Soon-to-be hero gets washed up on an island with little background story to tell. Looks around, sees a branch and a couple of oversized chickens (sea vultures) lurking about. Also, he noticed another survivor, a woman. He talks to her – she suggests to find a weapon – a branch, anything; then move on. Lucky for her, soon-to-be-hero locates a branch – sees a chicken (sea vulture) – attacks it. Barely survived with the uncooked “chicken drumstick” loot, soon-to-be-hero quickly notices another two sea vultures coming in fast.
Soon-to-be-hero died. No more hero.
Welcome to Risen – where you are just a total weakling where even a single young stingrat will give you a fight for your life. If this sounds familiar, you are deemed to be correct as the entire game has a similar “feel” to Piranha Bytes previous series “Gothic”. Don’t get me wrong as I love the Gothic series, partially Gothic 2 however Risen, for me, is using almost the same formula as the Gothic series. Yes, I really do miss the Gothic games and hoping for another one however, Risen was way too much “Gothic”. Is that a bad thing? If you haven’t played any of the Gothic games before, then no – it’s brutal yet satisfying as every battle, for most parts, will be a challenge. However, if you played any of the Gothic games before (like me), it’s a little too much of the same thing. And that includes, for which is a very sad point, the bugs that includes free of charge, a game breaking bug. Not cool at all.
So ,as explained above, you are washed ashore finding your way through this mysterious island. You will soon learn that every creature will pose a challenge and there are factions to side with. And no, you cannot “side” with all the factions as each has its own agenda. Of course, you can maximise the amount of quests obtained before the obligatory “join a faction” option appears. The factions plays out very well as you will be spending considerable time with each faction and its issues. However, later on the game, the quality of quests diminishes, especially at chapter three and four (the final two chapters). Basically, these chapters require revisiting the island all over again collecting stuff for the “greater good”.
Risen’s gameplay is regarded as a role-playing game – that is, it’s stats driven, has a “character class” (even though you can allocate points to whatever attribute you desire) and dialogues to select. The “open ended” approach, that is, you are free to visit any part of the island (save for a selected few) is a definite drawcard. There are no “sectors” where a certain level is required for any part of the island. So, you will see a “high level” being mingle among a “low level” being. This approach is more “realistic” than, say, visiting a “high level” area where the same species of, say a goblin suddenly becomes uber just because it’s located in that “high level” area with a colour change to its attire just to indicate this kind is the uber.
To put it bluntly, combat is brutal yet fair. To those who played the Gothic series will understand this however, if you never played a Gothic game, prepare to die – a lot. Because of the “open world” policy, if a monster, being is too powerful to confront, revisit it again when you are stronger (that is levelling up or obtaining better equipment / spells). This is also mentioned in the manual. Essentially leave and come back later. Granted you exhibit a mini map and, eventually a world and regional map (once you have earned them) yet they are more or less worthless as there is no “bookmark” option. Why I wish there was one is because there are many times I visited an area that’s either being blocked by an uber creature, don’t have the necessary tools or simply don’t have the correct spell. If I can bookmark that area, I know exactly where I need to go once I have obtain it (or skilful enough).
In addition to this, because the landmass overall is quite small in comparison to other RPGs (during its time), the island layout can be looked at multiple “levels” – meaning that the waterfall you saw from the bottom can be reached at the top (source) by finding the right path to get up there. I quite like this idea as, once you are at the “top”, you will be greeted with some magnificent views of the surrounding area. Actually, the entire island is quite pretty to look at as it’s all “hand-made” and not some random nonsense – that is, having a desert and / or snow themed area just to make things more “interesting” (I’m looking at you Gothic 3). However, the creature placement suffers from this “randomness” as I have seen a creature (for I’m not going to say what), locked in a cell with no way out, guarding an item that you must acquire. It’s like “How it is going to feed itself?” – or “How did it wind up in this situation?“ or better still “How long have you been here?”. Sadly, there are many, many more examples of this placement mess.
Combat can be viewed as a trial and error approach as certain creatures have a “weakness” to certain weapons or spells so it’s worthwhile to experiment. Yet there is a heavy reliance on spells but thankfully, anyone can use scrolls to “cast”. Yet, you can invest skill points learning to create scrolls or even magic potions and / or weapons. Why I’m stating this is because, as the old saying goes “the pen is mightier than the sword”. This reigns so true to this game; especially writing scrolls. Why I have mentioned this is because, there are certain areas in the game that requires you to cast a certain spell to progress – other words, if you don’t have it that’s too bad – period. Did I say brutal but fair? In this case, it’s not exactly “fair” as I was hoping there are more than one way to complete a task. Well, not in this game I’m sorry to say. So, the morale to the story is everything and anything has a purpose. And because you have unlimited inventory (a bonus), utilise it. I won’t say anymore.
Further to this, being a “mage” character, there are only three types of “rune” spells to cast – fire, frost and bullet. Basically, there’s not much spell variations which is very disappointing and there is no way you can “master” all three (as you cannot earn the required experience points to do this during the playthrough unless you cheat of course). And if you think you can grind away, that’s a no-go as well because monsters do not respawn at all – once dead, always dead (until a new chapter loads up then it’s quite limited to the number of monsters available for exp gains).
Visually it’s quite pleasing to the eye – beautiful vistas, crashing waves upon the shoreline to trees swaying filled with vibrant colours, it’s quite a beauty to behold. Not as appealing as some of the AAA games out there however, for the small development team, I have to give them credit. Yet, there are plenty of areas where you encounter that “invisible” wall. In contrast, that wasn’t the case with the previous Gothic games. However, I do like the animation when you venture too far out of the ocean (mum’s the word) and even has an achievement for doing this multiple times.
Whilst the voice acting is mediocre at best, I thought the main characters are acted quite well considering. Overall, I cannot complain about the sound affects as ice really sounds like crackling ice and fire, crackling fire and so on. Yet, the opening musical score sounds too much like the opening score from Fallout 3 – a little too uncanny considering Fallout 3 was released a year prior (2008). Combat music suits well (and yet can be a massive spoiler indicating a fight is about to happen) however you really cannot complain about the overall sound quality.
By this stage you may contemplating why the low score? As stated earlier on, you can visit the entire island at your whim and don’t mind getting your backside wiped a million times – other words, it’s an open-world game where “high” and “low” level enemies co-exist; and it’s highly advisable to explore as you’ll find some hidden gems (just make sure your lockpick skill is maxed out). Yet, there is a sad turn of events where exploring ahead will break the main storyline quest. Without spoiling too much, this happens later on in the game where you suppose to partake a series of scripted events however, based on this “exploration” notion, you can still go ahead ignoring all “scripted” events. Normally this is ok to do so however, during this part in the game, let’s just say the game gets really confused thus cannot progress any further – period. Sad Panda.
Luckily for me, I tend to save at the beginning of each chapter and a different save at the end of each mission. Then use the good ole quick save here and there. Now, if I haven’t saved the game after every mission or chapter, I would of being very cheesed off to the nth degree – and that’s being polite. So, my advice here is to follow what I have done if you want to complete the game, or at the barest minimum, save at the beginning of each chapter. However, if you are not much of an explorer then you’ll be fine. However, the game does encourage you to explore so you’ll have this mass irony. And if you want an added challenge (if the game isn’t hard enough already), there loads of achievements to earn however you won’t be able to attain 100% doing one playthrough. I managed to reach around 75% and yes, there are some grinding involved.
Upon hearing that Piranha Bytes will be releasing a new game and hearing the news that it feels and plays like their previous games (Gothic), I was sorely disappointed that it wasn’t initially released in Australia because of the lack of R18 (back then). Eventually gave up hope for this game being released in Australia, many moons later, I saw it being offered in GOG. Snapped it up like there’s no tomorrow and started playing, it really feels like the next “Gothic” game in the series. Granted, world (island) is much, much smaller than Gothic 3, the cracks started to appear around chapter 2 onwards.
By all accounts, it’s not a bad game – well save for that game breaking bug later on in the game. I understand that games may have bugs especially when dealing with an “open world” type of game. However, when the game breaks because you explore more than you “should”, I have zero tolerance for this as this could have been picked up during gameplay testing. Also, the game itself feels a little too much of Gothic 1 of how everything “operates”. In addition to this, about a third in, it really feels like the developers have simply ran out of ideas hence “forcing” you to do a series of “find this…” quests that requires exploring (and thankfully so) small island yet again and again. So, if you are new to the “Gothic” series, this will be a blast (yet take heed of the game breaking bug) however those who played Gothic 1 before, it feels like a copy / paste job with a game breaking bug added for “good” measure.