2002 Divine Divinity - Awesome
2004 Beyond Divinity - Not awesome
2009 Divinity 2: Ego Draconis - Janky, fun
2010 Divinity 2: Flames of Vengeance (expansion) - Janky, definite improvement over base game
You might not expect much from a studio with this output but good budget management and steady income from smaller educational games means that Larian can now publish their own big games.
According to a new RPGWatch story, Larian's next game is dropping the janky action stuff and it'll be a turn-based PC RPG with Steam Workshop mod support. I made the thread because they mention Ultima 7 as a primary influence and the world would be a better place if more games used Ultima 7 as a starting point.
Anyway, the article's interesting and you should read it!
28 May 2012, 09:04 PM
Some Stupid Japanese Name
I played both divinity and divinity ii. Didnt get close to beating either, but i did like them.
28 May 2012, 09:05 PM
icarusfall
What the fuck is "janky"?
28 May 2012, 09:18 PM
epmode
Play a recent European RPG and you'll figure it out quickly.
Ambitious games that skimp on animation and combat in order to focus on other features. Limited budget + lots of big ideas. See: Risen
28 May 2012, 09:21 PM
Some Stupid Japanese Name
Two worlds II was great. Janky as hell to boot.
28 May 2012, 10:29 PM
bVork
What happened to Dragon Commander? I thought that was next from Larian.
Also, the original Divine Divinity took a lot of influence from Ultima VII as well. The interactivity of the world and the way in which dungeons were definitely akin to Origin's classic, even if the combat was straight-up Diablo. I think one of Ultima VII's few major flaws was the incredibly spastic nature of the combat (plus I just simply don't like Diablo-style combat), so I'm quite excited to see this new Divinity game take a turn-based approach.
Did you play Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga, epmode? They eliminated about 90% of the jank from the original release and the expansion. It's very solid.
I wonder how the protagonists will get utterly screwed over this time? That seems to be the ongoing trend with Divinity player characters...
28 May 2012, 11:05 PM
epmode
Ah, you might be right about Dragon Commander coming out first. I don't really know much about that one.
I've only played a little bit of Dragon Knight Saga since I never finished Ego Draconis. Maybe I should just skip ahead.
29 May 2012, 12:32 AM
bVork
Yes, yes you should. Especially since Dragon Knight Saga is just Ego Draconis and Flames of Vengeance in a new engine with a lot of tweaks and fixes.
29 May 2012, 01:07 AM
MechDeus
I need to play more Dragon Knight Saga, I think I put all of like ten minutes into it.
This new one being a turn-based PC RPG means I am immediately wary but that multiplayer conversation thing sounds pretty awesome.
29 May 2012, 02:35 AM
Almaci
Dragon commander is awesome and Divinity: Original Sin has a decent budget. Larian the last year invested a lot in technology so the motion cap and facial animation etcetera should be up to industry standard now.
