As a huge admirer of the original film, I was disappointed in this game, which is largely Blade Runner fan service built on the concept that the in-game script is taking place while Rick Deckard is living out all the events of the Blade Runner film offscreen. The game goes wrong because it's built on a story that's supposed to be independent of the film's story while staying far too close it - insurgent replicants looking to extend their 4 year lifespan. This creates several problems. First, the premise that there are two very similar story lines taking place in parallel is really ridiculous. Second, because the original movie was so incredibly good and possibly because of licensing issues the game can't just be an outright copy of the film, but neither did the game's authors attempt something entirely unique. The result is a watery imitation of the film, with the only real appeal being the momentary fascination of controlling some happenings in the familiar setting of the Blade Runner universe. I stress "happenings" because that is pretty much how this game unfolds -- it contains some of the action of the film, but without the emotional content. At some point I hit an interesting plot twist that plays on the long running "are Blade Runners replicants or not" debate, but shortly after that the game started to drag, so I gave it up, because it just wasn't engaging enough to keep going. The lack of emotional involvement is not only the result of flaccid storytelling, it's also a result of the lousy characterization. The player character is a rookie blade runner, but frankly, he's a big pussy, and just not credible, rookie or not. His voice even sounds like a disaffected 17 year old. It's really hard to connect to him, because Deckard, the chief example of a Blade Runner, is actually a complex and tormented adult man instead of a whiny kid. Then again, maybe that was a deliberate choice to try to reel in a target teen audience for the original game release. The voice acting in general isn't the best. There's a major NPC who is supposed to be a super bad-ass blade runner, but instead of coming across as cold and tough, her dialogue and voicing make her sound like a tired old hooker with a three-pack-a-day habit. Although she avoids the nagging immaturity of the protagonist, she's ultimately one dimensional, containing nothing of Deckard's depth or inner conflict. The game play is pretty typical for a pixel click adventure. You have to reach certain progress points to unlock other locations, and you'll frequently go back and forth to key locations to continue to the next steps in the adventure. The only real complaint here is that there are some repetitive scene transition animations that can't be skipped, and these begin to grind after a while, but it's not that big of a deal. Given the limitations in computing power back in 1997, the game does look surprisingly good at times, and the visual design is sometimes a nearly shot-for-shot replay of the film. This is great as a brief curiosity, but without a really awesome story and compelling characters to drive it forward, it's just not enough. For me, the game ended up being more of a flawed and limited BR simulator than anything else. I think the game creators did the best they could, but they were working with a premise that was doomed to fail for someone like me, who thinks the movie is a masterpiece. Once the novelty of being able to use an ESPER or give a VK test to someone wears off, and believe me that doesn't take long, all that's left is a pretty cheap copy of the film without its complexity or philosophical punch, and without any really exceptional gameplay or original story to offer up instead. In fairness, maybe had I continued with the game all these shortcomings would've been satisfactorily addressed, but it would have taken an amazing turnaround to make up for the hours of disappointment that I experienced up to the point that I stopped.
I hate this f***ing game. The Gold game pack includes the original Ancaria campaign and the sequel Underworld campaign. Ancaria is, at best, okay. But the Underworld campaign takes everything wrong with Ancaria, and turns it up by about a factor of 10. The story is trite and completely formulaic. It doesn’t take much time for it to fall into the background as one settles in for a long grind-fest. Hordes of trash mobs are the rule, and in Underworld it gets to the point that you literally can’t move more than about a tenth of the visible screen without getting swarmed. The game might be tolerable under these circumstances if it balanced the swarms against player leveling and ability, but it doesn’t. Gold is plentiful - which is good. There’s nothing worth buying - which is bad. Early on, one levels up fast and there are some powerful items at shops, but after about level 30 - 40 the item quality levels off and unique drops are hard to come by (and yes, that’s even with the “Trading” skill maxed out and playing at a higher difficulty). Likewise, there are some very powerful abilities early, but they don’t increase in capability at the same rate as enemy level and especially enemy number. Spells start off nicely, but again they plateau at about level 40 or so (for a Battle Mage) and aren’t able to keep up with the exponential growth of hordes. Unfortunately, the lazy-ass designers couldn’t be bothered to compensate with better strategy opportunities to deal with the hordes, so one is left with buying up a boat load of health postions and slugging it out just to get from point A to point B. Don’t get me started on the item and skill inventory system. Toward the begninning you only have a couple of skill quick slots, so attempting to switch into an uninstalled skill or spell during combat is virtual suicide. That’s because there’s no auto pause when switching, and no damned hot keys. In other words, it’s complete bull**it. Throw in the primitive isometric, single perspective layout, the ridiculously tiny map fog as compared to the overall game size, and really poor voice acting — well, what little there is of it — and this becomes about the most unengaging and disappointing game I’ve played in a long time. Only Pillars of Eternity, with its infuriating tactic of increasing the apparent scope and size of the game just by keeping the chraracters in a constant state of resource famine, has rivalled it for me lately as an utter fail. Certainly, games of the pedigree and time period of Sacred will be limited by the one-note, repetitive graphics and sprite animation, but for a thoughtful and balanced game these soon fade into the background. Sacred is neither thoughtful nor balanced, so its native primitivism is pretty hard to overlook.
