is short on flash and flair, but long on substance and game play. If you have ever complained that RPG's focus too much on sexiness over substance, then "Divine Divinity" is the game for you.

This game doesn't offer a lot in the way of originality. What makes ýDivine Divinityý such a good game is that it combines the strengths and experiences of so many other successful RPGýs, while discarding the genreýs usual faults. In addition, it makes the right tradeoffs between production values and core gameplay ý tradeoffs that should be made more often in the PC gaming business. You can tell that the developers for the game know what truly makes a good RPG.

The game certainly puts its worst foot forward when it introduces itself. When you start it up, it screams "Diablo clone from hell", with the red bulb for health, blue bulb for mana, and yellow bar for fatigue. However, the game quickly shows that is is a great open-ended RPG, and not just a dungeon crawl. The world is huge. Massive. Gargantuan. Morrowind-like. The game is truly open-ended, allowing you to wander and travel at will, exploring where you wish, and solving whatever quests you want. You could probably play for 150 hours if you wanted to without starting over, although it takes more like about 80 hours to finish.

The game uses 2D graphics, which are not breathtaking, but still good. The environments look excellent, and rarely look repetitive. There are mountain caverns, sewers, forests swamps, cities, etc. The game is loaded with hundred's of NPC's many of which look unique and have unique dialog trees. The soundtrack for the game is not remarkable, but it is still very good and has a lot of different sounds for the game's different areas. RPG fans will be pleased to see that most of the quests are not of the mundane ýFedExý variety. They involve solving mysteries, exposing criminals, and accomplishing military objectives.

"Divine Divinity" excels the most in the RPG's most underappreciated area: the interface. DD's superior interface is a prime example of how this game gets the nuts and bolts right. Any detail of the game, whether it is inventory, skills, or the map, can be quickly and efficiently accessed. Multiple windows can be kept open to make tasks easier. Inventory management is refreshingly easy to use, and so is the in-game journal. The game has an in-game mini-map, as well as an attractive map screen with 3 zoom levels. The user can assign the 12 Function keys as shortcuts to almost any item or action. ýDivine Divinityý rarely bogs down inventory management sessions, or any of the other tedious shortcomings of most RPGýs. The game takes roughly 80-100 hours to complete, and they are all quality hours.

By far, ýDivine Divinityýsý only serious fault is its horrendous saving and loading times. The gameýs ýQuický save might be the slowest quick save ever created. Transitions that require a loading are rare, but when they occur, they provide a good opportunity for doing household chores.

It's hard to describe why a game like this is so good, because this game does so many little things right that you have to experience them to appreciate them. You might not fall in love with the game at first. Once you do, you will see that "Divine Divinity" has few faults, and is a lot of fun to play.

Divine Diviniy Review

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: January 02, 2004
Author: Amazon User

If you are a RPG fan, this is definetly one of the best games for you!
Divine Divinity is a diablo-style game with great graphics, solid storyline, tons of characters to interact with and so many side quests it'll keep you playing for about 100 hours!
The only bad thing about it is that it has no multiplayer, but that's about all.
Everytime you talk to someone, you will get a lot of choices, and depending on how you chose to act, that's how the game will go.
The game has many skills that you can learn. And the good thing is that you can learn skills from every type of character. For example, you can be a warrior and be extremely good at casting spells!
There's more to say about this wonderful game, but I'll let you discover for yourself! Have fun with this five-star game!

Over rated game.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: August 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

When DD first came out, everyone was going wild over the Diablo 2 clone. After purchasing it and downloading a huge patch, I played it. I find it is not all it was supposed to be. Many bugs, including keys that wasn't where they supposed to be after killing a boss, potions that work whenever they want to, graphics that are good, but not all that great and the cut scenes that go on and on and on and on, etc. Although the quests are many, it does get a bit annoying when you have all the 'evidence', and the quest doesn't register completed. Tech support is almost unavailable. It took someone over 2 weeks to contact me with help on why certain quests were not being registed as completed. To this day, I have not receive a satisfactory answer. All I did find out, it is a bug. The patch you download, is quote 'not an official patch', but when I finally found the correct email for DD tech support, they replied, that although it is not 'officially' the correct patch, it does work. Huh? Whatever, I suppose.

... I highly regret buying this game when it first came out.

fun but flawed

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: October 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game can be fun, with the typical RPG thrills related to leveling up, choosing spells and skills, and finishing quests. It's not entirely linear, has a big world, and plenty of magical items (including a Sword of Mushrooms).

The biggest downside to Div Div is there's too much combat. There's an endless initial dungeon and several lairs later on that require slaying the same old creatures over and over and over again. At least with some of the later dungeons you can leave and double-back when you need the XPs. The real-time combat doesn't require much strategy or tactics (other than "kiting") and is often a question of repeated right-clicking for a Mage or left-clicking for a Warrior.

Other drawbacks include the risible voice-acting and some stability issues (even with the 1.034 patch, I'd get crackly sounds after going into the wilderness, which is a shame because the music is excellent).

I'd recommend this to most RPGers, but you might not have the patience to play to the very end.

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