I'm curious whether anyone cares to defend it. It has some interesting ideas, but I think overall it's a complete failure. It's rather annoying and detracts from the enjoyment of the game which is the one thing it should not do.

Mind you, I've gotten pretty good at it. I can take out big monsters and large numbers of little monsters with a gun just by continuously rolling sideways until I get an opening to shoot. This would be physically impossible in a world with laws of physics as we know them, and it's not particularly fun, but it works.

If it were up to me I'd make firearms much more realistic. You should have to stop and manually reload them after every shot you fire instead of simply waiting for a timer.

I'm open to hearing arguments in favor, because I haven't finished the game yet and I'm wondering whether I missed some facet of the combat that makes it more interesting than it seems. Or maybe I'm wishing.

You haven't missed anything, the combat in Risen 2 is pretty horrendous. Melee combat against single human opponents is passable (if boring), but an exercise in frustration against critters or multiple opponents. Meanwhile rifles/shotguns are incredibly powerful, making combat ridiculously easy when using them (I melee'd the last boss just because using firearms on her felt like it would be way too easy). And in contrast voodoo is pretty much useless in combat. The whole thing is just a mess, particularly in comparison to the system in Risen, which I felt worked very well.

Oh well. "More's the pity," as all the NPCs say in Risen 2. It's actually a surprisingly good game. I think it would have a much better reputation if it weren't for the bad impression made by the fighting.

I notice the manual is exceptionally useless for figuring out anything about combat. It gives you only the most brief overview and concludes with telling you to figure the rest out as you go.

I'm going to take a crack at my own challenge: defending the combat system. Well, maybe not defending it, but sort of explaining it...

You see, I restarted my game (for a completely unrelated reason) and, being a compulsive cheater, I used a RAM editor to increase Swords, Firearms, Voodoo, Endurance, and Thievery all to 40, right at the start of the game. In my experience you can learn a lot about the mechanics of a game by pushing it beyond it's normal limits like this, and Risen 2 is no exception. Of course it's pretty easy, but it's also more fun, IMO, because everything works. That's the gist of what I learned: until your character has enough combat skill, nothing works. That's why combat has such a bad reputation. As it happens, combat in Risen 2 is also pretty complicated, which is why the lousy information in the manual is such a disservice to the game.

There are actually very specific strategies for each kind of enemy, but they're not always obvious, so you have to learn them by trial and error. But even trial and error won't work if your character stinks at combat, so it's extremely difficult ever to learn them, and no one in the game (or in the manual) tells you or gives you a hint.

A few things I've learned so far:

Sword and Dirty Tricks is an excellent combination, but the only really good Dirty Tricks weapon is salt. The parrot is much more expensive, takes longer to "shoot," and only makes your target "distracted," while salt is cheap, fast to shoot, and blinds your target. Salt also works on almost every monster, including undead. It doesn't work on termites or giant crabs, but that's about it. I've tried coconuts, but never had much luck with them. Pistols are okay, but they're expensive in both money and glory and have a longer recharge timer than salt.

A salt toss followed by a power swipe with your sword is a powerful attack. It's a good way to stop charging jaguars, ghouls, and warthogs. Salt even works on grave spiders, hobgoblins, undead guardians, and gargoyles.

Salt, sand, and parrots are not consumed when you use them, so all you need is one lump of salt and you can throw it over and over.

More later...

A bold attempt at defending that turd (the combat system). It's frustrating to see a potentially good game buried behind a terrible combat experience, especially when the combat is so common you cannot possibly avoid it. If this was Deus Ex or similar you could at least go the "non-combat" route and potentially have a great time. The Gothic format for RPGs is one of the best I've seen (certainly for the action RPG sub genre) and yet it's given so little love.

Good to know that the salt, sand and parrots don't run out. All things that would have been nice to know with in-game info, seeing as manuals are sadly a thing of the past now. The salt worked well for me too, but I did have luck with coconuts (which is a hilarious ender to a fight, especially after someone has mouthed off). Some of the other dirty tricks were useful or fun to stop it from becoming too repetitive.

It'd perhaps have been a good idea for the developers to have characters discussing and extolling the virtues of these various skills, combat or otherwise, and also to use them in-game against each other or yourself (either scripted encounters or at random). All of these things would help teach the player their value or make them say "I WANT", rather than be left in confusion. I felt that even Gothic 1 did this better as it was obvious what things did and the visual changes in combat and watching others use various weapons, magic or tools all made it obvious to the player, this followed on nicely in Gothic 2, of course. None of the magic systems have been as fun as Gothic 1 and 2, but I did like the idea of Risen 2 using the magic more for the quest line and roleplay options.

I keep holding out hope for a new good Gothic or Risen (or successor game) to appear. Ever since the disaster and contraversy of Gothic 3 it all went off the rails.
. OUCH. You've only played Gothic 3? I hope you at least played the version with the latest Community Patch (easy to find online). Otherwise it's legendary bad. The stun-locking wih the boars and other animals was unbearable. Game destroying and highlighted the total lack of game testing and playing they must have done. Anyone who had the idea to have blocks (especially with a shield) not work for the animals should be shipped off to the Old Camp. With the Community Patch (and various fixes and mods out there to make any other changes you like) they managed to make Gothic 3 actually worth playing through. The game system was still flawed and too unclear for many people though. The revolt system, the thieving system and reputation system in particular were all set up basically as horrible traps for the player, possibly leading to quitting in despair or disgust.

The games you SHOULD be playing are Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 (with the expansion added, GOG sell it with G2 anyway). The combat in G1 and 2 (there are differences between their controls and systems) was better and I enjoyed the magic systems much more. The magic of G1 was very fun and different factions and player builds were worth exploring.

That's true. It's sort of hard to understand why that's the case too, because it seems like a formula that could still be commercially viable even in the current marketplace. You have Gothic 1, Gothic 2, and Risen 1, and that's it...

I'd buy more games like those, but there aren't any more.

I *think* G3 (from here; GOG) comes with the patch - at least it comes with some mod that has an "Alternative Balance" choice. Anyways, I have managed to play all the way thru G3 3 times, and about 1/3 of a 4th playthru (when I decided to stop and begin Risen 1) - so somehow I'm managing the combat well-enough. Actually my "parked" playthru is as a mage - mostly using magic. I like it but even before choosing to play as a mage, in previous plays I had used some magic - and the magic targeting system is very sucky (or, basically, almost non-existent lol). But I've learned from experience how to "pull" the mobs in such as way as to keep them "lined up" and then it's a lot easier to target. Then the magic is pretty powerful - my mage may even be overpowered already. But.. that's for later when/if I come back to it.. Previous to playing a mage, I really like using the bow a lot.

So far in Risen 2 I am finding the combat to be "not nearly as sucky" as in R1. I'm still not that far in - having just arrived on the 3rd island not long ago - and not even yet entered it's town. But, so far (fingers crossed) it isn't as bad, and having a companion almost all the time makes it possible to swap the aggro back and forth and thus deal with things more easily.

I didn't realize R2 was a "console game" but it was sure feeling like one - so I looked it up, and sure enough - it is lol. I don't know if R1 was or not - but it didn't have so much of a "console feel" as R2 did right from the start. Even so, it isn't bad - but the console influences seem pretty obvious to me.

As far as G1 and G2, they're on my list to play "later", after I've gotten the newer ones out of the way. I've actually started G1, and played it a bit (still in the first "camp") - but I was finding the older control scheme to be hard to take - so that's why I went to G3 to begin with - to get into a newer control scheme. When I finish Risen 2, and maybe my parked G3 play thru, I may go ":backwards" and try G2 next, and lastly - G1.

After Gothic 2 (It fixed the unlock-to-strafe issue from Gothic 1), Risen 2 actually had the most diverse combat of their games. Even over Risen 3, it had a few extra options. I always go with ranged and one handed in any game, so I can't really say about the other playstyles. The enemy balancing is where they needed to spend more time. I had harder fights with some of the regular enemies than the final boss. Overall, I found the combat itself enjoyable. It was the balancing that was frustrating.

I guess the Risen 1 combat just never "clicked" with me.

Far too often, my avatar would decide to do sword kata into empty air, after stepping past the enemy he was fighting.

Or, in a lined up a column of mobs, like say four skellies in a narrow cave passage - I'd be fighting at the front of the column - well, the avatar would decide mid-swing that he really preferred to hit the one in the back of the column - you know, the one that was way in the back of the crowd - the one that had no damage yet (instead of the almost dead one I'd been working on). So he'd race through the column to that skelly and swing at him, leaving his back now exposed to the other three that are no behind him.

Or, those times where there is a companion that was part of the party - he'd decide that he'd rather commit "friendly-fire" damage and whack 2 or 3 times at the friendly target (often and understandably, getting them pissed).

The "mini-QTE" fight animations where just slightly too long and so I never felt good control of what was going on. The avatar was always a bit "out of control" and doing all kinds of crap I would never want to do. And I could not stop it - only correct for it after-the-fact.

I'm sure it's just me - but Risen 1's combat was very frustrating. Basically I hated it lol..

Risen 2's - not nearly so bad, so far... (thank goodness!)

For me what worked well with combat in Gothic 1 + 2 was that it felt like a "fair" balance between player skill and character skill. I felt fully in control and that I was to blame for losses or bad performance as the ability of the character was well known and understood and I as the player was able to work around that and take it into account. Not many games get this balance just right.

I wonder if there was some shift in the dev teams or mass exodus after Gothic 2 (and possibly the Night of the Raven expansion)? Hard to imagine why they'd go from turning out gems like G1+2 to making unfinished buggy and near-miss games like G3 and then seemingly struggling through the Risen series, still not managing to capture that previous success. It's not the lack of the IP, I feel. They showed they could easily overcome that with the Risen roll out, but the rest never quite clicked.

The Gothic 3 experiment also seems to have not been repeated as they went back to a model closer to the earlier games.

Their new upcoming post-apolcalyptic RPG sounds like it could be exciting but at the same time it makes me wonder if the Gothic/Risen line is dead and this will also signal a shift from that style of gameplay.

I am free of nostalgia since I didn't play the old Gothic series at that time. Risen 1 was my first computer-RPG ever and I simply love it. Hard for me to understand the criticism about the controls. Left mouse button to attack, right mouse button to block and somehow "soft-target-lock". That's all at the beginning. Later it's possible to learn side-attacks by using WASD. Very intuitive and easy to learn. The combat in Risen 2 is similar, adding the sweet extra attacks (salt, pistol, coconuts etc.) which are a lot of fun.

After that I went back to Gothic 3 and also liked it. Bad performance and stuttering even on a brand-new PC aside, the controls are very similar to Risen and I had no problems with them.

Recently during the sales I bought Gothic 1 and 2, tried both for a few hours but quit afterwards. The graphics are quite old-school, but I don't mind that since "old" games simply don't look as good as newer ones. But what turned me off were the terrible controls. Pushing two buttons simultaneously to open a chest or talk to a NPC... I mean, seriously...? No "take all"-button for looting etc. etc. Likewise the combat, clunky as hell. Not to mention the inventory management and trading... I really couldn't get into these two oldies. Which I regret since I love Risen 1 and 2 and Gothic 3. My dream would be remakes of Gothic 1 and 2 with the Risen engine.

I don't quite get what problem people have with combat in Risen 1. I actually consider it the best of all Gothic games. Not that it is "good", more that it sucks the least of them all. Risen 2's combat may be slightly deeper but it is outright ridiculous in comparison, almost to the edge of immersion breaking. In contrast R1 is just as elegant and organic as G1&2 but actually gives you some strategic options. G3 ditched all that and has proven to be a dead end. Admittedly I have only played G3 after it has been patched the hell out of, but still the combat feels contrived and artificial, mayby with the exception of arena duels. I learned to live with it though so it is not all bad.