Wrong About Risen 2
 

Earlier this year when Risen 2 came out I started and stopped playing two different times, about a month apart. Each time I couldn't seem to get 'into' the game and then wrote it off as 'meh I don't really like it.'

But for whatever reason, I came back to it again about 3 days ago and now I'm hooked. I think my first two tries I just didn't really like how 'piratey' the game was and also I didn't feel interested in the character customization structure (attributes, talents, skills) or terminology (blood = hp, glory ~ exp.).

Also, a lot of the grumbling over the game in its early days didn't help - a lot of attention on DLC being 'built into' the main game and being otherwise too short. I think all of that got me distracted and I just played other games like Skyrim.

My recent fresh look at Risen 2 sees a game more similar to Risen 1 than I thought and it is quite a lot of fun. It has the same addictive quality as Gothic 1 and 2.

There are a few things I don't like. I don't like the fade away into a new screen when opening chests or crafting - not a big deal but I just don't like it. I prefer a large continuous landmass over smaller ones masquerading as islands - though I suppose that's to aid in memory management of consoles that run this game too. But at least the first two islands are fairly sizeable (I'm only on the 2nd island).

One of my bigger gripes so far is the quests early on on the 2nd island where stealbeard guides you to the tribal and inquisition camps. The distances were too far and really cramped my style of slow and methodical exploration from a starting point. Before I knew it, I was running across the entire island following stealbeard. In Risen 1, where the first male NPC you meet will show you two locations, but each one is just a short run from where you find the male NPC. I was expecting something like this, not running across the entire island.

That said, I am having a lot of fun with this game and I am finding it far more engaging than Skyrim (though I do like Skyrim). I have always loved the strong narrative of PB games and how densely they fill their worlds with content.

The only problem is, sorry for spoiling - the game, when you finish it, feels TOO SHORT!

Why? Because DS wanted such game, And DS wanted "a short" game because?
Because per some sources 99% or such stupid overpumped percent of players never finish a game with many hours of gameplay
But they never actually checked what games get dumped before a player finishes them. To them there is no difference between a real contentfilled RPG and endless mobrespawn grinder so-called action whatever genre.

Well here's to hoping that the kickstarter phenomena can change all that…

I spent around 60 hours in Risen 2, so it's definitely not that short. Unless you're comparing it to something like TES.

Glad to hear you're enjoying it. I think it's quite underrated myself. I liked it a lot, and that was even before the patch that added dodging and blocking which improved monster combat immensely.

I never really liked Risen2 as much as I did Risen1 or Gothic 1/2, by the time Risen2 came out I played though it until just before the last mission but never got around to finishing it, the thing that really killed it for me was the lack of a proper timeline with in the game, the reviews sold it as a shorter more story driven game so I had hoped for something like Gothic2 where every new chapter brought ton of new stuff and really felt like it was advancing the time, sure there where a few things that overlaped but to me risen2 felt completely static with each chapter/island being way to neatly split up.

Yeah I hear you. When I hear other people claim a game is 'short' I know that is usually subjective. If you played Risen 2 for 60 hours I'd say that is decent.

I've just arrived at island #2 and according to steam I have 22 hours into the game. If you subtract about 10 hours from my prior first two attempts that means I spent 10 hours on island one and 2 hours on island two. Island 2 seems a lot bigger than the first and I predict I will be there for a while.

I don't rush these kind of games. I'm a very methodical explorer bent on finding every nook and cranny and then recanvasing sometimes 2 or 3 times 'just to be sure.'

I enjoyed Risen 2 quite a lot, but as I've pointed out previously - I was hoping it was going to be the "Gothic 2" of the Risen franchise. All they really had to do in my opinion was tweak the formula from Risen, just like they did Gothic 1 -> 2, but they changed way more than that.

It will be interesting to see what they do next - anyone have an idea what they're working on?

Yep. Interestingly/weirdly enough, they´ve managed to fix what I consider to be two main flaws in Risen (rather flavourless setting and frontloaded quest content), but on the other hand botched some of the game´s biggest strengths (combat, world design, dungeon complexity).
I consider Risen 2 to be a good game overall, but for the above negatives it also happens to be the most disappointing one I´ve played this year.

TES? No.
Actually, I'm comparing it to something like G3. 60 hours for the first run was in my case too, and it felt too short.

In other words, you're comparing it to another very long game.

Suffice to say, your idea of "short" is probably different than most people's if you think 60 hours falls into that category.

I never finished this…. I wonder if some decent balance mods have been released. Firearms were WAY too powerful when I played it.

Overall, I think it has the edge on Risen.

I felt the balance was skewed anyways because of the companions. In the early going, where PB's games are usually tough as nails, you could win the majority of battles by simply letting Patty take the brunt of the attacks. Hopefully that's the last we'll see of that formula.

No. I'm comparing it to another PB game. Short or long doesn't matter, it's from PB.

I don't really see the point here. It's neither the shortest nor longest game from them. It's definitely longer than Gothic 1, and probably about the same as Risen or Gothic 2 without the expansion. Of course it's shorter than G3, but 95% of games are.

Anyways, I felt it was about right. If it was any longer, I'm pretty sure I would have started to grow tired of that setting.

It's around 50% longer than Risen. I didn't finish and I spent around 45-50 hours and had a good bit left.

Risen was a 30-35 hour game - and I did absolutely everything I could.

Probably true, but I never play with companions in these "immersion-driven" games if I can help it :)

I prefer to go solo as well, but that's not really an option for most of Risen 2, or at least it didn't seem to me that it was.

Hmm… I seem to recall going solo for the vast majority of it.

Yes I suppose you can leave the boat without a companion, which I assume is what you did, but then you miss out on a lot of extra dialogue. Nothing essential, but I enjoyed hearing the various comments from companions during conversations with other npcs.

I guess I felt like I'd be "missing out" by not playing it the way they intended. No big deal.. like I said, I just hope PB goes back to their previous solo style for the next game.

No, she came with me on the first island. But I dumped her as soon as I could. My memory is often fuzzy with this kind of thing - but I'm pretty sure I played ~90% of the game solo. I don't seem to remember her being forced upon me after the initial split-up (where you can make her cook for that NPC or whatever).

But I understand what you mean. I tend to bring party members in games that are more tactical/strategic in nature - and Bioware games tend to be designed around party members specifically.

But for free-roaming exploration/immersion games - I just think solo is the way to go. I like peace and quiet, and I HATE (as in, truly despise) pampering NPCs with horrid AIs/pathfinding :)

They just cramp my style!

I was cranky about Risen 2 when it came out too. The beta was so clunky and I was just soured all around.

Now I just started playing it again after grabbing it on sale on Gamersgate and now I'm all over it. It's a really good game. Maybe it was the patch that came out or the current state of mods (I'm running a bunch) but it's pretty, fun and the combat is less intense than Risen 1 but still quite acceptable. I feel silly being able to kill a boar so easily in one of these guys games.

Is it as immersive as the first Risen game?

I really liked Risen. First RPG I've ever role-played a thief character in. It felt so natural to join the bandits, since you are stranded on an island and have to survive, it's survive by any means necessary. Once you get the Sneak skill and Pickpocket, oh man, that game gets real fun. Great game. Sadly it's one of the million games I've never finished. But I did log a nice chunk of time in it.

How does Risen 2 stack up? Are they even similar at all?

I play on the 360 and I just can't get over how bad the graphics are. I was wondering if I had somehow set it up incorrectly, or the TV has to be set up in a particular way. I just can't believe this is how it's supposed to look. There's no AA so there is terrible jaggies on everything and you have to see the character models to believe how bad some of them are. Then there's the dialog animations and the combat. I mean oh man. I loved Gothic one and two, quite liked Gothic 3 and Risen and I wanted to like this. I bought it despite the bad reviews because I had to play it myself to see, but so far I think it's terrible, although I haven't been playing long and I will give it a good go but I can't see myself getting into it.

I also beat this game without the combat patch that improved things and would say that atmosphere is what carries the experience. Stormy nights especially immerse the player. If I remember correctly it took around 60 hours to beat, and I definitely did a full scouring of every map. Never got the DLC they released later.

That's why I would never buy a game like Risen 2 for consoles. The PC version looks *much* better assuming you have a PC powerful enough to run it on high settings.

The Xbox 360 is nearly 7 years old now. Any recent cross-platform game is going to look superior on the PC. Plus Risen 2 was developed for PC first.

I would answer 'Yes' to that question. Caldera (where you start) is quite small and linear. But it's also quick to move on from there. Once you get to Tacarigua (sp?) and out of the initial area where your ship lands, the map really opens up for some exploring. The Sword Coast, where I am now, is also very fun to explore.

Both games are similar and Risen 2 is actually quite fun. I won't know if R2 is better than R1 though until I finish R2. There are a handful of very minor design choices that I don't particularly care for - but they are minor. There are two design choices that I've encountered so far that I don't care for which I'd classify as 'bigger' complaints. One is the island structure of the game. I prefer a contiguous game world. If you're gonna have islands then let me control the boat and get to those islands myself. Second, I didn't like the many quests on The Sword Coast where I had to follow other NPCs. First, there were just too many of those kinds of quests and secondly, I prefer to explore at my own pace and the NPC follow quests had me running all over the island willy nilly - I personally just don't like that. I don't want to be held captive to 'follow the NPC' in a game like Risen 2. I don't mind that a little bit, but in my view it went way too overboard on The Sword Coast.

I'm from the generation where for a long time playing a CRPG meant accepting the notion that the game would be 5 years behind then-current action games in the graphics department.

However these days, graphics quality for CRPGs have gotten a lot better compared to their contemporary 'actiony' counterparts.

That said, if I was stuck playing Risen 2 on the xbox360 I'd probably not complain so much about the graphics though I'd certainly still notice the awefulness of it - because decades of accepting 'bad graphics' for CRPGs is sort of built into my blood now.

On the flip side, if you can mentally downplay the graphics and focus in on the gameplay I think you'd really like the game. Even back when Ultima IV was released, its graphics were very ho-hum compared to games on the C64 and NES. But it was the complex gameplay that really pulled you in. If you can let the Risen 2 gameplay pull you in, you might just like it despite the crummy graphics.

Risen 2 definitely gets a lot more fun once the world opens up, about 6-8 hours in. Just looking at the achievements people gained for the 360 version, at least 90% gave up well before that point!

Such a shame - it's a lovely world to explore and some of the dialogue is surprisingly good.

Where do you go to see achievements results like that - where you see achievements results in macro?

There's a panel on the right-hand side which displays Achievement distribution. http://www.trueachievements.com/Rise…hievements.htm

I will be playing this game sometime soon I think. Well, maybe not too soon, but sometime in 2013 at least. I have a serious backlog of games that are going to be keeping me busy for awhile. But I eventually want to get to this game as I enjoyed the first Risen quite a bit, but never got very far in that game either (and Risen is also on my backlog of games to eventually finish).

The atmosphere of the first Risen was fantastic though so I'm really looking forward to trying Risen 2.

Risen 2 is undoubtedly the best RPG AND game I've played in a long while. I've played Risen 1 and the Gothics, so I was pleasantly surprised to see that the character system has finally been overhauled. There's plenty of skills that you can use in dialog and, more importantly, there's dialog specific skills. The much better character system resembles more the system of FO than the previous Gothics.

The gameworld seems smaller but I got so much fun from developing my character that I did not care. The other elements of exploration, good combat, characters, story, setting etc. are all there.

If you learn Voodoo you will be able to possess certain NPCs for quest purposes. It's pretty hilarious and I LOLd at least a few times.

Risen 2 is refreshingly hard. I had to restart since I was throwing skill points and gold willy nilly at dialog specific skills, thinking that combat shouldn't be that difficult. I made the same mistake with Divinity 2 by investing everything in to mind reading. If you're new and looking for tips, I advise against taking recommendations from this walkthrough (first result if you google "Risen 2 walkthrough:

http://guides.gamepressure.com/risen2/

This walkthrough basically states that purely combat skills are worth the investment and that you should completely disregard speech skills and magic/voodoo. This is plain wrong, since I found all skills valuable and important, and magic to be somewhat overpowered. Following this guide would be the same as creating an average intelligence and charisma fighter with Heavy Weapons, Energy Weapons and Small Guns tagged in FO.

I enjoyed Risen 1 much more than Risen 2. One reason being that melee combat was actually quite good in the first (vast improvement over G3…it is silly to fear a wold over of troll due to who can stun lock who). Risen 2's melee was boring and simplistic.
Muskets were just over powered and it make little sense that magic was removed since magic was taught be the Inquisition.
It did feel short as well, even doing the Gargoyle and Air temple quests.
I just wish they would take the engine and update Gothic 1. I really tried to play it (loving G2) but the interface is just horrid.

One of the few things I really not liked in Risen 2 are the traps, at least in the first one was possible to perceive their presence and try to avoid/disarm, in Risen 2 is impossible to detect them and they are instant kill except if you manages to press a certain key in a second…

Yeah I didn't really like how traps worked in R2 myself.

When I read this, I thought I would hate this part, since I like to be thorough in exploration and I hate following NPCs across large distances when I could be exploring instead. BUT, in practice, these quests are actually great in Risen 2 because they give you a sort of guided tour of the island. I have more of an understanding where certain areas connect to each other now and when I do free roam and explore, I'll know my way around a bit better. Also, it's nice to clear out a path of enemies so I know where I've been. These types of quests seem to really work well in this game.

I can accept it being inferior, but I just want to note this is amazingly bad. It looks way worse than the original Gothic game does in places. I am not expecting Skyrim, which looks really good on the 360, but this looks worse than just about every other RPG of this console generation. It is inferior in looks to Oblivion, which came out at about the 360 launch.

Plus, they never patched it (bought it this month, no dodging or rolling). So 3rd rate port plus no support. I am very wary of going console with Risen 3.

I've read many times (as I'm sure others have too) that the visuals of R2 on console is pretty bad. But even on PC, there was a lot of criticism over the visuals - not that they were terrible, but generally a few years behind.

Personally, with these types of games, even outright poor visuals won't matter to me if the gameplay is fun. 'Fun' to me are games like Ultima VII, Ultima Underworld, Arx Fatalis, Gothic 1 & 2 (and 3 even), and Risen 1 to name just a few.

I come from the dinosaur pre-internet era where it was automatically assumed that any RPG would have visuals years behind other genres so I'm sort of hard-wired to put visuals in second and third place on my list of gameplay priorities. I do have to admit though, that the weird foliage 'bursting' effect was really irritating and took me a while to ignore.

Visuals aren't huge with me either. I can still play the original Gothic and appreciate it visually. Even in dated games there is an artistic direction that works with what they have and it ends up looking alright, even if it has fallen way behind the norm.

The thing with R2 on console was that it appeared that the art vision was trampled on, such that I couldn't help but feel there was an ugliness everywhere I went. I know the port was outsourced, and it seems like they just lowered the resolution to the point it worked, turned off AA, and let textures pop-in and called it a day. They butchered it enough that it looked worse than any PB game to me.

I didn't play R2 on PC, but I did play the original Risen on PC and I was pleased with it. My assumption was that they didn't take a big step backward on the PC from the original Risen, but that could be wrong. Was R2 a lot uglier than R1 on PC?

Yep. Pretty much. At least the models and such are far more cartoony. Maybe it'll hold up better over time, I don't know. The scenery is still beautiful though.