A great game for those of us who crave Action/RPG types of games.
I like Risen, though I started off a little concerned. The setting seemed very contrived: guy and girl washed up on shore, "why don't you look around a little bit." Found a branch, fought with a creature, walked up a hill and found a house, looked around, cupboards and chests. Walked further, fought some more creatures, found another house, more cupboards and chests, found a sword. Sounds pretty boring, eh? I wasn't very impressed and had a bit of a sinking feeling about the future.
But the game truly progressed from there. I've only played one story line, but it seems that there are at least two other paths to take. I was asked to join with bandits, but wanted to "go to town" and check things out first. I got captured right off the bat and taken to the "Monastery." The cool thing is that I was scared to death of getting captured. At first I thought my game would be over, or that there would be dire consequences for getting caught. It's actually turned out rather nicely.
After the initial "done to death" stuff at the very beginning, "Risen" ended up throwing some decent curves at me. Unlike other people who have complained, I like the combat mechanics. It certainly takes some time to master, but there are plenty of opportunities to practice. Whereas in "The Witcher" simply had you look for little icons to know when to click, here your tactics really have consequences. And if you try some fancy stuff and don't pull it off... OOOF! It can hurt! But if you get it right you're pretty tough.
Since this is made by the same folks as "Gothic III," people have commented on the similarities. I played "Gothic II" but never bought "Gothic III." For some reason I kept being reminded of "Two Worlds." I liked "Two Worlds," but I just couldn't finish it. It lost my interest after awhile. That's where "Risen" excels.
I really feel like I'm rising up in the ranks (The Order) and can truly feel my powers and abilities increasing. And there's stuff like prospecting (mining ores), goldsmithing (making jewelry), blacksmithing, writing scrolls, alchemy. Surely these things aren't original, but in "Risen" there's this big to-do with all the learning and training, at least in the faction I joined. I truly am enjoying it.
There's something else that's really weird. You can make "stews," and there seems to be a lot put into this. There are recipes laying around in the strangest of places. So, yeah, you can cook in "Risen." You can get a surprising number of cooking gear, too. Fry meat and fish, and cook up some stew too!
Other skills and trades also have quite a chore involved, like all the tools you can get to better strip creatures of their hide, teeth, wings, stings, etc. It's pretty shocking, and of course I had to pursue that all the way! But don't worry, 'cause there's no hurry. There's not timer, you can take you time to explore and grind and learn lots of eclectic skills. Like me. I can hit a ghoul with a fireball, finish him off with a sword, then move in and pick the lock on a treasure chest, then take a pick-axe and mine the gold from the cave wall. Oh, yeah, and so far I've never ran out of inventory space or become "overburdened." It may not be realistic, but it's nice for a change. So load up on the never-ending supply of worthless loot and plants.
Now for the complaints: there are very few different looks for the NPC's. Be prepared to see the same few dark-headed guys, over and over. And there's even fewer models for the women. The graphics are a bit of a mix. Sometimes I find myself really enjoying the view and atmosphere, but then there's the lame NPC faces. The night time is very dark as are some of the ruins and underground. I'm okay with that, darkness has it's place in video gaming, but the torch and light spells are annoying at best. In third person view both are distracting and don't help much. The game (after patch) is very stable and has not crashed or glitched on me a single time since installing the 1.10 patch. I admit that I bought my game (new) off Ebay after the 1.10 patch had already been released. So I haven't had any issues with stability. The game could've been optimized better though. It's often a little 'stuttery' though it's not a game killer. My specs blow the recommend specs away, and I have other high end games that play better with better graphics. But I love a game that doesn't crash, and "Risen" fits that bill. I'll sacrifice 'pretty' for stability any day! And the 'stuttering' is really only in places with a lot of NPC's or foliage. Not bad.
Another complaint, which could conceivably be a hidden boon. The quest journal is woeful. It can be very difficult keeping up with what exactly I'm supposed to be doing, and who I'm supposed to return to. The quest log keeps up with some of the dialogue, but often critical statements are missing. Sometimes the spoken statements are out of order or are generally hard to pinpoint. The end result is that I've had to get a pad of paper handy to make my own notes. This might turn out to be sort of fun, sort of force me to pay better attention. "Risen" doesn't hold your hand. This is something that is repeated again and again on the forums I've gleaned for quest info.
My final word is that I found "Risen" to be fairly difficult. I tend to get killed from time to time. But the quicksave and autosave function has worked flawlessly so far - so no worries! You can save anywhere at anytime with one keystroke. I know, I know, I know, most 10 and 12 year old boys say, "Risen is easy. I beat it on hard mode in 20 seconds." But I'm 40-something and don't spend 20 hours/day playing video games. More like 1-3 hours 2-3 days per week. Anybody else got a job and a wife?