When a game has a perfect combat system like Risen 1 does, a prolonged dungeon crawling endgame isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially when Risen 1 almost managed to pull off a decent endgame dungeon as well. Bringing up one final boss which constitutes, like, 0,01% of game content also quite isn't fair criticism.
Eh. I'm glad you liked it, but drastically changing the format of any game 2/3 of the way through is a terrible idea. And of course it goes without saying that that end boss requires none of the stuff you learned for the past 30 hours, instead demanding that you develop an entirely new skill set in the blink of an eye, not to mention throwing out any choices you made in building your character.
The final boss aside, what disappointed me so much about the ending was the elimination of the questing, exploration, and overall freedom that made the game so interesting. I liked the combat too, but the removal of everything else was a huge letdown.
I don't know about standardized formats. I only know that Risen's final act was a big disappointment. I never said to myself, "Wait a minute, why is this suddenly so much less fun?", when playing Ultima IV. Of course, my tastes back then weren't exactly sophisticated so you may be right.
No. It fucking sucked. Shout it from the rooftops.
It appears you have seen my furry video.i bet y'all just need to l2p cuz you got pounded mercilessly by the lizardmen
Dumbing down compared to gothic, where you had to retreat, find a safe place, open an inventory, drink the potion and hope that no one interrupts the drinking animation.
Instant healing makes it so you can win any fight by simply having thousands of health potions in your inventory. That is shit design, no matter how you turn it, and I think it should be pretty obvious that it is shit design.
It completely changes the dynamic of combat. Hit avoidance is no longer an issue as long as you have a lot of jerky in your backpack. Tension is dissolved. Meaning is lost. Nothing matters any more.
