Risen

The graphics combat and RPG elements are amazing BUT there are some issues. The good? - Cool RPG elements - Relative good story - Cool world - Lore The bad? - Lack of content. For a comparison, Gothic 2/3(same developer - piranha bytes) have much more locations, much more spells(you can only summon skeleton while in G3 you can summon skeletons, goblins, golems and demons), more enemies and you can take different ways. - Boring quests. Some quests are insane boring - Can learn magic only in monastery. The monastery quests are boring and you can't side with bandits and learn magic. Note that magic is necessary to solve some puzzles, so you will be forced to use scrolls. In G3 you can "side" with Xardas, Innos, Beliar, use any magic and magic isn't a requirement to complete the game. - Final boss. You have build a archer? A mage? In Final boss you will be forced to play as warrior using a specific set and the boss is more likely a platform boss than a RPG boss. There are a lore explanation to why only one weapon can do damage but i will not post spoilers in review.

Some of the gamers who grew up on games that dumbed down the combat (unmodded Skyrim comes to mind for some reason... don't get me wrong, I like Skyrim too but it's completely different in terms of combat), may find the combat in Risen to be much much more unforgiving. It does require that you get used to it, but once you do, combat is still manageable and it much more rewarding than in those dumbed down systems I mentioned bc you feel like you actually did something challenging instead of just checking off a box After playing through this, I think it has become one of my all time favorite games and I really enjoyed this game. I might only recommend it to folks that I thought could adapt to the combat though. If I recall correctly, this game has controller support but I didn't like it or maybe I just wanted to customize (I like having a more complex 2-mode control setup). Since I'm on Linux and was playing via wine, I am able to disable the game's ability to detect the controller (if interested, google "WineBus Enable SDL" and set to 0) and I ended up using a custom antimicrox profile... Anyway, the only other thing I can think to mention - and trying to keep things as spoiler-free as possible - is that I was annoyed that the final boss's combat mechanics felt drastically different compared to the rest of the game's combat that I loved, it felt like I had briefly entered a 3d platformer.

Best of the Risen series IMHO. Really nice athmospere in this game, graphics look good even to this day, especially if you play it in ultra-wide (and know how to swith to UW, its not natively supported, but can be done and works perfect) Story is good, characters are mostly interesting, combat is fun, but not for everyone, players who expect easy going might have an issue. Progression is very good, you can feel getting from a wimp to a god, very satisfying. You cant really bruteforce it, you need to be smart. Its not perfect, animations are dated, but thats a Piranha Bytes thing :D But its a very very good game!

for two bucks I can't complain to much. Game plays like the classic RPGs I grew up on like Gothic. The combat challenging and sometimes just ridiculous with the constant blocking but it feels so good once you finally clear whatever was standing in your way. Story made this game really hard to get through. Toward the end it stop feeling enjoyable and you just want the game to end already. Overall if you paid two bucks or something for the game it can be a decent time killer

I played the demo and loved it. I saw the discount on gog and thought lets give it a try. Now I regret my decision even though the game cost me less than 3EUR. You must know I am very biased on the Gothic series. It maybe is the worst action-rpg series in history of gaming (IMO). When playing Risen you feel how much of Gothic is left. The odd movement, the awful difficult combat, the great and fantastic dialogs and characters. Honest, if this game is only about listening to books of dialog and solving NPCs problems with brain instead of combat, then this game could've been a miracle! It's true, combat is difficult. A simple boar can kill you in seconds on early levels. But why is the combat difficult? It's because the hostile creatures and humans have no attack pattern. Sometimes they strike only once, sometimes they strike two times and sometimes they strike 3 times. But it is hard to see without proper animation what the hostiles do next. You think that boar will strike only once, but then hits you 3 times and your dead. Learning the basics of combat in Risen is a prolonged process with lots of frustration. And getting frustrated after 5 minutes because a simple boar humiliated you is no fun. If you're up for the challenge to survive the unpredictable combat of Risen, then this game is for you. If you get frustrated very quickly then avoid this game and its sequel at all costs.