All the while, the player accrues gold, items, equipment, and "glory," or experience. The islanders are a load of stingy bastards, however, and scrabbling together enough gold and glory to improve the protagonist can be another chore by itself. Instead of levels, Risen 2 uses a system of skills and talents that is both confusing and overly puzzling. Talents, which increase basic damage or effectiveness, can be increased with vast amounts of glory. Skills, which include parries, ripostes, and voodoo curses, can only be improved by paying a specific trainer. Determining each talent's function as well its actual gameplay effects while trying to earn enough gold to learn skills makes for an unpleasant experience. As I increased my swordfighting skill to high levels toward the end of the game, I never felt much more powerful, but I feared to pursue other paths.
Since resources are scarce, I felt that any choice I made with my talents and skills would be the wrong one. As I progressed through the game, more and more seemed to be shut off from my abilities: I could never talk my way out of a fight, eventually every treasure chest was locked, and voodoo became underpowered and useless. The effect is unbelievably stifling. For a game that advertises a sense of freedom and choice in completing quests, this is deplorable. After allocating glory to talents and putting the protagonist on one path, the lack of resources closes off all other avenues. All this might be less of an issue if the combat wasn't so mercilessly, punishingly awful that the player needs every skill, ability, and gold piece he can muster.
I hear Arx calling me…
