Graphics and Sound

A Face Only A Ghoul Could Love

The scenic palette of Divine Divinity is mostly limited to black, gray, brown, and green. The world is an uncultivated, overgrown place littered with haunted and abandoned buildings. The unholy temples and dank catacombs are places nightmares could get lost in, as torches are unevenly spaced, and the murderous inhabitants are only tempered by inverted pentagrams, summoning circles, and torture victims. Divine Divinity, quite possibly, has the best 2D artwork I’ve seen in an RPG in years. While Morrowind is alien, expansive, and far-reaching, Divine Divinity’s world often feels claustrophobic and suffocating. Nearly every screen in the 20,000 screen game is richly detailed, this consistency only falling apart by the end of the game.

Character animations are smooth and fluid. Unfortunately, at times, the animations seem a bit too smooth. After a few hours of watching the character run and fight, the motions seemed to be noticeably unnatural, somewhat like a Diablo II with more frames of animation. In addition, the character and monsters seem to move too quickly. Some realistic variation would have been appreciated. Combat often looked like characters hacking away at each other without cease, such as in Baldur’s Gate. Conversely, spells are colorful, quick, and eye-catching, if not spectacular. ‘Functional’ probably best describes the interactive, graphical aspect of Divine Divinity. You are left feeling a bit disappointed that the developers didn’t take a more realistic approach towards integrating animation and gameplay; it ends up looking similar to most RPGs, stiff and artificial.

Comfy Footwear

Can't Get Good Help

Weak As A Doll

The Devil’s Orchestra Pit

Kirill Pokrovsky has spun together elements distinctly celtic, classical, gothic, and ambient for Divine Divinity’s lush, and oftentimes intense, score. Again, at the risk of sounding cliché, at times the music sounds somewhere comfortably between the tribal ambiance of Diablo II and the orchestral grandeur of Baldur’s Gate. Occasionally, some of the drum-heavy tracks can get tiring to the ear, but I never felt the need to disable the musical score and load up ye olde WinAMP. While, compositionally, Pokrovsky’s score is very strong, it seems as though he could have drastically benefited from higher-quality samples. On occasion the strings sound too synth-like, spoiling the overall effect, a further disappointment given how strong Divine Divinity’s atmosphere is.

The voice acting is especially commendable. Unlike the realistic, almost Shakespearean take, PC RPGs have been gravitating towards these last few years, Divine Divinity takes itself far less seriously. While this approach occasionally backfires, for the most part the end result is far more humorous and enjoyable, especially in comparison to your typical fantasy voice actor who sounds far too serious and melodramatic. Divine Divinity’s voice cast sounds like they’re having fun, whether they’re evoking a screwball imp or a crotchety old sorcerer. The whole process succeeds in giving the characters much more personality than a stereotypical RPG. Hearing the irreverent and comedic dialogue between the characters is a much appreciated reward for progressing through the game. The sound effects, meanwhile, merely get the job done. There’s nothing terribly memorable about them. Chances are, after playing the game for awhile, you’ll have mentally tuned out the wooshing of the heal spell or the clanging of swords.

If Only You Were Silent Too

My Sort Of Businessman

Oh Dear

Evil Does Have A Funny Bone

A noteworthy aspect of Divine Divinity is the humor. While Fantasy RPGs aren’t the most lighthearted of material, its nice to find a balance, especially given all the depictions of the occult and torture. One of the most prominent examples of this is expressed in the statistic descriptions in the character’s diary. The game gives a paragraph directly related to the numerical value of each statistic. A high lightning resistance yields this gem: “You have a near invulnerability to lightning-based attacks. You can wear a copper helmet and stand in a vat of water on top of a church steeple during a storm shouting “All Gods Are Bastards!” with impunity.” One the other hand, a particularly low strength (such as the one you start the game with) yields this demotivator: “Frail old ladies beat you at arm-wrestling and you would have trouble lifting a weapon, let alone fighting with it.”