Along with that, there are the everyday problems of the locals, such as cattle rustling, demonic possession and suspicious men wandering around in big hats. The game is also littered with manuscripts, letters and books, which can hold vital clues for your quest, information on the land, helpful advice, or similar scribbled rantings Although it has to be said that the person responsible for naming the game should definitely be led gently aside and told that no self-respecting grown-up should be titling games with words they like the sound of.
It seems the future of roleplaying games will inevitably move towards the Morrowinds and Neverwinter Nights of this world, but Div Div is living proof that, when tailored by the right hands, isometnc RPGs can still be as captivating and challenging as their 3D counterparts. Better clear out your diary for the next few days as this exclusive demo for Divine Divinity is pretty damn meaty, with an estimated average of hours of gameplay, and even more if you explore every area.
After being ambushed by orcs and hit by a huge bolt of holy light you're feeling a bit rough. You find yourself waking up in the home of Joram, a healer from the town of Aleroth who found you unconscious in the woods. There are several quests to complete in the town itself as well as four levels below the town and a few areas outside.
Most of Aleroth's inhabitants will be friendly or neutral towards you at first, but your behaviour towards them can drastically change their attitude towards you. For example, if you help them in some way they might give you a piece of information or lower the price of their goods.
Conversely, if you mess with their stuff or attempt to nick things from under their noses, they'll lock their doors or fire off a few spells at your fast retreating arse. You'll also find that many things around the village can be picked up, opened or even used as weapons. A harmless-looking rake can turn into a deadly weapon and although you won't be able to make full use of them in this demo, various plants and herbs can be turned into potions. Even rotting food can be manufactured into poison for increasing the damage of your weapons.
All this and more is in the full game, but until then let this demo be your guiding light. Let's face it, RPGs over the last few years have been ruled by the same few gaming godfathers, who really need no introduction.
In their favour they have turned out consistently good, and consistendy similar titles to a vast fan base they know is salivating for anything they can get their hands on. But we've dined on meat and potatoes for too long. The times they are a-changing, something's blowing in the wind - and it's not Martin in 'just stepped out of a salon' mode We admit that Divine Divinity, or DivDiv as it has affectionately come to be known, took us somewhat by surprise, which is why it wasn't covered in our RPG round-up.
DivDiv has appeared almost from nowhere from a relatively unknown - at least until now - developer, the Belgium-based Larian Studios. Like early man examining some strange object, we have poked it, prodded it, stuck it in our ears and given it a good sniff, and we can pronounce that it is looking very palatable indeed.
DivDiv is set in a typical RPG fantasy world, filled with the usual array of wizards, demons, ores and suspicious men in big hats, which you explore with one of six characters. Characters feature a total of skill levels -- 96 skills of five levels each. Quest-based gameplay features inventory management, interaction with objects, equipment belts, gloves, rings, amulets, and more that changes the appearance of the character when worn, trading, conversing with NPCs, and combat.
Each character type has a special move, sneaking, swirl attack, and teleportation survivor, warrior, and wizard respectively , as well as offensive, defensive, damage, armor, resistance, reputation, and weight restraint ratings. Skill sets are divided into "Ways" and associated with "Paths" for each type of character, which determines the style of play.
Survivors can take the path of the thief, lore, or talents, warriors follow the path of specialist, ranger, warrior's lore or gods, and wizards choose from powers of matter, body and spirit, elemental powers, or summoning. Although designed for 3D acceleration, Divine Divinity also offers a software mode, as well as multiple solutions to increase game speed. With an extensive skill list, dozens of quests and nearly two hundred hours!
The result is an exciting and addictive roleplaying game that will keep you at your computer in the wee hours of the morning for weeks. You awaken in a small healer's town only to find that dark forces are at work in the world. You soon learn that you are one of the Marked Ones, one of the three that could become the Divine One, but the evil machinations of man and magic are determined to prevent any of you from succeeding.
When creating a character, you can choose to play as a warrior, wizard or survivor. Divine Divinity includes male and female versions of each, but you should be prepared to be called "sir" and referred to in masculine terms regularly regardless of which sex you choose. There are four core abilities strength, agility, intelligence and constitution and ninety-six skills that any of the classes can choose from, each with five ranks of their own.
Deadly gift allows you to lay traps, including some extremely powerful steel scorpions, and with aura of command, you can then make sure those steel scorpions stay at your side until you rest. Another useful skill, alchemy, lets you combine potions to make new potions and use herbs and mushrooms lying on the ground to make potions with the empty flasks you'll acquire alone the way. By the end of the game, you will probably have a smattering of different skills, such as a few spells you can cast, some weapon specialization, etc.
Divine Divinity is not just a hack-and-slash RPG. In fact, similarities to the Diablo series fade the longer you play the game. When you start the game, you have a reputation, which is set to zero neutral. You'll find these teleporters invaluable for quickly jumping to a place where you can sell your gear. The developers have created a unique trading system at least for an RPG. Anyone willing to trade has a maximum amount of tradable goods and money -- you may have to visit several different people to trade off all your gear.
This more realistic economy system might annoy some, but it was fun to visit different shopkeepers and see what they had to offer. There's also a nice auto-balancing feature that computes the number of gold coins a buyer needs to give you to even out the transaction or vice versa, in case you want to complete the remainder of your purchase with cash.
Practically everything in Divine Divinity can be manipulated in some way. Your character can eat food, move furniture, sleep in beds and blow out candles and torches to name a few. Books and manuscripts abound, and while only a handful reveal game information, some will actually give you skills if you read the entire series.
The rest relate everything from amusing short stories to recipes for orange omelets. You can even purchase or rent a house, and it's this sort of attention to detail that lifts Divine Divinity into the realm of a classic RPG.
To help you keep track of this immense world, Divine Divinity includes a diary that gives you your quest log, full screen map, personality traits, and conversation logs. The game places red flags on your full screen map to show you where your destinations are. You won't learn of a place until you've spoken to the correct person, though, unless you just stumble upon it. The game also keeps track of your quests and lets you filter between completed and incomplete missions, although it doesn't let you change the way you sort them.
Be sure to check out the personality traits; they're quite humorously written. Sadly, Divine Divinity is single-player only. While the solo campaign is well done, it would have been nice to be able to traverse the game world with a few friends in cooperative mode.
On the technical front, the 2D isometric graphics are nice looking, but dungeons all tend to have a similarity to them -- either brown cut stone or brown cave walls --while most buildings are difficult to distinguish among them.
Character images change depending on what gear they're wearing, and monsters are well done, but spell effects and lighting really show off the graphics engine the best. Divine Divinity is not without its technical glitches. The majority of them are merely annoying, but Divine Divinity did crash to the desktop without warning on a few occasions, and quick save didn't always work, either. The game doesn't always acknowledge when you're no longer encumbered, such as when you would eat a couple of hunks of meat or swallow potions.
You can fix this by moving something around in your inventory, but it's a rather bothersome problem until you learn this. Probably the worst bug next to the occasional crash was the drop in frame rates that occurred in Verdistis and to a lesser extent, the Dark Forest.
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