Review Risen has the best ARPG combat system ever made

[DarkUnderlord]

Tags: Piranha Bytes; Risen

At least according to <a href="http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=194">Darth Roxor in his review for the Codex</a>:
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<blockquote>Personally, I thought chapters three and four, while a bit inferior to one and two, were also pretty great, because not only are they mostly full of challenging fights (especially chapter three), but I think the combat system in Risen is <b>the</b> best ARPG combat system ever made, it’s even better than the one in Gothics, mostly thanks to the added variety of special moves, not to mention that the end-game dungeons are also pretty interestingly designed – you’ll have to constantly observe your surroundings, because they’re full of lethal traps, so if you get careless, you’ll be smashed by crushers, impaled by spike traps, burned alive by incinerators and dropped in the middle of enemy mobs by trapdoors. Some areas even have additional assholery in the form of anti-magic crystals around the walls, which doesn’t allow the use of any magic.
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[...]
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The only thing that’s absolutely fucking horrible with chapter four, is the very end, and by very end, I mean the boss fight, which is basically one giant, anticlimactic, uninspired and dull minigame. I’d say it’s right up there with System Shock 2’s end-game ‘Nah’.</blockquote>
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Read the rest to find out if it's worth the purchase.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Gothic 2 combat > Risen's combat. Risen's combat felt like a slight step up from Gothic 3's shitfest, but it was still rather simple and boring.

 

[relootz]

Nice review Darth Cockzor. I though chapter 3 and 4 were pretty boring though.

 

[Emotional Vampire]

Stupid fucking polacks.

 

[Black_Willow]

Emo vamp is emo

 

[Darth Roxor]

Darth Roxxor in his review

durr

 

[Gobbo]

Gothic 2 combat > Risen's combat.

If the AI of G2 was fixed then maybe, enemies had only 2-3 different tactics, unlike in Risen in which every monster/a fighter of certain skill used different combinatons of strikes, dodging etc. The only think that kills the fighting system in Risen are the power strikes.

 

[Elhoim]

Darth Roxxxor in his review

durr

hurr

 

[Overweight Manatee]

Archery and Magic are both badly done. How can a game have good combat when 2/3rds of the combat abilities are worthless (magic) or gamebreakingly powerful (archery)?

 

[Darth Roxor]

How can a game have good combat when 2/3rds of the combat abilities are worthless (magic)

What?

or gamebreakingly powerful (archery)?

It's not gamebreakingly powerful. It's retardedly overpowered only if you have enough place to run, but if you're stuck in a small room with a decent-sized mob (and for more fun, you enter the room via nautilus transformation), you're still very much fucked.

Or when you're facing superfast stuff, like ghouls. Lord, how I hated ghouls.

 

[ghostdog]

RoXXXorZ !

Good review, if a bit too positive at some parts. Combat is indeed very good but I think I still prefer NOTR's combat, maybe because it was even more challenging. Also, the auto-lock could be very annoying when fighting more than one enemies.

But generally I agree with most of what you said. Risen is a worthy successor to the first two Gothics. (and thus better than any TES game)

 

[Shannow]

Just finished it 5 minutes ago:
The end is really WTF!?!
Fucking Zelda?!?
Fuck this shit...
Was the only part where I used the net for help. I shoulda simply rage quit.

Otherwise: Nice successor to the Gothics. Better than G3 not as good as the first two. In every aspect apart from graphics.
Needs some polish on dialogue, combat (never got the hang of that), balancing (magic sucked too much), UI (tool-tips to make character development planning possible), jumping and dodging and a fucking different end-fight. Just running the end cinematic without the Zelda-crap would have been preferable.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Darth Roxxxor in his review

durr

hurr

derpderpderp

 

[Kingston]

Risen has the best ARPG combat system ever made

durr

hurr

derpderpderp

Fixed.

 

[<subject name here>]

Risen has the best ARPG combat system ever made

durr

hurr

derpderpderp

mom?

Fixed

 

[Ch1ef]

Risen is boring. Unoriginal. Lacks of lore and motivation. Unoriginal. World is boring and unoriginal. Characters are just like in Gothic 3, only a Quest machines. Fuck Piranha Bytes.















I like tea.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

How can a game have good combat when 2/3rds of the combat abilities are worthless (magic)

What?

If the game requires you to guzzle a potion for every foe you fight, I consider magic to be broken and worthless. Thats what my fully maxed out mage had to do until I completely dumped him out of the utter futility of playing him. Funny how a Mage with 4 points in Axes does far more damage with Axes then with magic.

or gamebreakingly powerful (archery)?

It's not gamebreakingly powerful. It's retardedly overpowered only if you have enough place to run, but if you're stuck in a small room with a decent-sized mob (and for more fun, you enter the room via nautilus transformation), you're still very much fucked.

Or when you're facing superfast stuff, like ghouls. Lord, how I hated ghouls.

Most enemies die before they even get to you, and you don't need much room to run at all, even a small room is more then enough. Basically archery is as or more damaging then magic at every step of the game and you never need to drink a potion to shoot more arrows.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Funny how a Mage with 4 points in Axes does far more damage with Axes then with magic.

This is bullshit and you know it. Unless you had 100 strength and 0 in crystal magic.

Most enemies die before they even get to you, and you don't need much room to run at all, even a small room is more then enough. Basically archery is as or more damaging then magic at every step of the game and you never need to drink a potion to shoot more arrows.

I would say archery gets to a level of superpower when you max it, thanks to the machinegun firing speed, but before that, you'll have to engage in melee pretty often.

 

[Blind Eye]

Risen is boring. Unoriginal. Lacks of lore and motivation. Unoriginal. World is boring and unoriginal. Characters are just like in Gothic 3, only a Quest machines. Fuck Piranha Bytes.















I like teabagging.

Fixed.

 

[ksjav]

bleaurgh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdqkrDivZyk

 

[Ch1ef]

HEY NICE SONG

 

[Azrael the cat]

Funny how a Mage with 4 points in Axes does far more damage with Axes then with magic.

This is bullshit and you know it. Unless you had 100 strength and 0 in crystal magic.

Most enemies die before they even get to you, and you don't need much room to run at all, even a small room is more then enough. Basically archery is as or more damaging then magic at every step of the game and you never need to drink a potion to shoot more arrows.

I would say archery gets to a level of superpower when you max it, thanks to the machinegun firing speed, but before that, you'll have to engage in melee pretty often.

From trying both, putting just 2-3 points into a weapon is MUCH stronger than putting the same into a magic offence. But maxing out a magic offence is MUCH MUCH stronger than maxing out a weapon.

It's a good tradeoff for char builds in my opinion: casual point usage is better matched for weapon skills, whereas magic really pays if you go all-out magic (including the appropriate points in strength for axes/swords and similar points in mana for magic - though always max your crystal spell before increasing your mana stat)l. The reason why it works that way is that towards maxed-out magic, you can get more and more creatures into your 'kill-before-they-reach-you', which is really the crux of magic. And magic is helped greatly by the odd utility spell available only to straight mages - in particular raise undead (the skele spell), and levitate). The skele is an awesome buff and levitate is great for exploration, getting to areas before the plot requires it and setting up sniping positions. Once you've gone massively into magic (with a 2nd in alchemy, and maybe lockpicks if you can't wait long enough to get the spell), you are much much more powerful than your melee/thievery character will ever be.

Would be better if points were a LITTLE bit harder to come by, so that you were really restricted in what non-combat skills you could have points left for if putting a workable number of points in magic.

But I can't fathom anyone saying that weapons are overpowered compared to magic - maybe at low to mid points, which is exactly what it should be. Frankly, they should make weapons even more powerful compared to magic at that point range, to make the survavbility vs late-game power a more interesting tradeoff.

The only mystery I see in skills is the point of staves, and even then I can see where they were going. Staves are flat out worse than swords and axes, and they look deliberately worse, rather than worse through oversight or bugs. BUT staves generally have much lower strength requirements for the same level of damage, so staves are a good option for people who want to really focus on magic and put almost nothing into strength (while requiring some stave fighting to get them through the early levels and the training stickfighting). Nonetheless, some slight buffing could help - either remove the strength requirement on staves completely, change it for magic (or highest out of magic or strength) or add magic-specific buffs.

 

[Darth Roxor]

From trying both, putting just 2-3 points into a weapon is MUCH stronger than putting the same into a magic offence. But maxing out a magic offence is MUCH MUCH stronger than maxing out a weapon.

My point exactly.

(including the appropriate points in strength for axes/swords and similar points in mana for magic - though always max your crystal spell before increasing your mana stat).

I didn't use a single skill point to raise mana - I raised it only through potions :D

But I can't fathom anyone saying that weapons are overpowered compared to magic - maybe at low to mid points, which is exactly what it should be. Frankly, they should make weapons even more powerful compared to magic at that point range, to make the survavbility vs late-game power a more interesting tradeoff.

Melee weapons are definitely not more powerful than magic - fighting with melee only was a constant exercise in reloading in the end-game temples.

Ranged weapons, however, (or at least the bow) are more powerful, if only for the aspect of not needing mana to cast - you can keep backtracking and shooting without the need to stop to gulp a potion or two.

 

[Shannow]

Funny how a Mage with 4 points in Axes does far more damage with Axes then with magic.

This is bullshit and you know it. Unless you had 100 strength and 0 in crystal magic.

8 in Axes + 200 str vs 8 in fireball, 200 wis and 90 mana.
Elite lizard warriors go down in 2-4 non-blocked hits vs I might kill a normal lizard warrior before my mana runs out.
3 seconds of fighting vs > 10 seconds
0-3 health potions vs >1 mana potion

I admit that magic was only an afterthought for me when I got near the end but the only time it was ever useful in combat was if you had a companion that didn't go down as fast as Fred and a group of enemies attacking them. And even then it was pretty much faster to simply reload if you got your ass handed to you in melee than to use magic.
Now unless fireball got a lot more powerful in its last two stages than in its first 8 I'd really have to agree with the fat sea cow. You'll do more damage with a loaded axe strike and moderate strength than with high crystal magic and highish wisdom.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

I had maxed my fireball throwing and it it required me to go through potions like crack to kill anything. Using weapons it battles was :power attack, quick attacks, repeat 2-3 times.