Divine Divinity Review

By Rhianna Pratchett for PC Zone Magazine

After endless months of waiting, Rhianna Pratchett finally finds out whether this role-playing game is truly divine or hellishly bad

It's been nearly a year since I found myself in a slightly dilapidated German castle just outside Frankfurt, seeing Larian Studios' Divine Divinity for the first time. My fellow journalists and I were shown round the game and then let loose to play through the first few parts. In the evening we drank beer from tankards and feasted upon roast potatoes and great lumps of pork skewered on daggers from a wooden plate. Not that all press trips are like this, of course. Sometimes they actually expect you to catch, kill and gut your own dinner first. Later we were entertained by keyboard stylings from a man with the most impressive mullet to ever grace a human head. It was a memorable trip. Since then, the tautologically named Divine Divinity took a sharp nosedive into the dark development oblivion where it was perpetually on the brink of 'almost' being ready, and even I feared that I'd never get to find out what was on the other side of the bridge where the game's hefty demo left off. But finally it's here and, damn, it's been well worth the wait.

BACK TO SKOOL

After Morrowind, Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights, it's a bit of a shock to the system to see an isometric RPG again, regardless of the recent release of Icewind Dale II. The dated visuals certainly make Divine Divinity feel practically old skool. As you'd expect, there's the standard type of role-playing set-up, with the usual array of character classes, e.g. both male and female warriors, mages and survivors (a kind of thief/druid hybrid) and a familiar 'in times of trouble a hero will arise' plotline. Nothing new here, you might be thinking, and to a certain degree you'd be right because Divine Divinity is very much an amalgamation of many different RPGs. The strong storyline and multiple sub-quests are akin to Baldur's Gate II, the sheer depth of interaction smacks of the Ultima series, the frantic combat is reminiscent of Diablo II and the sheer vastness of the world makes it feel like an isometric Morrowind. It all starts in a village populated by a small community of healers, one of which has found you unconscious in the woods after you've had a rather intimate experience with a strange column of light. As those of you who've played the demo will know, there are a few basic quests in the village and a large subterranean level to complete before you're allowed to go marauding through the countryside. With 3D taking the RPG world by storm, isometric games like this are bound to be seen as a little unsexy. But this is usually a view held by people who value graphics over gameplay and style over substance. For many of you out there, the Baldur's Gate games will be the pinnacle of your isometric role-playing experience. Don't get me wrong, I loved them too. But whereas BG and BGII gave you solid vanilla-style luvin', Div Div gives you much more diversity. Graphically, it looks pretty good, at least for an isometric RPG, and even though you can run the game in three different resolutions, including 1024x768, you'll probably end up running it on the medium setting (800x600) just so you can see the small objects more clearly.

Flora and Fauna

And detail is something Div Div thrives on. As soon as you step outside the front door, you're hit by it. Birds and butterflies flit above your head; rabbits (which are also handy for building up your experience points early on, as well as providing a tasty snack) scamper through the grass. Herbs can be used to make potions, everyday implements like brooms and rakes can be used as weapons, candles can be lit and snuffed out again. Practically anything that's not nailed down can be manipulated in some way. It's not just graphically where Larian Studios have added lots of detail. Little things, such as different sounds for running over stone, water, mud, grass and wood for example, even the sound of birds or night creatures as the 24-hour day/night cycle runs its course, creating a superb atmosphere. As for the music (which you have the aforementioned amazing mullet man to thank for), never before in an isometric RPG has the score been so atmospheric that it's raised my blood-pressure to dangerously high levels.