one step beyond

I may have made a huge mistake by reinstalling Divine Divinity recently. I got it early last year while waiting for the latter half of 2003's RPGs, which were the subsequently disappointing Lionheart and Temple of Elemental Evil. Divine Divinity was largely overlooked I think because of its damned goofy name, but Larian definitely put the effort in and you really can't judge this one until you try it. A very ambient soundtrack, beautifully detailed visuals, and a flexible character creation system make it extremlely hard to put aside. The game fluctuates between moderately difficult to extremely fucking hard, usually in the space of a few map squares. But I don't think I've had as much fun playing a clickfest RPG since Diablo II.

The demo for Beyond Divinity - Divine's sequel - came out on Wednesday and I made a point of trying it out. Now I'm starting to think that April's release of Beyond Divinity may be suitable in the interim while I wait for Dungeon Siege II in the Fall.

Where Divine Divinity was a successful attempt at recapturing the simple and addictive gameplay of Diablo II, Beyond Divinity introduces a number of new features that would be familiar to players of Dungeon Siege and Neverwinter Nights. The obvious example is the updated monster and character models - they are now all in 3D, and the initial appearance of your character is customizable. The backgrounds, however, remain in 2D and definitely detract from the overall "feel" of the game. Divine Divinity had Diablo II beat in terms of resolution - the lush, detailed graphics were capable of displaying at up to 1024x768, and Beyond can now display up to 1600x1200. Though it can be a bit slow even for my tweaked out system. As another handy feature, you can zoom in and out from the action on screen like Dungeon Siege and NWN.

The skills and class systems have been made a lot more complex, which results in even more flexibility when levelling your character. There is a more comprehensive skill tree this time around, but you can dip in at any point if you have the Ability score and level prerequisites (it's not class restricted). For example, you can make Warrior skills like Improved Accuracy, and Repair available at the beginning, but as you gain experience you could add Lockpicking or Alchemy. As an added twist, you begin the game with your soul bound to a Death Knight, which forms the basis for the story. You must escape the underworld and figure out a way to remove the curse. This provides a kind of party-based gameplay, but nothing more than you would expect from hiring mercenaries in Diablo II or NWN. Because of this bond, though, if one of you dies, the game ends. The environments and story ideas seem to be coming more from the quasi-spiritual elements of the Diablo Universe than Lord of the Rings this time around though (in Divine Divinity there is a "friendly wizard" who helps you in your quest to defeat an evil menace known as "The Black Ring"...yeesh). One thing I like about the Divinity games is that they've clearly learned well from the success of previous RPGs, and are not afraid to use this in their games. Allowing map notations, an easily browsable Quest Log, pressing "Alt" to display dropped items, and only requiring you to click once to fight an enemy to the death. Many Diablo clones have been released since its debut, and this is one series that is at least getting it right. If I had to find one real problem, it would be the voice acting. Divine Divinity's was servicable; Beyond's is bordering on embarassing.

I'm as much a fan of a solid single-player experience as a multiplayer one, if the gameplay and story are deep enough. I think one of the bigger flaws held against Divine Divinity was the lack of a multiplayer mode, and if the demo is any indicator, it was left out of Beyond Divinity as well. I'm sure it will be a fine game regardless, but it might have a hard time competing with Sacred, which will be released around the same time and does make a co-operative multiplayer mode available. Depending on the price at release, Beyond Divinity is shaping up to be an RPG worth investing some time in.