I thought Risen was pretty awesome. Sure, it was almost a remake of Gothic 2, but it did also refine some things, like combat, and successfully introduced new ones, like puzzle elements. About combat, I found it to be very good…I actually can't think of any RPGs with a better real-time combat system. I've played through the game twice so far, once as a mage and once as a fighter. Both were very satisfying for me.
Magic is quite different from other games. You basically have two types of magic: rune magic and "combat magic". Rune magic is mostly spells that lets you do things like levitate, use telekinesis, or transform into another creature. In other words, it's "utility magic", especially useful for puzzles. "Combat magic" consists of three types of magical attacks, which can be powered up to increase damage and effects. Note that this is from memory, so I may not be 100% accurate:
Fire - high damage, damage over time. Higher levels add splash damage.
Ice - freezes enemies, possibly damage over time. Higher levels lets you freeze more powerful enemies, for a longer period of time. Extremely useful for crowd control, and looks awesome.
Crystal - very fast attack rate (which gets faster with higher levels), it's like a magic machine-gun. I think it might have knock-back. I didn't use it much, since it drained my mana very quickly.
Really, I thought this system was pretty awesome. Sure, having a large number of attack spells can be fun too, but here, they found three basic concepts and refined them. I think the increased focus on these three pays off.
As for melee combat, my memory is somewhat blurrier, but I found that too to be pretty excellent. You need to think about how you position yourself, you need to time your attacks, know when to block and dodge. I though it felt like a refined version of Gothic 2 combat. Gaining levels with a certain type of weapon mostly unlocks new moves, which I found to be satisfying, as well as making sense. When reaching certain levels, something awesome started to happen though: There are three classes of swords: one-hander, bastard sword, two-hander (normal, big, and ridiculously big). Initially, you need two hands two wield anything larger than a one-hander. However, upon reaching a certain skill level, you will be able to wield bastard swords with one hand. And upon reaching another skill level, you can wield any sword in the game with just one hand. You should be feeling pretty awesome at that point.
Anyway, to sum up about combat: I though it was excellent. It's satisfying, challenging, and requires player skill and strategy. I got exciting and challenging fights throughout the game both when playing as a mage and as a warrior. In-game skills seem to be refined, and leveling them up feels meaningful.
The rest of the game shows similar polish. The game world is great, beautiful and great fun to explore, as you'd expect from a Piranha Bytes game. It may not rival that of Gothic 3, of course, but one the plus side, they actually managed to finish this game.
NPCs are well made and feel interesting and authentic, as they were in the old Gothics. They also have some pretty high class voice actors, most notably John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) and Andy Serkis (Gollum). The story is not bad either. It may not change your life, but it does its job.
Kay
