Risen Completed the game - random thoughts

Finished it a few minutes ago. Random thoughts:

boss fight:
Absolutely terrible. If you've played it you know what I mean.

ending:
Bad. No real explanations. Just a few seconds of FMV and then voice overs in front of a black bakground.

chapter 4:
Too long. 4 dungeons was too much. The dungeons themselves were of very high quality though. Just too many of them.

It's worth noting that the fans demanded a big final dungeon. Now they got it and they're still unhappy.

chapter 3:
Good. Nice back and forth of story, dungeons and fighting stuff in the world. Pure action, but that's okay for one chapter I think. Maybe some players made the mistake to explore the whole volcano at once. It's more fun if you teleport back to the camps, talk to people and spend some learning points.

chapter 2:
Very good exploration but clearly not enough quests. The world is great, but story and quests too thin.

chapter 1:
Good but too slow. Not enough quests at the same time.

characters:
Better than expected. Maybe not Gothic and NotR level, but clearly better than in G3.

combat:
Good. It works and it's fun.

UI:
Good. People who complain about it (on PC) should return their gamer card.

World design:
Superb. PB is better than any other developer at creating breathing worlds.

Story:
Average. PB should hire somebody to write an interesting story.

Dialogs:
Very good, although sometimes a bit long. I like the sense of humor in the English version.
 
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Well said Gorath. I agree with most parts, except for the World design. Okay, PB do make better worlds than other devs, BUT, G3 was still more beautiful. At times, the Risen world was bit boring, but maybe that was caused by story.
 
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Completed the game yesterday, a couple of thoughts
Positives:
+Combat was a lot of fun and well balanced. Well at least until you had to fight 2000 lizardmen in a row. That took all the fun out of combat.
+Crafting system, just the right level of effort vs. gain for me to get interested. I usually don't bother with crafting but in Risin it was easy and fun.
+GUI
+Stability, only had two crashes to desktop.
+Game world. the only gripe i have is that it was a bit too small. But better small and focused than big and empty.
+Characters and quests in chapters 1 and 2. Especially Harbortown. Harbortown was the best location in the game. There was lots to do and the atmosphere was great. I wish Harbortown was bigger with more houses to rob and rooftops to climb during the night.
+Exploration

Negatives:
-Chapters 3 and 4. I wish they would have repopulated the world with new sidequests during these chapters.
-Quest structure in some places. I thought there was too many collect X pieces of powerful armor, dig up X graves, Kill X skeleton lords and so on. It's a pretty cheap way to make you run all over the map just to move the quest forward. And not a lot of fun.
-Boss fight and ending. Black screen with VO, WTF? (I think we all agree here). I was a bit surprised by the look of the titan as well... I thought it would look more like...well a Titan.
-Choices, it didn't seem to matter much which faction you chose.
-Repetitive combat in chapter 3 and 4
 
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+Crafting system, just the right level of effort vs. gain for me to get interested. I usually don't bother with crafting but in Risin it was easy and fun.


I was a little disappointed in the Smithing skill. I couldn't create any rings or amulets that weren't eventually found anyways.
 
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Completed this yesterday, took just under 40 hours. I found the first 2 chapters to be superb, the 3rd was ok but i was assuming the 4th wouldn't be the same... of course it was.

I spent most of the game in utter amazement that it ran so smoothly and had almost no bugs at all, i mean the gleam of polish was almost blinding at times and a combat system that was pretty much frustration free.

I found the last 2 chapters really let the game down but being a powerful mage with summon Fred it wasn't frustrating as i imagine close combat would have been.
In fact it was positively easy... ok, so i played on normal difficulty but still, i finished the game with 20 learning points unused and enough potions to supply an army. I squished Mendoza like a tiny bug, i mean really, it was ridiculous... i didn't even need Fred. And of course the Titan... it took a few goes to get to grips with but again, pretty simple and like many have stated, anticlimactic. Actually i didn't know it was going to end then... i kinda thought i'd have to summon the Gods or something to stop all the other Titans.

Had Gothic 3 not preceded this game i would probably have many more negative things to say about the last 2 chapters.

Being a mage was, for the most part very rewarding. However, i didn't get 200 wisdom until very near the end and the only rune available was inferno (i think it was lvl 4?) which was pretty weak compared to lvl10 fireball. I didn't come across any megamage rain of fire or stuff like that. Investing in the rune seals was pretty pointless (although only 20LP in total) as you could just as well create/buy some scrolls. Investing in mana wasn't overly important either as there were ample mana potions... and ample cash to buy them with... and you barely had to fight more than 4 enemies at a time giving you plenty of opportunity to restore your mana. Come the end it felt like a lot of wasted LP and the only thing of use was the +10 Fireball. I was very pleased with all the non combat spells but to see how easy they were replicated by mere fighters was a disappointment. Magic should be more exclusive, sure let the minnows have a taste of the power but just enough that they know they're missing out... If i remember correctly the summon demon scroll in G2 was very rare which i liked.

Come the end of the game i felt rather cheated that i didn't even need to use my class specialisation to defeat the Titan. Especially to suddenly have +8 in axe fighting (titan axe and two +1 rings) when i hadn't spent any LP at all on combat training.

Still, it was a game i very much enjoyed, if nothing else for the nostalgia of G1/G2. I do think they should try something new now though.
 
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Having been a fighter (no Fred) the combat was great fun at first but by mid Chapter 4 when I saw more than lizard I let out an audible groan. Lots of groaning. I tend to hoard magic for "just the right occasion" so I ended the game with a dozen Fred scrolls, Bezerker scrolls etc all unused :(
 
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I don't think I ever even used the Inferno rune. I finished at level 28, with 200+ wisdom, 120 mana, lvl 8 Fireball, and lvl 9 Ice Lance.

Did anyone ever find a rune for "Strong" magic healing?
 
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Almost finished the game as a Don fighter.

Playing as a mage seems boring and overly easy. Doesnt make me wish to restart as one beside to see the monastery quest when you train there.
 
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  • Character faces were ugly. This was the biggest minus for Risen. They should think about designing better NPC models.
  • The ending could be a lot better.
  • Chapter 3 was too short for me.
  • More quests would be welcome. Chapter 3 & 4 didn't have enough quests.
  • I'd like a bigger world. Faranga was too small for me. I'd like more varied environments (snowy landscapes, mountains, deserts, etc. just like Gothic 3) and more varied creatures.
  • The world was absolutely devoid of herbivore creatures. In a healthy ecosystem, for every single large carnivore, at least 25 large herbivores MUST exist. In Faranga, most of the creatures were carnivores (even stingrats were carnivore).
 
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Another thing about the Lizardmen - Did anyone else find it odd that every single one of them, whether it was a Scout, Warrior, or Priest, all carried the same Lizard Sword?

Pretty lazy move by PB on that one imo. In the Gothic games, the Orcs had at least 4 or 5 different weapons which changed depending on which class they were.
 
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Did anyone ever find a rune for "Strong" magic healing?

I´m not 100% sure, but I think it´s
right in the bandit camp!
There´s a stone structure you can reach via jumping a bit and then using levitation I think - the rune is on the top of that.

Another thing about the Lizardmen - Did anyone else find it odd that every single one of them, whether it was a Scout, Warrior, or Priest, all carried the same Lizard Sword?

Pretty lazy move by PB on that one imo. In the Gothic games, the Orcs had at least 4 or 5 different weapons which changed depending on which class they were.

Besides lack of new quests, the whole lizardmen thing is what makes chapter 3 and especially chapter 4 such a nosedive in quality.
Few priests here and there just weren´t enough to maintain variety.

They were quite pissing me off even in G2, but at least there you could usually get someone fighting along with you to make the dragon killing chapter more interesting.
When they spawned in Risen it was a pretty major facepalm moment for me.
I thought PB would have a bit more dignity than going this far at reusing Gothic features.
At least I was fortunate enough to do the eastern temple last so they got spawned right at the end of second chapter, but still.

They definitely should introduce a bigger variety of enemies in later chapters, ideally with unique behavior and abilities, to avoid repetitive combat scenarios.
 
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Another thing about the Lizardmen - Did anyone else find it odd that every single one of them, whether it was a Scout, Warrior, or Priest, all carried the same Lizard Sword?

Pretty lazy move by PB on that one imo. In the Gothic games, the Orcs had at least 4 or 5 different weapons which changed depending on which class they were.
I thought about it as well, but in the end, I came up with an explanation. I think this is because they had a very long time to make swords, so they made the best possible swords (using Obsidian, which is not so scarce in the dungeons) and equipped all of their warriors with them.
 
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I thought about it as well, but in the end, I came up with an explanation. I think this is because they had a very long time to make swords, so they made the best possible swords (using Obsidian, which is not so scarce in the dungeons) and equipped all of their warriors with them.


I honestly can't tell if you're joking or not. :thinking:
 
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eh, I think he is serious. Afterall, he is the one who claimed that the biggest minus of the game is «Character faces were ugly».

I kinda agree. Especially the face of the main hero, he seemed always pissed off.
 
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You can dislike the look of the characters, even find them all ugly, alright. But to say that it's «the biggest minus of the game»... c'mon!
 
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lol very true vanedor!

Btw, what was the deal with sara (the other survivor)? I never saw her again ever since the hut.
 
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