The Divinity games

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

What do think of them?
I have played divine divinity and Divinity II: Developer's Cut.
I very recently bought divinity original sin and Divinity: Dragon Commander during the steam sale.
I already own Beyond Divinity but I am not in a great rush to try it.

Spoiler: Divine Divinity

divine divinity-
It has some notable problems but overall I really like this game. This not nostalgia talking. I played it for the first time in my life this year a few mouth ago. divine divinity is a 2d isometric rpg with diablo style combat.

Pros:
-there is a lot to explore in this game
-the side quests are interesting
-Ascetically I would say it has aged pretty well(the game came out in 2002)
-The game does not take it self too seriously and has the occasional silly moment which makes the game quite charming. The shitty voice acting kinda add to the charm as well.
-you can pick up almost anything not nailed to the ground. this included picking up a chest you find in a dungeon that you use as container to store objects in what ever location you use as a home
-it has a good atmosphere and a great soundtrack

cons:
-You have to get though the dungeon under the village you start in drags too long
-I hear the ending area of the game does over board with the amount of enemy's to to fight and the length of dungeons much like the first dungeon did
-The main story is not amazing in terms technical aspects of writing.
-the name is of the game is stupid and redundant

Spoiler: Divinity II

Divinity II
It is very different from divine divinity. Divinity II is a 3d game with action rpg combat. the majority of the game felt like a typical 3d action rpg with the charm of divine divinity. I am perfectly OK with that and I still enjoyed the game for what it was; but divine divinity is a better game IMO.

Pros:
-It does not self to seriously and has the occasional silly moments, charming like divine divinity.
-it has some interesting side quests
-decent world to explore
-the music is great
-writing is not even close to being deep but it's entertaining and it had a tendency to make me smile. on a few occasions I even laughed.
-the mindreading ability is pretty cool
-when you gain the ability fly it feels pretty awesome

Cons:
-The dragon combat is ok at best
-in Divine Divinity it was possible to get caught stealing and it would make you more disliked in general and especially disliked by the character you where stealing from. In divinty 2 the concept of stealing does not exist for almost all loot-able objects.
-my biggest issue with is it lacks the great amount of world interactivity that divine divinity had

Spoiler: Divinity: original sin

I only played 6 hours so far. so all I have is a very basic first impression.
So it shaping up to being a very good game so far and barley left the first town. It seems like a good return of form for the divinity games so far.
this game has great music so far and Recognize some of the tracks in this game so to be tracks that were originally from divine divinity.

12 hours in-I am still enjoying the game

Overall I would say Larian has a good track record of making games I enjoyed.

 

[shrekfan246]

I feel like I just posted in a thread about this a little while back...

Oh jeez, that was already like a month ago, wasn't it?

I haven't played enough of them, really, but I love the franchise to bits.

There's a low-budget jank to varying aspects of every game in the franchise, but I really have a hard time thinking of any other series that revels in its niche appeal like Divinity and is made all the better because of it.

Like I said in the thread at the beginning of this month, what really solidified my opinion of the games and Larian as a developer was this moment from Divine Divinity:

 

[Reincarnatedwolfgod]

snip

I liked that exact part in divine divinity as well, although I disliked the rest of the crypt.

I also liked a related potential moment divinity 2 that was a nice nod to that. Talking the skeleton black smith in the tower into non-existence while he was wanted you to stop ask questions about how he exists was amusing.

 

[The Madman]

So far I've played Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, Divinity 2: Developers Cut, and Divinity: Dragon Commander.

Of those Divine Divinity and Dragon Commander are my favourites. Divine Divinity is a weird but amazing sort of 2D diabloish hack & slash that does a whole lot of strange things and mostly does them surprisingly well, even the corny story and horrendous voice acting lend it a certain charm. Easily one of my favourite hack & slash games out there. Not perfect, definitely not perfect, but fun and quirky enough to make the flaws easily overlooked in my opinion.

After Divine Divinity, Dragon Commander is the only one to really boast that same quirky charm. The rts portions are pretty forgettable really, at best mediocre and at worst boring, but everything else about the game is just fantastic. Talking to your ships crew, making weird political decisions, commanding your armies across a risk style map, that stuff is all great. The talky political bits especially are just so damned entertaining.

Otherwise the series is alright. Beyond Divinity was Divine Divinity with a bit less charm and wit and Divinity 2 was a neat 3rd person action rpg that had some fun ideas but was ultimately kinda forgettable, I never beat either of them. Keep meaning to pick up Original Sin since from everything I've heard it sounds like something I'd like but I've already got so many games to catch up on right now I don't need another to add to my library. It's inevitable I'll pick it up eventually though and I'm willing to bet I'll love it.

 

[DoPo]

What do think of them?

Well, the games kept being recommended to my by a person (on a different message board) whose opinion I respect a lot and they did sound like something I'd enjoy, so eventually when GOG had them for "Pay What You Want" I got them. For a variety of reasons I never actually played them, though. When the Kickstarter for Original Sin arrived, I looked at it, and it sounded promising, plus - hey, Divinity was supposed to be good, right? So I backed it.

Truth be told, I somewhat forgot about it until about a couple of months before the release. When they sent out the note that yes, they were going to be releasing soon, I went "Oh, right, that game. I'll have to keep an eye for it". When it did come out, me and my housemate (also a backer) decided to give it a go in co-op, since it was supposed to focus on that. Well...it wasn't really that good at it. Not at that point at least. But then I started playing it myself...

It's now probably one of my top favourite games of this year.

 

[LetalisK]

Question about Divinity. Are all these games in the same story line or is it more like a ruleset/universe type of thing? Like with Dungeons and Dragons games, where just because something says "Dungeons and Dragons" in the title doesn't mean it's even in the same era or realm as Baldur's Gate.

If it's the former, how does Dragon Commander relate to the other games?

 

[DoPo]

Question about Divinity. Are all these games in the same story line or is it more like a ruleset/universe type of thing? Like with Dungeons and Dragons games, where just because something says "Dungeons and Dragons" in the title doesn't mean it's even in the same era or realm as Baldur's Gate.

As far as I'm aware (though I'm not an expert) it's mostly the same universe with some continuity in the form of the games are set in different time periods (Original Sin sort of "prequel" set before Divine Divinity, for example) but each is essentially its own story.

If it's the former, how does Dragon Commander relate to the other games?

As far as I know, it's set far, far long ago. Like, thousands of years - it's not even a prequel at this point.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

I think the Divinity series are a delightful, top notch bunch of games and have had fun over the years with them. I played DD when it first came out years and years ago and maybe once since, but not for a while. It was a great RPG with interesting mechanics and a fun sense of humour, one that is shared by other games in the series.

I have to admit BD wasn't quite as good, though it was equally important in lore terms. Gameplay-wise it introduced free levelling, the summoning and *two* main characters. Lore-wise it introduced Death Knights and Soul Forging as well as voodoo dolls.

Divinity 2 is a different game but also very good. The expansion was a bit heavy on the combat and less freeform dragon-ing, but the whole experience and story was fun. It introduced us to Dragon Knights and Hunters and also let us have our own tower, build our own monster (perhaps an evolution of BD's dolls) and had fun third-person action.

Lastly D:OS, it had so many nods to all the previous games. From books and conversations about the Divine One, Death Knights, Soul Forging and of course, the return of the trademark pyramids. I think the two character thing (reminiscent of BD) was great and also makes the game PERFECT for co-op play (seriously, how many co-op RPGs are there? Actual RPGs, not hack n'slash). I like the story of the Source Hunters, although it does raise so many questions about how they came to be Hunters in the first place. I'm so glad they kickstarted it, a phenomenal cRPG the likes of which AAA have long abandoned. I also like the multiple endings, free DLC, toolset and more.

Larian are a great studio with a fantastic series of great PC RPGs, made without compromise for consoles. I will buy any future installments without hesitation.

Question about Divinity. Are all these games in the same story line or is it more like a ruleset/universe type of thing?

They aren't the same story, but a shared universe, not dissimilar to TES games. Each game has different protagonists and a different story, often set hundreds of years after the last game.

The first game is a solo, isometric RPG. It has some fun mechanics and is quirky, but is a very good game. The second game has two main characters linked together by a "Soul Forge", meaning if either one should die, they both die. Where it gets interesting (from a story perspective) is that the two are, in-effect, sworn enemies of each other who are thus forced to work together. It also meant for some interesting mechanics with regard to the pyramids, a mainstay of the series which lets you teleport between them.

Divinity II is not isometric, but a solo, third-person action RPG, quite different from the other games in the series. It is set in Rivellon and there's a lot of shared lore and nods to prior games. It has an interesting mechanic in that the player can shapeshift into a dragon with its own set of abilities. There are some bits for example where you fight as a human, with sword, bow, magic etc. and can summon your own custom monster to help you. Then you can shapeshift into a dragon, fly elsewhere fighting more enemies en route then shapeshift back to human in mid-air, land and immediately fight some more on the ground.

Original Sin is also an isometric RPG, but party based, not solo. It's also fully 3D, which is really nice (and means we can manoeuvre the camera somewhat). You (and/or a co-op partner) create two characters and can recruit up to two more. You can level up fairly freely, but characters will have a fairly defined role (ie. sword/shield, two-handed, ranger, stealth/rogue, healer, crowd control, elemental spells, etc). It's a brilliant game with a potential 100+ hour campaign (took me 120+ on first playthru).

Throughout all of them there are little things that link them and pay homage to previous games and protagonists. If you enjoyed games like BG2, Icewind Dale, etc, you'll enjoy this series.

 

[Frankster]

Only played 2 so far, and tbh I'm not a big fan of diabloesque games so ain't likely to give the older titles a try.
But of the 2 I did play...

Divinity Original Sin: Fucking love this game. Best rpg I played in the past year and it's coop to boot. It's true the map design is a bit of a mess after the 1st area but I was willing to forgive this games flaws for the rpg goodness it gave me.

Divinity Dragon Commander: Again "fucking" love this game, it was a breath of fresh air when I got my mitts on it.
Again it's got its flaws, the last section of the game is a bit tedium since by time you arrive on 3rd map you're maxed out and there is nothing new gameplay wise to throw at you besides enemy dragons which actually made it less fun imo but still, I found the rts sections really enjoyable as well as the sections on your airship where you'd make political decisions.

Regarding the rts sections I particularly enjoyed that due to starting battle conditions reflecting the forces you and your enemy sent, it was possible to have seemingly "impossible" battles where you couldn't win...And I was a masochist reloading 10 times trying to win and felt like a strategic genius when I finally found a way of pulling through and clinching a victory through the skin of my teeth.

These 2 titles have made me favorably disposed towards Larian and eager to see what they do next.

 

[gigastar]

I first bought in when Dragon Commander came out. Hadnt heard of Larian before, hadnt heard of Divinity before, was overly enthusiastic for all the steampunk tech and dragons with jetpacks going on. I cant say i was dissapointed, but the hardware i was on at the time was probably detrimental to the experience, since i didnt have enough RAM to play the game in RTS mode.

Fast forward to earlier this year and Original Sin is coming out of Early Access, at which point i bought the game because i wanted to see more writing like what was in Dragon Commander. I cant say i was dissapointed, though the goddamn hidden switch puzzles were most certainly not welcome. Though i did appreciate actually having to think about how to deal with combat... before i figured out how hideously OP the elemental shield spells were.

And a couple of months ago i was bored and noticed Divinity 2: Developers Cut on sale. I had heard that 2 had... issues on PC though fortunately i didnt encounter any though the 40 or so hours it took me to finish Ego Dragonis. I even had some fun with the combat before i realised that Splitting(?) Arrow and Way of the Ranger combined to deal hideous amounts of damage to anything unfortunate enough to be in front of you.

If it's the former, how does Dragon Commander relate to the other games?

By the time of Original Sin, the events of Dragon Commander have become myth, which is thoroughly overshadowed by OSs own myth arc. And the only NPC in the game who acknowledges DCs existence will not-so-subtlety tell you to buy DC.

 

[Spacewolf]

Played the Divinity 2 updated version and got Dragon Commander in the current steam sale. I really do like Divinity 2 as personally I think it does just about everything better then Oblivion (The only TES game I have ever played) but Dragon Commander is irritating me massively, there doesn't seem to be any punishment for doing good so that the easy choice always seems to be the best and the RTS parts mean I've only ever fought one battle in realtime and just auto resolve the rest which does kind of defeat the point.

 

[Danbo Jambo]

Divinity 2 is a very flawed, but fantastic game a d a brilliant experience.

It's rough around the edges in a lot of aspects, and certain classes just aren't enjoyable to play as IMO. BUT, and it's one big Aretha Franklin style but, the core elements which are essential for a great RPG are brilliant (Great story, great combat when right class, superb atmosphere, brilliant humour etc).

My advice would be to buy ASAP and play as a warrior-mage. My first play through was sheer heaven.