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I played the original Risen and I found that game to be tough, challenging yet strangely addicting. Risen 2 follows in the footsteps of the original with some welcome improvements but not so many improvements as to make it a "cake walk" or a by-the-numbers adventure.
Every RPG has its own set of rules and game mechanics. For example The Witcher's gameplay is radically different from Skyrim which in turn is different from Mass Effect. This is fact, Risen (parts 1 and 2) is no exception, in the world of Risen you are presented with a sandbox world to explore and remember, much like you would your own neighborhood.
There are no magical beams of light to guide you from place to place; you must remember locals, paths, shortcuts, villages, towns and landmarks to get your bearings.
A vast majorities of quest will be giving to you via conversations you will have with the populace, pay attention to what they say, because buried in their conversation may be directions to how to get to where you are headed.
Risen 2 makes an improvement on the map department since Risen 1's map was cryptic matter to understand.
Speaking of maps, in the world of Risen you are given nothing. You must acquire everything you need. Food, tools, armor/gear, weapons and yes even maps.
This can be frustrating, especially early on in the game since you do not know where you are, you have no lay of the land and you can't make heads or tails of your location. However, this is part of the intrigue of the game. Finding your own way. Won't be long before you recognize a stretch of beach, a rotting stump and a turn of the road, perhaps a cave or a temple with untold treasures to loot.
Risen 2 has a fast travel system, so once you find a local map and find key, important landmarks you may travel to these locations quickly, shortening your travel time.
Why is Risen 2 a feature rich RPG?
What the game lacks in graphical horse power, it more than makes up in features and excellent voice work.
I found myself laughing quite a few times listening to the conversations these the NPC pirates would have about their raids, or who they wanted to "plow".
The developers have done an excellent job of keeping each encounter with NPC and major villains/characters fresh and distinct even if some of the character assets get reused from time to time.
So in short ACES on the voice work.
Few RPG allow for so many different ways to modify and enhance your character. Sadly Risen 2 doesn't allow for character creation (you play the hero from Risen 1), but you can "learn" all kinds of interesting techniques and abilities.
LEARNING is the key word in the universe of Risen (1 and 2), you do not simply level up (by spending glory points) and magically gain the ability to parry blows, or the skills to pick locks.
Instead, you must find NPC throughout the world that are willing to part with their knowledge and teach you the necessary skills for your character to start to form into a complete person. Want to be better at lock-picking? then find the NPC that will part with this knowledge and ask him/her to teach it to you. Want to be better at piercing weapons rather than slashing? then find the appropriate mentor and pay him/her for their time.
This brings up an interesting ebb and flow of always searching for loot, treasure, stealing, hunting, fighting, exploring and quest solving in the hopes that you can advance just one more skill.
Risen 2 ads to the fun by streamlining and making things move in a more coherent, brisk pace. I found myself MUCH more enthralled in this game than in part 1 and I found part 1 captivating. There is a more deliberate and focused direction in Risen 2, you will become a captain, earn a crew and go where you please in no time.
LOW TIDES
If Risen 2 has an element which needed special attention it would have to be combat. as it is, it's "serviceable". However, the more you advance your combat skills and the better the quality of your weapons will directly affect and dictate the outcome in most combat encounters, dramatically.
Risen 2 has a 1 button combat system (primarily) and although this may be off putting to some, it is by no means silly or ill conceived, just not responsive enough. There are plenty of occasions where an enemy can simply spam you with hits and you will be hard pressed to get in a hit, to say nothing of turning around and running. The game simply does not react to inputs fast enough.
You will learn moves such as Parry, Riposte, and such but implementing those moves will be another matter altogether different. I'm 45 hours in and I have yet to find the correct timing to parry anyone.
Your movements are clunky while your enemies are surprisingly agile. This spells trouble with a capital T.
Yet even with the combat snafu (which I am positive can be relieved much by a good patch) the game is still addicting and fun.
It allows you to live your pirate dreams and fantasies and it does it without insulting the player.
In fact I am not even sure if this game would have benefited if the engine used was Unreal (or something equivalent). Sure it would have looked prettier, but perhaps we would not have all these other wonderful ways of interacting in this world as we do now. Legendary weapons, Voodoo, forging, distillery (for making rum and grog ~ you'll NEED IT!), gunsmithing you name it, it's in this game.
Come to Risen with an open mind and realize not all the best games get all the hoopla. You just might be surprised.
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This game had potential. It was funny, fun, etc. The problem is that, whereas they make it seem like a sandbox rpg game, it really isn't. You get the best clothing within the first hour of gameplay and then don't get anything else. The combat engine is cool and you start learning a lot of cool tricks, but gets repetitive after you get the best swords... You really get the feeling that they rushed this game out as quickly as they could.
Pick it up used, but don't spend full price.
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I'm not calling this a review since i've only put a little over 4 hrs into the game but I wanted to post my initial thoughts about it as a contrast to the bad reviews that have already popped up, my feelings could obviously change the further into the game I get and i'll be sure to update as they do but for now i'm really enjoying it.
I'll start with the combat since that seems to be where the most complaints have come from, it is what it is, I don't think its terrible just very bare bones at first, when you start out all you can do is just mash x over and over and over again until the enemy is dead. You have no other skills until you start to visit trainers and unlock them. I've gotten a pistol and learned how to kick from a trainer last night so now I can throw a kick and gun shot into the mix. I honestly haven't found the combat to be all that difficult, i've had no problems with animals or creatures, stun locking me to death or anything, in fact the only enemies i've had give me a hard time have been a few of the trainers that have kicked my butt so I don't know if they have lowered the difficulty for the console version but i've had little trouble so far. Obviously I can see why a lot of people would not enjoy the combat as it seems that it will take a very long time to put together a good compliment of skills to make you feel like your doing more than just spamming X.
Graphics seem to range from mediocre with some really awkward character animations to really quite nice looking, I thought the first island you go to has a really nice look to it however in a few areas that seemed very graphics intensive the frame rate stutters a bit so I don't know if thats do to poor programing or just the 360 showing its age and struggling. Overall I think it has a nice look and runs pretty well for the most part, I never experienced any bugs, glitches or freezes in my 4 hours with it last night that normally accompany these types of games on release so I was very happy about that. I do have the game installed to my hard drive so I don't know if it performs worse when it isn't so I would keep that in mind.
The starter island has a nice size to it, not to big and not to small, you can run off and explore without being afraid of getting lost which I liked. There are caves to explore and treasure chests scattered all over to loot. It has fast travel and a well organized menu system where everything is easy to find allthough some of the writing for explanations is pretty small which has caused me to have to lean close to the tv a few times to read it. I like the leveling up/glory system quite a bit as well.
Sure it has some minor annoyances like the frame rate issues, awkward animations, small writing, why do I have to pay someone 500 gold to teach me how to kick, its kicking for the love of pete, how complicated can it be?! Oh and I love it when I place my gun directly against an enemies forhead only to miss! But these were all like I said minor annoyances that did not dampen my enjoyment one bit. The dialogue can be quite humorus and the voice acting is mostly solid. But then again what do I know, I love everything so take all of this with a grain of salt.
!!!!UPDATE!!!!: I'm a little over 11 hours into the game now so pretty far into the 2nd island, i'm still very much enjoying myself but I did run into my first creatures that have given me problems. There are a few animals on the 2nd island that attack so fast and frequently that getting stun locked to death is not out of the question, fortunately that has not happened to me, i've come close but i've always had enough healing items to outlast them or had companions to assist me. There does seem to be a bit of trial and error in knowing which enemies can be handled easily and which ones might be a chore to take down but you learn very quickly which is which and you learn tricks to help you deal with the ones that are a hassle, for instance you never seem to be very far from help so if you are near a city or have recently passed by a guard or natives in the wild you can agro the tougher enemies into chasing you back to where the friendlies were and they will assist you in taking them down.
This may sound a bit aggravating but don't worry because at this point in the game help is on the away. You will come to a point where you will have to choose between using guns or voodoo. I went the gun route so now I have gained the ability and access to muskeets which has once again made the game much easier are far more enjoyable. Those pesky creatures that before were pecking you to death can now be dispatched at a safe distance where stun locking isn't even an option for them. So now what I do is switch to my muskeet to deal with those enemies that are a hassle like the firebirds and gouls then back to my sword for enemies that are easily dispatched by it like boars and monkeys to avoid wasting ammo. Its a shame then that it takes almost 10 hours to get to the point where you can use guns or voodoo, they make the game so much better, so much easier and so much more fun but it sounds like many people are just going to give up before they reach that point and its that point that I really feel like the game gets going.
!!!!!UPDATE 2!!!!! I'm a little over 15 hours in now, I completed my first big boss battle against a giant rock titan which was fairly simple but still pretty well done, I wasn't expecting to run into any massive bosses so that was a nice surprise. I've gained access too my own ship now so the game has really opened up allowing me to freely travel between the islands though not all islands are currently open to me. Combat also continues to get better as I continue to unlock new skills, the newest addition to my repertoire is the ability to do power attacks, I can now hold down the X button at different times in my combos to perform more devestating attacks which has added a much needed new layer to the sword play. Muskeets continue to be a massive lifesaver, i'm sure voodoo has its benefits but i'm really glad I went with guns. I will say that I did encounter my first freeze during a load screen, completely locked up my 360 so I had to shut it down but 1 time in 15 hours is still way better than Skyrim which I lost count on how many times it locked up on me.
!!!!!UPDATE 3!!!!! 30 hours into the game and while i'm still loving it I will say that technical issues become more of a problem the further into the game you go, its almost like maybe they were running out of time so they had to start rushing so quality control started to take a hit. I've experienced several freeze's now, only once during actual gameplay though, the freeze always seems to happen when moving between islands and trying to load up the new location, its not a big deal though, it doesn't happen frequently and i've just gotten into the habit of saving before travaling to a new destination. The frame rate seems to take a hit whenever it rains so thats been a bit annoying but my biggest complaint of all would be that in the Treasure Island dlc the pirate Harlock seems to have glitched out and not appeard on the beach for me to deal with his setting me up, oh well, I guess sailing away and leaving him stranded there is punishment enough. Like I said though despite these issues i'm still very much enjoying the game. I love the main character, i've nearly maxed out my gun skills so now i'm blasting my way though enemies without much oposition. I met the gnomes which were pretty darn funny and i'm really looking forward to see how it all turns out.
!!!!!Final Update!!!!! So I beat the game yesterday, my play time was just shy of 40 hours and that was with doing every single sidequest I came across as well as both dlc's so for an open world rpg it was a little on the short side but still a very satisfying experience that I would highly recommend. There is no post game though so make sure you do everything you want to before heading to the final battle or keep a save file handy if you want to go back and do more since once you've dealt with the final boss its all over. The story was entertaing, the voice acting well done and the combat really a cake walk after those first few tough hours but like I said I went with guns so I can't comment on the voodoo so if you go that route your experience will probably be vastly different.
Honest reviews on Risen 2: Dark Waters - Complete Package - Xbox 360 (Special Edition)
Great game, alot of fun. Better than the first game which I also liked. A fun filled pirate world to explore.
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A BIG improvement over Risen 1. I'll address each of the two major improvements separately:
MUCH IMPROVED GRAPHICS
While the first game wasn't exactly hideous, per se, it certainly wasn't going to win any awards. This game, however, portrays its island jungle setting in a more convincing matter. Character models are greatly improved, as are weather effects. Some things will have you rolling your eyes at the lack of attention to detail, but way less than last time around. To top it off, the art direction (pirate themed EVERYTHING) makes for a more unique feel as opposed to the somewhat generic look of the last game.
SOMEWHAT IMPROVED GAMEPLAY
The melee combat of the first game could be summarized as such: "Mash the attack button." This game has done away with some of the more redundant combat ideas and replaced them with simpler, easier to execute concepts that mean you'll be actually using them. The XP mechanic is also much simpler and effective, meaning that you'll actually get stronger in the ways you want to, making things easier on you. I mean, who wants to be a crappy swordsman just because you can't find a trainer? In Risen 2, that's a much smaller issue. In addition, getting hit in the back all the time will be less of a worry, as the game has added a much more fleshed out companion system, meaning you'll be dealing with things more effective as a duo, most of the time.
If you liked the first, you'll like this one, and if you didn't like the first, you might STILL like this one due to its improvements. If you can stomach the full asking price, maybe just rent it, or wait for it to come down on the price. I think it's worth playing, and I think you'll agree.
