Last bits and bobs, now. The AI is, well, non-relevant, which is ok in this kind of game. Average encounters (again, the classics: spiders, slugs, bandits, skeletons, etc) will be easily dispatched of, whereas bosses, for one, occasionally display some thin strands of originality, as far as game design goes. Nothing revolutionary, mind you: they are "original" within this game and in comparison to similar titles out there. The economy is not even bad, it is just futile: in the whole game I never once found myself having to buy an item from any merchant, nor the need to sell mine. All the cool stuff drops from mobs and chests, and the drops are PC-related, so if the PC is the melee guy, they will get melee drops, and so each character will get class-related drops. Convenient! Too bad the characters' appearance will only "upgrade" at certain levels and upon equipping some of the items: most items will not have any effect on the visual appearance of the character. Again, a Diablo comeback. The "campaign", as mentioned, is really short: 10 hours, and that's taking things slowly and doing every of the (few) possible side-quests.
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2. What lessons have you learned from Risen? Lessons that could be translated into meaningful gameplay improvements?
As always we collected all the feedback from our fans and the press before we started to design Risen 2. One of the main critic points was the way the story was told in Risen 1. The beginning of the game seemed overwhelmingly complex for beginners because of all the freedom, and the fourth chapter was too thin story-wise.
To tackle these problems we applied a technique we call the “pearl principle”. We changed the game structure in a way that the game starts with a small world that becomes bigger and more open the longer you play. The story is like a string of pearls that is split up at certain points, but comes back together again at a later point. Through that we make sure that there won’t be a very thin last chapter again.
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Din's Curse is unique in how much of the game is procedurally generated, and how it evolves dynamically. In this game, being told that 'bad guys are starting an uprising' will mean bad guys will actually rise up into your town instead of obediently waiting to be stopped in the nick of time like almost every other RPG. It's fantastic: the 'Diablo with dungeons that fight back' moniker is wholly justified. It is not only the bad guys who get up to stuff (besides invasion, they also lay curses which give debuffs until you take the quest to solve it, produce machines to make dungeons harder, block the gates, fight amongst themselves, etc.) the good guys can also head off to do the quests themselves, turn on each other, or betray the town in any number of ways. Occasionally the system unfairly shafts you: once all three of my key NPCs killed each other whilst the last standing survivor turned rogue and left, losing me the map; another time one of nastier monsters was made a boss type, leading to a behemoth with a DPS almost two orders of magnitude higher than mine. Yet these cases are rare - for the other 30 ish hours of playtime, it worked perfectly. Although 'living world' is inaccurate for a game where the NPCs are primarily objects and quest-givers, it is definitely a 'living situation': there's considerable strategy as to how to prioritize the various quests, most of which are on a hidden timer.
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In 2400 A.D., everything is a puzzle. Many of the more important quests can only be solved if lined up in a puzzle-like chain. The absence of a quest journal or an automap only make that aspect of the game stronger. The closest you get to having a map is by acquiring a certain device that lets you survey your surroundings when used; it has a very limited scope, though, and leaves much for you to figure out by yourself. Finding your way into the underground is certainly one of the puzzles, with several solutions hidden around the city. Sometimes failing is the best option, and you can learn as much, if not more, from your failures as from your successes; being arrested, for example, is actually the quickest way to reach the underground, requiring, however, a bit of out of the box thinking. Getting to know where to find an item, who to ask about it and who to show it to, all belong to the game's most pleasant and challenging moments. Even locating the vendors to buy new items from or sell old ones to (and those are two different types of vendors) can be a problem if you don't look around or follow clues carefully enough, as the underground tunnels tend to be quite maze-like and hide many secrets. There are also other puzzles: a slidewalk maze, a maze of pushable crates, or a transporter maze. Writing down clues is a must, as is searching around for them. The controls are again Ultima-like, with the game utilizing almost the entire keyboard for issuing commands. You can't just see the items lying on the ground next to you, you must search around to uncover them.

The game features some of Ultima V's future and much praised interactivity, which creates even more room for implementing puzzles. You can push around or climb over many of the furniture items surrounding you -- you can even climb over NPCs in your way! -- sometimes revealing well-hidden, and even plot-critical, passages. Climbing pipes to get to otherwise inaccessible areas is a must, too. Doors can be kicked out, consuming a good deal of your Energy, 20 or 40 points depending on the door type. And if you can find and repair (which is also done as a puzzle) the game's most powerful secret weapon, you'll be able to simply blow doors open like a real badass. The city of Metropolis features an extensive slidewalk system that can also provide some entertaining moments (try disabling a robot standing on a moving walkway!), as well as transporter and subway networks. Figuring out how to operate transporters, including the secret ones, is in fact one of this game's hardest puzzles. And as far as interactivity goes, you can even get run over by a subway train! Truly ground-breaking stuff.​

Back to the story, mages draw power from a “metaphysical” realm, the Warp, I mean the Fade, which exposes them to the dangerous emo spirits populating it. These emo spirits, called demons in the game, try to possess mages and wreak havoc in the real world. So, if a mage isn’t strong enough to resist, Bad Things Happen.​

Since relying on mages to be strong enough to resist is kind of like relying on EA to resist the temptation to shut down studios, the Circle of Magi was created to train mages properly in the arts of self control and meek obedience. When a mage in training completes the program, he or she takes a test where they attempt to fight that demonic possession in a “controlled environment”. Meaning that the Templars hack anyone who fails the test to abomination-bits.​

So, while in Kirkwall, you’ll constantly run into Templars, Circle mages, apostates (renegade mages), and new mages who are just discovering their powers and trying to work out what to do about them. The conflict is fairly well presented – it’s one of the few strengths of the game - and many characters you’ll meet will help you look at the situation from different points of view.​

As you’d expect, some Templars are just doing their jobs in a difficult situation, convinced that they are protecting the public. Other Templars sympathize and are willing to help mages, while still other Templar are convinced that mages are dangerous abominations who should be killed or neutered (a mage’s connection to the Fade can be forcefully cut via a lobotomy-like procedure which turns them into vegetables) outright.​

Similarly, there are mages who are “normal people” like your sister and other party members (probably because you keep them on a tighter leash than the Circle), mages who truly need help controlling their powers, and mages who are angry and willing to fight back, rightfully seeing the templars, the Circle, and the Chantry as their enemies.​

I’d say it’s one of the more interesting settings for an RPG and it does manage to raise interesting questions, questions without an easy answer. The potential is there, but it’s wasted on an action RPG where you kill bad guys and monsters instead of exploring the ethics of the society Bioware created.​

I have been told by a townsperson whose name I cannot recall, that the Dark Magic master can be found in a small town called Sweetwater. What at first seemed an absurdly easy task for the power it would grant my party has quickly turned into a nightmare. Over the hill near Sweetwater are swarms of Titans and there is no other way in to the town. I cast the “fly” spell, nervously hover over the beasts while taking massive damage, and drop down to the ground to cross to the next zone. Once it loads, my party survives for about 3 seconds before being obliterated by the giants’ shock attacks. My last save was 3 hours ago and I think I’ve been playing for 6 hours straight, but I can’t be sure. The only indication is the slight ray of light coming through a crack between the blinds. Fighting off sleep, I reload, and try again.​