Risen 3 user résumé after 6 hours
 

As you may have noticed, some lucky German guys are already playing Risen 3 as the retailers sold it early. One of the users in World of Risen forums did a short résumé after playing 6 hours, which I've tried to translate:

@Morrandir - thank you for the translation -> sounds good!

+1

I actually started to write this and that… But maybe I adore tutorial and hate the music unlike him. Can't know before weekend. :(

If at least half of his excitment grabs everyone who plays the game, it means we get another RPG gem this year.
Keep them coming!

A side note. The teaser trailer was made by Platige. While very good, it still wasn't stellar like ones they did for The Witcher games. Any word on possible more of it in the game?

Looks promising

This doesn't tell me anything. Had I done a 'partial review' of Risen 1 after 6 hours I would have said it was an awesome game. Sadly that was only the case for the first half, and with its craptacular last part, the overall game ended being just meh. So I'll wait until he finishes the game and see.

Bring it!

I've cleared my schedule for the next 3-4 days. :plotting:

Wow, I have never played a game that took quite the nosedive that the original Risen did. That game was old Gothic revived… and then it was most tedious thing I have ever finished.

The only things that concern me from these early reviews are that they haven't gotten the magic yet, so we don't know how well that is implemented. Second, I have read that maybe all the islands from Risen 2 are back. They wouldn't just put different stuff on the exact same geography, would they? I want to know if the places feel completely different.

Definitely a Risen 2+ thing going on. I am using pc to tv with controller setup, and it sure beats Risen 2 on Xbox 360 in every way. Still, it is essentially some feature upgrades over Risen 2 so far, but I am not far.

What was wrong with the original Risen engine? This setup doesn't feel as good, it doesn't seem like a Gothic-style game with this. Has PB had a lot of turnover since the good old days?

I still don't understand that. I'm assuming the Risen 1 engine was challenging/time consuming to work with or something. It certainly felt very smooth to me, and seemed like it had a lot of potential.

I thought they'd been using the same Genome engine since Gothic 3, albeit modified for each game?

I think this is true.

I still have to finish Risen 2. Played it, now and then, but i can't put my soul in it.

Would you recommend buying Risen 3, if someone could not get into Risen 2?

P.S.: loved the original Risen.

Hard to say, really.

I think Risen 3 is much better than Risen 2 - but they also have a lot of things in common.

It depends on what you didn't like about Risen 2. Can you provide any details?

The combat system was my main gripe. Seemed to heavily encourage the firearms use and i wanted a melee or a voodoo approach (this one was a nightmare).

The story seemed all over the place and had a bit of hard time in following it.

Not too many interesting NPC's (not that the original Risen had many, but Risen 2 managed to have even less, way less).

Some poor optimisation and unsolved bugs (though i managed to find a small fan made patch that solved some of the problems i had).

That is the short list.

The combat system is much improved - and doesn't seem to favor one kind of weapon over another to the same degree. I kicked plenty ass with melee weapons - coupled with some powerful buffs.

The story isn't anything special, though, but I never found PB stories particularly memorable. There are a few interesting NPCs, and I seem to have a soft spot for the gnomes - but I have to say I think Gothic and Gothic 2 dialogue is much better. Risen was good, too, but Risen 2 and 3 are both mediocre at best - in that way.

The game performs very well - and is really quite smooth. Much better than Risen 2, in my experience - and I don't remember a single bug.

Make sure you play with the latest patch and on the hardest difficulty setting - as the game balance breaks around halfway through, if you optimise your character.

Certainly, for me, it was a complete pushover shortly after picking my faction.

Well, seems that i should pick it in a sale, then. And i'm glad that they've improved the combat and they've made viable the other options.

Gothic 1 and 2 are my favorite Gothic games (especially G2 with the expansion). I wonder if Piranha will do another Gothic, now that the rights are back to them.

P.S.: thanks for providing the information that i need it.

You're very welcome :)

I doubt you'll be seeing anything at the level of Gothic or Gothic 2 from PB again. They're still great at certain things, but I'm afraid they lost too many people - and they haven't had the success they deserved. Probably hard to stay passionate doing the same games over and over, and getting bashed harder and harder in the press.

That, somehow, makes me sad. I loved the first two Gothic games. One final game would be lovely

There is no such thing in Risen 3 any more nor any 3rd party hacks are needed for Risen 3.

Well, you never really know - and I'm not the most optimistic person on the planet. Maybe they'll be reinvigorated for some reason :)

Well, we know that Piranha has a game in works. There is a glimmer of hope:)

If I were PB, I'd hit Kickstarter. Gothic V, with a really good pitch - I reckon it would go off like a rocket.

Okay… And the sum they'd ask for?
They're not quite Roberts Space Industries with marketing machine behind the project so…
In short, I wouldn't go KS. I would sell my soul to the american devil instead. Sure that would mean another DLC:The Game and a virtual beggar spinoff on phones, but well, noone is perfect. The only question is if EA really needs a studio in Germany.

I'd insta-back it almost no matter what, if it could bring the passion back into the process.

Do they have the rights for Gothic V? Jowood got them for Gothic 4 but I guess Nordic got them when Jowood died a few years back.

They should use Kickstarter for a Gothic remake trilogy. But it seems they're simply not interested in another Gothic yet.

Actually PB had a lot of success … at the worst possible time. G2 had become a long-seller with a good reputation. As a result G3 sold 300k (or was it 500k ?) full price units in no time - and then collapsed because it was unfinished.

No, PB has the rights back. Such contracts usually have both an expiry date, to avoid that the other side simply sits on the rights, and a fall-back clause to make sure the rights cannot be re-sold without written consent (which you'll never get).

What Nordic got was the publishing and distribution rights G2 and G3, plus everything for Arcania.

Piranha bytes should just abandon risen series. What they had in risen 1 was good and the series had potential, but they sort of messed things up. After risen 2 and risen 3, I just don't see any future for this series. Risen 3 is not a bad game, but it isn't a very good game either. Piranha bytes should not settle for mediocrity. Their legacy is just too great for that.

Imo they should make a whole new ip which would motivate them as a developer team. When they become passionate once more, we will get an other rpg classic from them.

Or if a new ip is out of the question, then a sequel to gothic 3 or a prequel to gothic 1 would be a nice alternative or what Gorath suggested.

A proper Gothic 4, that would end the series, would be nice.

Arcania is just a mediocre action RPG and quite forgettable (also, not developed by PB), so the series needs a proper ending. And G3: Forsaken Gods was an abomination (not PB's fault, game developed by the indians from Trine Games, following the contract that those dudes had with Jowood).

If G4 will be made, it will ignore the events from G3: FG and from Arcania. No one asked for those atrocities.

That one might set some records. :)


I couldn't agree more.

I must be the only member who enjoyed the game once you accept it has nothing to do with the Gothic games. That's why it's now called Arcania, and not Gothic 4.

On its own it's barely an average RPG yet everyone loves to call it garbage.:)

But it was called Gothic 4.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi…Game_Cover.jpg

They've dropped the Gothic 4 tag only recently.

My point still stands as everyone just loves to hate that game. Maybe they should take off the nostalgia goggles, and realize it was a different developer.

It was also the first major RPG game for that studio , and Jowood ruined them.

I think, though, that the Gothic 4 name was significant to its reception. It was a very average game, when people expected better from its lineage.

I'm well aware who Spellbound was. Among other things, developers of the very solid and quite popular at the time Airline Tycoon series. But they also made he Desperados series and Robin Hood and Chicago 1930. Unfortunately, all those were nor big sellers. But they were solid games.

Spellbound working on a RPG, with no previous experience in the the area, that was insane. Still, for peeps that never made an RPG they pulled a decent game. I just wish they weren't constrained by Jowood to use the Gothic Universe:(

Desperados was a hit which got two sequels.

What's to criticise? From a technical standpoint the game was good. The content wasn't Spellbound's responsibility, because it was contract work. JoWooD ordered a casual RPG, and they got a casual RPG.

There. I fixed it for you.
It didn't save the developer.

Well, sort of. They're still there, under their new name Black Forest Games. The situation fored them to change their whole business model to self publishing & kickstarter (plus still some contract work - Arcania PS4 for Nordic). With the result that their game Giana Sisters sold more than 1M units, and rightly so, because they delivered what they promised to their new clients (kickstarter and end customers).
Ironically PB, BFG, Deck 13 and Daedalic have a joint YouTube channel in which they play the current games by all studios and talk about some of the design decisions and about general topics like voice overs or open world. The stuff they talk about is very interesting. It has much more substance than the typical interview, although everybody is of course careful not to become aggressive towards anybody.
It was really something to see PB and BFG discuss open world design in an RPG. Especially the things Deck 13 added about their linear design for Venetica, how they added a few pseudo-open areas, and what the consequences of this were.

Do you have a link for the YouTube channel Gorath as that sounds interesting, Hopefully the videos are not only in German as I dont understand a word of that language.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBp…BBFMaD1BuViXcg

Unfortunately it's 100% German, and for some reason it doesn't seem to get much traction.
I forgot to mention the 5th developer: King Art is working on a TB RPG, now that The Book of Unwritten Tales is out, to critical acclaim.