Risen 3: Titan Lords

[ohWOW]

Risen is the best RPG this console generation? Eh?

I would put New Vegas above it easily, without even thinking twice.

That's because you're retarded and have shit fetish.

 

[Koschey]

How were Gothic characters any more than cardboard cut-outs? You basically had Germanic muscle-men walking around going hurr durr and handing out quests. In fact, I don't think Don Esteban or the Inquisitor were particularly great characters, but do just fine when compared with Xardas, etc. Moreover, every single PB game basically gets worse and worse in the second half of the game - chasing down the dragons in G2 NOTR was excruciating just like Risen endgame is a monsterfest.

I won't argue the originality of Gothic characters over Risen characters, but in Risen the NPCs never felt like more than set pieces. True, the Gothic games also had their fair share of pretty unimportant NPCs, but on the whole their cast is more memorable than Risen's. Not necessarily because Gothic NPCs are more original (as I said, not arguing that), but because they don't exist in a vaccum. Compare for example the hunter sawing logs at the entrance of Risen's bandit camp with Diego, Gorn and Lester in Gothic 1, Lares in Gothic 2 or the mercenaries at Onar's farm. He tells you a little about the camp, gives you a quest and after solving it heads off for the swamp, never ever reacting to any of the events in the game to come. In the colony, the guys showing you the ropes of their respecting camps become long-lasting allies, later helping with your search for the foci. The mercenaries at Onar's farm later split up, some joining the dragon hunters, some staying behind, informing you of recent events or being involved in some new quests. They are actually involved in events, even if at times only superficially. In Risen, it's as if every NPC save a rare few exceptions like Patty exists in isolation.
Which is also one of the reasons why the game world felt so sterile and empty to me in later chapters. Yes, of course, PB games always devolve into 'Hunt the MacGuffin'-quests in later chapters, but like I said, in Gothic the NPCs reacted to changes in the game world or even caused them themselves; the old camp shuts down, the mercenaries split up, dragon hunters start to roam the colony. New enemies spawned everywhere, so the world didn't become devoid of monsters and animals by the second chapter.
Again, I'm not saying the Gothic games were unassailably perfect or that Risen sucked. I'm saying that Risen did notably worse than the first Gothic games in areas that are the strength of PB games.

 

[Tigranes]

Risen does spawn new enemies in Chapter 3, the lizardmen. That said, I agree with you about the world being a bit more sterile. I wish they'd done more with the characters in the Don's camp - it makes sense Harbour Town people can't do much after their quests because of the different options there, and Volcano Keep is pretty isolated, but they could have had Drogan reappear somewhere, etc.

 

[Koschey]

Ah, yes, forgot to mention the lizardmen. They helped, but if I recall correctly were mostly concentrated on ruins. But the world in general still stayed pretty empty after the traditional chapter 1 genocide on everything that moved, whereas Gothic 1 and 2 spawn a few enemies of all types somewhat evenly distributed in the world every time a new chapter starts.
What hurt the Harbour Town the most was that the quest design coincided so much with its tubelike layout, segregating it into disjunct questing locations. Once you solved a section you'd move on to the next and never (or only rarely, I think there were 1 or 2 instances) had a reason to return. Contrast this with Gothic settlements, were you're constantly passing past and future quest-involved NPCs. It's so simple, yet helps reinforce the feeling that all these NPCs populate the same world.

 

[Metro]

Risen is the best RPG this console generation? Eh?

I would put New Vegas above it easily, without even thinking twice.

The engine ruins it. I don't blame Obsidian for that but FPS and on Gamebryo? Never mind the fact that any kind of specialization/balance/restrictive character builds break around level 15-20ish.

 

[Brayko]

lol Risen 2 blows, they screwed up the decent combat from Risen and merely stretched the world out. The characters are now complete shit and even the quests don't feel as rich. Decent graphics though, but that don't mean much, Far Cry 3 did it better, and Risen 2 is only marginally more "hardcore" than Far Cry 3 (which would have amazing if it wasn't so streamlined and actually had it's own system, not borrow elements from GTA and Skyrim).

 

[commie]

Fuck PB...They learned NOTHING from seeing Arcania and the reaction to it. Risen 2 is about as close as following that model as possible...I'll pirate whatever they come up with and if it's a step up then I might throw them a few bucks in a Steam sale.

 

[subotaiy]

PB from today is not the same PB who worked on from Gothic 1,2. Members have left, even died, R.I.P.

 

[Hobo Elf]

But even then Risen was a solid game an close enough to the authentic Gothic experience. By this logic they should be able to make something remotely competent, at least.

 

[Metro]

We go in circles on these PB threads but it's true: all they had to do was repeat Risen with a better second-half design (less linear) and it would have been solid. It's mind boggling how they fucked it up.

 

[Zeriel]

Yeah, it's fairly mystifying. Risen 1 already seemed like a half-finished game, and yet instead of the sequel fixing that flaw, it got even worse. This seems fairly common with random mid-tier developers putting out a good first game, though--anyone remember Ascaron and Sacred 1? It was unusually good for a Diablo clone, and then the sequel turned into all sorts of ass.

 

[ohWOW]

I played only a demo of Sacred 2 and uninstalled it 1 hour later with the great dose of disgust. Then I saw some idiotic easter egg with some gay metal band singing in-game concert.
The shame.

 

[commie]

I actually liked the Risen map, it was believable in a fantasy sort of way, just as in the Gothic games. Certainly lightyears ahead of the theme parks Bethesda churns out. People raeged against Nordmaar and Varant but I actually thought it took balls to make the first a confusing inhospitable land and the latter a barren one with large stretches of nothing as it fitted. Myrtana though, as the 'jewel' was about as well designed as any 3d game world and being able to visit it again was the only reason I played the abomination that was Forsaken Gods to the end. The Risen world was close in quality, they just didn't populate it with enough things to do as has been said. The latter chapters really showed the lack of funds and time.

 

[DalekFlay]

I would guess Deep Silver did the same thing as Jowood before them... "hey that Risen game sold a million copies, that's awesome. Now just derp-i-tize it and it will sell twice that!"

 

[ohWOW]

Yeah, blame the publisher.

I'm afraid that Piranha Bytes is just a mediocre studio that happened to make two good games and recently did a shit-fest abomination, because they couldn't do any better.

 

[Cosmo]

People raeged against Nordmaar and Varant but I actually thought it took balls to make the first a confusing inhospitable land and the latter a barren one with large stretches of nothing as it fitted.

Those people are fucking imbeciles. To be able to get lost in a map as little as Nordmar (at least compared to TES games) truly indicated a feat of level design. And as a player, getting lost in the blizzard was awesome.

 

[commie]

People raeged against Nordmaar and Varant but I actually thought it took balls to make the first a confusing inhospitable land and the latter a barren one with large stretches of nothing as it fitted.

Those people are fucking imbeciles. To be able to get lost in a map as little as Nordmar (at least compared to TES games) was truly the sign of a feat of level design. And as a player, getting lost in the blizzard was awesome.

I liked how you actually resorted to looking for landmarks and opening the map all the time to try and get your bearings due to the multiple elevations staggered almost on top of each other and the low visibility. I actually only discovered the secret path to Myrtana only by accident right about at the end of my campaigning there which was damn cool.

 

[Cosmo]

Had the same experience. And having only played Gothic 3 and Risen, i think that those two demonstrate that the area where those guys really shine is precisely level flavor and design (for example, nowhere else have i seen forests as beautiful as G3's)...
Even if they were not masterpieces per se, they made other open worlds pale in comparison.

 

[DalekFlay]

Yeah, blame the publisher.

Publishers control game design to a large degree. It's not really that weird to look at a major shift in a series and assume the publisher pushed for it.

 

[Tigranes]

Last couple of weeks I played through Risen 1 (until the shitty lizard temple) and am now playing through Risen 2, back to back. That gives me a somewhat different perspective comparing the two games:

R1 is definitely a superior experience, overall.

• This is primarily because R2's combat is still awful. R1's combat, like Gothic, was a tight system that required you to learn the patterns and tactics; if you did your homework you could become very effective, if not you were flailing about getting mauled. In R2, human combat is still like that but a little simplified, while with animals it's popamole; I have no idea why they made it so you can just spam LMB to kill claw monkeys, or the fact that many 'power attacks' from enemies can change direction midway so dodging is a lot less useful. In R1 you quickly learned that even those turkey birds can kill you, but you can take on 17 of them if you knew how; in R2 you just roll around and then hope you can stunlock them with your LMB spam. And of course firearms are OP.
• A lesser but significant weakness is the linearity, and I think you really notice it by the fact that (1) doing just a couple of main plot quests means you've explored half the island, e.g. the 2nd island where you follow Steelbeard; (2) there are so many more long dialogues & and cutscenes like the pirate initiation that are thankfully skippable.

However, I do feel R2 has some strengths which should not be written off, especially given that R3 will probably look to 'learn from' both:

• The setting is actually an improvement. R1, let's be honest, is bland, and in fact, the Gothic games take quite a while to 'build character'. All PB games are filled with cardboard cutout characters - yes, even your 'friends' in Gothic that I can't remember the names of, come on, they hardly have a personality. I did like R1's pseudo-colonial feel and the conflict between the bandits and the Inquisition, but it was all pretty bland. In contrast, R2 has a much stronger colour. Sure sometimes it's hurr durr, like the little gnome island thing, but I thought the island is hilarious - the main character in G/Rs was always a wiseass and the setting was never about serious emotional engagement. It's also awesome seeing your hero as a washed up drunk after just playing R1, and unlike the stuck-ups in Harbour Town, R2's inquisition also have character - some are hardliners, some are realists, etc. The only regret is that the natives were very half-arsed, even down to the Voodoo gameplay.
• The economy. Gold is scarce for at least half the game even if you find everything, which is a huge deal when you consider the price of learning skills by training. In R1, what mattered was killing enough crap to get Learning Points, and the gold was largely inconsequential. In R2, this isn't the case, and you're constantly scrounging, especially with the $2000 money-sinks of rare items. We're always crying for RPGs which do this, and I think R2 stretches your pockets better than most; if PB can do this with R3 then that's already a big thing.
• The character progression system is... I think it was a better system in theory, just horribly balanced. The Glory/Gold division, given the balance of glory and gold; the various skills you can learn, including the thieving monkey and possessing people; the inclusion of dirty tricks and guns to spice up swordplay; all good, and you get a more robust system than R1 where, let's face it, the character progression was horrifically dumbed down, and the only saving grace was that the actual swordplay remained very good. I think R2's system woudl have been very enjoyable if they had the balance right, i.e. made firearms less of a 'kill-everyting-today' deal (e.g. straight-off nerf, rarity of bullets, greater chance of misfiring) and made voodoo actually useful.

I think all in all what kills R2 is the broken combat. If PB had properly balanced the combat, especially the swordplay, R2 would have been a good, different addition to the portfolio. I have no idea how they managed to fuck it up though, since that's the one thing they did right in all of their games.

 

[ohWOW]

Risen 1 was published by Deep Silver as well, and while lacking on content, it was in fact working, finished, decent game.
Developer is as responsible for HIS game as same (that he's producing!), if not more, as publisher who presents general demands. If they cared that much for quality of their production, PB could simply disagree to these demands and try to haggle with Deep Silver or look for a new publisher. They didn't? Seems like they were pretty OK with the fact that their product was shit, when ordered to pack and ship to shelves. They agreed on scam dlc policy as well, and were such lazy fucks they didn't even cut out "dlc" content from vanilla retail discs.

Meanwhile! Deep Silver publishes good games, simultaneously to Risen 2 production and release. The Whispered World. Secret Files.



SHOCK SHOCK SHOCK
Deep Silver owns Metro now, just realised. Wow, that shit will be interesting.

 

[Hobo Elf]

You can't compare a game like The Whispered World to Risen 2. The scale is completely different. And Deep Silver just published Secret Files in Australia. The game had 2 other publishers for EU and US. That means that DS didn't have the devs by the balls the same way they have PB.

 

[ohWOW]

Doesn't change the fact that now all games published by Deep Silver are so shit like Risen 2 is. stop white knighting piranha bytes.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Not concerned about white knighting anyone. I'm a fan of games, not companies or people. What I am concerned with, however, is to snuff out misinformation. Something your posts are oozing with.

 

[ohWOW]

What misinformation?

That Risen 2 is a shit game, and believing that Piranha Bytes is responsible for its shitness as well? They made this whole game after all. It's not like Deep Silver overlords were beating them with whips and keeping them in cells to make a shit game, for sake it being shit.