RPGDX > Traditional RPGs

Review by js71 on 04-11-2003

Okay, I'm re-writing my review seeing as I've just beaten the game.
First off, I'd like to say that the plot twists in this masterpeice are so unexpected, so well thought-out, that at times they even made me swear out loud at my monitor in surprise.
That said, the game is lacking in the graphic department at times (as I said before), although with a story like this, it hardly detracts from the gameplay at all.
The music is very well-chosen, and while not original, suits the mood of the game very well.
All in all, give Diver Down a try-- I'm sure Grenideer could teach Square a thing or two about plot design.

Review by Rainer Deyke on 02-12-2003

This is one of the very few complete indie rpgs that achieve any kind of "epic" experience, and deserves attention for that alone. The plot, while linear, is both original and very well thought out. Events early in the game foreshadow events later in the game, events later in the game shed new light on events earlier in the game, and you're never quite sure what's going on until the end, all without being confusing.

There are a couple of factors that conspire to keep this game from getting a nine or a ten. The graphics are a mixed bunch: while some of them are very good, others are so bad that they detract from the overall experience. Combat is fairly difficult in the first half of the game, but becomes trivial in the second half. There are a couple of glitches in the game which will hopefully be fixed soon. The ending of the game also left me somewhat disappointed. I was expecting some new plot twist which would lead to some of the other locations that were previously mentioned in the game, but instead I got a couple of fairly easy boss fights and then the game ended.

Review by JonasKyratzes on 04-12-2003

Despite some flaws -both in programming and design- probably the best indie RPG currently out there. Congratulations to Grenideer and his team!

Pros: Some excellent graphics, excellent story, good writing, original world, detail, interesting design, great music

Cons: Some bad graphics, couple of bad design choices (such as running being mostly impossible), ripped music

Conclusion: GET IT!

Review by UscGradEray on 10-12-2003

Excellent game!
The graphics are great, except where the game still has placeholder programmer art. Unfortunately, the placeholder art is at certain key points of the game, where one expects better art than the rest of the time.
The music is well-chosen, but ripped.
Battles are very challenging and sometimes frustrating. There were plenty of times when a weak character was killed before I could react to heal him/her, even with defensive spells. Running works early in the game, but later it just gets me killed. In spite of all this, I think combat was well-designed. If I'm not yelling at the monitor now and then, the game isn't challenging.
The plot is great. It drives the game well; at times it seemed as though I wanted to see the mysteries' answers almost as much as Drek did.
After a minor .cfg file fix, it was pretty stable. I still had a very rare (3 times total, including once before the fix) random crash, but it didn't really affect things (after all, with the difficult battles, I always had a recent savegame).

Overall, I really enjoyed the game. I can't give it a perfect score because of the incomplete graphics and ripped music, but otherwise it excels.

Review by Spearor on 27-12-2003

This game got a real special feeling. The graphics aren't amazing but still very nice for an indie-rpg. And of course the cutscenes are really adding value to the game. And still keeping in mind that this game has a lot of gameplay of this quality is amazing, that's a lot of work and i praise the developers for such endurance.

Review by janus on 27-12-2003

The amount of this game I've been able to play so far is very good. Issues with Win2K and XP have been fixed, so I have no reservations about giving this a high score. :)

Review by Terry on 13-09-2004

Diver Down is probably the best indie-rpg of all time. Just download it. That's all there is to it.

Review by burguera on 25-10-2004

This is a very good game in most of their aspects. Storyline, background and characters are specially good. Diver Down has one of the best storylines I have seen in any game, free or commercial.

The weakest point are graphics. In most part of the game, graphics aren't good at all. There are some impressive cut scene graphics, but the most part of them are... horrible, sorry to say that.

Music is another weak point. It doesn't sound bad, but it is not the kind of music that can be expected in an epic-medieval game.

Finally, the game has some programming bugs. Some of them simply make the game to crash -as said in documentation-, but there is at least another one quite... annoying. There is one point in the game where Drek is expected to perform three actions. One of them involves buying a fast horse. As I did this before it was required, the program wasn't able to detect it, so, I couldn't continue playing and I had to start in an old saved game.

Concluding, anthough this game has poor graphics and music, and some programming bugs, it is a very good option for RPG lovers because of its excellent storyline.

Review by IkimashoZ on 09-02-2007

Wow. In a nutshell, "truly amazing". Why? That'll take some explaining.

I picked up this game shortly after beginning my own verge project. During the intervals in which coding my own game became too much, I would pick up DD and play a few hours until I had sufficiently rested and could continue coding.

Over the course of two months I worked through this game bit by bit, until inevitably, like a good book, the plot and, more importantly, the characters became so engaging, that it hurt to peel myself away from thier world and thier strife.

Diver Down has one of the most masterfully crafted stories of any games I have ever played, indie and commercial alike. It reads like a novel and feels like a major motion picture. The story truly blew me away. Like any game so hyped, I was expected to be let down. But, the story of Diver Down is epic, artful, and is also a better survey into the depths of human character than many novels that have attempted the same topic.

Graphically, the game is varied. There are quite a few beautifully drawn cutscenes and characters graphics. The vast majority of the game is on par with a Sega Genesis or Super NES game. In a few locations, placeholder art cells occur. However, by the time you reach these events in the game, you should already be so engrossed in the story that you really don't care.

Musically, Diver Down is also somewhat varied. Most of the musical themes in the game seem to achieve the mood that the game's designer intended, but often times it seems that this music was not designed for the game, and thus there are elements that the author would rather have not retained. Wander around one town for too long and you will inevitably be informed that "Mars needs women". What this had to do with Diver Down or its story, I have no idea.

In terms of design, I have only the highest reverence for this game. The game feels polished, and as though a whole lot of time and energy has gone not only into making sure that every aspect of the story is presented appropriately, but also into making a battle system that adds the right amount of challenge, and yet is still fun to play. As most RPG designers know, this balance is very difficult to achieve. And yet Diver Down pulls it off magnificently. A few menu issues aside (if a character on the main menu has more than a hundred vigor or spirit, the letters run over the display box, and that same window appears malformed if you examine the border carefully), as well as some other nitpicky things -- a slight inbalance of enemy power at the beginning of the game, for example -- Diver Down is as solid as any commercial RPG.

I truly enjoyed playing this game. I would recommend it to anyone who plays video games at all. I would probably even recommend it to someone who enjoys sci-fi or fantasy fiction.

In a nutshell, play this game. You won't regret it.