Risen 2: Dark Waters
Risen 2 is a third person open world action roleplaying game made by Piranha Bytes, the team that gave us the Gothic games and of course the first Risen game. It’s hard to talk about Risen 2 without referring to their previous games, which I’ll call ‘PB games’ for short.
To summarize: Risen 2 sometimes feels like a ‘PB game lite’ but it’s certainly not completely dumbed down from previous PB games. The atmosphere and the ‘feel’ of the PB games is there, so I’ll enjoy playing this game more than I would 9 out of 10 similar games. The fact that melee combat is almost as bad as it was in Gothic 3 and the absence of ‘real’ magic are the only two problems that certainly knock off some points in the final score for Risen 2.
– Real player with 74.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Pirates RPG Games.
It is very difficult to recommend this game because depending on your personal preferences, it can either be a wealth of unpleasantness or it can, as I have in the end perceived it, be a gem of extraordinary substance and enjoyment although in a wierd way.
Warning: This will be quite a lenghty review where I try to outline in detail the great drawbacks of the game as well as the great features about it.
First off, I will state all of the unpleasant aspects of this game and if anything I mention seems unacceptable, better to stay away from it as it is a game that not everyone will enjoy and it can be difficult to grasp.
– Real player with 69.2 hrs in game
Risen 3 - Titan Lords
Risen 3 is a third person open world action roleplaying game made by Piranha Bytes, the team that gave us the Gothic games and of course the first two Risen games. It’s hard to talk about Risen 3 without referring to the previous games, which I’ll call ‘PB games’ for short.
To summarize: Risen 3 is definitely a step up from Risen 2 but all in all, it is probably still a game that only fans of PB games will love and a game that only fans of the genre may learn to like.
To talk about this game more in-depth, I’ll take the list I used for my reviews of ‘Risen’ and ‘Risen 2’.
– Real player with 94.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best Pirates RPG Games.
This is a long review, so just read the bottom paragraph for a simple summary of my thoughts.
It surprises me that the general consensus for this game is worse than Risen 2: Dark Waters. To be fair, if you hated Risen 2, there likely are not enough redeeming factors about the end of the trilogy to be worth your while. But nevertheless, some substantial improvements to the overall experience have made this a promising step in the right direction for Piranha Bytes as a developer.
Risen 2: Dark Waters was ultimately a failure as an open world, engrossing RPG. It was extremely shallow, overall having one of their smallest and most lackluster world designs to date, with most of the islands consisting of winding pathways with few interesting landmarks leading between major locations. These locations were greatly devoid of life, as the characters were as dull and two-dimensional as wooden boards. The combat wasn’t the worst I’ve ever seen in a game, but it took forever to get the necessary skills to stay on top of combat, and by then you just got used to button mashing between prayers. Beyond combat, half the skills in the game were worthless or used in only scripted situations that were easy enough to do without.
– Real player with 84.7 hrs in game
Coffin Rot Brewing Co.
I love this game. Its not very story based or long gameplay, but its really fun if you’re energetic and want to get it out in VR. It really exercises your multitasking abilities, I’m surprised people like Jacksepticeye or other famous youtubers haven’t played this yet. I spent so long just getting all the upgrades and finding secrets; There are so many fun, little secrets like finding the marks with the telescope or reading the posters. You can tell the developers worked very hard on it and it certainly paid off.
– Real player with 5.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Pirates Management Games.
This game is both a great introduction to VR and a challenge for those are veterans in the VR space. The game play is fun and easy to learn but by no means does it hold your hand the whole way through. The difficulty of the game is perfect since the game play is long and makes you want to become a barista or bartender. Funnily enough, I have experience in a kitchen setting and as a Starbucks barista and although learning the recipes for these drinks and foods is a different story, the fast paced working is exactly whats its like working in this field, minus the skeletons and octopus trying to steal your money :). As fast paced this game is I rarely ever felt sick or dizzy playing this as well. It was extremely comfortable the entire time. I highly recommend this game for its fun fast paced game play, variety of weapons and traps, and its funny humor. And as a plus, if you do happen to want to go into the barista business at a place like Starbucks which can get really busy, this game is an amazing way to practice the fast paced environment feeling.
– Real player with 3.6 hrs in game
Gothic II: Gold Edition
The Gothic series and Gothic 2 (w/ addon) has a cult following in both Germany as well as Eastern Europe. Developed by a tiny indie studio it featured absolutely fantastic storytelling in a fantasy world without any of the usual high fantasy bullcrap. The entire Gothic series is low Fantasy, similar to the Witcher series, but not as grim. What makes Gothic 2 really shine, isn’t grittyness, but roughness. It is an unique RPG in the way that there is a difference between knocking someone out and actually killing them, meaning that bashing in a few heads is a viable strategy for many quests, without actually having to become a mass murderer. This allows for very intricate quest design and many memorable moments. It also spoils the inner child in me when I once again have the ability to verbally announce that the player character is going to plant his fist into the face of someone and most of the time, for good reason.
– Real player with 342.1 hrs in game
With most of the games what you see is what you get. But this isn’t the case. Gothic is a great game but Gothic 2 takes it on a whole new level. The amount of content, creativity and how much work the devs put into it is amazing. Another reminder that quality world building is important in games. Majority of devs don’t realize that having shit world design is a gamebreaker, so they just copy and paste same locations in a huge but empy world, make quests with obvious outcomes and no variety and dumb everything down. With this game though the bar was set so high that the devs from PB never managed to get close again. And likely they never will after Risen\Elex.
– Real player with 196.4 hrs in game