Risen 2: Dark Waters

Like the title says, this is a somewhat uneven game. The beginning is classic Piranha Bytes, if a little less unforgiving than usual, but by the end you're just coasting. Cities and communities feel less alive than they did in Risen 1 (to say nothing of Gothic), NPCs seem weirdly less aware of your actions, and there's less (or excessively streamlined) stuff you can do to interact with the world. The engine is very poorly optimized, and for all the pretty screenshots it can bring, it makes for a somewhat janky experience. I even had to install a community patch to solve the weird vegetation growth glitch, and the shadows are choppy by design, it seems, due to the abrupt "ticking clock" motion of the sun. The story is classic pirate-y goodness, with average-to-good voice acting that sometimes struggles with delivery in dramatic moments (German version, at least) and a lush Caribbean-like world to explore while it unfolds. Subsequent isles don't hold up to the first three's standard, however, with many reused assets, convenient quests and an all-around somewhat rushed feeling in what passes for the story's third act. Interestingly enough, the much-maligned combat system felt just fine and even fun at times, for all of its admittedly annoying quirks and a limited number of enemy types you'll soon tire of. All that being said, I quite liked it. Almost 40 hours worth of fun, in a setting that isn't really showcased all that much in this genre. Oh, as a rule of thumb, go Inquisition if you want an easier time in combat, or Voodoo if you'd like some more creative solutions for your quests and actually have a use for 70% of your loot.

There are many good ideas, as the presence of Voodoo magic, but the combats are so terribly bad they spoiled almost all the game by me. I mean, they are not just hard, they are too random, frustrating (ennemies hit you even if you dodge), they hit faster than you can parry,... I cannot "recommend" Risen 2 due to the frustrating combats. At least Risen 3 fixed that and is much better in every ways!

It's your usual Piranha Bytes game. Beautiful world, to the brim filled with stuff to find and do, something around every corner, tough beginning with lots of dying, easy endgame because you reach the point of being overpowered. Sometimes clunky controls in the fights, but good enough to get through it. I love Piranha Bytes games, and the Risen series is no exception. Like always, you can feel the love and dedication they put into their titles and handcrafted worlds, and I take that over any Diablo 4 or Skyrim with their generic gameplay loops. It runs out of the box on Windows 10, but you might want to check PCGamingWiki and the GOG forum to fine tune it, the time is worth it!

I fairly liked Risen, this one has a strange and unnecessary change of theme. the game feels more fragmented then the previous one, with less complex maps and a less interesting world. the combat system took a step back in variety and depth, still a bit janky, and this time the combat system also lost some of the the things that made the previous game pleasant if you where able to close an eye on the mentioned jank(less variety in weapons and combat styles, underwhelming magic system less enemy variety etc. i still managed to play trough all of it, but overall is an inferior sequel that do not make justice to the first chapter. 2.5 stars for me. Played on a lenovo ideapad 3 Ryzen 5 3500U AMD vega 8 2GB v-ram 12 Gb ram win10 worked fine, around 60 fps with detaisl between mid and max.

Risen was remastered and works now with gamepad. I did get random crash dumps but the game is pretty good at autosaving so never lost much progress.