*Please note that as of January 2013, Divina is no longer in operation. I repeat, Divina has shut down, so this review is no longer of any worth besides for entertainment purposes only.*
Okay, I've never reviewed anything before, so bear with me here!
I just started playing Divina Online today, and so far, I'm really, really liking it!
It's really nice and colorful, and the animation is great, in my opinion (if you don't like anime-styled graphics, then it may not be for you, though).
The controls are fluid, and, for the most part, simple to remember. The major exception there being that (J) opens your Quests, which is obnoxious.
There are five main types of classes to choose from: Knights, Assassins, Clerics, Machinists, and Sorcerers. The one picture is a Cleric. Later on, you choose a specialty.
Knights can become Guardians or Destroyers. Guardians are tanks, while Destroyers appear to be decent solo fighters. Assassins can specialize in Stealth or Ninjutsu. Both specializations appear to be pure DPS, although Ninjutsu seems to have some support abilities added in there. Clerics can specialize in Light Magic or Dark Magic. Light Magic Clerics are healers, while Dark Magic Clerics can be considered DPS, but can do some healing as well, it seems. Machinists can be Artillerists or Trap Experts. They're both DPS, but, from the descriptions on the site, Trap Experts seem more desirable for parties (teams?). Finally, Sorcerers can specialize in Destructive Magic or Mysterious Magic. Destructive Sorcerers are DPS, and Mysterious Sorcerers specialize in crowd control.
There's quite a few interesting features in Divina. For one, you get a sidekick. If you look next to my character in the picture up there, you'll see a little bunny. That's a sidekick. You get to choose between a Gloomy Bunny and a Sweet Mouse (I think that was what it was called) in an early quest. You have to level it up and train it, but it helps you in battle.
Another unique thing about Divina is your Divine Wheel. As far as I can tell, this is where you get your stats from, as clothes appear to just be for show. You get cores and keys as you level, but you also have a chance of picking up rare ones as monster drops in the form of unappraised items. Once you get it appraised, it has a possibility of turning into a core, key, or something else (I think I got a necklace from one, once?).
The controls themselves are pretty simple and familiar. You can assigns skills and food to keys 1 through =, and you have a second bar for Shift plus keys 1 through =. Personally, after playing WoW for so long, it takes a bit of practice to get back into the habit of pressing (I) to open my inventory rather than (B), but the rest of the controls are very similar to other online games. Well, except your Quest Window. You press (J) for that, which I think is silly~
Character customization, which is my favorite thing ever, is pretty nice in this game. At character creation, you have a quite a few different faces and a couple hairstyles to choose from. You can also change the color of your hair and even the color of your default outfit! That I liked, in case you can't tell. An interesting thing about this game is that you can select your character's voice, all of which are done by fairly well-known voice actors and actresses. I personally get a little giggle whenever I talk to an NPC who's speaking with Tamaki Suoh's voice from Ouran High School Host Club!
There are fairly frequent events to participate in. The only ones I've done so far are Knowledge Master games, which go on a couple times a day. The basic idea of them is to correctly answer as many questions as you can. These questions are often near-impossible if you don't know your anime, movies, history, etc. So far, I've gotten questions along the lines of "Sora no Otoshimono: Who created the first Angeloids?" "When did Harry Potter first meet Draco Malfoy?" and "What is the capital of Canada?". Luckily, these are multiple choice, which makes it a tiny bit easier on you, but not much. There are special achievements for people who can do the near impossible and get most of the questions right. I don't think anyone's ever actually done it though. I know a lot of people in the game complain about Knowledge Master. Personally, I love it!
Like a lot of free MMORPGs, you do have to assign your stats. In this game, you have to pick between STR, CON, DEX, PER, SPI, and INT. If I'm not mistaken, these are short for Strength, Constituion, Dextarity, Perception, Spirit, and Intelligence. Depending on your class, you'll need different stats. Upon doing some research, for example, I know that I need to mainly worry about Spirit, but I also need some Perception as part of my Dark Magic Cleric build.
You can learn new skills from the skill trainer every even-numbered level. By new skills, I mean new skills and more advanced levels of your old skills; and yes, it does cost in-game money to upgrade your current skills.
There is PvP. I know nothing about it. I do, however, know that there is a seperate server channel for it, but you don't have to create a new character for it, as far as I know. There appears to be two PvE channels and one PvP channel.
As for leveling, it's your typical grinding game, of course. The nice thing is that you're grinding quests rather than just straight grinding. Quests are significantly easier to do, if a bit monotonous.
Some other definite pluses to this game include a fairly large inventory space with a seperate area for quest items, very nice battle animations, cute enemies, a Norse mythology-themed plot, a class-specific chat channel, a fairly friendly community, an automatic-running system to NPCs, and a monster research system which allows you to transform into monsters after defeating enough of them. Oh, and you don't have to sit down to recover MP; just pop a Mineral Water, and you can still run as it recovers your MP, as long as you don't enter combat.
Some negatives that I've seen so far are the stat-less (?) clothing, unappraised items taking up a ton of bagspace, how when you click on a monster your sidekick will go attack it even if you didn't mean to click it, how the maps don't show entrance/exit portals, how the maps don't show you where monsters are, how your character's adoptive father is a giant frog god, and the pink mole that pops up whenever you click on the screen to move. I hate moles.
Also, and I'm sure it varies whether or not this is a negative or a positive...your character talks A LOT. Personally, I'm using voice "Michelle Ruff A," so my Cleric is constantly saying "I can't!" "Um, shouldn't we be going now?" "This will do it." "Hya!" etc. The "I can't!"s are occasionally obnoxious if I'm not paying close attention to my Burning Soul's cooldown, and if you stand still for too long, she says "Um, shouldn't we be going now?" It's sometimes neat, sometimes...not so much.
All in all, I really love this game, and I recommend that anyone looking for a new free MMO to check it out! If you want to find me in game, I go by Cardboard, and I'm only ever on the PvE servers.
Also, yes, for those of you wondering from the picture, my sidekick's name is Tsundere. Boyfriend named it.
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