Dragon Commander - Review Roundup #6

It's time for another review roundup for Dragon Commander.

Gamespot - 8/10

Divinity: Dragon Commander is a gem. The flaws are overshadowed by the role playing, the politics, the humor, and of course, the dragon in a jetpack. You may not have ever dreamed of a grand strategy game in which the generals are steampunk dragons, and you can marry a skeleton. Thankfully, someone at Larian did, and the end result is a lot of fun.

Destructoid - 7.5/10

Divinity: Dragon Commander is a prime example of a game being bigger than the sum of its parts. The RTS elements are a bit rough, but at least it's possible to control a dragon with a freaking jetpack to blow stuff up, while the boardgame-esque territory map requires players to think of the big picture. Talking to the colorful cast of NPCs aboard the Raven in between turns in single-player was easily one of my favorite non-dragon parts of the game and really highlights the writing and wit that the Divinity series has come to be known for. The tutorial needs a lot of work and the game isn't very friendly to colorblind players, but Divinity: Dragon Commander will certainly unleash the dragon strategist in all of us.

And Angry Joe has released his video review.



More information.

Angry Joe vids are hilarious and very informative!!

Angry Joe represents ATX very well. Glad we have him here.

Originally Posted by Melvil
Angry Joe represents ATX very well. Glad we have him here.

ATX?
Anyway, yeah, that was fun to watch - and good for Larian, the guy seems to have a huge following.

Dunno who does Angry Joe represent but this isn't the first hilarious video of his I've seen.

I am at middle of second chapter, and so far RTS part is sub part to competition.Gameplay is too fast for that amount of units with active abilities+Dragon form.
That said everything else is great.Characters are well written and how their attitude towards you and towards each other changes based on your choices is well done, their voice acting is good too.Choices you get are also very interesting.I always liked Larian humor and here is at it's best.I love the game despite not so good RTS battles.

Too fast even when slowed down?

Originally Posted by Gorath
Too fast even when slowed down?

You can slow down battles?It was probably not good idea to skip tutorial messages.
Even with that option RTS battles are still sub-par to competition.World map while it doesn't have lot of option has board game charm to it.

Seen in isolation the RTS may be subpar (but still quite OK, I'd say). But it doesn't make much sense to judge it in isolation.

i've only played a few RTS matches, and so far i've been obliterated. it seems like an interesting challenge.

I finished single player campaign few days ago - it took me around 15h. Its very enjoyable game - a great mix of RTS and RPG. I really like political choices u have to make and how they affect gameplay. Im not big fan of RTS but in this game im enjoying it very much. The dragon form in RTS battles is very clever invention and handy in dire situations. Story is predictable but still good enough to keep u interested. My verdict 8.7/10

Yeah, the RTS part is rather lackluster (and a bit buggy), but it serves pretty well as a pleasant diversion when viewed as an addition/extra seasoning to the actual highlights of the game: The great CnC dialogue and entertaining Risk like gameplay.

On slow speed (from the game's gameplay options) the RTS part is just mildly challenging at best and I guess that is why Larian chose the default speed. I doubt I'll up the speed on this playthrough, or any subsequent (and the game does have some pretty decent replayability due to its CnC and its plain down fun gaminess) unless Larian refines it a bit and it moves away from hectic micromanagement to something more strategic. I think the slow speed actually goes a bit on that direction as the timing of recruitment center acquisition, army placement and on a smaller extent unit choise/production timing is what usually wins the battles. That and judicious use of the dragon (and a minor use of unit special power here and there). I am still just on a few handful of turns in Chapter 2 though so that may change…

Not to sound as I am complaining though. Still very much entertained and surprised at how well the disparate parts flow into one another to create a very fun to play game. Good it came out on my vacation cause it had me play into the wee hours last night…

A solid 8 for me if we are playing the numbers game, 8.5 with a more refined RTS layer perhaps…

A new patch (1.0.33) is out.

Originally Posted by Larian
Hello everybody,

The following changes are now live on Steam. We are propagating the changes to the other digital platforms, so expect them to be there hopefully by tomorrow.

- custom campaign now has advanced game options
- custom campaign on Planet Earth should no longer crash
- custom campaign strategy maps are different from multiplayer maps on the same level (neutral units)
- custom campaign savegames fixed
- saving & loading of advanced game options fixed in custom campaign
- "it's impossible commander" audio spam and related FPS drop fixed
- UPNP fix should stop people from getting stuck on black screen when clicking multiplayer
- Fix for difficulty level not being taken correctly from game options without restarting game or loading savegame

The roll out of this update was slowed down because of the farfetching impact of a new feature we added that lets you change the game rules in the custom story campaign. This caused some complications but they are now fixed. By playing with these options you can literally turn Dragon Commander into a another game and we encourage you to experiment with all the settings. Also, let us know which ones you prefer. If enough of you concur on specific settings, we might turn them into a game mode.

It's worth pointing out that the story situations you encounter in this mode are completely randomized and are drawn from a larger pool of situations, We've also added different scenarios for you to play on. It's the perfect way to explore different choices and experience their consequences. In custom story campaign mode you can immediately select which princess you marry first, skipping the beginning of the game.

We are currently working on a larger update which contains a number of other improvements and also further boosts the AI's, taking into account the suggestions you've been making. We expect this update to be out in the not to distant future i.e. it's actually ready but we still need to test it.

If you are interested in helping us out with testing the updates, please send a mail to supportdc@larian.com with "DragonTester" in the subject line. We'll then send you a code with which you can access the updates once they are available.

Have fun!

""it's impossible commander" audio spam and related FPS drop fixed "

Thank goodness!!!!!!!

Though I think there's a bug in their patch notes - wasn't it "That's impossible" not "It's impossible"

Heh… boosting the AI would be nice. After climbing the learning curve it turns out to get somewhat easy.

(Btw. Who else made some bad decisions with the lizard queen? She finally turned out to be in the middle of some calibrations everytime I talked to her. Next playthrough, I'll decide by looks. Soo… why does the dwarven girl lack a beard?)