Risen Review
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Story & Gameplay Second And that completeness at the end of chapter 2 is a bit of a problem. You can keep these quests and exploring some areas for later, sure, but assuming you've done the exploration and minor sidequests by chapter 3 which seems like the natural point to have done it at the game suffers quite a collapse.
New areas open in the final chapters, and they fall out of tone with the rest of the game. Essentially, what opens up to the player are linear dungeons in the classic dungeon crawl style, which means lots of combat and some puzzles. Combat is the central part of gameplay in an already combat-heavy game here, as all dialogue and exploration take a backseat to long sequences of you swording your way through your enemy's legions.
The only variation it offers are in (spell-based) puzzles, which become especially significant in the last chapter. Somewhat oddly, almost all gameplay you have been using so far is dropped at the end, and you're put to the test in solving some typical dungeon puzzles of trapdoors and dropping ceilings, often using rune spells. The point most divorced from the rest of the game is the final boss, presented as a fight more reminiscent of 3D platform gaming, something right out of Zelda and completely unrelated to the rest of the game. To call this ending battle and the subsequent closing narration disappointing would be quite an understatement.
How much you'll enjoy this last bit of the game depends much on your own tastes. They're shorter than the rest of the game, and the combat in it consists mostly of challenging fights, so it's not like you have to slog through an endless, boring dungeon, even if they are on the long side. The puzzling elements felt jarring to me, and I personally thought the game would be better served keeping them in sidequests, but they may appeal more to fans of dungeon crawlers.
Somewhat similarly to the previous PB titles, Risen turns from low fantasy to heroic fantasy at the end of the game. The politicking and shades-of-grey human relationships drop to the background as the PC battles an enemy that is clearly evil, or at least destructive. To my disappointment, you're not even given a choice on which side to choose, and the (bad guy's) plan which actually sounds somewhat sensible on the surface is revealed to be pointless as it simply can not succeed, taking away any possible grey morality in the ending sequence.
Conclusion
At its core, Risen still does well what Piranha Bytes always did well: it gives as a very atmospheric world, filled with low-fantasy NPCs, black-and-white situations and gameplay hinging heavily on exploration and the ability to use something other than combat to resolve situations. In some ways, it does a few things better than the Gothics did: its interface is more intuitive, the combat is superior (especially to the mess that was Gothic 3), the graphics are superior and the character system is more refined.
However, Risen feels not just like a polished Gothic, but like a Gothic in which certain parts are dropped to make it more accessible, much to its detriment. Illogically combat-centric quests, a character system loaded to make all skills easily accessible to you, a lack of meaningful choices in dialogue, faction-based decisions determined completely by what class of character you want to be. It all strikes me as needless simplification that adds very little to the game. What's probably worse is that it's so half-way between the two: the changes are obviously not aimed at hardcore cRPG players, yet they're not nearly enough to please casual cRPG fans either. If you're used to the amount of protection from mistakes given to you by a BioWare or Bethesda title, you might easily find Risen to be downright impossible.
But it's the endgame collapse where Risen most exposes itself to flak. I'm not as harsh on it as some might be, as the final two chapters are rather short and thus are more unsatisfying than that they ruin the entire game, as opposed to say Lionheart. Still, especially with the confusing change of direction in chapter 4 and terrible design of the final sequence, it's certainly a big mark against Risen.
Gothic 3, the precursor to this game, was overly ambitious and suffered from it. In response, it feels like Piranha Bytes has gone completely the other way and made a game that was under-ambitious. Risen is a remake of Gothic made slightly more accessible. Enjoyable, but hardly inspiring.
| GameBanshee Rating | ||
| Overall 7.4 How We Score |
Gameplay (50%) |  |
| Graphics (25%) |  |
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| Sound & Music (15%) |  |
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| Lasting Value (10%) | |
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