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Review Lots of Potential, Lots of Questionable Design Decisions: Destructoid Reviews Risen 2

Crooked Bee

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Tags: Piranha Bytes; Risen 2: Dark Waters

A Risen 2: Dark Waters review has popped up at Destructoid, and the score is 7/10.

...Risen 2 is ridiculously cheap at times. There are many monsters that can hit harder and swifter than you can, some of which can even outrun you if you attempt to escape. Certain monsters possess unblockable attacks that hit faster than the player can move, and they aren't shy about repeating those attacks and locking our hero into repeated "pain" animations. If you fight multiple opponents at once, you'll be trapped in a situation where one will be attacking you at melee range, while the others stand at a safe distance and throw unlimited spears or fire vicious muskets at you. All this is thrown at you before the hero is even halfway capable of defending himself against most of the enemies he'll be facing.

At times, things are so imbalanced as to be totally demoralizing. Risen 2 cruelly sets the player up to fail. Fancy challenging the first NPC you meet to a training duel? Expect him to kick your ass, using moves you won't be able to utilize yourself for hours. Expect him to whittle your health down to a sliver, which will you'll have to heal yourself. Expect that small mercy to be lacking from the less empathetic creatures waiting outside. Oh, and expect to save before and after every single fight, and sometimes in between.

...

Speaking of amusing, Risen 2's idea of what is and isn't an acceptable joke raises an eyebrow at times. I'm all for tasteless gags, but some of the dialog in this game may cross the boundaries of acceptably risqué patter and fall firmly into offensive territory. One early quest involves trying to force your companion into a kitchen job for no other reason than she's "a woman." Later on, characters openly refer to black natives as "spearchuckers" (a racist term in Europe) while several homophobic jokes crop up. One can argue that these characters are steeped in a world of piracy and such ignorance is expected, of course, though the fact that the comments are regularly presented in a matter-of-fact manner, with absolutely no sense of criticism or complaint, and sometimes come from the hero's own mouth, remains faintly alarming. It wasn't enough to offend me personally, but I certainly was surprised and I'd recommend those with rawer nerves keep their shields up.

...

Risen 2: Dark Waters is a difficult game to review, because I want to express how much I enjoyed myself in spite of the mountains of criticism that it quite rightly deserves. It's unnecessarily mean-spirited, it demands an immense amount of the player's time before it hits its stride, and the whole thing's potentially offensive to boot. All that said, when it finally opens up and lets the player have fun, Risen 2 has hours upon hours of legitimately enjoyable gameplay on offer. The frustration of getting trapped in the corner by a faster opponent never lets up, but once players get strong enough to soak it up and hit back, the feeling of relief and vindication is remarkable. All told, you'll get over thirty hours of pirate-flavored silliness that will brutalize you, then make you feel good inside.

What Piranha Bytes has developed could have been a thoroughly supreme game, one that could have gone toe to toe with the heavyweights of action role-playing. Due to a number of highly questionable design decisions, however, a lot of that potential has withered away. With so much lost, it's perhaps a testament to how talented the team secretly is that Risen 2 is still packed with fun in the face of truly inhibiting setbacks.​

The author admits to not having been able to finish the original Risen, by the way, due to its "awkward navigation system, reliance on ambushes, and general imbalance."

You can read the full review here.
 

Gord

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So stunlock is back?

All in all it sounds like a typical PB game.
 

made

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One early quest involves trying to force your companion into a kitchen job for no other reason than she's "a woman." Later on, characters openly refer to black natives as "spearchuckers" (a racist term in Europe) while several homophobic jokes crop up.

And so easily you can go from meh to Codex GOTY candidate.
 

Jashiin

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Sounds great. I might start using the term spearchuckers and see if anyone has more of a response than that of a blank expression.

-- ow it's jim sterling, nothing he says has value.
 

WhiskeyWolf

RPG Codex Polish Car Thief
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Jim "I'm an Imbecile" Sterling... of course. After reading the first three lines it was obvious who wrote it.
 

Fens

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At times, things are so imbalanced as to be totally demoralizing. Risen 2 cruelly sets the player up to fail. Fancy challenging the first NPC you meet to a training duel? Expect him to kick your ass, using moves you won't be able to utilize yourself for hours. Expect him to whittle your health down to a sliver, which will you'll have to heal yourself. Expect that small mercy to be lacking from the less empathetic creatures waiting outside. Oh, and expect to save before and after every single fight, and sometimes in between.​
sounds very gothic to me... which is a definite plus

"spearchuckers" (a racist term in Europe)
sounds more like it's deliberately not a common racist term at all
 

CrustyBot

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Looks good, typical PB stuff in a Pirate setting. They sure know how to make games fun with a reverse difficulty curve.

Crooked Bee:

A Review on the prestigious IGN is also up.

With Risen 2 Piranha Bytes continues to demonstrate skill at crafting big, believable worlds. Dark Waters is at times beautiful, offering a finely detailed set of islands to explore on your quest to become a notorious pirate captain and vanquish an ancient evil. It's Piranha Bytes' most accessible game yet, and though its style and boorish, humorous dialogue fit well with the pirate motif, it's a role-playing experience that uses convention as a crutch and marginalizes or strips away a lot of elements that made the studio's past games stand out. Disappointing character development options, sloppy combat and run-of-the-mill questing structures often make Dark Waters more of a chore to play than it should be, and exploration isn't nearly exciting enough to make up for its many flaws. If you desperately to role-play as a pirate, you certainly can in Risen 2, but you'll also find little that's memorable, and a multitude of poorly implemented ideas and missed opportunities.
:thumbsup:
 

SCO

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Shadorwun: Hong Kong
"Too hard, i have to run away bawwwwww"

sums up the review?
 

Jashiin

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So why the fuck does this spearchucking moron bother with games???

attentionwhore.jpg
 

Vicissitudes

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Hmm I like what they are writing in those reviews... Imminent incline?

Just pre-ordered!
 
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Risen 2 has one BIG flaw:

DAY 1 DLCs!

http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-R2DWTIDLC/risen-2-dark-waters-treasure-isle-dlc
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-R2DWAPCDLC/risen-2-dark-waters-a-pirates-clothes-dlc

Fuckers.

At times, things are so imbalanced as to be totally demoralizing.

OH NOOEES THIS GAMES HARD WHERES MAH WIN BUTTON I AM SO EMOTIONALLY DISTRESSED IMMA SUE PEDOBYTES!!

Speaking of amusing, Risen 2's idea of what is and isn't an acceptable joke raises an eyebrow at times. I'm all for tasteless gags, but some of the dialog in this game may cross the boundaries of acceptably risqué patter and fall firmly into offensive territory. One early quest involves trying to force your companion into a kitchen job for no other reason than she's "a woman."

Sounds like another emasculated cuckolded manbitch born into the wrong gender.
 

Aeschylus

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All I really got from this review is the this guy doesn't have the sack to play PB games. If you're not pounding your desk in frustration half the time, you're doing it wrong.

The middling mainstream reviews are encouraging to me. That means it might actually be a proper game.
 

J_C

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All I really got from this review is the this guy doesn't have the sack to play PB games. If you're not pounding your desk in frustration half the time, you're doing it wrong.

.
Well he is the one who bashed The Witcher 2 for being to hard IIRC.
 

Jashiin

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Risen 2 has one BIG flaw:

DAY 1 DLCs!

http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-R2DWTIDLC/risen-2-dark-waters-treasure-isle-dlc
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-R2DWAPCDLC/risen-2-dark-waters-a-pirates-clothes-dlc

Fuckers.

At times, things are so imbalanced as to be totally demoralizing.

OH NOOEES THIS GAMES HARD WHERES MAH WIN BUTTON I AM SO EMOTIONALLY DISTRESSED IMMA SUE PEDOBYTES!!

Speaking of amusing, Risen 2's idea of what is and isn't an acceptable joke raises an eyebrow at times. I'm all for tasteless gags, but some of the dialog in this game may cross the boundaries of acceptably risqué patter and fall firmly into offensive territory. One early quest involves trying to force your companion into a kitchen job for no other reason than she's "a woman."

Sounds like another emasculated cuckolded manbitch born into the wrong gender.

I contacted PB a while ago when this news hit..

please direct all complaints about marketing and sales decisions to the
place where they have to go to - our publisher Deep Silver that is.
We do not set prices, timings or bundle decisions (never did and
probably never will).

Regards,
Michael Rüve

Of course Deep Silver never responded to my mails.
 

Dexter

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Might have Pre-Ordered without the Day-1 DLC... might still do it since it is in every Pre-Ordered copy of the game.
This Review certainly speaks for it being another awesome Piranha game.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
I don't understand how mainstream reviewers cream themselves over Dark Souls (while not being able to get past half of the game, or the first two bosses for that matter) and then diss some other game that's clearly far beyond them.

People that aren't good at video games should have no right to write about them. Would you read a math paper written by a hipster faggot who cannot into fractions?
 

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