I'm just about to play Risen for the first time, my previous experience with the series is Gothic 3, and... you know. It was pretty broken even with the giant fan patch. Are there any important mods or unofficial patches I should get before starting?
Ooh, I want to know too! Just reinstalled after previously giving up (well that and losing my save) right at the first town.
I don't think so, I just got done playing it vanilla not too long ago and didn't have any issues.
Yea, vanilla is good enough, some buggy side quests but nothing major.
I'm going to borrow this thread to have a little rant about Risen. I'm a few hours in and I'm really not enjoying it. It isn't really an open world game. It's a few hub locations joined by outdoor corridors. The combat controls are poor so most of the time when you lose a fight it feels like it isn't due to a lack of skill on your part.
I'm very disappointed in it so far.
Hi
The combat in Risen is very hard to get into and yes it does feel very unfair. There was a decent enough Demo which gave you a good idea of what was involved so you could have seen if you liked it enough before buying. I really enjoyed it but knew what to expect as I played gothic before, its a very different style RPG and quite difficult unlike most spoon fed experiences these days.
The arena fights (remember to bet on yourself) in the bandit camp are a good a way of training. The system takes a while to get into, but after that even stronger enemies are more a matter of endurance than skill.
Let's not forget the character development system which is total garbage.Originally Posted by BobsLawnService
there are only a few mods but most of them are for the german version. Those two should work for all versions though:
HD-Textures & improved plant textures (comparison-screenshots)
Combat in Risen - like in all Gothic games - is very rhythm-based. Figure out the stances of your opponent and how he reacts to your attacks and you have won half the battle. Dodging backwards is your best friend against non-human opponents and blocking will serve you well in fights against other meat sacks.
You're supposed to die a lot in the beginning if you wander off - unlike as in some other RPGs you can't roam freely but have to stick to the Main- and Sidequests to buff up first. Don't join a faction too early as it will lock some of the early side quests. And be sure to pick the faction that suits your playstyle: bandits are melee or ranged focused but have no magic while the monastery guys specialize in the staff and low level magic.
Play Arma2:CO with us. (It isn't nearly as difficult as you might think.)
It's okay to not like things.
The combat in Risen seems to be faster and the animation seems to be jerky and sparse if I can call it that. I also try to dodge to the side and invariably I end up facing in the complete wrong direction and just losing control of my character. I'm a vereran of Gothic 2 and 3 so I'm also used to crap combat but I managed to get to grips with theirs. This is probably why I'm feeling especially critical of Risen's. Maybe it is better with a console controller or something.
I'm also getting nothing out of exploring the world. The outdoor areas exist solely for the purpose of funneling you to the handful of hubs in the game.
I played with a mouse and keyboard and adored the game. I loved the way simple little interactions, walking down one path as opposed to another for example, changed the world.
The combat is incredibly wonky, but still far superior to something like Oblivion in my opinion.
But it was exploring the world that I found the most fun. I don't know why you think it's corridors and hubs, I'm assuming you haven't played much of the game through yet. You do progress from one end of the world to another, but that is reasonable there is still lots of backtracking and exploring to be done.
Thing I enjoyed most about the exploring was how unforgiving the world is at first and it will kill you in a second. This brings up another problem that at a certain point you get too powerful and it ruins the atmosphere as nothing can hurt you any more.
However, it does end very poorly, by that time no fights are challenging any more, there is nothing left to explore and you are asked to basically go back over the entire map to kill a bunch of easy enemies and I lost interest.
I compare the geography of the world to Gothic 3's and it just doesn't work.
Gothic 3 has wonderful terrain - you start off in the plains and deciduous forests of the lowlands and wend your way up the escarpment and end up on a plateau overlooking a giant waterfall tumbling down, then you get your highland forests, go through a mountain pass into the rain shadow and encounter the more arid territory. It's just such a well thought out, convincing, varied world and it really captured my imagination and was a joy to explore and discover with gorgeous vistas. It's a world as a world, not as a level to lead the player in a particular direction. It was the star of the show and made up for all the other short-comings of the world. Risen just doesn't have anything that makes me want to come back.
Last edited by BobsLawnService; 17-08-2011 at 07:04 PM.
Gothic 3 is kind of the odd man out for PB maps, though. In Gothic 1 and 2 there also weren't very many "pointless" regions to explore. Admittedly, Risen is the worst offender (you can't even walk amongst the trees, you have to stay on one of the paths).
Well I thought Risen was gorgeous too. It is a more narrow world than Gothic 3, but taken in it's own right I think it's fantastic. Risen is clearly meant to be more accessible and you know, actually playable.
Quite enjoying it so far, I don't mind the combat. It can be tedious taking down stronger enemies, but I like that it's possible if you're patient and tiime your attacks well. Too many RPGs make it a simple comparison of numbers. I haven't really tried to explore much due to packs of vicious animals, just been wandering around Harbour Town doing quests.
I've also been playing this recently, and I've hated the "boss" fights I've done, they've both been tedious swordsponges, but that may be down to my build and equipment if anything else. Everything else has been gravy, though.
I like the world. It's not large but it's well laid out, with the winding paths, cliffs and caves making it feel larger, and there's plenty of quests to do. It's not trying to convince me I'm exploring an entire country, it's set on a small and mysterious island and does a good job of conveying that feel.
I don't like the way I occasionally run into hugely powerful monsters that can batter through my block and force me to reload, unlike human opponents I can't defend myself to wear them down slowly and if you run away they just follow you back to town and slaughter everyone there. Also kind of disappointed at the lack of depth to the conversations, although it's better written than I expected you can't really run into difficulties by saying the wrong thing, you just run through all the conversation options and occasionally get a decision to make. That's more wishful thinking than a genuine flaw in the game, as so few RPGs do have meaningful dialogue.
I personally liked it, not as much as Gothic 1+2 but it's somewhere up there...
The strong points, which are usually also "strong points" in a lot of the Piranha Bytes games are imo the world (which I like to call "Bethesda style done right) and the combat.
The world is completely hand-crafted and you'll notice. There's lots of secrets you will be able to reach by using Levitation and get "there" just in time before it runs out or by jumping down some cliffs from above etc. I never got the Oblivion/Fallout 3 feel of just running around a generated landscape or having to fight my way through that same-ish dungeon yet again.
The combat I enjoyed, because there's actually a learning curve and it requires skill. I used to die against wolves very early because I didn't use a shield and didn't block them, but after learning the "technique" they were rather easy and each monster type had some way for me to exploit even at lower levels and beat them. Even monsters 10+ levels above me, for instance I believe those beasts mentioned I beat but chaining up power attacks from a rather short distance while staying out of their arms reach.
The weak points I found were the animations and general production values (on say character models) and the ending, but as far as I've heard they are trying to fix that for the sequel, and there was a Trailer for the GamesCom displaying both superb voice acting, better graphics and improved animations:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYr7R3HP4h0&hd=1
You are also supposed to get a ship/boat, with which you can travel between different island, each sporting a different environment and climate zone. While each of them is smaller than the Risen landmass, together they're bigger.
And this:
4. We've heard that Risen 2 is the most expensive PB project. Why? What will this extra budget give us?
Some of the main critic points of Risen 1 were graphics-related. The animations looked poor, the women were ugly and the characters in general didn’t show the quality that other AAA role-playing games had. That was just down to the fact that we just didn’t have the internal resources to create all these great-looking graphics assets. We’re still a small team compared to our competitors. Now for Risen 2 we knew that we had to improve in that area, but we also didn’t want to sacrifice our team atmosphere. So we asked a lot of specialized companies to help us in that area. They created many of the sophisticated graphic assets, and we used them to build the game. Through that we can have it both – an internal team and a great looking game. So where did that budget go? Into all these graphic assets that make up the beautiful world of Risen 2!
I did a "Review" of the first part over here btw. :P:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.150766-Risen-PC-A-Review
Personally, I liked Risen. It's not "Gothic" in that it doesn't feature such a huge world and not as many memorable characters. I could work with the combat system just fine after a short time of learning how to counter different opponents. Also, there are way too few bugs for a true Gothic. No, seriously, I did not encounter a single game breaking bug. Having spent roughly the same time in Fallout 3 and Risen, Fallout had the most bugs of the two.
The world design and dialogue however are exactly what I expect from a Gothic game. I haven't played the English version, though. Maybe you need to know German to really get the most out of the game. Compared to Bethesda games Risen's characters talk a lot less stilted and dialogue flows much better. It's much more down to earth in that regard.
By the way, I don't get the criticism about the graphics. I've rarely seen such an atmospheric rpg. I wish they'd pour more manhours into making a bigger world with much more to explore rather than just slapping more polygons everywhere for the sequel. I'm one of the few people who liked the size of Gothic 3. That map with the attention to detail of Risen and especially the superb use of heights would be great. The starting area of Risen is downright sublime when you pay some attention to how compact it is.
Last edited by Batolemaeus; 19-08-2011 at 11:34 AM.
I was pleasantly surprised by the voice acting. They clearly speak English as a first language unlike many German and Russian games, and fairly good actors too. There's no problems with the translation like I expected, either.
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