My Risen impressions

[Darth Roxor]

"Once the lizards pop out, you can just pretend the game is over and move on. It's really not worth trudging through the remaining combatfest - which is the same with G2 endgame, I'd argue."

bullshit

lies

r00fles!

 

[Beastro]

"Once the lizards pop out, you can just pretend the game is over and move on. It's really not worth trudging through the remaining combatfest - which is the same with G2 endgame, I'd argue."

bullshit

lies

r00fles!

A few pop up before the end of the second act, but they predominate the third which is a short shoe horned finale that switches out all the fun and enjoyable strengths of the game for corridor combat.

Even if the lizards weren't such a tedious pain to kill there's nothing else to do but keep on running to the end and face the boss.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

You can ask the second guy you meet to help her out.

Pretty sure escape out of monastery is not possible, though you can try and get lucky xtreme-skating down the clifffaces jumping out of the open courtyard area (next to the smith).

If you have acrobatics (skill or ring that gives you that skill, there are several of them in the game) you can escape from both Monastery (Jump from the Arena where you fight recruits/Alric) and Harbour Town.

That would probably be break the game where you're triggered to learn the orders staff and spell angle but now have the bandits combat focused style locked out.

Pretty sure you can still switch-up allegiances in the Harbour Town even if you pass all the tests in the Monastery and become an initiate or whatever. So no, it shouldn't break the game.

The whole point to me is why would you even want to do that? If you want to go bandits reload a save, but I don't really know why you'd want to. A big fault of the game is how going with the order offers more while the bandits lock you into being melee focused (when you can just save every penny from the 1st act and work on buying every melee skill from them you want before making the decision to join the order guys, which is what I did once I got a feel for the games design structure).

-You're forced to go melee (or ranged) route if you join Bandits because they know shit about magic (they have one alchemist), it's probably the main edge Order has over them and why Don Esteban got his ass kicked and lost his town.

-Magic is only available to Order which makes sense, in PB games mages aren't dime and dozen like warriors. Iif you want to learn magic, chances are you'll have to join a cult/sect that teaches it only to their own, they don't share such a valuable asset with every vagabond on the street. C&C bro, this isn't a Bethesduh game where an axe-wielding orc that doesn't know a single spell becomes head of the mage guild.

-You don't have to save up anything before you join the Order cause even after you can still train Axes/Swords up to level 7 by a number of independent trainers around the world, only higher levels (8-10) of Axes/Swords are locked out if you're not a bandit and that gap can be bridged by +weapon skill rings (some of them are not easy to found). Only melee weapon skill that is tied to the faction is Staff Fighting (though I'm not 100% sure, will have to check up on it).

 

[ZagorTeNej]

A few pop up before the end of the second act, but they predominate the third which is a short shoe horned finale that switches out all the fun and enjoyable strengths of the game for corridor combat.

It switches into a decent dungeon romp with some nice design and rudimentary puzzles that ask you to use Levitation, Transform into Bug, Telekinesis and Bow and Arrow. I found them enjoyable and a nice change of pace for the end but your mileage may vary. I also like fighting lizards so there's that, the challenge drops near the end like in every other RPG(or PB game) but they can still hurt you in a group if you aren't careful.

Plus, corridor combat is actually enjoyable in Risen because unlike most APRGs/action games multiple enemies will attack you at the same time so it's a challenge when you don't have room to navigate like outside (on the other side it's easier to bottleneck them of course).

 

[Beastro]

It switches into a decent dungeon romp with some nice design and rudimentary puzzles that ask you to use Levitation, Transform into Bug, Telekinesis and Bow and Arrow. I found them enjoyable and a nice change of pace for the end but your mileage may vary. I also like fighting lizards so there's that, the challenge drops near the end like in every other RPG(or PB game) but they can still hurt you in a group if you aren't careful.

Plus, corridor combat is actually enjoyable in Risen because unlike most APRGs/action games multiple enemies will attack you at the same time so it's a challenge when you don't have room to navigate like outside (on the other side it's easier to bottleneck them of course).

It's been, what? Six years since I played the game (at release). I just remember the beginning being nice and encouraging me to keep going, the middle shining and the end being a slog, but not enough of one (nor long) to make me give up on beating it.

My favourite parts of typical: Getting myself into content over my lv and finding ways, in this case ranged weps and magic, to allow me to clear them.

The part that sticks out the most is clearing out a wooded area but split pulling, then using ranged and fancy foot work to kill of mobs a few lvs higher than I was, then pulling mobs out of a nearby cave to a ledge and using the bow, patience and a lot of dodging to work down mobs twice my level that were forced to use range attacks and charge ones that could knock me off if I wasn't careful.

 

[Roguey]

You can ask the second guy you meet to help her out.

There's a narrative choice here, you can send her to the swamp or the town.

 

[Gozma]

Discoveries:

1) It's pretty easy to jump out of the Monastery. There's a good spot if you go over to the fighting arena thing.

2) It's possible to leave the monastery and finish chapter 1 as a Dongsman, but it's screwy and you probably shouldn't. I jumped out of the monastery, went to not-Khorinis and got the guy to give me the deliver-a-package quest to the Dong, who gave me the negotiate-with-inquisitor quest that ends the chapter. Went back, the guy at the front door says, "What the hell are you doing? Get back in the monastery" and cutscene-forces you back in. You can then go around and talk to people and they are all misfiring their scripts between you being a monastery guy and you being a Dongsman.

If you go to talk to the inquisitor, the guys guarding him won't let you into his room and the intended solution for a Dongsman (their script lets you through) doesn't happen. I felt very clever by tricking this using the create-a-prostitute spell to distract the guards, then slipping past them without the script firing. The inquisitor guy gets mad at you for entering his room, but you can just lure him to the door to talk to him, which lets you finish the quest and advance to chapter 2, wherein all seemed well.

Except I went back to the Dong, and he won't sell me any patented chapter-2-of-a-Gothic-game armor upgrade and I didn't get the monastery version from the 'quizitor. Looking online for the problem it seems I "should" have been able to get the armor from the Dong in chapter 1, but probably some Monastery=1 boolean somewhere fukt me. I reloaded after that to just finish as a Monastery boy because I figure the Monastery=1 boolean will cause a dead end at some point, and because there isn't any substitute nonfaction armor I could use like the various stuff in NotR.

Edit - Oh, and another thing hinting that I was gonna dead end somewhere: No one will open the gate so you can leave the monastery after the above process, so you gotta jump out again.

ADVICE: If anyone hasn't played this and gets impatient at slow ass open world jogging, just go all out adventure gamer in chapter 1 and fight as little as possible so you can finish it in a couple of hours. You get a silly way to teleport between spots immediately at the start of Chapter 2. I don't know for sure how much gets "missed" by not doing it in Chapter 1 but I suspect it's very little.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Discoveries:

1) It's pretty easy to jump out of the Monastery. There's a good spot if you go over to the fighting arena thing.

2) It's possible to leave the monastery and finish chapter 1 as a Dongsman, but it's screwy and you probably shouldn't. I jumped out of the monastery, went to not-Khorinis and got the guy to give me the deliver-a-package quest to the Dong, who gave me the negotiate-with-inquisitor quest that ends the chapter. Went back, the guy at the front door says, "What the hell are you doing? Get back in the monastery" and cutscene-forces you back in. You can then go around and talk to people and they are all misfiring their scripts between you being a monastery guy and you being a Dongsman.

If you go to talk to the inquisitor, the guys guarding him won't let you into his room and the intended solution for a Dongsman (their script lets you through) doesn't happen. I felt very clever by tricking this using the create-a-prostitute spell to distract the guards, then slipping past them without the script firing. The inquisitor guy gets mad at you for entering his room, but you can just lure him to the door to talk to him, which lets you finish the quest and advance to chapter 2, wherein all seemed well.

Except I went back to the Dong, and he won't sell me any patented chapter-2-of-a-Gothic-game armor upgrade and I didn't get the monastery version from the 'quizitor. Looking online for the problem it seems I "should" have been able to get the armor from the Dong in chapter 1, but probably some Monastery=1 boolean somewhere fukt me. I reloaded after that to just finish as a Monastery boy because I figure the Monastery=1 boolean will cause a dead end at some point, and because there isn't any substitute nonfaction armor I could use like the various stuff in NotR.

Edit - Oh, and another thing hinting that I was gonna dead end somewhere: No one will open the gate so you can leave the monastery after the above process, so you gotta jump out again.

Seems like a clusterfuck, I don't think the game expects you to leave Monastery once you're dragged into it to became a cult member. That said, I'm pretty sure you can just finish the questline in Monastery (become an apprentice or whatever) after which you'll be allowed to leave and then switch allegiances in Harbour Town (choose Don's men in all/majority of the quests). Think I have a save at that point from my previous playthrough so I'm probably gonna try out, see what happens.

ADVICE: If anyone hasn't played this and gets impatient at slow ass open world jogging, just go all out adventure gamer in chapter 1 and fight as little as possible so you can finish it in a couple of hours. You get a silly way to teleport between spots immediately at the start of Chapter 2. I don't know for sure how much gets "missed" by not doing it in Chapter 1 but I suspect it's very little.

You'll get teleport stones for each settlement starting from Chapter 2 but the portal stones carrying lizardmen only start popping out all over the place (southeast, southwest, east coast etc.) once you finish Eastern Temple quest in my experience, not before.

 

[Lord Azlan]

The game refused to guide me in the first 10 minutes of the game.

.

There you go - simply - this game is not for you. Not everything the Codex recommends is for EVERYONE in the Codex.

I loved this game and thought the designers did an immense job getting the feel of the Island correct -

The combat - in the end I had a huge respect for it. I loved and hated it in equal measures.

Let's face it - the combat in most games is predictable and sometimes challenging if you are lucky. Most developers can't sort out the problem where as your characters advance combat gets easier. Combat in Risen was a serious business.

 

[SCO]

You can actually do the opposite, jump out of not-Khorinis. I actually only joined the monastery after doing the not-Khorinis quests and bandit camp quests in chapter 1 and getting most rewards going back and forth as if i had finished chapter 1 with the bandits and had the secret passage open (you can reenters with bribes as usual after jumping off). The point of no return for the bandit camp is after you meet with the not-Don and you can still get one or two quests. And yes the create-a-prostitute spell is invaluable to break stupid character invisible wall hotspots.

It's enjoyable to break the sequence of the classic gothics and often profitable.

 

[Gozma]

Man they shouldn't have put in the create scrolls thing; it really makes runes pointless. I dunno how I would replay this game because I can't think of anything that would change. In NotR the only gameplay difference between Paladin and Mercenary is basically how you heal (spell vs. having to struggle a little bit with potions) but Mages are a little bit different (and you get to run around dropping overpowered Infernos in the last chapter or two as your payoff). I remember thinking that scrolls getting more available in NotR (vs. vanilla Gothic 2, which is a very vague memory for me at this point) took a little too much shine off mages but it's much more the case in this. The range damage spells are just arrows and the runes are easily substituted with a 5 LP skill.

I guess it's the price they had to pay for making dungeon diving using levitation/nautilus/telekinesis more of a design goal.

Another Gothic 2 comparison is that I remember Gothic enemies being much more aggressive about fucking you over when you have to fight multiple opponents. They'd strafe around and attack more. In Risen they basically form a queue to fight you 1 on 1. You take a few random hits from guys waiting their turn if you try to do a multihit combo on the front guy, but otherwise they're pretty polite about it. I honestly don't mind it that much because it means you don't have to fuck around pulling single enemies or die so it's pretty lateral

Gettin' real sick of fighting Lizardmen. They really needed to give them more variety. Even the priests that can theoretically cast spells usually end up swinging away with the same sword they all have and I use the same pattern to kill all of them. Ashbeasts are a completely awesome design. Ogres are crappo

 

[Metro]

It does sort of unravel/get tedious towards the end but the same can be said about G1 and G2.

 

[Gozma]

I think it's actually doing fairly well with the gameplay change of open world overworld to dungeon diving (much better than the Gothics as far as I can recall) it's just that Lizardmen are boring and endless.

Oh and I stopped back at the tutorial shack and a dire wolf was eating tutorial girl, so I probably should have done one of those "Hey can you take care of tutorial girl for me?" conversation options I ignored at the start then forgot about.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Some enemies do a better job at ganging up on you like say wolves but yeah nothing like G1/G2 Orcs for example. When it comes to humanoid enemies, they should have mixed it up with ranged weapon users (I can't remember a single bow/crossbow using enemy and I beat the game several times, only priests that occasionally chuck fireballs in your direction) and the melee ones should be using full spectrum of attacks that the player has (like breaking your block with a power attack and then quickly follow up with a normal swing).

Such a shame they abandoned the first Risen's combat system for the sequels, it could have used some improving/polishing but it was a very solid base to build upon.

 

[Metro]

Such a shame they abandoned the first Risen's combat system for the sequels, it could have used some improving/polishing but it was a very solid base to build upon.

Yep. Major contributing factor to why the other Risen games are bad.

 

[Zombra]

Everybody has their opinion but Risen was on sale the other day on GOG, so I bought it and played for like 30minutes to check how it ran on my toaster laptop

Silly rabbit.

This also goes for RK47 since apparently he bought the game without bothering to try it legally for free first.

FWIW I greatly enjoyed the game until the third act where it got all linear.

 

[Average Manatee]

Another Gothic 2 comparison is that I remember Gothic enemies being much more aggressive about fucking you over when you have to fight multiple opponents. They'd strafe around and attack more. In Risen they basically form a queue to fight you 1 on 1. You take a few random hits from guys waiting their turn if you try to do a multihit combo on the front guy, but otherwise they're pretty polite about it. I honestly don't mind it that much because it means you don't have to fuck around pulling single enemies or die so it's pretty lateral

I think this depends on difficulty, Hard enemies being much more likely to rush and overwhelm you.

I think it's actually doing fairly well with the gameplay change of open world overworld to dungeon diving (much better than the Gothics as far as I can recall) it's just that Lizardmen are boring and endless.

Uhh, how far have you gotten? Risen is just as bad, but goes on for much, much longer. Like 6 straight dungeons of the same shit.

I think the part that most annoyed me about Risen dungeons was just how horrible the torch was combined with how poorly lit they were. Really slowed the game down, especially when you need to watch for those secrets and are OCD about searching every corner of the room for fungi to turn into potions. If the torch was, like, 5x as strong I'd find it a lot more comfortable. Probably a performance issue though.

At least Risen is pretty good about handing out teleport stones.

 

[Kutulu]

Magic? Blah. The One True Way in PB games is melee. Magic is shallow/limited and ranged is clunky.

So just like Dark Souls, magix for scrubs.

Also STR>DEX, always.

 

[SCO]

Ranged was more enjoyable in this game than the original gothics because arrows curved (had physics), the hit was purely player skill based (no rpg hitscan crap) and they had locational damage, so if you managed to hit the head you could fuck up some serious monsters even as a scrub.


Oh btw, there was a trick in gothic 1 to accept the quest that made you a old camp guy, then accept the mage initiation THEN complete the camp guy quest and get membership of both factions. I wonder if it works in Risen.

 

[WhiteGuts]

I did the quests in Don's camp up until the point where it locks you with his faction. And then I decided to go the monastry to learn magic.

 

[Gozma]

Finished it. I would complain about Ch3/Ch4 dungeon crawling/lizardman extermination and a dumb 5 minute bossfight but my whole experience was tinged with, "This is the last three or four hours of a Gothic/Gothic 2 style game that will ever exist in the universe" melancholia.

I'm kinda interested in how people that never played G/G2 took to this, because I think half the reason the game clicked so easily was how completely they followed the Gothic formula. I knew the setup exactly as soon as I talked to the first guy after tutorial girl, for example, and immediately decided what I wanted to do based on Gothic experience (which was, go to the town and start stealing shit).

It was weird that the voice acting/direction/dialog in the English version was really good.

 

[Beastro]

Finished it. I would complain about Ch3/Ch4 dungeon crawling/lizardman extermination and a dumb 5 minute bossfight but my whole experience was tinged with, "This is the last three or four hours of a Gothic/Gothic 2 style game that will ever exist in the universe" melancholia.

I'm kinda interested in how people that never played G/G2 took to this, because I think half the reason the game clicked so easily was how completely they followed the Gothic formula. I knew the setup exactly as soon as I talked to the first guy after tutorial girl, for example, and immediately decided what I wanted to do based on Gothic experience (which was, go to the town and start stealing shit).

It was weird that the voice acting/direction/dialog in the English version was really good.

First PB game I ever played.

I enjoyed it as a solid, flawed game. Reminded me of a Western Zelda in mechanics. Isn't a game I'd laud, but didn't piss me off and hate it or let me down. It shined in places and had a nice feel to the whole game, something I later found is what people call "the Gothic quality" here: not high quality but rough and decent.

Average game, but I had a lot of fun enjoying the non-frustrating parts.

The thing these days is how few games are able to even approach that quality.

 

[Zombra]

Isn't a game I'd laud, but didn't piss me off and hate it or let me down.

Funny, I feel the opposite. I would laud it as it does so many things right in the first two acts, but it pissed me off and let me down at the end with its dumb linear dungeon crawl and asinine Nintendo boss fight.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Funny, I feel the opposite. I would laud it as it does so many things right in the first two acts, but it pissed me off and let me down at the end with its dumb linear dungeon crawl and asinine Nintendo boss fight.

Thing is, same thing happens in G1 and G2 more or less, gets linear in the later chapters with boring/cliche save the world plot and lackluster boss fight(s) (I beat every dragon in G2:NOTR with some variation of summon skeletons/demon/black ore).

Their games are all at their best when you're exploring the well crafted world (instead of theme parks of other open world ARPGs), doing faction-related quests, stealing people's stuff in settlements/cities etc. and they share the same flaws regarding the last parts of the game.

It's a shame they had no ambition to expand upon Risen and make it's sequel the the equivalent of G2:NOTR. I have no idea what made them abandon their Gothic formula and go into such a different direction in Risen 2/3, it's depressing.

 

[Metro]

10 years of game development and they still couldn't get end-game design right.