Not much of a review of the game IMHO. After reading this review I got the feeling that the reviewer took most of his information from the point of character creation and got as far as the Fergus fight then quit and wrote his review.
Reviews can reveal a lot about the biases and experience of the author. This review constantly refers to Diablo II, which arguably is not an RPG in the true sense, and has a very shallow storyline, quest system, and character development. Why does he not compare the Divinity games to the genre that they belong in? That genre, IMHO, is the Might&Magic/ Ultima / Wizardry type games. Those series of games were rich in storyline, quest systems, and character development.
Some of the comments in the review had me laughing at the author's understanding of how to play an RPG. Examples are:
it often feels like you’re on a wild goose chase looking for keys or solving bizarre little quests that have little or nothing to do with the story.
So I guess a quest like "My scouts have just informed me of an abomination in the graveyard" is more RPG-like than solving numerous problems to escape from a complicated dungeon.
In the first Act, you’ll face a foe that had me restart the game several times just to figure out good character development.
Ummm... what foe is that? Why did you have to restart so often (ever hear of saving the game)? What "good character development" can be so hard to figure out at the very beginning of the game, and where are you getting the skill and attribute points to do that development so early in the game?
I don’t mind a challenge, mind you, but I don’t like being frustrated within a few minutes of starting a game.
It sounds to me that the author does mind a challenge (like Diablo II is so challenging at the the beginning of the game - or at any point in the game for that matter) and lacks the skill, patience, and ability to solve problems that are expected in a good RPG.
Everything in the rewiew up to the "final thoughts" is info taken from the startup screen or the manual. I seriously doubt that this person got much further than that before running back to see what the abomination in the graveyard is all about for the umpteenth time.
The Diablo series shaped me as a gamer in both expectation of quality and fun.
I was laughing so hard at this point in the review. So the Diablo series (what series? There was the original and 3 expansions if you count Hellfire) shaped a gamer in what to expect from an RPG? It seems like such a shallow shaping.
Beyond Divinity is the sequel to a game that was presented by more than one review source as a "Diablo II killer." If that phrase is not one you’ve heard before then you’re more than likely new to gaming.
Pull-eeeze. Games have been referred to as "Diablo killers" since 1996, and why I will never understand. Diablo is a unique type of game, IMHO more like Doom or Duke Nukem, but it is not an RPG. It seems, from this type of review, that Diablo should be referred to as an "RPG killer", a game for people who want to play RPGs but can't.
I do still play Diablo from time to time (Killing Baal is one of the finest final battles in a computer game IMHO). But only when I am extremely bored and don't feel like thinking for while.
