Divinity Demo, First Impressions

EverythingXen, 2002-05-07

I've been reading up on this game half-heartedly since I started visiting RPGDot. It never really caught my attention, but the staff and a few others kept passing on good things about it until, when the whopping large demo was released, I had to download it and give it a shot.

I'm glad I did. Divine Divinity appears to be a solidly made game. As far as what's been seen in the demo, it hasn't offered many revolutionary improvements to the genre… but as I've mentioned before, I'm not as interested in revolution as evolution.

Divine Divinity integrates components from many games. The story and dialogue trees appear as good as anything Ultima or Baldur's Gate has offered. The graphics are crisp and detailed enough for an isometric RPG. The combat combines the wild massacre abandonment of Diablo (I bagged me well over a hundred monsters in 5 levels of a dungeon) with the real-time-pause functionality of Baldur's Gate. This stops it from becoming an all out potion chugging hack-fest as you can issue orders and use some basic tactics without having to have highly developed reflexes.

I like the skill system a lot. This is probably the 'newest' thing Divinity brings to the table. Whenever you level up you get five attribute points, like Diablo, and 1 skill point, also like Diablo. However, you can apply the skill to any of the three different 'skill trees' in the game. You can make a fighter with a few survivor skills for scouting capability, or make a nice little battlemage… a guy who blows skeletons to bits while they close but can happily go toe to toe with whatever remains of the hoarde as it breaks through. Attributes are the only true limits to jumping from path to path… I get the feeling that if you spread them evenly all over the place the game might be a little difficult. Then again, perhaps not.

Another great feature is the ability to combine items. Another growing trend in CRPGs (especially in MMORPGs) since Ultima Online and perhaps something before it that I'm unaware off is the ability to take your skills and make your own stuff. Ultima 7 left you make your own stuff as well, but it had no skills to base it on. In the demo you can make potions and combine all sorts of different items to get other more interesting items. You can poison your sword, for example. That's pretty cool. If the full game provides more things to combine (and I'm sure it does) this could easily be one of the most enjoyable features of the game (at least for me… I like combining items in games).

The Diablo similarities almost put me off this game (I'm not a big Diablo fan)… fortunately a strong story, good voice acting, humorous reading material and nice soundtrack (alright, I'm a sucker for sound) pulled me back. I think this game has a little something for everyone. I'm looking forward to the full version.