Risen 2 sinks out of port

[Keith]

Just reading a forum post by kristi4ever HERE about what, if any, the sea combat is like in Risen 2. Initially I thought that it would have to be in considering it's a Pirate game and all so I had a look around for some screenshots which i couldn't find and then i had a look at the official forum HERE to see if I could find some mention to it. Again cannot.

Then I started reading a Game Informer review where they really don't rate the game very highly and specifically criticize the combat.

Oh and did I forget to mention, it also has Voodoo Magic, oh yay!

Seeing the promise that occasionally shines through Risen 2’s many flaws is disheartening. Collecting crewmembers could have been great, if they were any more than occasional quest objectives and distractions in combat. The animations for parries and counterattacks are wonderful in the five percent of fights where you get to take advantage of them. The world itself is stunningly beautiful at times, but content players are able to interact with meaningfully is thin on the ground. As much as I wanted to love it, Risen 2 ends up as another entry in the long list of games with a great premise, a few interesting ideas, and an unforgivable anchor dragging the whole thing down.

 

[guenthar]

You can't trust most reviews on Piranha Bytes games since they are hardcore and have complicated combat systems and can be difficult. Most of these reviewers just want a simplistic game and give the games low scores because they can't button mash to victory. (which you definitely can't in any Piranha Bytes games)

I haven't played the game yet (since I haven't finished Risen and want to before playing Risen 2) but I don't think there is ship to ship combat in this game. The ship is just for transportation between the islands and where you keep your companions. Once you have your ship it is still an open world game but is based around the islands rather then at sea.

 

[Talisman]

I just thought I would post my thoughts on / opinions of Risen 2 ( having just finished playing it ) in case they help anyone thinking of buying it.

Firstly – please be aware I don’t really like Fantasy games ( those with dragons – magic etc ) and I am not really a fan of games with a lot of fighting either – I am not into combo- moves and other complex fighting styles. Simple hack & slash where necessary suits me fine.


The Main Quest and most of the Side Quests took me a total of 95 hours playing time -according to the timings on my saves – actually longer because I had to replay several bits.


So my thoughts on the game:-

The game is hard to begin with because your enemy’s level ( toughness ) does not change during the game – so they are difficult to fight at the beginning but buy ¾ of the way through they are quite easy as the player levels up.

Likes

1- Large location areas to explore ( without loading screens ) and a well rendered lush environment. – but see dislikes

2- Realistic animals e.g large & small monkeys, warthogs, turkeys, jaguars, panthers, gorillas, alligators

3- Nice clean character & item interface

4- Good voice acting (in English version ) but regular and repetitive use of “F-word” might put some people off – they could have been more inventive with the swearing.

5- The control of / use of a small monkey to sneak into places is a good idea that needed to be more developed. I only managed to find 4 places in the whole world where it could be used. They should have put more open windows into the buildings for this or made more small passageways in the native tombs. The monkey does not appear on the character model (neither does the parrot) they are just in the player’s inventory.


Dislikes:

1 – It is not a pirate game – it is a fantasy RPG where one of the groups of people you meet are supposed to be Pirates. The “world” is a fantasy world and the vegetation is not really tropical except for the palm trees and stuff that are around the beaches. Once you go inland a bit this disappears.

2 - There is no sailing or ships that the player can control in the game. The ship just transports the player from one main location to another via a cutscene.

3 – Fantasy monsters / animals e.g. sand-devils, giant crabs, ghouls, firebirds, etc.

4 – All the non-native female NPCs use the same model with just the hair & skirt colour changing. Why I don’t know since the native female NPCs have good model variations ( perhaps they ran out of time )

5- Large locations become empty after a while – when you have killed all the animals you have to go to another island and come back later for some repopulation to occur.

6 – Weird animations when you talk to people (they wave their arms about ) – after a while you stop noticing this.

7 – You can only have 1 of your companions with you at a time which means they are really just wasted once they have joined you in the quest. (they can’t die – in a fight the are just knocked out and recover as soon as all the enemies are killed )


The game does appear to be mod-able – there is some modding going on here ( see link) but how easy / difficult it is I don’t know.


http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/forums/658-Risen-Modifications-and-Editing

 

[Thagarr]

Thanks for your write up Talisman! Your opinions are always well worth reading!

You could have posted this as a review in the News section mate, and it would have shown up on the front page. It's cool posts like this that help keep that drive hits to the front page!