So tell me about Risen....

I put this thread here, b/c I didn't want only ppl who like Risen to answer.

So anyway, I've been on a few forums for Arcania and a lot of ppl are saying that it's not good blah blah blah, BUT they also seem to be comparing it to Risen. All the ones that hate Arcania are saying "Well, I guess I'll just wait for Risen 2."

I like Arcania b/c I like the combat. I wish it was a little deeper with more factions, more crafting and what not. I wish there were more spells rather than have only 3.

I was looking for an RPG like Gothic 3 but I just could not get past the combat. Arcania has filled that gap somewhat, but everyone kept saying "Risen this....Risen that." So I checked out some game footage on youtube and found that it actually looks like what I'm looking for.

I hope that its a little deeper than Arcania and I hope its a little more open (exploration wise).

So tell me about Risen. If I wanted to buy it what could I expect.

Risen > Arcania.

What else did you need to know?

The greatest flaw with exploration in Risen is the structure of the first chapter. Depending on your initial choices you will soon enough get locked up in one of two areas where you will stay for several hours. Your choices here will result in what class you become for the rest of the game. If you are dead beat on playing a mage and wish to save points for it, you have a long walk ahead of you. Once you are past chapter 1, risen opens up and become what the Gothic series used to be with the same joy of exploration with a huge amount of handcrafted unique areas.

The second issue I have is that the spell system is poor compared to Gothic. You have three shoot-at-target spells that can be leveled up (fireball, bullet, ice). Most of the game you can afford one but even at max the spell won't get any good. Using the same spell over and over again for 30-40 hours gets boring and repetitive.

Thanks to how those three are diversified, they are all three rendered less fun than they could have been. Ice cause almost no damage and is intended to freeze monsters so you can bash them with melee, meaningless as a mage. The bullet is new to Risen, but it just seems to rob half of the advantages of the classic gothic fireball and thus create two poor spells when the classic fireball could have been enough. The bullet fast and have throwback but costs a lot of mana. The fireball is an area attack, but the area damage sucks and it have no throwback. The fireball is very slow but cheaper to throw. With good access to potions there's no reason to buy fireball at all, the fireball force you exploit the area or run like hell to take out tougher monsters even if you have level 10/10. The bullet tear down everything with little danger thanks to the throwback and is fast enough to deal with multiple opponents better than the fireball. I hope they drop the "magic bullet" on the scrapheap of gamedesign history and put more effort in spell diversity for Risen 2.

Beyond these issues, there's nothing that should stop you from grabbing Risen. There's just not enough games like that on the market. But grab it for PC, the 360 version looks horrible.

Actually, I found Ice magic to be very effective in Risen. I had Ice at 9/10 and Fire at 8/10 when I finished the game as a mage. I also had the 2nd strongest staff, and could do a decent amount of melee damage in conjunction with freezing the enemy.

Risen has a decent sized and nicely realized area to explore, but nowhere near G3 in size. In many ways its a return to the style of G1/G2. I think combat is definitely easier to handle than G3, but more challenging than Arcania (judging from A. Demo). Like in the G's you can easily encounter situations or monsters that are too tough for your current level. Its hard to know what you are looking for in combat. There is a demo for Risen, so the best would be to try it out yourself.

The combat in Risen was really quirky, and actually quite difficult at first. It's manageable once you get to know the enemy attack patterns, and can be quite fun. But even then it's quite easy to die. A lot.

I did anyway, it's possible that I just suck at the game I suppose. I just didnt remember dying as much in Gothic 1&2, that is unless I stumbled upon something way overpowered for my level.

Jemy speaks the truth about the lock down in regards to faction/class choice early on, it's worth keeping a few saves back in case you trip and land in the wrong character.

There are definitely issues with Risen.

My primary issue was the emphasis on dungeons, or rather - PB's implementation of them. Around 1/3 of the game takes place in EXTREMELY samey dungeons. Towards the end, it becomes an endless dungeon fight with the same annoying enemies. I had the best equipment and maxed out skills, and I still managed to die too frequently - and I'm not exactly inexperienced. It really became a chore, and took the game down a notch. This was primarily melee combat, so I can't comment on balance compared to magic/ranged. IIRC, one of the problems was the cramped areas down below. This kind of thing can happen to me, when I get tired of repetitive content - which tends to make me too impatient to fight with efficiency. The same thing happened towards the end of Dragon Age - with the ENDLESS predictable fights, and I ended up just running through the hordes.

I don't remember if the game had difficulty levels - but I probably played on "hard" if it did. I usually do.

Keep in mind that I LOVE dungeons, and when I heard a huge part of the game WOULD be dungeons, I thought it sounded absolutely great. So, if you don't really care for them - I guess it might be even worse.

Another issue is the ranged combat aspect. Now, I don't remember the details, but the release version had broken ranged combat, which resulted in no perceivable effect for your investment of points. I'm not sure if it was ever fixed, but even so - ranged combat just wasn't as varied or interesting as melee combat. I never tried magic much, so I can't comment on that.

The last big flaw is that it's just not big enough. I know others seem to think it's big (or even huge), but I don't. I remember exhausting the freely explorable content too soon, and this makes the game feel a bit linear and, well, not epic enough. I think it's about the same size as the original Gothic, which was also a bit too small. Maybe it's just that my expectations were out of whack, but I think it should have been at least 50% bigger to fully satisfy the "open-world" sensation.

Apart from that, I think Risen was simply TOO much like Gothic/Gothic 2 and not enough like Gothic 3. For all the problems Gothic 3 has, it's still the most interesting and ambitious Gothic since the first one.

With all that, though, Risen is still a GREAT game. I adore this specific subgenre, and Risen is one of the best ones - so make no mistake, the flaws above are significant - but they don't take away from the core PB design. They're great at what they do.

About Arcania, I'm really enjoying it myself. I'm ~15 hours into it - and I'm having fun. I guess I'm able to ignore the legacy and just enjoy it for the simple, casual Gothic that it is. I'm not going to comment in-depth until I've finished it, but so far - I don't think it's THAT far below Risen. Which is really strange, considering that I'm generally the one defending "hardcore" features and lamenting the casual approach. Maybe it's because the elements I like the most ARE in place, but I will comment on that in my inevitable review.

Check out the Risen review from here at the Watch; it should answer all your questions!!

Thanks guys. I downloaded the demo last night and will play it a little later on. One of you said that ranged combat was broken…..do all of you feel that way? Just wondering if there were other opinions on that.

Edit: I can't find the Risen review. I looked in the Risen forum but I didn't see anything that said "Review" on it. Maybe I'm just blind.

Risen Review

PS:
… and some old dungeon crawlers like me actually like the second half of Risen, too.

DudeNtheRoom said:

Thanks guys. I downloaded the demo last night and will play it a little later on. One of you said that ranged combat was broken…..do all of you feel that way? Just wondering if there were other opinions on that.

Edit: I can't find the Risen review. I looked in the Risen forum but I didn't see anything that said "Review" on it. Maybe I'm just blind.

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Maybe broken was too harsh a word. It was just not working as intended, but I forget exactly what was wrong.

I just remember thinking that I wouldn't invest in the skill, because of the info around the net was that it wasn't worth it - as you didn't actually get the effect worded in the description.

DArtagnan said:

Maybe broken was too harsh a word. It was just not working as intended, but I forget exactly what was wrong.

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Iirc, the crossbow skill was bugged. Each rank was supposed to shorten reload time, but first 7 or so ranks didn´t change anything. Only when player raised the skill high enough (8 or 9) it started to work as intended.

So, DudeNtheRoom, if you want to use ranged weaponry extensively, I´d rather recommend going with bows, just to be on a safe side.

Also, here´s the thread where I think we´ve posted most impressions:
http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8465

Does it get better? I tried the demo and the combat feels slow and clunky. I hate games that let you swing your melee weapon > while swinging the enemy hits you.

DudeNtheRoom said:

clunky

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That´s largely because you have low weapon skill.
It works like that in first two Gothics too. For example, without any investment into one-handed weapon skill, in Gothic 1 your character holds one handed weapons in both hands .
In Risen, if you invest points into sword skill for example, you´ll consecutively get counter parry, side attack, power attack etc, and at highest levels you´ll be even able to wield two handed swords in one hand.

DudeNtheRoom said:

Does it get better? I tried the demo and the combat feels slow and clunky. I hate games that let you swing your melee weapon > while swinging the enemy hits you.

Click to expand...

This will stay that way though. Combat in Risen revolves around timing your attacks and parades and moving so that that happens as little as possible. With better character skill (see above) it gets better, but it also takes a bit of learning on your side (player skill) to make it effective. I just played a little after a three month break, and I sucked Mostly because I forgot how to use parry breaking and combos effectively. And of course you will encounter new monsters with different movemenet patterns , that you will be required to learn, as you proceed in the game. I like this combat style, but I get the impression that you enjoy a much easier/actiony (say diablo-like) approach to combat. In that case Risen and the Gothics may not be for you.

If by "clunky" you mean that you can't button mash your way to victory, then yes, it's quite clunky.

Speaking of which, can someone jog my memory regarding combos, counterparade etc.? The manual has nothing on it.

Iirc, a new move/combo was added each time you added a rank to that skill. For instance, the first rank let me swing a 3 strike combo (I think), and then the 2nd or 3rd rank allowed me to parry an enemy's strike. I played a pure mage type character, and only put points in staff. I only went up to the 5th or 6th rank as I recall.

I think if you hover your mouse pointer over each rank, it gives a brief description.

You only get a description of what you gained with your current rank. And only a description of what your character can do, not a description what player actions are needed to do it. I remember the instructions were initially given when you learn the new skill level, but I simply forgot some of them.

Oooh.. I hate that. Just like Assassin's Creed. At least it had a training ground to practice right away to brand it onto my brain. If I find myself playing such a game, I plan to be ready to quickly scribble notes if I know a game's controls are only documented briefly in-game at level ups… You'd think the least they could do is provide a printed combo card like Severance….