Risen

[PorkyThePaladin]

When fighting vs. NPCs use charged power attacks from a distance. AI is too dumb to account for the extended range of power attacks and doesn't block incoming blows. You can do the whole bandit camp arena without leveling a single time, with just a woodcutters axe and an Axe ring, both of witch can be found right there. Trivializes absolutely all combat vs human and skeleton enemies. Swords get power attacks at level 6 (or 8) too.

How different people are, I try to stay away from stuff like this. Unfortunately, most RPGs have some exploits, but as long as it's not too in-your-face, it's not a problem. I would much rather use Risen's combat system the way it's meant to be used, parry humanoids, dodge animals, and attack in between.

Haven't played Risen since launch, might try a new run soon. I'll probably go Magic user or something.

Don't do it, man. There are like 2 series of RPGs that actually have good action combat, despite whatever flaws are present, the Gothic-Risen lineage, and Dark Souls. So playing those with magic (unless on an nth playthrough) is sacrilege.

Finally someone with reason. As ive sid before Risen series are very underrated games. Risen 1 has the best aRPG combat, period. Risen 2 and 3 do not deserve the the they get, at all.

You were doing ok up to this point, but then:

Overall, Risen series > Gothic series.

Come on...

 

[adddeed]

You forget Gothic 3 bro. That's Gothic series and it brings down the whole lot.

 

[Sheepherder]

How different people are, I try to stay away from stuff like this. Unfortunately, most RPGs have some exploits, but as long as it's not too in-your-face, it's not a problem. I would much rather use Risen's combat system the way it's meant to be used, parry humanoids, dodge animals, and attack in between.

Human sized humanoids are all the same, and even if they use different weapons, the AI is so limited that it doesn't make a difference, even gnomes are more challenging. So the story reasons why you have to fight one bloke or another are interesting, but the actual fights are underwhelming.

The ultimate exploit of Risen is ranged combat: bows, xbows and magic. Especially bows, as they scale better than magic and are faster than xbows. Enemies just don't know what the fuck to do.

 

[Orobis]

Risen series > Gothic series.

You sure you didn't mean to spell your name as Addled instead of adddeed?

 

[Dux]

The main difference between Gothic (I and II) and Risen is that the former let's you play as a lovable rube, while the latter lets you play as a cockney hooligan smackhead.

 

[Cadmus]

I think Gothic's midgame was still pretty good while Risen starts to stink after the first half. It gets really really tedious and more importantly the cities and stuff almost doesn't change so all you're left with is killing lizards. I still liked it but it got boringer sooner than Gothic.

 

[Sykar]

You forget Gothic 3 bro. That's Gothic series and it brings down the whole lot.

It's a pile of steaming shit but it does in no way diminish the greatness if the first two games.

 

[adddeed]

It brings down the series, I didn't say it diminishes the first two. So overall, its Risen series > Gothic series.

 

[Sykar]

It brings down the series, I didn't say it diminishes the first two. So overall, its Risen series > Gothic series.

Risen 2 and 3 are so much worse than even Gothic 3 that this statement is blatantly false. If Gothic 3 is a steaming pile of turd than those two are gigantic steaming piles of turd.

 

[adddeed]

Eh no. Risen 2 and 3 are miles beyond Gothic 3. Please list reasons to back your statement bro, otherwise you're just another edgelord hopping on the Risen hate wagon.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

There is no wagon, the haters inhabit the earth... it's your kind on a wagon and I think you would all fit on a wagon.

 

[aleph]

Eh no. Risen 2 and 3 are miles beyond Gothic 3.

As bad as Gothic 3 was, Risen 2 and 3 are way, way worse. Gothic 3 was mainly bad because it was released in a unfinished state. With more resources and better management it could have become a good game, with some Gothic flair. Not in the same league as Gothic 2 but still quite decent. In the sequels to Risen however, the design was bad from the beginning. Everything feels dull and cheap. Nothing which made Gothic I and II great can be found in Risen II and III.

 

[adddeed]

That explains...nothing. That's for the concrete examples.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Couldn't stop playing Risen until morning last night. It might very well get bad later on, but damn if the start isn't great and very Gothic-like. The world is so well designed, whereas most RPG towns feel like a bunch of buildings plopped together, Harbor Town has all these organic feeling alleyways and side-streets and tucked away corners. And the way the NPCs smoke weed, eat, drink, move around during the day/night cycle, it's just great. And I love the whole Spanish theme, with that Spanish architecture and everyone having Spanish names, not too common in video games. Was standing near Don's old villa and thinking about how in the Witcher, I couldn't jump or really interact with the world, well here, I found a way to climb to the rooftops, jump inside the guarded villa using a sidewindow off a roof, and then use my sneaking skill to skulk about. So awesome.

Still not completely sold on the combat system though. It seems like they took the combat core from Gothic 1/2, and decided to expand it, make it meatier, but the results seem mixed so far. The good part is how they added dodge against non-humanoids, where if you side jump with good timing, you make the animal miss and expose itself, similar to how parry works against humanoids. But the bad part (or at least part that I don't like so much) is unnecessary bloat. In Gothics, you would just parry and this would create a short opening to counter-attack, but wouldn't incapacitate the other guy or anything. In Risen, if you parry correctly, the other guy goes into this silly animation (blade turned aside) where you get some freebies. And then there is stuff like power attack, which is completely unnecessary because it doesn't really fit into the parry/counter-attack system which makes the whole thing enjoyable in the first place. Also, maybe someone can elaborate on this, but in Gothic 1/2, as your sword skill (in 1 or 2h) went up, the combat animations became smoother and faster, making it easier to parry. So far, I don't really see this in Risen. I am only trained up to level 3 now in Swords, so maybe it happens later on, but so far, parrying still feels clunky.

 

[adddeed]

Great game aint it. And no, it doesn't become "bad" later on. It becomes more of a dugeon romp, which in my view, is fine, since you get to use all those abilities and gear which you accumulate, and since the combat is a lot of fun. In other words, it ends like Gothic 1 and 2, with more action than questing. And chumps get salty about it for some reason. The latter Risen 1 chapters are great fun, good dungeons and levels, and IMO better than Gothic 1/2's.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Completely addicted at this point. I started at Bandit's Camp, but after the starting quests there, everything was too hard, so I made my way to Harbor Town, and been clearing quests out there for the last two days or so. Will probably head back to Bandit Camp soon. Trying to shut out all the warnings about how the game takes a nosedive later and just enjoying the hell out of it now.

I joined Don Esteban mostly because swords > staves, but being able to play essentially a medieval Mafia character is a nice secondary bonus. I am shaking people down, sneaking around at night and stealing stuff, and kicking all around ass. Just bought myself my first armor/clothing piece (the naval officer suit) and raised my strength to equip a rusty 2 handed sword (that looks glorious nevertheless, especially compared to the chipped cutlass I was packing before), to go with my shortbow, and my avatar just looks badass now.

Also, have to mention this: no loading screens = true open world. This is just so underratedly awesome, being able to enter buildings, caves, and other interiors seamlessly, not to mention outside areas of a fairly large island packed with content. All I see is an occasional instant auto-save in the background as I move around. However you might feel about Bethesda games in other ways, tell me you didn't want to pull your hair out every time some interior would start loading or start loading again once you were coming out. Same with Witcher. Sure, the interiors in Risen aren't nearly as detailed as in some ES games, but who cares, do you really need to see 20 cups and 14 books and every spoon and carpet in every house, especially when you are depicting a period where most people were dirt poor?

 

[Sykar]

That explains...nothing. That's for the concrete examples.

Ironic considering you offer no argument as to why Gothic 3 is supposedly so much worse either.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Finally someone with reason. As ive sid before Risen series are very underrated games. Risen 1 has the best aRPG combat, period. Risen 2 and 3 do not deserve the the they get, at all. Overall, Risen series > Gothic series.

How much "the" they get?

 

[WhiteGuts]

Should've went to the Monstary to become a Mage. The whole initiation process there is really great.

 

[typical user]

I have to play it again. I tried mage and it was cheesy, I had assault rifle fueled by mana. I haven't experienced the bandit side of the game and so I missed great opportunity to learn the combat system. Magic in Risen was boring, just use scrolls and spam one of three offensive spells which differ with damage, cast time and cost but act same. I would like to play as zweihander/greatbow user next time but still I haven't had motivation to play the game.

 

[Doctor Sbaitso]

I went the mage route in my first play-through for a limited time. Once they had me sweeping the courtyard up I was like fuck this... I jumped the walls and ran for town. Can't remember whether I had to reload or not due to scripting shit.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Should've went to the Monstary to become a Mage. The whole initiation process there is really great.

I have to play it again. I tried mage and it was cheesy, I had assault rifle fueled by mana.

Yeah, that's the thing about the magic path in Piranha Bytes games. It almost always has a breath-taking start (seeing the fire-mages in their cool robes in that keep in Gothic 1, all the stuff you have to do to join them, getting a sheep to join the monastery in Gothic 2, seeing that cool white robe mage in the Risen intro and having to work your way up to the Monastery) but the system itself is not that good compared to the melee combat. What makes PB combat good is that it's one of the very few examples of good interactive combat, where you actually respond to what the enemy is doing (parry his sword thrust, dodge his animal attack), whereas most RPGs only have non-interactive combat, where you mostly just do your own thing (cast fireball, swing sword, etc), without having to counter the enemy too much. But with magic, PB games also aren't particularly interactive, so by going that route, you are missing a lot of the coolness. I might replay Risen at some point with a magic character, but for first play-through, I would strongly suggest a melee build with missile weapons for hunting/support.

If you guys do play/replay it, definitely try the Bandit path. It's cool in so many ways. It's not pure evil or anything, they make a lot of good arguments for joining them, so it's almost like a decent mob movie, where the character is a bit of an ass, but you can somewhat understand their motivations. And you will get to check out so many cool systems: defeat people in swordfighting to convince them to pay collection money to the Don, mantle and climb rooftops at night and sneak around people's houses under the nose of the Inquisition, lockpicking to your heart's content. Use ranged weaponry to help you hunt. A lot of cool stuff.

 

[Kahr]

You talk like the magic system in Piranha Bytes games does replace the melee system completely.
But the magic in these games is more like the (cross)bows; you use it to damage the opponent before he gets to melee.
Pure mages aren't viable (or more like not fun to play) in G1 and R1. And in G2 just when you use these massive overpowered (goblin)skeletons. Or at the late endgame.
In G1 and R1 you just skill magic stuff and strength/weapon skill; and in G2 due to the expensive skill costs you stick with the master rapier???(Meisterdegen).
So there is no playthrough of a Piranha Bytes game where you have to miss the brilliant melee system.

Also the magic system in Risen 1 is dumbed down beyond recognition. So you can't finish it without very high melee skills.
(Edit: But there was "berserker", a magic rune which makes you better in melee.
btw never consider a playthrough for the inquisition, it gives you nothing you can't have as a mage as well)

 

[ERYFKRAD]

If my memory serves Inquisition lets you level staff fighting easier than mage route.

 

[Kahr]

Do you mean faster? Cause you can max it with both.