Pra mim o melhor exemplo da filosofia da Piranha Bytes em ação. Exploração livre que recompensa dominar o jogo mecanicamente, bom enredo, eu pude viver e chamar Faranga de lar por muitos dias, conheci seus habitantes, vivi suas histórias. A jogabilidade é o mais polido que Piranha já entregou o que não significa perfeito nem perto disso, nada de tire esse jogo de um lugar especial pra mim.
é díficil? É kkkkkk
depois de um tempo jogando ainda tive dificuldade em algumas coisas mas com o avanço e etc vai ficando melhor a história vai se desenrolando mas só me perdi as vezes sem saber o que tinha que fazer kkkkkm
depois de um tempo jogando ainda tive dificuldade em algumas coisas mas com o avanço e etc vai ficando melhor a história vai se desenrolando mas só me perdi as vezes sem saber o que tinha que fazer kkkkkm
A good RPG!
Good story, good gameplay.
Good story, good gameplay.
Пройдя первые две игры Piranha Bytes и последнюю, ELEX, я думал, что уже всё понял про эту студию и ничего нового другие их работы мне не принесут. Но Risen удивила. Причём в приятном смысле. Совершенно неожиданным образом. Это даже покосило мою позицию относительно возможностей разработчиков и я по началу не верил в происходящее.
В Risen хорошая комплексная боевая система. Она ощущается как доведённая до ума боёвка Готик. Состоит из комбо-атак, отскоков, блоков, парирований, ударов по сторонам – классический набор. Это замешано в простую для освоения, динамичную, отлично работающую систему. Каждая механика необходима и действительно регулярно используется. Темп битв высокий и при этом легко контролируемый, скиллозависимый. Драться приятно. Они и выглядят очень круто – парировал, ударил, отскочил вбок, начал комбо в бочину, блок, удар и т.д. Анимации, разумеется, неказистые, но это не портит впечатлений. Подход к убийству от моба к мобу отличается – есть пространство для поиска тактики. Таргет работает криво – он автоматический и часто рушит файт с несколькими мобами, но игру не портит. Не знаю, каким образом Пираньи смогли к этому прийти, но они наконец взяли и подкрутили то, что было недокручено в Готиках. И таким образом предоставили игрокам свой лучший экшен.
Нарративно, Risen – это Готика. Просто известный рабочий подход к эксплорингу и квестам, воплощённый в другой франшизе. Снова противоборствующие фракции. Снова куча персонажей со своими проблемами и просьбами. Снова свои квестовые арки. Снова новый мир для погружения в уникальную атмосферу. Снова нам предстоит решить, какое мировоззрение здесь достойно существования. Не слабее и не лучше Готик. Risen засасывает игрока и окружает кучей интересного ненавязчивого контента, благодаря которому он почувствует себя исследователем. Выдающийся музыки Готики 2, к сожалению, нет, арт-дизайн типично-приемлемый для Пираний, а сюжет – пафосная клоунада. Как всегда, студия продемонстрировала своё умение создания миров, не выйдя за рамки ожидаемого уровня.
Всё выше обозначенное удовольствие мы получаем сполна примерно в первых 60% прохождения. Дальнейшую часть прохождения разработчики будут старательно крушить свою лучшую игру. Успешно. 1 глава – концентрация всей Risen. Здесь мы пройдём проведём половину прохождения, выполним 99% сайд-квестов, исследуем две трети карты. Даже главный интерес основного сюжета, конфликт двух фракций, закончится здесь. При этом впереди ещё 3 главы и часов 10-15 прохождения. Это время игрок проведёт под землёй. После 1 главы в мире нечем заниматься, кроме отвратительного основного квеста. 2 глава ещё не обрушивает на вас всё величие профессионализма левел-дизайнеров. Мы чистим пару храмов, но кроме того бегаем по неисследованным остаткам мира, общаемся с персонажами, разбираемся в сложившийся по сюжету ситуации. Неплохо. А вот 3 и 4 главы – сущий ад. Около 10 часов в одинаковых катакомбах – это пытка. Никаких новых сайд-квестов – сиди в храмах и спасай мир. Эксплоринг закончился. Забудь о мире и смотри на серую стену пещеры. Разработчики после 1 главы просто махнули рукой и зарашили сюжетку. Чувствуется сумбур на этом этапе игры.
Но и тут Пираньи удивили - в финальной части игры умудрились разрушить, кроме нарратива, ещё и геймплей. Появляются безумные мобы с непознаваемым мувсетом. В их арсенале моментальные непарируемые атаки без анимации толком и дальность удара с километр. Парирования и отскоки отныне бесполезны. С этим можно было бы совладать. Есть и до этого мобы, не на полную взаимодействующие с боевой системой – непредсказуемые атаки и бег из стороны в сторону, сбивающий таргет. Это не хорошо, но внимания не акцентируешь. Здесь же разработчикам что-то окончательно снесло крышу и они выкрутили ползунок плотности мобов на максимум – 3 противника на квадратный метр. Сильные мобы ВСЕГДА атакуют толпой. А в Risen бой с несколькими противниками – то самое кривое нечто, которое Пираньи умеют сделать. Сами файты теперь ужасны, вызывают запредельный негатив, а их ещё и очень-очень много. Это растягивает игру, делает её утомительной и предсказуемой. Чего разработчики таким способом хотели добиться? Непонятно. Никакая прокачка персонажа не делает этот промежуток лёгким, незаметным. Скорее всего они понимали, что, после 20 часов геймплея в 1 главе, игрок пробегает остаток за 5 и попытались сбалансировать разрыв. На мой взгляд, контекст подземных храмов не столько убивает игру, сколько количество врагов в них. Слишком. Много. Мобов. Именно это неадекватное насыщение всё ломает. Меры у людей, ответственных за это, нет. И души тоже.
В Risen Пираньи смогли достичь того самого баланса нарратива и геймплея, о котором мечтаешь, страдая от боёв в Готике. Но даже в рамках игры видно, что они сделали это случайно и не поняли, как достигли идеала. А будущий ELEX и вовсе создаёт ощущение, что Risen в истории Piranha Bytes не было. Игра демонстрирует, какие проекты мы могли бы получить, если бы разработчики думали об игровом опыте в целом. Начало вызывает восторг. Но в конце концов оно оказывается просто демкой на 20 часов. Тем не менее, демка оставила приятные чувства. Они не пропадают даже после позора, следующим за её окончанием.
В Risen хорошая комплексная боевая система. Она ощущается как доведённая до ума боёвка Готик. Состоит из комбо-атак, отскоков, блоков, парирований, ударов по сторонам – классический набор. Это замешано в простую для освоения, динамичную, отлично работающую систему. Каждая механика необходима и действительно регулярно используется. Темп битв высокий и при этом легко контролируемый, скиллозависимый. Драться приятно. Они и выглядят очень круто – парировал, ударил, отскочил вбок, начал комбо в бочину, блок, удар и т.д. Анимации, разумеется, неказистые, но это не портит впечатлений. Подход к убийству от моба к мобу отличается – есть пространство для поиска тактики. Таргет работает криво – он автоматический и часто рушит файт с несколькими мобами, но игру не портит. Не знаю, каким образом Пираньи смогли к этому прийти, но они наконец взяли и подкрутили то, что было недокручено в Готиках. И таким образом предоставили игрокам свой лучший экшен.
Нарративно, Risen – это Готика. Просто известный рабочий подход к эксплорингу и квестам, воплощённый в другой франшизе. Снова противоборствующие фракции. Снова куча персонажей со своими проблемами и просьбами. Снова свои квестовые арки. Снова новый мир для погружения в уникальную атмосферу. Снова нам предстоит решить, какое мировоззрение здесь достойно существования. Не слабее и не лучше Готик. Risen засасывает игрока и окружает кучей интересного ненавязчивого контента, благодаря которому он почувствует себя исследователем. Выдающийся музыки Готики 2, к сожалению, нет, арт-дизайн типично-приемлемый для Пираний, а сюжет – пафосная клоунада. Как всегда, студия продемонстрировала своё умение создания миров, не выйдя за рамки ожидаемого уровня.
Всё выше обозначенное удовольствие мы получаем сполна примерно в первых 60% прохождения. Дальнейшую часть прохождения разработчики будут старательно крушить свою лучшую игру. Успешно. 1 глава – концентрация всей Risen. Здесь мы пройдём проведём половину прохождения, выполним 99% сайд-квестов, исследуем две трети карты. Даже главный интерес основного сюжета, конфликт двух фракций, закончится здесь. При этом впереди ещё 3 главы и часов 10-15 прохождения. Это время игрок проведёт под землёй. После 1 главы в мире нечем заниматься, кроме отвратительного основного квеста. 2 глава ещё не обрушивает на вас всё величие профессионализма левел-дизайнеров. Мы чистим пару храмов, но кроме того бегаем по неисследованным остаткам мира, общаемся с персонажами, разбираемся в сложившийся по сюжету ситуации. Неплохо. А вот 3 и 4 главы – сущий ад. Около 10 часов в одинаковых катакомбах – это пытка. Никаких новых сайд-квестов – сиди в храмах и спасай мир. Эксплоринг закончился. Забудь о мире и смотри на серую стену пещеры. Разработчики после 1 главы просто махнули рукой и зарашили сюжетку. Чувствуется сумбур на этом этапе игры.
Но и тут Пираньи удивили - в финальной части игры умудрились разрушить, кроме нарратива, ещё и геймплей. Появляются безумные мобы с непознаваемым мувсетом. В их арсенале моментальные непарируемые атаки без анимации толком и дальность удара с километр. Парирования и отскоки отныне бесполезны. С этим можно было бы совладать. Есть и до этого мобы, не на полную взаимодействующие с боевой системой – непредсказуемые атаки и бег из стороны в сторону, сбивающий таргет. Это не хорошо, но внимания не акцентируешь. Здесь же разработчикам что-то окончательно снесло крышу и они выкрутили ползунок плотности мобов на максимум – 3 противника на квадратный метр. Сильные мобы ВСЕГДА атакуют толпой. А в Risen бой с несколькими противниками – то самое кривое нечто, которое Пираньи умеют сделать. Сами файты теперь ужасны, вызывают запредельный негатив, а их ещё и очень-очень много. Это растягивает игру, делает её утомительной и предсказуемой. Чего разработчики таким способом хотели добиться? Непонятно. Никакая прокачка персонажа не делает этот промежуток лёгким, незаметным. Скорее всего они понимали, что, после 20 часов геймплея в 1 главе, игрок пробегает остаток за 5 и попытались сбалансировать разрыв. На мой взгляд, контекст подземных храмов не столько убивает игру, сколько количество врагов в них. Слишком. Много. Мобов. Именно это неадекватное насыщение всё ломает. Меры у людей, ответственных за это, нет. И души тоже.
В Risen Пираньи смогли достичь того самого баланса нарратива и геймплея, о котором мечтаешь, страдая от боёв в Готике. Но даже в рамках игры видно, что они сделали это случайно и не поняли, как достигли идеала. А будущий ELEX и вовсе создаёт ощущение, что Risen в истории Piranha Bytes не было. Игра демонстрирует, какие проекты мы могли бы получить, если бы разработчики думали об игровом опыте в целом. Начало вызывает восторг. Но в конце концов оно оказывается просто демкой на 20 часов. Тем не менее, демка оставила приятные чувства. Они не пропадают даже после позора, следующим за её окончанием.
The game is an absolute beauty until act 4 during which the game becomes a boring dungeon crawler. Also the game despite the update, is still filled to the brim with bugs and inconsistencies, and it's really prone to crashes. That and act 4 being pain made me drop the game indefinitely.
I enjoyed a lot, some legendary V.A in this game, clunky combat but good character progression like gothic(only i little bit inferior). Grindy, some times does get annoying.
kinda got overwhelming after a while but definitely worth playing
Lots of potential, just needed an improvement in combat.
Better than Skyrim
This game tales a few steps back from Gothic 3, in a good way, and brings a small, hand-crafted open world akin to the ones seen in Gothic 1 and 2. This time around, Piranha Bytes shake things up by introducing a legitimately great combat system into the game, and populating the game world with dungeons to fight your way through. Most of these dungeons, except the story-important endgame ones, are open to the player from Chapter 1, leading to the new Nameless Hero being able to get rich and powerful before even joining a faction.
Personal opinion: I like the combat system, and I enjoy dungeon crawlers such as the King's Field series and the last quarter of Arx Fatalis, and get bored by long dialogues such as what is seen in The Witcher 3 or in the first chapters of any Gothic game. As such, I definitely like this game, probably more than Gothic II, but if you think you would not enjoy an easier, more combat-oriented game (though, I have to say, this may be my favourite combat system in an RPG) then you might want to give this one a pass.
All in all, if you've enjoyed any of Piranha Bytes' games, I would recommend you to at least try this one out, as it retains the spirit of what makes the games great whilst providing a more focused experience, even if it is focused on dungeon crawling and combat, rather than character stories and dialogue.
(Copied from Steam)
Personal opinion: I like the combat system, and I enjoy dungeon crawlers such as the King's Field series and the last quarter of Arx Fatalis, and get bored by long dialogues such as what is seen in The Witcher 3 or in the first chapters of any Gothic game. As such, I definitely like this game, probably more than Gothic II, but if you think you would not enjoy an easier, more combat-oriented game (though, I have to say, this may be my favourite combat system in an RPG) then you might want to give this one a pass.
All in all, if you've enjoyed any of Piranha Bytes' games, I would recommend you to at least try this one out, as it retains the spirit of what makes the games great whilst providing a more focused experience, even if it is focused on dungeon crawling and combat, rather than character stories and dialogue.
(Copied from Steam)
A Great example of making a small world feel big.
Mage build is apparently op, but I never really tried it
80/100
Mage build is apparently op, but I never really tried it
80/100
I didn't play the Gothic series but I know that there are dedicated fans of who compare it with Elder Scrolls series. I've also heard that Risen is like Gothic II, the most praised one in that title. So, I decided to give it a try, since Risen was relatively modern. I suppose I had my expectations high, because Risen was very, very disappointing for me. Boring, repetetive fetch quests and very bad writing with an unoriginal story was all I got from this game. I won't say anything about the combat because I knew that Piranha Bytes was infamous for clunky combat. I don't know if I would play it again, probably not, but who knows. The only thing that might be considered good is its open world, which is not enough to save the game.
To my understanding, Piranha Bytes used the same formula in all of its games, so I guess none of their games are my cup of tea.
To my understanding, Piranha Bytes used the same formula in all of its games, so I guess none of their games are my cup of tea.
meu deus que jogo complexo. é uma ótima ideia e tem muitas mecânicas daoras que certeza que inspirou muitos jogos que gosto, mas é dificil que doi de querer acompanhar um pingo de história.
I was alone. It was winter and I was sitting in my 17m² one-room apartment in Göttingen in my first semester of a study program that I hated. It was snowing quite heavily and on YouTube, a fresh let's player named Gronkh had uploaded a video series on Risen. I saw this game, knew it was from one of my favorite developers and had to have it. So I made my way through the snow to Media Markt and bought a way too overpriced version of the game. I didn't regret it. It was the Gothic 3 I had always dreamed of. To this day, this game has the best combat system Piranha Bytes has ever developed. Music, setting and quest design were again top notch and I could fully immerse myself for some time in this beautiful world. Why did I only play it once? I don't know. I watched a lot of let's plays but didn't play it again myself, maybe I should change that.
Just like Gothic, it's got that great feeling of getting stronger and gaining people's respect while joining a faction. Plot's pretty neat, combat's fun... it gets weaker in the last chapter when you no longer have much to do with NPCs and all that's left is to go through dungeons, but it's overall a pretty good game.
This review contains spoilers
+ An interesting setting, and thankfully, a manageable game world size - a single island that you can walk across in about 10 minutes.
+ Calm, dreamy graphics that borrow heavily from Gothic 3 (including some assets, I think?)
- Although the storyline is interesting, like all PB games, this one suffers from a completely entangled quest design. Every quest sends you a layered errand run where everyone demands favors. The game is structured in 4 chapters, and the first two are obviously where the game shines - the 1st chapter sees you exploring the island's inhabitants and attempting to join one of the two factions. The game really hones down the point that you are an absolute nobody, and it makes you work your way using your smarts. The 2nd chapter improves on this by basically removing most of the soft-locks on locations that existed before, and really makes you travel the island in search for the discs. All fun and worthwhile, and you get to explore the area while you're at it. However, this is where the game could have ended. Instead, the game drags on for TWO more chapters, where in the 3rd you are torturously making your way through a lizard temple and trying to navigate in-between traps and horribly spammy lizards. But fair, you might think, this must be the final stretch, so you grit your teeth, make your way through the challenges and open the final gate...Syke, welcome to chapter 4 where you are tasked to....once again GO TRAVEL across the entire island in search of 5 pieces of the McGuffin Armor. Even more, it's not like you're going to diverse locations, no! Spend the next 5 hours fighting your way through an entire army of lizards in lizard temples. There's so many lizards in the second half of the game, I almost forgot other enemies existed. This was a completely unnecessary and forgettable part, and it led to an incredibly boring and underwhelming boss fight that asks you to do a bit of legwork and smash your hammer seven times, and that's it. The game just ends after that...
- If this wasn't bad enough, the combat is horrendous! You can easily glitch your enemies by spamming space+left/right to dash maniacally to the side, and slash once to then dash again. This results in insane button spam, and the fight then entirely depends on your ability to spam faster. Moreover, the game registers SEVERAL mouse clicks ahead, so if you press left click twice, you will HAVE to do two attacks and there is no way to stop it, even though you can clearly see that the enemy is about to strike after the first one. This makes the PC look like a complete idiot when he is unable to predict an incredibly obvious strike just because he HAS to hit twice.
All in all, I really wanted to like this. I enjoyed Gothic 3 and some other PB games, and although this has SOME of the PB beauty that I have come to love (even some of the music tracks were quite memorable), but the annoying, castrated combat system and tiring quest design made it very hard to stay patient and not quit the game.
+ Calm, dreamy graphics that borrow heavily from Gothic 3 (including some assets, I think?)
- Although the storyline is interesting, like all PB games, this one suffers from a completely entangled quest design. Every quest sends you a layered errand run where everyone demands favors. The game is structured in 4 chapters, and the first two are obviously where the game shines - the 1st chapter sees you exploring the island's inhabitants and attempting to join one of the two factions. The game really hones down the point that you are an absolute nobody, and it makes you work your way using your smarts. The 2nd chapter improves on this by basically removing most of the soft-locks on locations that existed before, and really makes you travel the island in search for the discs. All fun and worthwhile, and you get to explore the area while you're at it. However, this is where the game could have ended. Instead, the game drags on for TWO more chapters, where in the 3rd you are torturously making your way through a lizard temple and trying to navigate in-between traps and horribly spammy lizards. But fair, you might think, this must be the final stretch, so you grit your teeth, make your way through the challenges and open the final gate...Syke, welcome to chapter 4 where you are tasked to....once again GO TRAVEL across the entire island in search of 5 pieces of the McGuffin Armor. Even more, it's not like you're going to diverse locations, no! Spend the next 5 hours fighting your way through an entire army of lizards in lizard temples. There's so many lizards in the second half of the game, I almost forgot other enemies existed. This was a completely unnecessary and forgettable part, and it led to an incredibly boring and underwhelming boss fight that asks you to do a bit of legwork and smash your hammer seven times, and that's it. The game just ends after that...
- If this wasn't bad enough, the combat is horrendous! You can easily glitch your enemies by spamming space+left/right to dash maniacally to the side, and slash once to then dash again. This results in insane button spam, and the fight then entirely depends on your ability to spam faster. Moreover, the game registers SEVERAL mouse clicks ahead, so if you press left click twice, you will HAVE to do two attacks and there is no way to stop it, even though you can clearly see that the enemy is about to strike after the first one. This makes the PC look like a complete idiot when he is unable to predict an incredibly obvious strike just because he HAS to hit twice.
All in all, I really wanted to like this. I enjoyed Gothic 3 and some other PB games, and although this has SOME of the PB beauty that I have come to love (even some of the music tracks were quite memorable), but the annoying, castrated combat system and tiring quest design made it very hard to stay patient and not quit the game.
Good game that you can still play today. It's one of my favorite games. Don't let its appearance fool you, you should give it a chance. But I can't say the same for the other games of the series. But some parts of the gameplay and story can be extremely frustrating. If you have an angry nature, this game might not be for you.
Its pretty good definitely a Pihranna Style game Faranga is a nice explorable Island not as good as Khorinis but not bad the dialogue is also good as for gameplay I am kinda mixed on it but other than all I enjoyed it
dick status:
Went to play something else and got distracted from this, so I can't really go back. Cool fucking game though; cool RPG mechanics that use your choices in an interesting way. The game also trusts the player to intuit the solution to problems. Very neat.
This is not only piranha bytes best game, it's one of the best open world rpg's i've ever played. Everything is pretty much perfect. Every quest feels as if there WILL be a worthy reward afterwards. The named NPC's you talk to give great and immersive detail on what you need to know, and the characters are incredibly interesting. Even as you progress, the world evolves in such an incredible way, it's actually mind blowing. Play this game, then play the piranha bytes games, for fucks sake.
Pretty meh but funny
This review contains spoilers
Use sword & shield most of the game since if you max out the skill, you can use two handed swords with one hand. I beat the final boss with the warhammer because it's the best weapon in game.
Been playing Risen, GOG says I have put 13 hours in it, just in two days. Risen has been alright so far but this will be a quick comment. It is very very close to Gothic but newer which makes it very repetitive. The combat the overall world design, quest structure, faction system is all the same as Gothic 1, even the weed quests are here. It's all so unimaginative because it just seems like Piranha bytes took their old game and pasted it in an island with some pirate motif, but the island could still be mistaken for Gothics prison colony, even down to the different factions of bandit group/less bandit group.
Stealth is still the exact same just based on characters seeing you or not and if you're in sneak mode, blacksmithing is still the exact same, some of the physics and animations are the same but even worse at times and combat is still almost the exact same as Gothic 2 but worse now. You don't have manual lock-on but a soft auto-lock on and it can be quite annoying to use. You're attacking an enemy but if you move the camera in a direction then the game stops targetting said enemy, which becomes a problem because if you dodge an enemy before the enemy attacks, or before the enemy reajusts its position or if you dodge too far, then you stop being locked on to said enemy and you will almost always miss hitting the enemy with your weapon.
Too much standing behind blocking, it felt almost exactly like I was playing Ocarina of Time, that game came out in 1998, Risen came out in 2009 and Piranha can barely do better.
AI is still dumb as hell and highly predictable. You can still aggro most enemies you encounter and then make them follow you to your overpowered partner early on or to a town where them get destroyed. My early partners AI pathfinding fucked up and he stopped taking me to town. Thanks man.
Being too much of the same makes Risen far too predictable for my liking. It was soon till I entered town and quickly learned and found myself doing petty tasks and at times fetch quests for individuals to gain favors with certain factions that occupy the same town for whatever reason. Gothic did make me prefer this though just due to each faction being very far apart and not occupying the same town. You already know which characters will try to pick a fight with you just due to their voice sounding like an asshole like Gothic. You don't really want to explore most of the outside world until you get armor because you did the exact same thing in Gothic, etc. etc. The game is far too safe for my liking making it feel like a retread of Gothic with new textures.
It is impossible to ignore combat at all in these games. Even early on when you know what you're doing and try not to engage enemies, everything always boils down to lots and lots of fighting. Right now in Chapter 3, it's an entire dungeon crawl with lots of lizard. Chapter 4 just started and it's again more dungeon crawling with skeletons and lizards fighting.
It is just as much of a focus, I would even say even more of a focus than anything else in their games. Exploration happens far less in Chapter 3 & 4 because by this point you will already have teleporting stones and you will teleport to each cave for more fighting.
Pretty much I can see the game is boiling down just like Gothic.
lots of dungeon crawling - check
collecting stuff to build uber weapon/armor - check
fighting a shit ton of orcs lizardmen, so many fucking lizardmen - check
one faction betrays the player - check
unknown evil being is awakened by the end - check
Well that was a lame final boss. It's a gimmick boss that you can't harm unless you hold shield when he shoots slow ass missles and you deflect them back, then you can hit him once. Repeat this 6 times and the game abruptly fades to blacc into a cutscene with a hentai tentacle dragging the boss into hell and your Coolᵀᴹ profagonist walks away out of the cave.
Been playing Risen, GOG says I have put 13 hours in it, just in two days. Risen has been alright so far but this will be a quick comment. It is very very close to Gothic but newer which makes it very repetitive. The combat the overall world design, quest structure, faction system is all the same as Gothic 1, even the weed quests are here. It's all so unimaginative because it just seems like Piranha bytes took their old game and pasted it in an island with some pirate motif, but the island could still be mistaken for Gothics prison colony, even down to the different factions of bandit group/less bandit group.
Stealth is still the exact same just based on characters seeing you or not and if you're in sneak mode, blacksmithing is still the exact same, some of the physics and animations are the same but even worse at times and combat is still almost the exact same as Gothic 2 but worse now. You don't have manual lock-on but a soft auto-lock on and it can be quite annoying to use. You're attacking an enemy but if you move the camera in a direction then the game stops targetting said enemy, which becomes a problem because if you dodge an enemy before the enemy attacks, or before the enemy reajusts its position or if you dodge too far, then you stop being locked on to said enemy and you will almost always miss hitting the enemy with your weapon.
Too much standing behind blocking, it felt almost exactly like I was playing Ocarina of Time, that game came out in 1998, Risen came out in 2009 and Piranha can barely do better.
AI is still dumb as hell and highly predictable. You can still aggro most enemies you encounter and then make them follow you to your overpowered partner early on or to a town where them get destroyed. My early partners AI pathfinding fucked up and he stopped taking me to town. Thanks man.
Being too much of the same makes Risen far too predictable for my liking. It was soon till I entered town and quickly learned and found myself doing petty tasks and at times fetch quests for individuals to gain favors with certain factions that occupy the same town for whatever reason. Gothic did make me prefer this though just due to each faction being very far apart and not occupying the same town. You already know which characters will try to pick a fight with you just due to their voice sounding like an asshole like Gothic. You don't really want to explore most of the outside world until you get armor because you did the exact same thing in Gothic, etc. etc. The game is far too safe for my liking making it feel like a retread of Gothic with new textures.
It is impossible to ignore combat at all in these games. Even early on when you know what you're doing and try not to engage enemies, everything always boils down to lots and lots of fighting. Right now in Chapter 3, it's an entire dungeon crawl with lots of lizard. Chapter 4 just started and it's again more dungeon crawling with skeletons and lizards fighting.
It is just as much of a focus, I would even say even more of a focus than anything else in their games. Exploration happens far less in Chapter 3 & 4 because by this point you will already have teleporting stones and you will teleport to each cave for more fighting.
Pretty much I can see the game is boiling down just like Gothic.
lots of dungeon crawling - check
collecting stuff to build uber weapon/armor - check
fighting a shit ton of orcs lizardmen, so many fucking lizardmen - check
one faction betrays the player - check
unknown evil being is awakened by the end - check
Well that was a lame final boss. It's a gimmick boss that you can't harm unless you hold shield when he shoots slow ass missles and you deflect them back, then you can hit him once. Repeat this 6 times and the game abruptly fades to blacc into a cutscene with a hentai tentacle dragging the boss into hell and your Coolᵀᴹ profagonist walks away out of the cave.
I'm not very familiar with the Gothic series, and struggled to get into them when playing parts of them a short time ago, but they seem to be classics in Germany, and I know a lot of people who played them. The only one that's been part of my childhood, was Risen, and I didn't even play it much, I only remember playing small parts of with with a friend, and I remember always wanting to play the whole game, which I never ended up doing.
So now, with the Black Friday Steam sale, I decided to give it another shot, and, well, it's fun, but probably nothing special in its genre. When you start, you're stranded on an island with some of the last survivors of mankind (it was probably explained in the prologue, but I forgot - the story here is a bit average anyway), and have to work your way up to finally save the island from titans and lizard people (probably the Reptilians from the conspiracy theories).
It gets more straightforward, the more the game progresses, but I enjoyed the earlier chapters the most, where you just have to walk around and complete tasks for everybody, the Bandit Camp and Harbour Town were the highlights, along with Patty's treasure hunt.
Oh yeah, I chose bandit and mostly improved my sword and thief skills, never did anything like alchemy or smithery, and it didn't seem necessary, as I always had enough items, strong weapons and never had to grind.
That's it, basically. Probably cool for fans of the genre, some nostalgic value for me. I'm not very familiar with similar games, so I can't compare it, but would certainly recommend to fans of Gothic, as from what I've seen, this seems to be on a similar level.
So now, with the Black Friday Steam sale, I decided to give it another shot, and, well, it's fun, but probably nothing special in its genre. When you start, you're stranded on an island with some of the last survivors of mankind (it was probably explained in the prologue, but I forgot - the story here is a bit average anyway), and have to work your way up to finally save the island from titans and lizard people (probably the Reptilians from the conspiracy theories).
It gets more straightforward, the more the game progresses, but I enjoyed the earlier chapters the most, where you just have to walk around and complete tasks for everybody, the Bandit Camp and Harbour Town were the highlights, along with Patty's treasure hunt.
Oh yeah, I chose bandit and mostly improved my sword and thief skills, never did anything like alchemy or smithery, and it didn't seem necessary, as I always had enough items, strong weapons and never had to grind.
That's it, basically. Probably cool for fans of the genre, some nostalgic value for me. I'm not very familiar with similar games, so I can't compare it, but would certainly recommend to fans of Gothic, as from what I've seen, this seems to be on a similar level.