After quite a few hours in (maybe about a dozen) I have to say that I am not exactly a happy camper so far. At least to me this is one of PB's weakest offerings
so far (still hoping
).
First, there is the nonsensical intro (lots of WTFs indeed, especially considering the background of the entire series) and premise. It's just really weird and awkward to me. A major disappointment after the also extremely weak intro of Risen 2.
Why did they not provide a bit more background? What happened to the old nameless hero? Why are we on this treasure hunt? Who else is hunting for the treasure? What has happened since Risen 2?
Questions, questions, questions… and when you click on Patty hoping to get some clarity all you get is "let's talk later". Very poorly designed IMHO.
Then I might have made a mistake by first going to Takarigua where Patty was last seen according to Bones. I just hope that island is not an indication of things to come. Takarigua is a pretty huge disappointment.
There are a few boring fedex quests, a murder "mystery" which as you can see from the quotes is neither mysterious nor does the resolution have ANY type of consequence or does anyone even comment on the resolution or do you have any option to make the resolution more public or… well, nothing. Like all of the other quests on the islands it is completely meaningless. The only quest that has a real "consequence" is when you help Jack return to his lighthouse.
One quest has you search for a "hidden" treasure and you're only supposed to be able to retrieve it by transforming to bird form. Untrue on both accounts. Neither is the treasure hidden nor do you need a transformation scroll. Hop, hop (not even challenging) and you got it.
Oh, and as for the crystal gates that the shadows emerge from… umm… come on, they're not really doing "close all of the Oblivion gates on each island" thing here or are they?
The thieving system is completely inconsequential and inconsistent. In Puerto Sacarico (Inquisition Law & Order HQ!) you can just go right ahead and loot a chest in the middle of the main square in front of the barracks because there is a quest item inside but may God have mercy on your soul if you take an apple from a barrel in the same place.
Re thieving: The lockpicking mini game is almost a straight rip from ES4 (Oblivion) except that Oblivion's system had considerably more depth because there was a chance to break the lockpick depending on the difficulty level of the lock.
Not so here. If you have the required skill level then you can open any chest with a single unbreakable lockpick (yay me who bought three lockpicks from Jack, thinking they'd be breakable or at least "consumable" - good-bye, dear gold).
And then there's lots of grinding on the island. I have to say that I don't like the shadow world parts at all. It feels out of place and it's just grindy. I've cleared the entire island except for the high difficulty shadow-infested swamp area and it's really been quite a bit of a drag with such a low level character where you rely a lot on your companion (I'm playing on 'hard' BTW).
Melee combat sucks in my opinion (I will definitely stock up on massive magic/ranged skills later on) and the balance is all over the place where I can quite easily kill some 400 glory/each golems and rammers but then a bunch of 50 glory/each scavengers or monkeys can get me in real trouble.
So… I have moved on to Antigua now and hoping that things will improve rather massively.
So far it is very disappointing though. Meaningless quests, inconsistent, inconsequential thieving system, unbalanced, boring, grindy combat, nonsensical story (and premonitions of a lame derivative "close the demon gates" plot element), companions way overpowered.
Poor UI (thank you consoles) and inventory (why does Risen 3 still not have
basic functionality like a mouse-over compare option when you have a store window open? or maybe some colored text e.g. in dialogs indicating whether you meet or do not meet the required skill check… come on… that's
basics), exploration is so-so because once you figure out the layout you realize that it's not really all that open at all and so on and so on…
The only things this game has going for it so far is the typical PB style of exploration and some of the typical PB humor. Which, unfortunately, you can't take full advantage of since you get a negative soul rating for the asshole replies. And at least on this first playthrough I want to try to max positive soul points so I'm not sure I like the fact of effectively being forced into a certain style.
OK, here's to hoping that the other islands will provide more entertainment, more interesting quests, less grindy combat and at least some more meaningful c&c. - We shall see…