Risen will probably be brushed aside as “oh, just another RPG”, but fans of the genre shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it as such.
Simply put, Risen is this year’s The Witcher – a dark, gritty European made RPG tailoring to a more hardcore crowd. Risen is developed by Piranha Bytes, the German game development studio behind the Gothic game franchise. To explain Risen in a nutshell, I’d say it is akin to Fable, the Elder Scrolls games, and The Witcher all rolled into one game. There are tons of quests, tons of items to pick up, and tons of monsters (and people) to fight. All the while you’ll be gaining experience and leveling a number of different skills – magic, axes, swords. If you can get past the difficulty curve and the shoddy voice acting, you’ll find a pretty solid RPG underneath, and one that is certainly worth your time.
At the start of Risen, you end up shipwrecked on a tropical island called Faranga, with only the clothes on your back. Shortly thereafter, you’ll be greeted by Risen’s incredibly unforgiving difficulty – two large, ostrich looking birds proceeded to kick the living shit out of me while I tried to get my bearings with combat. Risen is hard, and you won’t be running through a tutorial dungeon to get acclimated with the game first. In fact, a lot of the game’s finer elements are learned through experimentation and exploring – and by quicksaving and reloading. The first couple hours of Risen were difficult, just due to the fact that I was getting my ass kicked by boars and wolves and other low level monsters. After spending a couple of hours playing, I was rewarded with a decent sword and shield, and finally a good set of armor, which really made a difference in combat.
Risen’s combat mechanics are top notch, and you can tell the developers put a lot of time into perfecting the combat system. Enemies will block, dodge, parry, and attack when they find an opening in your own defenses. This makes blocking and timing attacks so crucial. Attack spamming is completely ineffective and is a sure-fire way to die – instead, you need to time attacks, along with counter dodging and parrying enemies’ attacks. It could be called complicated, but at the end of a couple fights I found myself with sweaty palms and an increased heartbeat – combat is incredibly satisfying.
In addition to the combat, you’re able to take up a number of different professions and crafts – armorsmithing, sneaking, cooking, alchemy, lockpicking – many NPCs can teach you these skills, for the right price, and they all prove useful at one point or another. Character development is handled in the same way – a few NPCs in each location can improve your sword, magic, or bow skills, among others.
The game also oozes atmosphere, not unlike the Elder Scrolls games. Faranga is well fleshed out – not an open world like Oblivion, but more linear, like Fable. The environments are amazing and diverse, and Risen is complimented nicely by a fitting soundtrack and decent sound effects. Throughout the game you’ll encounter numerous NPCs who are aligned to one of the island’s factions, and you’ll also be presented with conflicting quests or objectives that conflict with an opposing faction. NPCs also sleep, eat, and move around the areas they populate, which goes a long way to making the world feel less static and more engrossing.
As far as negatives, Risen’s graphics aren’t top of the line. In fact, the game uses a number of screen filters and shaders, some of which make textures appear blurry. It’s not a major gripe, but it does give the game a washed out look – it doesn’t look bad, but it isn’t exactly my cup of tea either. I found the pace of the game rather sluggish in the first couple of hours, and in some places after that, but luckily most dialogue could be skipped. As I mentioned earlier, the voice acting could stand to be improved as well.
Other than these issues, I’m having a hard time finding any real game breaking faults in Risen. The game is currently PC only, but if you’re interested in playing it on the 360, you’re in luck – Risen is scheduled to be ported to the 360 in early 2010. It’s an engrossing and challenging RPG experience. Risen is a game you’ll want if you enjoy the genre – it’s a solid RPG offering from Piranha Bytes, and a dark fantasy game that shouldn’t be overlooked in the shadow of Dragon Age.
[A copy of the game was provided by the publisher for review purposes.]
Been looking for a PC RPG to pick up. This may be it.
This is a very good review. I’ve been playing Risen since it came out and my character has attained level 8, and I’ve upgraded my weapons and armor. The game story line goes linear at the beginning, but the game open up later. Then you can tho what ever you want. For me this game is far better than Oblivion.
Oblivion is certainly more free-form than Risen is, to be honest, and the world is a lot more open, but neither one is a bad game. Risen is a lot more satisfying combat wise than Oblivion ever was, though. And much harder.