Risen 2 - Preview @ Gamestar.de

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SasqWatch
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A 4-page previw for this game can be found at Gamestar.de - it is German, though, but World of Risen translated the preview - here's something about the start of the game:
Risen 2 continues fairly seamlessly from where its predecessor ended, towards the displeasure of our hero. He tosses and turns in his hammock, his head full to bursting with titanic monsters, doom, worries over not having enough money for Schnapps, and so on. All is truly bleak: parts of the world are ravaged, many lie slain. Following the Titan's downfall came its lackeys, chewing with disinterest on the world and then spitting it out again.
And here's something about choices:
Who we side with is our choice. But first we have to loot the place, and the guard won't budge. We try to persuade him with "Silvertongue," but his stubbornness leaves him unaffected. Either he's immune to persuasion, or our skills are lacking and need to be improved. We try to threaten him, only to have the dialogue end. What shall we do? The game proffers two possibilities. We test out the first by striking the guy down, and this works even without any sort of talent. And it gets better: after he's felled, a new option comes up: we can help the wounded boy. Thus he starts seeing us with new eyes, and decides to pay tribute to the pirates. Furthermore, he is thankful for our kind-heartedness, and lets us in.
More information.
 
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The developers have completely turned Risen 2 around. Fans have criticised Risen 1, on one hand, because of the lack of guidance at the beginning of the game, and on the other, because they have had to make important decisions far too early on.

That's an odd quote when you contrast it against the harshness of reviews about Dagerdale - where early complaints specifically charge that Daggerdale has an absence of important decisions and too much guidance.

I wonder who exactly complained about Risen 1 being too hard. Bizzare.

This makes sense: after all, the world of Risen 2 is far larger than that of its predecessor, bigger than Gothic 3's, even.

Wow. First I've heard of that.
 
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There are contradicting infos on the size. It's pretty safe to assume R2 will have a much bigger world than R1 if you combine all islands though.
 
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Wow, now I can be bored in a much bigger world. Great, that's what I always wanted :) Sorry, but imho, the main problem with Risen was, that the first chapter was nice and everything after that was boring as hell.
 
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I adored Risen, G1 & G2. Can't wait Risen2.
Problems? I don't have any problems with those games, sorry for disappointing some. Can't afford to nitpick when we get an awsome RPG once or twice during a whole year. So I'd rather keep nitpicking for nobrainer FPS clones.
 
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I wonder who exactly complained about Risen 1 being too hard. Bizzare.

I don't think anyone really complained about it being too hard but quite a few people did complain about shitty design decisions.

For example: If you're unlucky then you may be stuck with the Inquisition after just a few minutes into the game. If you run up the hill from the beach and take a wrong turn towards the guards of the Inquistion at that excavation site (I think it was) then you get arrested and teleported to the Inquisition stronghold. That moment you have joined the Inquisition. For good.

To add insult to injury, the game is (at least in the German version where the dialogue is ambiguous) not even telling you that you have run into a point-of-no-return situation where you are stuck with the Inquisition path.
It seems more like a situation where you are stuck with the Inquisition for the time being but that there may be a way to escape the stronghold or something like that (which by the way would be much more typical for a PB game anyway if they would not lock you into one certain path that early into the game).

So, I for one, welcome their decision to offer more guidance in the beginning so that like in the Gothics you get a chance to at least learn about the available factions before being force-tossed into one of them five minutes into the game. Otherwise I felt that Risen's tutorial (exploring the beach with Sarah) was sufficient. It was well integrated into the game.
The introduction to the gameplay was good but the guidance as far as this new world was concerned was not very well executed in my opinion. Risen should have had more NPC guides that take you to the various factions (like in the Gothics) so you could have gotten an overview of what the hell is going on in this new universe. Or maybe they should have put a kind of mentor NPC at your side that provides lore and guidance in the beginning (like good ol' Jack from the lighthouse who could have found us at the beach instead of this -IMHO- pretty forgettable Sarah chick).
Guidance does not equal bad. They certainly could have done a much better job to introduce us to this all new setting.
 
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It is lazy branching, yes. But at least it happens at the start (preemptive strike against multiple, identical playthroughs out the bag). Personally, I'd like to see more design decisions like this. Great points, though, Mor.
 
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I don't have a issue with guidance, but the problem is that most developers go about it the wrong way.

There's already far too much hand-holding in modern games, and it's really starting to kill the immersion factor for me. Especially since most of it is integrated into the games and can't be toggled off.

I'm tired of having to look at blinking quest markers and highlighted objectives on my HUD because the majority of today's gamers are apparently too fucking dumb to figure out anything on their own, and the majority of developers are too lazy to make those types of guidance optional.

Don't give us a mini-map with quest markers that can't be toggled off. Just have an NPC give us directions that get written in a journal. Everything else should be optional.
 
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I'm tired of having to look at blinking quest markers and highlighted objectives on my HUD

Next we'll start seeing blinking finger-pointing neon signs at childrens Easter egg hunts. :p
 
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I'm with JDR on this.

It's so rare to get a game that allows you to think for yourself these days, and when it does happen - it's REALLY refreshing.

There's no way people are really THAT stupid or lazy - and I think it's about perception of the audience more than reality. Give people the chance to experience a real challenge, before you write it off as non-profitable.

At the very least, give us the option to play it as we want to. I like the recent trend of making a "hardcore" setting, like they're going to do with Deus Ex 3. There's a difficulty called "Deus Ex" - which is basically the "genuine article". As long as I can have that, without all the highlighting bullshit - I'm happy.
 
I don't think anyone really complained about it being too hard but quite a few people did complain about shitty design decisions.

I don't disagree with anything you wrote - especially the gripe about how easily you could get sucked into the inquisition. In fact, I read about that before I played Risen and made sure to steer clear so that wouldn't happen - but you shouldn't have to read something outside the game for something like that.

But in my earlier post I had a different definition in mind for 'guidance.' I was thinking of guidance as being more about quest markers and other hand-holding 'features.'
 
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after all, the world of Risen 2 is far larger than that of its predecessor, bigger than Gothic 3's, even
This makes me a bit worried. With Gothic 3 the Piranhas bit off more than they could chew (IMO) and I'm really hoping we don't see another mess like G3 with R2. Sure, they were rushed by Jowood and forced to release G3 before they were ready, but I'd still argue the scope of the game was maybe a bit too much for the team of their size. As much as I'd love to love G3, it's still, even after years of community patching, a diamond in the rough. Here's hoping Risen 2 won't end up with the same fate.
 
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Also, after staring for days on endless yellow dunes in the desert or endless white mountains in the north, I don't really want anything like Gothic 3 again. Especially they just couldn't fill it with life like the old Gothics.
 
As for the world size, I read some other place that the game has three islands and that each island is approximately the size of the world in Risen 1. If you include the ocean surrounding the islands, i.e. the entire game world map, then I guess it's easy to believe that the world might be even bigger than Gothic 3 but I don't think that the actual explorable land mass is going to exceed Gothic 3.
 
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