Sacred 2

[markec]

I got an itch for a action RPG and for the first time tried this game. Iam not a big fan of h&s (personally I only like Nox, Diablo 1 and Divine Divinity) and didnt like the first part too much but I was pleasantly surprised with this sequel.

You have eight characters to choose from, each has its own side quests, choice of good and evil campaign for six characters, sandbox world filled with content, and lots of ways to build unique character.

One thing I also liked is how you can upgrade you abilities, each character has four combat art groups and each has five arts. The thing is that with leveling you get points to upgrade an art, like a fireball can either do a larger area damage or burn enemies, and you can upgrade every art with three choices.

This is also first game where I felt save&exit is not annoying, the reason is because your character is saved in several occasions during the game (like completing quest or entering a dungeon) and you can actually fail a quest so it adds to sense of urgency but also caution.

Iam in some fifth hour of gameplay and Iam quite enjoying myself, true maybe soon the game will become crap but so far, for me, this is probably the best h&s game ever made.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Its a bit retarded that you DON'T want to level up skills because it makes increases the recharge drastically. The skill 'options' aren't really all that interesting, there isn't much beyond 'more damage' and 'damage more things'. Usually the best choice is obvious, or at least it would be if they actually told you what the skills did before you chose them. Lack of respec + not knowing how spells work before you irrevocably waste skill points on them = mother fucking stupid. Even worse, the ability slot things (can't remember what they are called, but you choose like 10 ability pools) which you will lock in about 70% of your abilities before you have barely gotten your toes wet, and good luck if you picked useless ones.

Good/Evil have almost no differences, you do mostly the same quests and just have slightly different dialogs and stuff. Good/Evil characters can't mix in multiplayer games because the quests are mutually incompatible, which is ridiculously retarded for what should be a non-issue. Character questlines differ in the entry points (first hour of game) along with a side quest line that there isn't really any special reason to care about among the hundreds of other quests.

Way too easy unless you have beaten it at least two times already or end up gimping your build because you actually expect a sane character system. Same stupid noob-friendly shit that plagued every game Diablo 2 and after. And of course, late game is based around item grinding the fuck out of everything.

Overall, mehish. The world is big with a crapload of quests everywhere, along with some nice large cities (as opposed to towns with 2 merchants and 2 quest giver npcs). The plot was quite uninteresting, maybe its because I didn't play Sacred 1 but I didn't really care and it felt completely random. Atmosphere was sporadic, good at times bad at others. A definite contrast to games like Diablo and Nox, it is much more like an MMO and it seems to expect you to play it as such.

 

[Varn]

This to me is basically WoW offline. Remember a plot in Wow? Didn't think so. All I remember is endlessly killing monsters to get awesome loot and that's what Sacred 2 is about.

Diablo 2 is better in terms of polish but given the vast variety of loot and large non-random world I find I'm enjoying this more than my level 65 Faggotdin at the moment. The randomness of Diablo 2 always pissed me off. Similarly, the fact that all Diablo 2's loot looked the same was a bummer and at least with Sacred 2 most of the loot has a different appearance including the all-important flaming swords/armour and oversized, pyramid-inspired shoulder pads.

I find this game a good mindless diversion when you're drunk/hungover, or when you're burnt out on a real RPG [viz Wizardry 8] and just wanna hunt aimlessly for loot. It's not breaking any new ground and is beneath the Diablo's and Wow generally.

However, it's better than Titan Quest and Two Worlds. Nox is probably better than this in terms of polish but again the huge amount of loot in this game is pretty sweet and better than Nox's loot.

Ah... yeah. This genre has been crying out for a proper successor to Diablo 2 since, well, WoW was released. Sacred 2 ain't it, but it's better than most of the crud that we've seen so far. I am referring to the latest patch by the way. At release it was almost as bad as Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing. You are winner!

 

[DaveO]

Previous detractors are pretty spot-on for this game. I can't really recommend it. You're better off replaying Diablo 2 instead of trying to accomplish anything in Sacred 2.

 

[Topher]

It would be much better if it had some good interior areas and all the enemies weren't just pallet swaps. The towns were cool looking but like everything else they were just cosmetic changes.

 

[Delirius]

Iam in some fifth hour of gameplay and Iam quite enjoying myself, true maybe soon the game will become crap but so far, for me, this is probably the best h&s game ever made.

Don't be such a little bitch. Play Torchlight.

 

[ArchAngel]

I started playing this few days ago and I am enjoying it more than D2 which I was playing just before figuring out I got Sacred 2 as part of Game pass and trying it. Open World is so much better than limited linked areas of D2 and so many quests compared to few in D2 is also very cool. Mounts and other stuff also make the game cool.
Also you can fight Dragons in Sacred 2 (but also way too many rats )

 

[Yoomazir]

Just remember that you CANNOT respec in that game, so if you don't feel wasting your time, hit the Sacred 2 wiki or DarkMatters and pick a cookie cutter build.

 

[luj1]

Sacred was very meh back in the day, no one wanted to touch it

Kinda like Larian games or Dungeon Lords or other third-rate stuff

But compared to today its awesome

Sacred 1 is better than 2 btw

 

[Kruno]

Make sure to use the unofficial patch as it fixes a lot, and not just bugs but improves upon skills too.

 

[Sykar]

Sacred 2 with communtity patch is a nice experience for one playthrough. It is very atmospheric and the cities actually feel like cities. Hell if the game had been optimized for PC only they might have had even more citizens and made the city more lively. You can go into every house and not find a single barren, they are all hand crafted incuding the decoration. You will be hard pressed to find a lot of duplicates if any at all.
There are loads of quests and some humorous easter eggs if you pay attention. There is a huge quantity of quests some of which are lighthearted fun like helping the virtual members of Blind Guardian to get their instruments back from their undead portion of its fans.

Some of the criticisms I have read are not quite valid.
Yes leveling an ability increases the CD and in case of passives the CD penalty that extends to other builds, though there are a few exceptions like High Elfs Grand Invigoration which you can increase as much as you wish. The idea here is that you level up your passive skills in conjunction with the related abilities which will counteract the CDs. Not leveling an ability at all WILL lead to you dealing no damage since armor basically reduces damage by a fixed amount for the most part. Meaning at very high levels if you try to attack with a level 1 ability you will barely do any damage. Against bosses this can lead to you not being able to beat them because they have high HP regeneration. So while it might be tempting to leave a skill at 1 for the rest of the game, in practice it is nonsense. Also to note that the CD penalty is lower if you get skill bonuses from gear. Gear can be slotted with skills among many other things and that is a good idea to increase your skill levels since the penalty is quartered iirc.
As to the ability modifiers, that is not quite true either. For attack abilities you not only get more damage or AoE, you also get stronger debuffing, reduced enemy resistances, extra CC like stun, life leech, poisoning, etc.
Defensive abilities have a large variety of modifications, from just increasing the defensive capabilities to reducing the CD or CD penalty to other skill, adding damage, letting it affect party members and larger AoE.
Items and item modification is on another level compared to the competition and very involved if you want to squeeze most out of it at every step of the game. In fact you could make the argument that the game is a bit too reliant for higher difficulties of making blacksmithing and barter characters.

This and more makes character buidling actually quite indepth, more than D2 for example.

Sacred 1 vs 2, I prefer the second one tbh but I can see why some like 1 more. All I can say is, both are decent but fall short compared to the competition. Avoid Sacred 3 like the plague though. Apart from the name it has nothing in common with the original 2 bar the name, just a corridor 2 button mashing wankfest.

My biggest gripe with Sacred 2 is that it is very janky. Sometimes skills for no reason fire slowly as hell despite having improved attack and cast speed. I have had combos not firing at all only going on cooldown. The camera can be infuriating at times. If you do not turn it off it will constantly rotate around you every time you slightly turn left or right without you needing to but all that wavy wobbling is grating.
There is also a very bad balance between weapon and skill slots. 5 weapon slots and 5 ability slots is nonsense. If at least they let you freely use those 10 slots as you see fit but no you are restricted to 5 ability slots and 5 weapon slots period. Wish there were a mod fixing that garbage. It was already grating on my nerves in Sacred 1.

 

[Sunri]

Sacred was very meh back in the day, no one wanted to touch it

Kinda like Larian games or Dungeon Lords or other third-rate stuff

But compared to today its awesome

Sacred 1 is better than 2 btw

Dunno about 2 but sacred 1 is not good endless running and searching for tiny passages to get to the quest killing same reskinned dragons with brainless AI (you can hide in any building and the dragon will just stay in one place or spam his aoe breath that won't work inside building lol)

 

[luj1]

yeah its kind of a turd game

 

[wishbonetail]

As much as I remember open world is useless here, as any foe can drop any item in any part of the world. There's no reason to explore whatsoever. Leveling is super boring, as you just increasing damage and reducing the cooldown constantly. Worldbuilding is nonsensical. Theres 90% bandits to 10% peasants ratio, with bandits running everywhere, no guards or city walls. It cannot hold comparison to Titan Quest and Diablo 2 in any field, except maybe graphics. Also, some genius decided it would be swell to shove death metal in here as a combat music, which consantly interrrupts nice ambient. All and all it is a tier C diabloid, same as Restricted Area and Dungeon Siege, which i played extensively back when i was omnivorous and could not recognize gem from a turd.

 

[Sykar]

The combat music is reliant on the character you play. The hevy metal music only plays for the Shadow Warrior. Other characters like the High Elf do have music that is more in line with the games ambience music. This ultimately is just a matter of taste though. I love me some heavy metal while my Shadow Warrior with his ghost entourage is murdering shit left and right. Many players turn off music and listen to their own so there is that, too.
As to peasant and monster ration, that is even worse in games like D2 and TQ where tiny encampants with maybe 10 inhabintants somehow survive against thousands of demons, monsters and undead led by terryfing mini-bosses.
While I do agree that there should have been a whole lot of more and better equipped guards and soldiers all around to give the impression that the respective empires are still around the height of their power, using that to detract from the game is a bit silly while simultaneously praising games where it is even more nonsensical.
Sacred 2 is also a clear tier above garbage like Restricted area and the utter mediocrity of Dungeon Siege.

 

[ArchAngel]

As much as I remember open world is useless here, as any foe can drop any item in any part of the world. There's no reason to explore whatsoever. Leveling is super boring, as you just increasing damage and reducing the cooldown constantly. Worldbuilding is nonsensical. Theres 90% bandits to 10% peasants ratio, with bandits running everywhere, no guards or city walls. It cannot hold comparison to Titan Quest and Diablo 2 in any field, except maybe graphics. Also, some genius decided it would be swell to shove death metal in here as a combat music, which consantly interrrupts nice ambient. All and all it is a tier C diabloid, same as Restricted Area and Dungeon Siege, which i played extensively back when i was omnivorous and could not recognize gem from a turd.

All you said here also applies to all Diablo games as well LOL. And that Open World is still more fun than endless Mephisto/Bhaal/Cow level runs..

 

[Sykar]

It is also not quite true. Bosses do have better chances of dropping better loot iirc. That being said you can get the skill Enhanced Perception to increase general drops or you get that Barter skill and regularly check out the stores for better stuff, because Barter skill not only affects prices but also increases the quality of items merchants spawn, at high enough levels you can get top of the cream set items from them, if you can afford it.

 

[ArchAngel]

Sacred was very meh back in the day, no one wanted to touch it

Kinda like Larian games or Dungeon Lords or other third-rate stuff

But compared to today its awesome

Sacred 1 is better than 2 btw

Dunno about 2 but sacred 1 is not good endless running and searching for tiny passages to get to the quest killing same reskinned dragons with brainless AI (you can hide in any building and the dragon will just stay in one place or spam his aoe breath that won't work inside building lol)

That does now work for me. Playing High Elf and fireball does not have bigger range than dragon attacks. So if I want to damage him, he can damage me.

 

[ArchAngel]

Just remember that you CANNOT respec in that game, so if you don't feel wasting your time, hit the Sacred 2 wiki or DarkMatters and pick a cookie cutter build.

I figured that one soon and I love it. This is how I played D1 and D2 (no respecs in offline D2).

Another thing I like more in S2 over diablo likes is that your inventory is not stupid box where you need to play inventory tetris but you got carry capacity and you can pick up stuff until you fill that (and scrap less worth items for 75% of their worth in the field)

 

[wishbonetail]

The combat music is reliant on the character you play. The hevy metal music only plays for the Shadow Warrior. Other characters like the High Elf do have music that is more in line with the games ambience music. This ultimately is just a matter of taste though. I love me some heavy metal while my Shadow Warrior with his ghost entourage is murdering shit left and right. Many players turn off music and listen to their own so there is that, too.

It not about music genre, it is about constant interruptions. There should not be combant music in this kind of games.

 

[wishbonetail]

All you said here also applies to all Diablo games as well LOL. And that Open World is still more fun than endless Mephisto/Bhaal/Cow level runs..

Titan Quest is way above this shit. There are specific items wich can drop from a specific enemy types in specific locations. Almost all locations in the game are useful for farming.
And no, combat music and nonsensicall worlbuilding does not apply to Diablo games LOL.

 

[ArchAngel]

All you said here also applies to all Diablo games as well LOL. And that Open World is still more fun than endless Mephisto/Bhaal/Cow level runs..

Titan Quest is way above this shit. There are specific items wich can drop from a specific enemy types in specific locations. Almost all locations in the game are useful for farming.
And no, combat music and nonsensicall worlbuilding does not apply to Diablo games LOL.

I played Titan Quest, even if I ignored that game has serious performance problems (that are part of the engine and that Grim Dawn devs said they fixed for GD) it was just bland and boring.

 

[wishbonetail]

All you said here also applies to all Diablo games as well LOL. And that Open World is still more fun than endless Mephisto/Bhaal/Cow level runs..

Titan Quest is way above this shit. There are specific items wich can drop from a specific enemy types in specific locations. Almost all locations in the game are useful for farming.
And no, combat music and nonsensicall worlbuilding does not apply to Diablo games LOL.

I played Titan Quest, even if I ignored that game has serious performance problems (that are part of the engine and that Grim Dawn devs said they fixed for GD) it was just bland and boring.

Bland and boring is a subjective grade. Sacred looks and plays like generic MMORPG with instant respawns, generic quests, no plot or interesting characters or themes, nonsensical world, just grind.
If you got the right mood for it, it's cool. I myself played the hell out of Sacred1 and 2 back in a day.

 

[ArchAngel]

All you said here also applies to all Diablo games as well LOL. And that Open World is still more fun than endless Mephisto/Bhaal/Cow level runs..

Titan Quest is way above this shit. There are specific items wich can drop from a specific enemy types in specific locations. Almost all locations in the game are useful for farming.
And no, combat music and nonsensicall worlbuilding does not apply to Diablo games LOL.

I played Titan Quest, even if I ignored that game has serious performance problems (that are part of the engine and that Grim Dawn devs said they fixed for GD) it was just bland and boring.

Bland and boring is a subjective grade. Sacred looks and plays like generic MMORPG with instant respawns, generic quests, no plot or interesting characters or themes, nonsensical world, just grind.
If you got the right mood for it, it's cool. I myself played the hell out of Sacred1 and 2 back in a day.

It is a H&S game, I feel same when playing D2 or PoE LOL. It is about leveling, crafting characters and loot. But now I also got an open world where I can choose where to go unlike PoE or D2.

 

[Zlaja]

and didnt like the first part too much

That's strange because Sacred 1 & 2 are very similar in terms of mechanics, open world and gameplay. The biggest difference is the art style, where the first game has a classic fantasy art style, while the second has a weird mix of fantasy and sci-fi. That's why I preferred the first one. Sacred 1 + expansion also had better character roster, IMO.

Sacred 2 is also a clear tier above garbage like Restricted area and the utter mediocrity of Dungeon Siege

The first one is shit, but I liked Dungeon Siege 2. Worth a try if you like hack & slash loot fests. Better than Sacred 2, IMO.