Beyond Divinity

Developer: Larian Studios

Release Date: April 28, 2004

Time Played: Around three hours, including a spontaneous podcast with ZombiePie where we dunk on the revived TSR brand, a topic that I think is already out of date given that they seem to have deleted their twitter and retreated into their grognard lair.

Dubiosity:4 out of 5

Soundtrack: 6 out of 5

Would I play more? Cards on the table here: my answer wouldn’t be no, even if I think I’d be better served replaying Original Sin 2.

So between this and The Dragon Knight Saga, I think I might have to return to the original Divine Divinity to address my fascination with Larian Studios’ arc as a developer. You can absolutely start to see a path from all their divinity games to making Baldur’s mother-effin Gate 3, from their sensibilities as storytellers, to their focus on systemic interactions. However, I feel like I need to go back to where it started instead of just spending my time with the failed and the messy offshoots like the garbage voyeur I am. Of course, being that the failed and the messy is the prerogative of this entire blog/streaming series, I’m happy to confirm that Beyond Divinity is a game with a lot of interesting ideas, almost none of which seem to be delivered on in a satisfactory fashion. So, in the hierarchy of dubiousness, it’s nearly perfect for my purposes.

I dunno why the impetus to follow up Divine Divinity, which was a fairly open-ish CRPG, with what appears to be a way more linear straight dungeon crawl, but there’s a muddle of ideas going on here. Like its predecessor, Beyond Divinity is a diablo-adjacent isometric, vaguely hack-n-slashy RPG with open character development and a surprising level of weird systemic interaction. Your main character, a nameless paladin of the Divine Order, is basically in hell and soul-shackled to a Death Knight in an awkward buddy comedy slash single-player co-op game where if one character dies they both keel over. That? That right there is a choice. Thankfully you have full control over both characters, but it all moves fast enough that micromanagement (and by that I mostly mean “chugging hella potions”) is a surprisingly dicey affair, at least at the early levels where I was at. It’s not an easy game, and that’s fine, but I sure was mashing quicksave aggressively.

As someone who only vaguely knew of Beyond Divinity as “the bad one where you have to escort quest for an entire game,” I think the biggest surprises were how much of it is just straight dungeon and how weird and open the skill system is on top of that. Skills are abstracted to the point of literally putting points into “Bladed Weapons, Accuracy” or “Elemental Projectile, Electric.” which gets the job done as far as allowing a strong amount of granularity with exactly zero flavor. That said, it’s not quite as open as it initially appears, since you have to buy access to more advanced skills from merchants or gain them from quests. It's... strange?

And to be clear, while it does seem like the game was dialing itself up to be a straightforward hack-n-slash type thing, there’s enough weird wrinkles that I’m not sure it continues like that the entire way. Did you know that, straight up there’s an optional area you can warp to with merchants and side dungeons and no direct connection to the story or the pace of the main game? Shit’s weird, man. Maybe not quite in a “there’s something here” sort of way, but in a “I would watch someone else play through this” sort of deal. It’s got a discordant tone, balancing between the goofball tongue-in-cheek silliness I mostly expect from pre-Original Sin 2 Divinity and the grim darkness of its setting? Like the voice acting is way too “good” to be taken seriously. Also did I mention the Kiril Pokrovsky soundtrack is just absolute fire? Because man I don’t think his work got appreciated nearly enough. Anyway Beyond Divinity huh. It’s a game.

Honestly if you are strapped for time I highly recommend the second video over the first. If you wanna hear two layabouts talking shit about Gary Gygax's son while vaguely hackyslash happens in the background, it's probably a good time?

Shadows Awakening

Developer:Games Farm

Release Date: September 4, 2018

Time Played: A little under two hours

Dubiosity: 1 out of 5

Personal Surprise Factor: High

Would I play more? Potentially.

How was I supposed to know that an action RPG with a forgettable title from a Slovakian developer called “Games Farm” was going to be the least dubious game I’ve played this season? I’m not going to claim Shadows Awakening is some revelatory hidden gem, but it seems like a remarkably solid action looter-scooter in the same vein as stuff like Victor Vran and The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing. Video games know what a Diablo is, so when they try to do something *other* then just make a very optimized version of “Diablo II but with X” you have my attention. I have no doubt Path of Exile is a good time, but fuck me if I’m gonna put in the hours (and repetitive stress injury aggravation) to get to the end game build guide insanity that people seem to care about.

Instead, Shadows Awakening offers the benefits of being an explicitly single-player, narrative-driven RPG. At the start, your protagonist (who is literally an ethereal soul-devouring demon) resurrects one of three ancient heroes who conveniently represent one of three character classes (Two Hand Axe Man, Archer Man, Magic Woman.) It seems like who you pick has a pretty direct influence on the initial setup of the game. Having picked Vaguely Scottish Fantasy Middle-Eastern Axe Man, I was greeted with a bunch of confused NPCs who asked why he wasn’t dead. I didn’t get much further than enacting vengeance on Axe Son who murdered Axe Dad, but the writing seemed passably generic (generically charming?) in a way that at least kept my interest for the stream introduction. That’s not always a given, given how close I was to wishing for release by the end of my Last Remnant stream.

More importantly, it means that this is a clicky-click looter game where you’re essentially a posse of one, being able to switch between the shadow demon and up to two other characters at any time, and seemingly being able to assemble a large-ish party of several characters who fall vaguely into the Axe Man, Bow Man, and Magic Lady holes. Oh did I mention that the shadow demon actually occupies a different plane of existence, so you’ll sometimes have to switch to it to like, break an enemy’s shield in the shadow plane before going back to axe walloping? And there’s a surprising level of puzzle solving to a lot of the dungeons too, between some traversal challenges between the physical and shadow realm, or straight up Resident Evil-ass lever pulling and rotation stuff.

Anyway, none of this is hardly revelatory, but being able (and encouraged) to switch between characters on the fly helps disrupt a lot of the banality that turns me off from this particular style of game, especially early on. Who’s to say if it delivers on that promise beyond like… two hours, but for now I can say, assuredly, that there’s nothing about this game that seems particularly dubious. I apologize for that, but rest assured, dear reader, that the next two games are absolute bangers in that category. I will not leave you wanting.

So I played a great deal of Divine Divinity and Beyond (and Ego Draconis, unfortunately) and I have to say I respect the hell out of what they tried to do even if both games were ultimately more bleh than good. Beyond coulda been on to something if the gameplay was far better balanced but that little bastard was a brutal game and for no good reason other than the swapping. It is a concept I would love to see them revisit with their modern sensibilities because it is such a weird standout in the genre and I think the two-character link is a brilliant idea if you didn't have to micromanage.

RIP Pokrovsky