Divinity 2

[Erkki]

Gamespot's preview of the game makes it sound pretty awesome. Seems like every quest can have quite a number of different outcomes.

I didn't play more than a demo of the first game, though, because the combat seemed badly implemented.

[Erkki]

This made me want to go and give another shot at the original Divinity. I'm now about 20 hours in and the game seems awesome. I've only explored the river town so far and a tiny bit of Verdistis -- so far it seems easily as deep as Oblivion, Baldur's Gate or Gothic, maybe even more so. And gives you lots of choices.

It's not all good though: the story and writing is rather simplistic, dialogues have voices in seemingly random places (most of the important dialogues that move the story forward have voices, but in one place a couple of gossiping merchants are voiced while more important dialogues are silent).

But the worst part is the user interface. It's like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna click. Seriously, while many of the areas are rather empty except for monsters, those areas that have lots of people or stuff laying around are so dense in hotspots that you have to spend considerable effort to find a spot of ground to click on. It's made worse by the camera folloing the character pixel-for-pixel -- quite unsmoothly. Many times when you click, you don't know if it's gonna result in a drag, charcater movement or an interaction. I don't really like the in-game windows for inventory either. The worst is the bartering window, where you have to scroll through all your inventory to find what you want to sell, repair or identify.

Those really dense areas could really benefit from a first person, or an over the shoulder view. So if Divinity 2 fixes these issues while retaining the depth of Divine Divinity, it will be one awesome RPG.

[Erkki]

Ah, just finished it (Divinity 1). The story is way generic and boring, and wants to be epic but fails miserably. The early parts of the game where you didn't know much about the main plot were more interesting. Also, too much monster killing for my tastes. Thankfully, I discovered an exploit early on that let me kill all bosses (and other tougher monsters) without much hassle. I just looked at it as a useful "player skill" that I developed, being even more badass assassin-type character than the game expected.

The exploit was to "embrace shadows" while both attacking and receiving damange. That way I remained in the shadows for the entire fight and could attack at the same time. The bosses just stood there taking damage, oblivious of my presence.

Edit: Perhaps they can do a better job with both the story and UI in Divinity 2, but my hopes of that are not that high anymore.

[Tanukitsune]

The improved version is on sale on Steam for a day... I might get it, but.... I doubt it will run that well until I upgrade my computer next year....

What are the chances of this game dropping price again in 3-4 months?

[Irishjohn]

I got it in the sale and will probably tackle it in a little while, after I've made some more hay in Fallout 3.

I wouldn't rush though, it seems like the lukewarm reviews won't help and the game strikes me as one that needs decent word out there with RPG and dragon-loving types. I would think the price will drop again. Anyway, it's not like Steam will never reduce the price on the game again.