Sacred 2 fulfills the role of next-gen Diablo clone, and fans of the genre should be able to overlook its shortcomings.
Since I've owned a 360, I kept asking myself, "Why have they stopped pumping out diablo-clones?". I don't know about you, but I've had it with shooters, no matter how innovative they are. Apparently, that's where the money is, and old-school dungeon crawlers probably don't sell all that well in comparison. In this day and age, video games have become mass market, and word on the street is developers don't spend resources on games that are a niche crowd... As crazy as it sounds, RPGers are a small crowd when compared to blockbuster games like Gears of War or Halo...
Sure, there have been some excellent western RPGs (Oblivion, Fallout 3, Mass Effect to name a few) but no diablo clones whatsoever!
Enter Ascaron's plans to port their PC's Sacred 2 over to the 360. When I heard about this, I was ecstatic. Although it's missed several release dates now (3-4 I think), in the end, I can personally say it was worth the wait.
Although I've played the game less than 10 hours, I felt compelled to provide a player review as soon as possible, if only to chime in that the game is worth buying if you like this genre, despite its shortcomings. I've never played the PC version, so you have the benefit of reading unbiased comments in that regard.
First and foremost, install the game on your hard drive. This will help with the occasional pop-in, and also reduce the odd load times in town or coming out of a dungeon. Some games benefit little from being installed, but Sacred 2 sees immediate improvement. Once installed, the spinning load disc hardly seems a distraction.
Graphically, I find this game to be beautiful. I've read complaints about the graphics but I can't personally understand where these people are coming from. As a next-gen dungeon crawler, it's gorgeous. You'll notice the occasional drop in frame rate, but the sheer fact that I get to play this game on my couch / TV more than makes up for it.
As far as interface goes, I've read a few reviewers mention they found it counter intuitive and confusing, and I agree that at first it is, but once I got past the 2+ hour mark, I was fine with it. The hotkey system works fairly well, allowing you to assign 12 attacks that are easily accessible, but it may take you a while to memorize the symbol that each combat skill represents. You know what I say to that? Big freggin' deal!
There are 6 character classes, each sporting unique skills that can be leveled up in a multitude of different ways. I'll be honest, there are still some elements of the skill upgrade system that I don't yet understand (such as combining skills) and some skill descriptions can be vague, but I like the fact that with Sacred 2 they did something different, and something that allows for a very unique character creation nonetheless.
The voice acting isn't all that great, and the quest text is optional but present if you care to read it. Nothing new here, those of us who enjoy this genre have become used to it. The questing system itself is fairly well done; you'll never have trouble finding a location. This is a very good thing, because Sacred 2's game world is absolutely MASSIVE. I've spent hours running around and when I loaded up the main map to see my progress, I was astounded... Including all dungeons, I wouldn't be surprised if Sacred 2's game world is twice the size of Oblivion's.
Of course, I have to mention the killing and looting. You'll be doing tons of it. To some, that may sound bad, to me, it's exactly what I wanted :) You'll pick up various pieces of gear, some your class can wear, others you'll end up selling. You can choose to auto-equip items, or sort it out yourself (which to most is part of the fun). As I've mentioned before though, vague item descriptions and the lack of a proper sorting method will extend this process quite a bit, but personally, I don't feel it takes away from the overall experience.
I'm going to conclude this now, I know it's not much of a review and I don't usually post until I've sunk in several hours in a game, but I felt compelled to share with fans of the genre that Sacred 2 is good, very good in fact. Is it perfect? No, but nonetheless it's an excellent (and much needed) addition to this lacking genre... So what are you waiting for? ;)