With Divine Divinity being a 2D game, there needed to be a new set of animations hand drawn for each unique piece of equipment and for each character type. Practically, that meant that all items in a particular equipment class (ie light armour or large shields) looked the same when equipped on the character. The set of drawings for each type of animation (at various angles) take time to create and consume a lot of disk space. Beyond Divinity dropped to 2 CDs largely due to having 3D characters, which also allowed more and a greater variety of equipment types (though some people still prefer the handed-drawn look of 2D). 3D also allow for much more customizable characters, more variety in attack styles, etc.
I thought the actual character look was fine (except maybe for the feet), though not as refined as DD. After the very beginning of the game, though, I barely paid any attention to how the characters looked.
ED is using better graphics and 3D models, so there is much less of a compromise from the 'hand drawn' look to get the benefits of 3D.
I started off with 2 warriors in BD, and switched my hero to an archer full time (crossbow) towards the end of act 1 (when arrows were more plentiful, and there were less skeletons around, who were better dealt with by blunt melee weapons). Before that my hero used a bow occasionally, for the tougher fights.
Most of the time I had both characters selected and directed them to attack as one. My archer was set to aggressive, to automatically attack opponents within range (which acted as a bit of an early warning system, indicating the direction opponents were coming from).
I didn't have any problems, but playing again I would have the DK be the archer, and use a bow. Bows are based more on agility, so that stat could be boosted more than strength (the DK's armour class improves with his level, so unlike the hero he would not need as much strength to equip armour). Crossbows tend to do more damage (though late in the game I started finding better bows, and switched), but are a little slower and based more on strength.
There is a conformation in act 1 before turning hostile on friendly creatures. In later acts you can switch to peace mode when moving around towns, etc. Elsewhere, if you click and hold the mouse button down to direct your characters you are much less likely to accidentally attack something than if you repeatedly click on the ground to move them.
The skill system was a little more complicated than it needed to be in some cases, but it was also very customizable. I made some comparisons to DD in the topic
Was this a good game?.
