Play as a literal creator-deity (who unfortunately created a weapon customization system that is far too limited and unfun)

This review is for console/PC versions of Asdivine Dios, which are quite generous in how much Shop currency the player may grind. The highest difficulty of Expert feels balanced around Shop currency purchases, especially a starter weapon for the main hero, stat boosters in general, and party-wide healing items to make up for the drastic lack of party-wide healing spells.

Another warning about Expert is that it makes the instant-win battle shortcut and/or spells or items that suppress weak enemies unusable in certain areas, no matter what the party’s level is. Even the prize from Maidame Curie’s damage challenge won’t stop enemies from attacking. The only way to turn off encounters in some endgame areas is to first lower the difficulty, and then cast a spell or use an item that temporarily blocks encounters. The good news is that equipment to halve the encounter rate or force encounters with every step is available.

Asdivine Dios is the third RPG in Exe-Create’s Asdivine series; the first two are Asdivine Saga and Asdivine Hearts. There is almost no story connection between Asdivie Dios and its predecessors, although sharp-eyed gamers will spot a certain Asdivine Hearts cameo in the background of various battles. Maidame Curie and Jolie Curie are present as well, and Maidame Curie has a significant story role.

Asdivine Dios does have a direct story connection to its sequel, Asdivine Menace. Even though Asdivine Menace recaps highlights from Asdivine Dios’ story (and even though Asdivine Menace has a much better weapon customization system), I strongly recommend playing Asdivine Dios first. Jumping into the sequel first will make the story much harder to follow.

Like all Asdivine games, Asdivine Dios has a lot of lighthearted “harem” comedy to take the edge off an otherwise serious quest to save the world. Unlike most RPGs, the main hero isn’t a youthful mortal. The protagonist Izayoi is literally the creator god of Asdivine, who watches over the land and sublimates the harmful “murk” created by negative human emotions.

Izayoi’s manifests in a body that resembles a handsome male mortal, but he’s really the consciousness of the Yggdrasil spirit tree which upholds the entire world. Izayoi’s three female companions aren’t mortal humans, either. They are spirits – the Light Spirit, the Shadow Spirit, and the Harmony Spirit. Each is the consciousness of a tree, and their lifespans are potentially measured in centuries. Since they are not gods, they are not necessarily immortal; it is implied that they are limited by the lifespans of their trees. Other tree-spirits exist as well.

Although the playable characters aren’t human, it doesn’t stop Asdivine Dios from having plenty of “harem comedy in overdrive” moments. The spirits all adore Izayoi and sometimes their private fantasies about him get a little lewd. Freya in particular has a very “dominating” personality (Izayoi’s outfit includes a collar that she gave him, although he doesn’t seem to know what wearing a collar can signify or even that it was a collar at all). While all of this is played purely for comedy, Asdivine Dios probably isn’t a game for children under ten without parental supervision.

There are multiple Normal Endings and multiple True Endings depending on which spirit or spirits Izayoi becomes close to. Occasional events offer a way to build trust with the spirits; another way to raise (or lower!) their trust is to buy them gifts from the Shop or the Arena Shop.

Beneath the lighthearted romantic comedy is a surprisingly serious plot laced with theology. An unexpected antagonist has disrupted the world’s balance and drastically reduced the power of Izayoi and the spirits. This forces Izayoi and the spirits to pretend to be humans, so that they can move among, speak to, and work with humans while they figure out how to resolve the crisis.

Izayoi’s view toward humans is that he does not interfere in their lives (the current crisis that depleted his power allows for an exception, as he needs to interact with humans to learn more about what is going on and equip himself for the threats ahead). In general, he does not manifest before humans, does not expect their worship or acknowledgment, and will never act to save them from harm. Neither will he ever act against them. He chooses to watch over the world and leave the humans entirely to their own devices.

The theological and practical implications of this are gradually explored as the story progresses. “Why doesn’t God act to save the innocent or prevent suffering?” is one of the oldest religious conundrums there is; this question is the heart and soul of Asdivine Dios’ story.

If the story is Asdivine Dios’ best point, then its battle/skill system is its mediocre point and its weapon customization system is its worst point.

The battle system is Exe-Create’s traditional turn-based formula, and disappointingly “blah” compared to the enjoyable refinement of Asdivine Cross. Nearly every powerful aspect of the Asdivine Cross system is lacking, leaving the player with far fewer tools. There are no characters who can learn monster skills; most party-wide buffs or heals are “Unison Abilities” with high costs and cooldowns; and even though physical skills are easier to use, most of them are very limited in power or usefulness until the endgame.

Worst of all, the weapon customization is flat-out terrible. Fusing weapons with the same enhancement raises the enhancement by an utterly pathetic 1/10 of the value on the fused weapon. Weapon enhancements can’t be transferred unless they’re built up to a whopping 50%. Delete fossils always target the rightmost weapon enhancement, and only the rightmost weapon enhancement for erasure. (Did you mistakenly transfer a good enhancement to a weapon with three lousy enhancements? Tough. Maybe you can reload.)

This is assuming one can find weapons with good enhancements at all. Even when equipping accessories to raise drop rates and weapon values, finding weapons with good enhancements is annoyingly random. I was unable to transfer any good stat-boosting enhancements to my favorite weapons until the endgame. Some characters just had to make do without anything good, even against the final postgame superboss.

Overall, Asdivine Dios is worth playing for its story. Its battle system is mediocre at best, but never dips all the way to “bad”. Just don’t pre-judge the weapon customization systems of other Asdivine or Kemco games based on how awful it is in this one.

Overall Pretty Good, but not Great

This is an overall pretty good RPG. The battle play is good and the battles are fair with some good skills. I do think that the female characters all crushing after the main male is kinda disturbing, but makes for some interesting conversations. The story does have some repeat value with the different endings for each character. The second playthrough will give some extra items or content backstories of the characters.

Standard Asdivine Experience

The controls are fine; they’re intuitive and natural enough.

Some thought and care went into the game’s story. The premise is that you are the deity of the world, but due to unforseen circumstances, you find yourself stripped of powers. Your ultimate goal is stop a pair of evildoers from destroying the world. While the plot itself is cliched, the beginning is at least atypical. The game’s main characters fit a lot of typical molds. That said, they are well-fleshed out and have a little depth. The game also has a lot of romantic dialogue and whatnot that somewhat detracts from the story.

The game’s mechanics are your fairly typical rpg game elements. You can cast spells that use MP, and you can also use skills. These skills require BP. Crafting is rather boring and fairly typical; you get items and can upgrade them using other items. There aren’t any special field mechanics; however, the warp flowers (seen late in the game) are somewhat unique.

The game seems fairly balanced. Spells and skills seem balanced relative to each other. While some bosses required some excessive grinding on Expert, it wasn’t overbearing, and the free game can be reasonably played on normal difficulty. One issue is that bosses tend to require much higher levels to kill than the surrounding field enemies. Another flaw in the game’s balance is that it almost trivial to maintain high health and high MP. Bosses generally kill you by either getting several more turns than you (their speed stat is somewhat ridiculous) or by instantly killing you (generally with magic). Lastly, gold is a bit too plentiful. It’s quite easy to gain millions and have nothing to spend it on.

The game is somewhat polished; however, there are some issues. For instance, when you set up battle tactics, most of the tactics state that items will never be used; however, this is only true for Pulverize and Onslaught. The others actually do use items, so this is in essence a bug. Mistranslations and typos, while uncommon, are noticable at times. There was also an occassion where trying to access options would result in a black screen. This was a major bug as it required you to reload from an earlier save to fix it.

Asdivine Dios - Review

Well, this game is not too good and not too bad either. It’s decent but some of the weaker points are the magic skills and rewards. You can get TOO MUCH gold from battles and there will be no shortage whatsoever. I wish there were more magic skills in the game as there are many empty slots. The dialogue sometimes can be cheap and the ones with humour in them are not always so funny.

juego con una historia muy adictiva

Well, new Asdivine game... and it's difficult to live up to Asdivine Heart.

Well, I’m not going to write some crazy thorough reviews. Just skip to Pros/cons.