Risen 3: Titan Lords

[Aeschylus]

Fuck it, now I definitely have to play Risen.
Thanks for the recommendation, after Gothic 3 I didn't expect it to be any good, especially after a rather meh review by a reviewer I kind of trust.

Risen is quite good, though it falls apart a bit towards the end as the best part of the game -- the exploration -- takes a back seat to linear progression and hack-n-slash. It's better than Gothic 3, but nowhere near as good as Gothic 2 (what is, though).

 

[DalekFlay]

Haven't tried it. But melee is bad - annoying at 1st when every lowly mob kills you in 2 hits, while you must hit them 20 times, and you have to roll around crazy like some Geralt to survive and wait 5 minutes for regen between battles (a cheaty pistol helps though since it ignores armor), but just after a little while you become a killing machine roflstomping everything - I killed the final boss in 3 hits or so, lol. Also magic is useless, although the few mind control scenarios were fun.

Sounds like every PB game, honestly. Combat was never the reason to play their shit.

How? No branching, no c&c, no rp options, very few skill checks and all of them do nothing but give you some useless cash, the majority of characters are traditionally boring and undeveloped. Sure, it has never been a focus of Gothic games, but I don't see why it can't be improved, considering they kinda planned it by giving you a crew.

As you say, never really been their focus. When I said dialog I meant dialog, I like their style of writing and conversations. That, the musket combat, the colonial theme and the solid exploration on the first two islands was what got me through the game.

 

[theSavant]

Fuck it, now I definitely have to play Risen.

Don't get yourself hyped. The game was so linearly dumb, that I never touched it again after the first hour. But hey, check the demo version and judge by yourself.

Fallout 2 was so fucking corridor, I played it for half an hour and then never touched it. Also the whole fucking game is full of cave people, it's nuts.

If you aren't able to judge a game after the trial version then you lack experience or attention to detail.

 

[imweasel]

Fuck it, now I definitely have to play Risen.

Don't get yourself hyped. The game was so linearly dumb, that I never touched it again after the first hour. But hey, check the demo version and judge by yourself.

Fallout 2 was so fucking corridor, I played it for half an hour and then never touched it. Also the whole fucking game is full of cave people, it's nuts.

If you aren't able to judge a game after the trial version then you lack experience or attention to detail.

You should work for IGN, they could use your expertise...

BTW, Risen isn't corridor.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Sounds like every PB game, honestly. Combat was never the reason to play their shit.

STOP THE LIES

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Inb4 Gothic is a first person game... AGAIN.

 

[Tigranes]

Fuck it, now I definitely have to play Risen.

Don't get yourself hyped. The game was so linearly dumb, that I never touched it again after the first hour. But hey, check the demo version and judge by yourself.

Fallout 2 was so fucking corridor, I played it for half an hour and then never touched it. Also the whole fucking game is full of cave people, it's nuts.

If you aren't able to judge a game after the trial version then you lack experience or attention to detail.

Think about why I picked Fallout 2 as the comparison. And why I talked about cave people. I've already done some charity work spoonfeeding you, so if you still don't get it I recommend some middle school education.

 

[theSavant]

Fuck it, now I definitely have to play Risen.

Don't get yourself hyped. The game was so linearly dumb, that I never touched it again after the first hour. But hey, check the demo version and judge by yourself.

Fallout 2 was so fucking corridor, I played it for half an hour and then never touched it. Also the whole fucking game is full of cave people, it's nuts.

If you aren't able to judge a game after the trial version then you lack experience or attention to detail.

Think about why I picked Fallout 2 as the comparison. And why I talked about cave people. I've already done some charity work spoonfeeding you, so if you still don't get it I recommend some middle school education.

Must be sad to be dull as you. You clearly lack a skill which is called: pattern recognition. I suggest you feed this knowledge to yourself first - with the forementioned babyspoon of course.

 

[Tigranes]

Case in point.

 

[NotAGolfer]

He's right though, theSavant. Maybe he exaggerated because Fallout 2 is far more open world than Risen but both open up considerably after the tutorial areas.

also:

Sounds like every PB game, honestly. Combat was never the reason to play their shit.

WTF, man?!


The combat is one of the best parts of these games, because while being action oriented and keeping you on the edge of your seat it isn't of the twitch as fast as you can variety. You have to press the right keys at the right time and be able to realize when you have to run away which may be too hardcore nowadays, dunno.
And the best part is how the enemies are invincible roadblocks as long as you don't level up enough.
The game world just doesn't scale to your level.

I like Risen so far. It indeed has a strong Gothic vibe to it. The fights seem a bit easier (you can block animal attacks, whick you couldn't in the Gothics if I remember correctly) even on hard, but I like the fact that I constantly bump into too powerful enemies in all directions but the ones (plural, it isn't linear and you can try to survive the areas you're not supposed to visit, that's actually doable and kinda fun in a Benny Hill way) I'm supposed to go.

Just arrived in the harbor town and now I have to decide which faction I join.

The story and the way it's presented are underwhelming so far, seems on par with the first Gothic and inferior to the second one. But I don't care, as long as that uninspired shit story gives me a reason to keep playing another game with that highly addictive Gothic formula.
Thanks again for the recommendation.

 

[Tigranes]

NotAGolfer if you are playing for the first time, remember: (1) you can do most quests before you choose a side; (2) feel free to go to the city or the bandit camp first; (3) because while the city is under lockdown, you can actually find a spot where you jump off the wall, in order to freely roam between the two and all over the map.

 

[Grunker]

You have to press the right keys at the right time

 

[NotAGolfer]

Well that came out wrong. Veeeery wrong.
Grunker:


and thanks, Tigranes

 

[Excidium]

Grunker please die

 

[ERYFKRAD]

NotAGolfer, if you do care to break out of town, remember to run the fuck away, before you get beaten up and press-ganged into joining one faction. Also, it may be profitable for you to do a quest for another faction instead of the one you want to join, go ahead and do it thus, provided you finish majority of the quests for your chosen faction.
For example-

Spoiler

Only one bandit can max out your pickpocketing, and he does it only if you finish his quest in his favour. And if you wanna know who-

Spoiler

I thinks it's the guy in the slum zone, who asks you to collect protection money from a landlord after you beat up his bodyguard.

 

[SCO]

Is any gothic like game complete without a 'trick' to enter a zone where you're not 'supposed' to be? I think not.
Other devs close down cities because they don't want to bother with conditional scripting based on a plot they probably didn't even plan yet
PB (used to) do it for the challenge of breaking into it.


BTW, the Velaya mod did the same thing, the city is nominally inaccessible during the first 2 chapters but you can access it with a variant of the gothic 2 beach route (but harder because dropping into the sea on the first two chapters gets you eaten and the easy way is edited to be blocked so you have to drop into a beach by careful cliff sliding and then somehow jump over the cliffs that divide them without touching water, great challenge).

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I dunno man, finding a place to jump down would be the hardest bit. Haven't played Velaya's mod, but there was a very easy way to the Harbor from the beach via the cliffs, at least from where you find Skip.

 

[SCO]

That only works if you jump into water. The 'other' way around from the inner cliffs into the city wall is blocked too. I believe you have to drop of into one of the beaches cliffs and hit a slight prominence midway that slides you off anyway so you get major damaged instead of killed
Or maybe drop into shallow water, but i'm pretty sure that kills if you touch the floor (shallow because the deep activates the sea monster death).

 

[Metro]

I've given up on PB. Even if they weren't beholden to shitty publishers they have, as mentioned, lost most of the people who made their earlier games great. It's a shame, too. Especially with how well Risen came out. Yes it had its flaws but still a solid game in the Gothic genre. The wheels came off in R2.

 

[DalekFlay]

Maybe I'm remembering Gothic 2 wrong, haven't played it since it came out, but all PB games have been about avoiding getting hit and then hacking as much as you can. The complaint about about Risen 2 was rolling too much and hits killing you too easily, so my point is dodging has always been essential in PB games.

In any event the reason people play them is the game world, not the super amazing combat, I feel pretty confident in saying.

 

[Murk]

That only works if you jump into water. The 'other' way around from the inner cliffs into the city wall is blocked too. I believe you have to drop of into one of the beaches cliffs and hit a slight prominence midway that slides you off anyway so you get major damaged instead of killed
Or maybe drop into shallow water, but i'm pretty sure that kills if you touch the floor (shallow because the deep activates the sea monster death).

Huh I found it much easier to just use the farmer's clothing as a stepping stone from the outside wall near Lobart's Farm. There's a part of the wall near the corner where the two paladin guards protect the upper quarters that you can latch onto if you drop the clothing there and just stand on them. Really, other items will work too but the clothing is the easiest to use.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Farmer's clothing is best saved for Greg. Plus going in from the sea gives good xp.

 

[DefJam101]

SCO

bro is Velaya any good?

 

[Aeschylus]

Maybe I'm remembering Gothic 2 wrong, haven't played it since it came out, but all PB games have been about avoiding getting hit and then hacking as much as you can. The complaint about about Risen 2 was rolling too much and hits killing you too easily, so my point is dodging has always been essential in PB games.

You are misremembering. Dodging around in combat has never existed in PB games until Risen 2. You could strafe around enemies, but that was literally only effective with a single enemy type. Any other would simply turn around and attack you. When fighting animals the way to do it was to time your attacks in order to interrupt theirs, against humanoid enemies you had to time your blocks and then counterattack. Risen 1 allowed you to turtle behind a shield that could block basically any attack, but there was still no dodging.

 

[DalekFlay]

You are misremembering. Dodging around in combat has never existed in PB games until Risen 2. You could strafe around enemies, but that was literally only effective with a single enemy type. Any other would simply turn around and attack you. When fighting animals the way to do it was to time your attacks in order to interrupt theirs, against humanoid enemies you had to time your blocks and then counterattack. Risen 1 allowed you to turtle behind a shield that could block basically any attack, but there was still no dodging.

I didn't mean there was a dedicated dodge mechanic before, I just remember running around to avoid being hit in both Risen and Gothic 3 a majority of the time. I usually play softer classes like mages and rogues though. I know I played Risen as a mage.