Risen: the new RPG by the people behind Gothic

**frogbeastegg** · 10-02-2009, 20:24

Risen is now out. It sounds extremely promising and the team is one with a pedigree of good, challening and different from the norm heavyweight RPGs. It's had lots of good reviews in German and is starting to get some in English too. Many are saying it's Gothic 3 as it should have been.

Heh. I opted for the xbox version. Thought I'd play in comfort and on a nice big screen. My order shipped yesterday and should arrive tomorrow. This evening I hear reports that the port is pretty dire - control issues, interface issues, badly dumbed down graphics for no actual reason, framerate issues. It was an outsourced job and the company behind it weren't up to the job. A patch has been announced so it looks like the game goes straight onto the pile until the patch arrives. I was quite looking forward to this as well

**Husar** · 10-02-2009, 20:30

Yep, I bought it on Steam tonight and am just waiting for it to be unlocked.

**frogbeastegg** · 10-02-2009, 20:36

I expected you'd be playing it. I had you in mind when I started the thread. Do share your impressions, I'm very interested to see what you make of it.

If impatience gets the worst of me I might try the unpatched 360 version. I can live with ugly graphics and some awkwardness if the rest is good enough. I did play (all of) and enjoy (most of) Two Worlds after all.

**Zenicetus** · 10-05-2009, 04:16

I tried the demo (PC version via Steam), not very far I admit, but it didn't grab me. I'm spoiled by more polished recent games like The Witcher, I guess.

The character modeling was an immediate turn-off: very angular, stiff and weird, especially for the female character you meet early on. Do the devs think female human characters actually look like that? It didn't make me want to see the rest of the game, based on that one character alone.

The camera rotates around your 3rd person "hero" character like he's standing on a turntable, locked to the center of the screen. It makes me appreciate how other games have managed to get away from that perspective, or at least minimize it. The dialog was brief and predictable. And then you get to level-up by killing local low-level wildlife with a pocket knife... great. I had enough of that with WoW, thanks.

YMMV, this may be a great game if you get further into it. There is a demo, so try it. I know I'm griping about what may be superficial graphic elements that may be trumped by deep RPG gameplay. I just didn't get a taste of that in the demo, before it all looked bad enough to hit the "delete" key.

**Lemur** · 10-05-2009, 04:25

Loved Gothic 2, hated Gothic 3. Looks like all of the reviews at Metacritic are in German. Very interested to hear impressions from Orgahs, or at least links to English reviews ...

**Husar** · 10-05-2009, 12:30

http://www.worldofrisen.de/english/

eurogamer.net also gave it 4/10.

My personal opinion, I don't know what they played, pcgames.de said the PC version is a lot better than the 360 version, eurogamer posts a screenshot and says it doesn't look like this even though it kinda does on my PC(unless they are talking about some minor image enhancements I did not notice at a glance) so it's possible they just played the 360 version and rated both versions based on it.

I uhm, hate the game and that's why I did nothing else on Saturday than play it from waking up till going to bed. Uhm, I mean it's a lot like Gothic 3 (same engine but a bit improved) with a lot of the problems solved, the fighting is a lot better IMO, I have to reload fairly often with some enemies but so far usually not to the point where I lost interest.
The graphics are fine IMO, not the best, not the newest but the focus was on delivering a good game, not the new Crysis, IMO that could be seen on the pre-release screenshots already, if anyone expected more then they were a bit uhm...stupid perhaps. I also find them a bit more comicky but that may just be me, the character models only bothered me a bit in the beginning, the animations aren't great but I never had a problem with them in the Gothics so why would I have one here?
The dialogue in german is good as always, can't comment on the english dialogues as they said they changed it because the english speaking crowd doesn't like german jokes etc.
The battles now are challenging and I constantly feel like I'm getting that new armour too late, the armour that is available to me is always like paper for the enemies I'm facing at that point of the game so blocking or evading is very important, I might have mis-leveled a bit by going for dexterity and strength so my hits don't always do as much damage as they probably should at this point but having a bow can make up for that unless there is no chance to use the bow in a situation, magic scrolls can help sometimes as well. I'd expect to reload fairly often anyway though.
Now with items it is a lot like Gothic 3, and that is one of the few criticisms I have, by act two (it's sliced up into 4 acts) you have seen most/all of the weapons for purchase and will have to find some "special weapons" to get something better, I remember Gothic 1 and 2 had more choice there with a wealth of slightly different swords which also mostly looked a lot more elegant. Armours are as usual, except they are now somewhat inappropriate for the tasks at hand IMO but maybe I should try to get more protective rings and amulets, that usually helps, they full-body armours as usual and helmets are available and rare just like in Gothic 3, it really makes you wonder why they implemented them in the first place (especially since their style often doesn't really fit the available armour suits).
The quests are very typical for the Gothic series, everybody else seems like some lazy git who sends you around to do all the work but it's fun, the character comments on it and it hooks me just like the old Gothics did, so I can't really complain here I guess.

Sometimes, I think, it makes sense to stick with the old ways, even if some magazines will give only 4/10 because it's not so fancy and modern (and often bland and boring...) but that's just my opinion of course, I generally quite enjoy this, just the item department is as bad as in Gothic 3 but that won't ruin the game for me.

Oh, if anything doesn't make sense, just ask, I just got up and am still a bit sleepy.

**frogbeastegg** · 10-08-2009, 20:22

Rock, Paper, Shotgun are running a multipart feature on Risen. Parts 1 and 2 are up. Language warning on the comments section for both.

I'm still puttering around in those early sections described in the articles. I need to go back and clear the cave mentioned in part 2 - I left when what's-her-name warned me away. Based on the developer's history I assumed that if they cared to warn you an area was dangerous then it must contain 60 fire breathing dragons or something! I mean, everything is dangerous to a level 1 character so if something merits a warning ...

I'm enjoying it. Despite the drawbacks of the console port it's immensely playable. If they fix the tiny text and dark graphics I shall be a mightily happy frog.