Risen What Happened to My Risen? Just Finished It

I will give the game an 82%
And I am being generous…

The first two chapters are amazing and you have this nice, open, free world to explore.

80-85% is fair imo. Nobody is going to disagree too much about your feelings for Chapters 3&4. It's unfortunate that the latter half of the game couldn't match the pace of the earlier chapters.

I did enjoy the level design of some of those later dungeons though.

JDR13 said:

80-85% is fair imo. Nobody is going to disagree too much about your feelings for Chapters 3&4. It's unfortunate that the latter half of the game couldn't match the pace of the earlier chapters.

I did enjoy the level design of some of those later dungeons though.

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Yes, puzzles are always good. But still no one ever gets it right. Whenever I see a "switch" in a dungeon and use it the outcome is always good.

I miss the old Ultima games where a "switch" can lead to bad things too...

donjn said:

I miss the old Ultima games where a "switch" can lead to bad things too…

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I was actually planning on playing UIX as soon as I finished Risen, but I've decided wait because I'm buying Dragon Age tomorrow.

WOW you really nailed the experience for me. No spoilers but I finished it 2 minutes ago and it was about as lame as it gets. Risen aka Whack-a-Lizard LOL that's hilarious and sadly true!

I have very mixed feelings about this. Gothic 1 had a great ending. Gothic 2 had a great puzzle experience with a so-so ending. Gothic 3 had a weak but nostalgic ending. Risen turned out to be a major GRIND leading up to platform jumper. It was actually pretty amusing but and sorta fun but completely out of place. Not to mention it forced you into a particular "class" after all that training!!!!

Sheesh. 75 percent over here and VERY behind Gothic 3 in my opinion, not because of the ending but because of the whack-a-lizard grind and the endless repeated GAG puzzles.

I still liked the game, but where I once thought I would do a replay as a mage, now I am not so sure.

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You don't have to restart from scratch. Just restore a save from a quest or two before you made your final comittment to join the Don, and make sure you do the Belschwur's kitchen quest, and the quest where you findd a room for that sick woman close to the back gate. Then do enough of the Harbour town quests for the order to make commandant Carlos call you in and ask you if you want to join his order.

If you had done the Belschwur quest and the sick woman quest at first, he will give you a letter of reccommendation and you will be given a choice to join the mages immediately upon entering the monastery.

This choice will lead to a couple of cool (IMO, anyway) quests in the monastery, and you could just do them up to the point where you have to start looking for the discs for the Inquisitor.

I was actually planning on playing UIX as soon as I finished Risen, but I've decided wait because I'm buying Dragon Age tomorrow.

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AARRGGH! *envy* I'm only getting my copy of DA on Friday….

I actually liked the dungeon/cave crawling portions of the final chapters because this was area the PB didn't focus on a lot in the previous Gothics. I welcomed the new puzzles, traps, buttons, etc. However, there SHOULD have been more to do in Ch 3./ Ch. 4 than just follow the main plot. That is my complaint.

elkston said:

I actually liked the dungeon/cave crawling portions of the final chapters because this was area the PB didn't focus on a lot in the previous Gothics. I welcomed the new puzzles, traps, buttons, etc. However, there SHOULD have been more to do in Ch 3./ Ch. 4 than just follow the main plot. That is my complaint.

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Yeah true and some of the dungeons were mind teasers.

It was nice to see some real puzzles for the first time since Ultima IX. Say what you want about Ultima IX, that game had almost no monsters in the dungeons, it was all very complicated puzzles; man I miss that.

elkston said:

I actually liked the dungeon/cave crawling portions of the final chapters because this was area the PB didn't focus on a lot in the previous Gothics. I welcomed the new puzzles, traps, buttons, etc. However, there SHOULD have been more to do in Ch 3./ Ch. 4 than just follow the main plot. That is my complaint.

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This is excatly how I felt

I found that Chapter 3 was actually the most boring one. Chapter 4 give you more to explore with all those different temples, sometimes new area and more than just lizards (but yes, probably too many lizards, too).

Overall, I find that Risen is a good game. Not «great» but at least a 8. A much more satisfying experience than Gothic3, at least.