A mysterious, vanishing man. A shipwreck. A strange island plagued by earth tremors. Unknown ruins rising from the earth, sending forth an army of less-than-friendly creatures. A survivor of the shipwreck, armed with a bit of driftwood, sets forth inland hoping to find someone, anyone, who can help him. Will he be the saviour of the island?
Risen is all that, and then some but first, the formalities. Obviously any open-world RPG-esque game has to be, by gaming law, compared to Oblivion and Two Worlds. It’s better than Two Worlds, that’s a given – although not an immediate one. It’s not quite Oblivion, though. But then despite looking, for all intents and purposes, like an RPG it’s not one. That’s the major hurdle I found myself overcoming when I started Risen. If you go into it thinking it’s an RPG you’ll not get on with it. You’ll see a message telling you that you’ve gone up a level, but your character will not be any stronger for it.
So, if it’s not an RPG then, what is it? It’s probably best described as an action-adventure RPG-lite game. An AARPGL, if you will. When you level up in Risen, you earn learning points. You use these learning points (and a decent supply of gold) with various trainers you will encounter through the game, to upgrade your character – whether that’s to increase your strength (do it), learning to sneak (do it) or simply becoming more proficient with your chosen weapon (do it).
Risen offers that staple of modern gaming – the actions-have-consequences schtick. Except here they actually do. At the start of the adventure you’re told of the three main populated areas of the game – the bandit camp, Harbour Town and the Monastery. Depending how you approach these areas changes the game experience – train with the Monks and the Don at the bandit camp is less than friendly. Likewise, the bandits are less welcome around the Monks. These choices will also gently lead you along the path of your chosen weapon – sword, staff or magic. While it is possible to learn all three, you’ll find you naturally slip into the one associated with your chosen path.
For all the greatness, there are a few downsides to Risen. The first is the day-night cycle. I don’t know if it’s just me, but the days don’t last half as long as the nights and the nights in Risen are Dark (yes, with a capital D). You’ll find that you’ll amass quite a decent supply of torches and light spells in your inventory as you progress because you’ll be fumbling about like Stevie Wonder in an unfamiliar cupboard once the sun sets. The ruins are also incredibly dark, and if you’re holding a torch you can’t fight without first setting it aside – and then you can’t really see again. I suppose the way round this is to crank up the brightness a little, but that seems like cheating. The darkness is a shame because, aside from an occasionally shoddy draw distance, the game is generally pretty sweet in the graphics department.
You will also die. A lot. You’ll soon learn that the autosave, while handy, is seemingly random and generally of little use. You will learn that a manual save is the most important thing you will ever do. During the early stages of the game, at least until you find some armour (which doesn’t come cheap), you’ll start to form an unconscious list of creatures to steer clear of – this includes, but is not limited to, the boars, the sea vultures, the boars, black wolves, the boars and the skeletons in the graveyard. But mainly the boars.
Depending how you choose to level up, you may be able to tackle these enemies more effectively that I did, but I found that avoidance was the best policy until I have got myself some armour and scrounged a shield from somewhere. You’ll find that if you can get into the Bandit Camp or Harbour Town there are more than enough quests to keep you occupied and earn you huge amounts of experience and gold. Quests range from mundane tasks like finding a buyer for a fish stall to beating the crap out of someone who is less than respectful to the whores in Harbour Town. You’ll also find quests with multiple routes – collecting the shards of a golden sword, for example, can be done through violence, bribery, pick-pocketing or a mixture of all three.
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