Customer Reviews

Sacred 2: Fallen Angel

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I love me some RPGs. I also love me some offline 2-player coop games, a residual effect of having grown up on Atari and NES platforms. So it is a rare day indeed when an offline 2 player RPG coop comes down the pike. Unfortunately, this one does more to reveal what is missing from a good RPG than to stand out on its own.

Sacred 2 is basically a poor man's Diablo 2. It has good visuals, but that's about where any favorable comparison ends. For example, combat in Sacred 2 is fairly uncertain and frustrating -- you can cast a spell that goes right through someone without injuring them, or continue standing in place and swinging a sword and hitting someone who is running away over a distant hill. It really drops you out of the game when you can actually "feel" the combat code locking you into a fight with a foe, artificially rotating your character and triggering combat moves and the like, instead of just intelligently dealing damage like Diablo 2 did. Btw, Diablo 2 came out like a decade ago.

A variety of other frustrations require you to actively ignore elements of the game in order to enjoy it -- never a good idea in a game:

1) Horrible, hammy in-jokes by the programmers. I don't even try to read the "hilarious" gravestone warnings anymore. And the catchphrases spouted by your characters are beyond atrocious. Remember how annoying it was for Anakin Skywalker to shout "Yippie!!!!!!!!" in The Phantom Menace? Well, apparently the 1 person in America who loved that movie ended up working on Sacred 2, particularly the Seraphim character. She shouts that phrase about every 5 dead monster. I recommend playing with earplugs.

2) Numerous broken skills. For example, on the PS3, the Blacksmithing skill doesn't even work. At all. Good thing I told you that before you built up that level 40 warrior, right? Wish someone had told me. Another skill claims that it will unlock "additional powers" of various divine relics that you pick up, in addition to their basic armor boosting abilities. Like an antidote relic might do more than give you more poison "armor". At least, that's what the skill says. However, pumping points into it does exactly nothing. 30 points later, I finally looked it up online and apparently none of the relics actually have any other attributes you can unlock. Another character goes onto the trash heap.

3) Extremely elaborate skill system. If you even figure out what fraction of player skills actually work, pumping them up and distributing related "modification" points is confusing in the extreme. Modification points are additional points that might make a given skill do more damage, or last longer, or have a greater area of effect, or the like. They are in addition to just pumping up a skill directly from runes or skill points. Get it? Me neither. Anyway, they unlock at seemingly random, and you get trapped in the "modification" page, so sometimes you end up having to modify and waste points on a skill you never use just so you can get back to the game. Better still, the higher a skill level, the longer it takes for cooldown between uses. The game itself warns you to NOT make skill levels high quickly, because you won't be able to use them often. Fantastic.

4) Every fetch quest known to man. "Fetch" quests are common quests in RPGs where you have to get Vial X or Lump of Metal Q and take it back to NPC Y to do something. Who cares what. Well, this game has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of those quests. They are everywhere. Seemingly every single person in the game world has a burning problem, and none of them can solve them alone. It's all up to you. I had a 45th level undead warrior character chasing rabbits around a city park. They're faster than you can run, so eventually he had to go buy a longbow for the sole purpose of helping a groundskeeper kill rabbits. Again: rabbits. What makes this worse is that once you wise up and start ignoring these people, you actually miss some good stuff. 99.9% of the quests are worthless time sinks that require you to run or teleport halfway across the globe to recover someone's teddy bear (actual quest!) but that 0.1% of real quests will net you a unique longsword that deals 250 damage or permit you to, say, actually use Runemasters. It's beyond annoying -- it makes you wonder if the game is actually a gigantic social experiment thrown together by our space ant overlords to see how well we could be trained to chase sugar cubes across the galaxy. Answer: quite well.

5) Loot. Most of everything you find is garbage. However, occasionally, completely at random, you will find unique armor or the like. Unless you happen to see a suspicious name pop up when auto-collecting another field full of trash ("Axe," "Broken dagger," "Alex's Firey Blaster Mace of Tyrannical Justice," "Boots"), odds are you will just sell it by accident at some point. Better still, many items are class-specific AND CANNOT BE TRADED DURING OFFLINE COOP. So if your warrior picks up that unique magic staff that only a dryad can use, the only way to give it to your friend is to sell it to a shopkeeper, and then spend millions of gold pieces buying it right back with a dryad character. Brilliant.

6) Uniques. Most foes are a dime a dozen. There are vast fields filled with annoying kobolds just waiting to lard up your inventory with worthless equipment. To paraphrase the Matrix, for the longest time I wouldn't believe it, but then I saw those fields with my own eyes. So too will you discover the beaches of a Million Identical Pirates, or the Forest of a Thousand Nearsighted Wolves. But the truly interesting monsters are unique. Once you kill them, they apparently never ever come back. For example, one time I followed this random river deep into the mountains. It kept going and going and going. And going. Honest to god, a good 30 minutes later, I popped out into this cave in which I was assaulted by a gigantic, screen-filling dragon. It was AWESOME. Then I killed that dragon, and got some mediocre loot. Later, after some saves and reloads, I went back. Dragon was still dead. Confused, I checked online, and learned I had killed one of maybe 7-8 dragons in the entire game. If I want to fight it again, I have to start all over again -- including a reset of the eleventy zillion quests I'd already completed. If it was a quest-related foe, I might understand -- but why purposefully make it so you can't fight any of the FUN monsters more than a few times? Why??

A related annoyance is that monster difficulty can vary wildly, and XP is related. Now when I start a new character, I simply take an hour and sprint -- literally running and ignoring everything -- until I reach the desert area where I can actually stock up on XP. It's far, far faster than popping skeletons on the head for 7 XP a whack.

7) Two player offline coop is very lukewarm in terms of fun. This is probably the kicker for me. Basically, one character starts a typical quest, and the other joins as the character class of their choice. In addition to the stupefying idiocy of not actually being able to trade with each other directly, it's also random as to who the computer will even permit to pick up dropped loot. Sometimes you can, sometimes your friend can -- and it bears no relation to which person opened the chest, which killed the foe, or anything like that. You just have to hope for the best. Having two players also reveals enemy pathfinding to be a joke: foes usually gang attack one player and ignore the other. You can kite a vast herd of foes in a circle with your friend as the hub and your friend can just kill and kill and kill and nobody notices. It's even more hilarious when you have NPCs travelling with you because of some stupid travel quest you may have picked up -- some NPCs, apparently chosen at random, are immortal. I've had NPCs in full plate with magical swords die almost immediately (you fail the quest, of course), while at present my 38th level Temple Guardian has an accompanying NPC fishwife -- literally an unarmed woman who screams and runs away at the sight of a foe -- traveling with him for a good 20 levels. She won't die. She can't die. And she's awesome at drawing all the incoming fire. It's like a Monty Python skit where she just runs by screaming in one direction, we blast her pursuers with magic or arrows, she runs back screaming in the other direction, etc etc.

All told, Sacred 2 could have used about another 6 months of development work. Some of its foibles are traced back to the old PC game and apparently were deemed "good enough" to keep (although I note that game at least had Dragons come back to life so you could fight them again) but others are sheer laziness. If there are character skills that don't work at all, and players cannot trade items, your game should not be released. It's just one of those rules gamers have collectively decided upon.

I've been waiting for a good hack 'n slash for the PS3 for a while, like Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and Champions of Norrath. In some respects, this fits the bill but it is lacking in others.

First of all, this game is pretty complex. Learning about forging, runes, and upgrading Combat Arts takes some time. I've been playing for a few hours and am just starting to feel like I understand all of this. Also, the quests are plentiful, so it can be interesting trying to keep track of them all and determine the order in which you'd like to do them.

I found several frustrations with the "couch co-op", or offline multiplayer. There is no way to zoom in the camera for this mode, and the camera is zoomed pretty far out, so the characters are pretty small. Also, there is no way to trade between characters in this mode (currently), so it can be annoying when one person picks up some cool gear that is meant for the other person. I did find that drops are so plentiful, though, so this may not be a big issue later on when lots of stuff is being picked up by both parties.

The combat is fun and the world is huge.

Once I felt like I knew that I was doing, I've been having a lot of fun questing, exploring, and trying out the various combat arts.

This is a solid dungeon crawl. Plenty of loot, and lots of Diablo style killing. There are a few things that are curiously absent from the game. First, the ability to customize your character. I know this is a small thing in the bigger game picture, however not being able to change the gender of your character is odd. Even stranger is they give you two options for hair and eight or so hair colors. RPG games tend to be all about customizing your character, and you really can't do this in Sacred 2. Maybe they will add some more options in a patch or future release, but for the time being you are sort of stuck with the few flat character options.

The character classes are all solid. Nothing too exciting. The Temple Guardian is sort of silly, but unique (he is a laser totting Egyptian robo-dog). There is a token spell caster (elf), warrior (shadow warrior), ranger (dryad), and warrior mage (seraphim in the light campaign, inquisitor in the shadow campaign). These are all rough descriptions of the classes, as combat is central in the game so one way or the other it all comes down to your weapon load out.

Being able to play co-op is a huge for a game in this genre. One major complaint, you can't give items to the other player if you are playing co-op on the same PS3, which is really odd. I have no idea why the programers would have set things up this way.

All in all it is a fun game. If you enjoyed Diablo this is a good option for the PS3. Nothing really unique or original here, but not a bad game either.

I heard there were a number of glitches with the game right out of the box. When I put the game in my PS3 it auto-updated, and I can't say I have had any major issues with the game.

My husband and I bought this game because it's an RPG with a multi-player (offline) option. Not many games allow cooperative play, especially in the RPG genre, and whenever one comes out we scoop it up.

This particular game also offers gorgeous graphics, lots of customizable player options, and tons of potential playing time in a huge, well-developed fantasy world.

With all these ingredients pulling in its favor, it is frustrating as you go along to discover one stupid oversight after another by the developers, who in all their success in creating this vast adventure seemed to have forgotten a few crucial details which would have made this game really amazing.

Prime irritations:

1. The game cannot be paused. Let me repeat that: the game cannot be paused. This includes times when the player is consulting the map or inventory screen, at which time enemies can approach and maim your distracted character (at which time the border of said screen flashes red), forcing you to quit those screens and return later, again at his or her peril.

2. The game logistics are IMMENSELY complex, and the manual explains NONE of them. We are 40 hours in, and I still can't always judge whether one piece of armor is better than another. You find yourself asking (your fellow player, or the air, since you can't ask the manual) lots of questions that are hard to answer via intuitive investigation, and left frustrated as to what half the basic terms used to describe your inventory even mean.

3. Two players in offline cooperative play can pick up armor that would be potentially useful to another, but cannot trade. This would be less frustrating if the "trade with player" option did not constantly pop up. That option is, apparently, only for trading items with online players using other consoles. grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. "Yes, we'd love to trade, but you won't let us, so stop asking!"

4. The "trade with player" option appears whenever two cooperative players are nearby one another. To trade (or attempt pointlessly to do so), you push L1. You also push L1 to inspect/open treasure chests, open doors etc. Thus, two players seeking to open/inspect nearby chests, doors, etc. end up inadvertently opening the "trade" screen which, of course, tells you that trading is impossible. Awesome.

6. Jerking graphics and freezing are rare, but do occur, especially in certain areas. There is one annoying town where the game requires a lot of loading, and we've had to reset several times due to freezing.

7. The landscapes are really beautiful, but navigating the topography is completely infuriating. Your super-strength magical character who can shoot magic out of every orifice and smite every enemy is unfortunately burdened with the Achilles heel of being unable to climb a slight incline or step over a small shrub, much less a fence or fallen log. And this particular landscape is replete with inclines, shrubs, fences and fallen logs. The circuitous routes required by this feature are truly ridiculous, especially inside the towns. It isn't always obvious when a way will be blocked, which often means running around in circles and getting stuck until you chance on the exact spot where the ground is sufficiently devoid of bumps to let you pass.

I think those are most of the things that have caused us to rip out our hair during this game so far. Still, there is lots to enjoy about the game, too. The developers could end a lot of the frustrations with a few minor fixes, the easiest of which (it seems to me) would be to expand the manual. That would REALLY help. Really.

Most of all, I'm glad someone is still trying to make games like this. I wish there were a lot more like it, and would and will continue to brave any number of glitches and deficiencies for the pleasure of an action RPG with cooperative multiplayer play.

This game is great. It has a rich complexity to the game-play that makes it progressively more fun the deeper you get into it. Also, and super important, are the difficulty of the trophies. The trophies are just right- they're not too simple, and they're not frustratingly impossible, making it the perfect balance of challenge and reward. The visuals are beautiful, and the characters and voice work is funny and entertaining.
This game does have some flaws though, that cannot be avoided- but nothing too bad, or detrimental to the experience. Before I got this game, i read all sorts of reviews, and a lot of reviewers (ign, gametrailers, PTOM, etc.) gave it just mediocre scores. The hardest thing about this game was that it was so complex at the beginning, without any tutorial stages or explanations throughout the game. This is a game that you have to read the booklet before you start playing (and it's like a 50 pg manual). The actions and buttons are simple enough, but the character and skill variations have no explanation at all during the game and none of it will make any sense without the booklet.
Sometimes, during a busy scene, the game will have to load the next area and you might have to wait a second or two.
And the last noticeable flaw with the game is in it's local co-op mode. Items in this game are character class specific, and if you pick up an item that is not for you, you cannot drop it, but can only scrap it, or sell it. So, if your co-op teammate picks up an item that their character cannot use, but your character can, there is no way to trade items (only on local co-op is this unavailable. Item trading is available on other multiplayer modes), which just seems odd that they excluded this feature for co-op game play.

The game is, overall, very fun and a very beautiful game. It has a lot of ways to upgrade your character, which might seem overwhelmingly complex at first, but with the self-assigned face buttons and D-pad for items and weapons, it's, at the same time, simple enough to just pick up and enjoy right away. The open world is huge, and you'll find yourself logging in hours upon hours in exploration and in solving quests.

I bought the game mostly for the multiplayer. The multiplayer works OK even with the lack of trading items (offline), no pause feature, and only 1 player in their inventory at a time (a major disappointment and hindrance to learning this complex game).

Overall I am most disappointed with the gameplay. Let me briefly compare it to Champions of Norrath an action RPG for the PS2.

1.) Graphics - The graphics in S2 are detailed and impressive at times. The ability to seamlessly move into buildings and adjacent areas is nice. The character figures are slightly blocky and do not reflect all of the items you might be wearing. You cannot really examine your character's representation except at the start of a game. In multiplayer the figures are quite small (especially the females) and all 3 of the people that I have played it with sat very close to the screen so that we might see the action (42" HD TV).

The graphics in CON are overall superior. The detail is not as great in the overworld, however the areas you can travel in are more clearly delineated, the character representations are detailed and larger in multiplayer, and most wearable items are reflected in your character's appearance.

2.)Gameplay- S2 fighting is weak in multiplayer because of the size of the characters and the apparent loss of detail. I often did not even pay close attention to where I moved and to how I attacked with very little change in gameplay. The quests are quite boring (i.e. fetch this, kill that, pay this etc.) Quests are isolated islands not really adding anything to the overall story. Lots of text that I do not think anyone should take the time to read. The main story is almost non-existent.

The gameplay in CON is substantially better. Obviously, this same engine was successfully used in many other games (Fallout BOS, CON, RTA, BG, BG 2, Justice league heroes, etc.). The size of the characters is acceptable and actions are more clearly tied to the players controller performance. When there are quests they are substantial involving bosses and linking actions that show an overall goal and process.

3.)Inventory - S2 inventory functions are OK albeit non-intuitive. It is a knockout blow to me that the game only allows one person at a time in their inventory in local co-op.

CON inventory is very intuitive and easy to use for two players simultaneously. If 3 or 4 players are playing it becomes more difficult.

4.)Overall - S2 is a tedious game to play. Many things are not explained and most interactions are not intuitive. The size of the world and the complexity of player statistics do very little to assuage the sheer boring qualities of the gameplay and quests. It is a game that is difficult to enjoy
because of its glaring flaws and unfriendliness.

CON - This is a great game that honors the best ideals in action role playing games. Whether its spinning my character on his pedestal and appreciating a new weapon or battling a vicious boss deep in a dungeon - now this is a game that is satisfying and far better than anything S2 has to offer.

Final thoughts: Can S2 be fixed with patches? Probably not. It just seems to be too broken all over. I'm sorry about this because after all I spent $60 in hope of something more playable.

I played Sacred 2 for several hours in single player on the PS3. Overall, not bad, but it has a few issues. The story could use some work, but it's kept me interested so far.

The good:
- Interface. I come from PC gaming and thought I would miss my mouse and keyboard for this genre. In this game I don't. It all works pretty well.
- Graphics. Some stuttering, but it's so effortless to zoom in and out, you can go from an overall view to close tactical. Some have had issues with dizziness playing this game, but while I completely understand how it could be a problem, I haven't had any issues.

The bad:
- No PAUSE! Let me say that again more clearly, you cannot pause the game! If your wife starts talking to you, your kids call you, your phone rings, then you had better hope you are in a safe area or you will likely die. While this makes sense in a multiplayer game, it's horrible for single-player. It lost a star for that alone.
- Weak voice acting. I've only played a Seraphim and her tone does not match the action going on. This detracts from my suspension of disbelief.
- The inventory system needs work. Swapping between a merchant and your inventory gives inconsistent results. Using the compare button gives inconsistent results. Select a sword in your inventory, switch to the merchant's offerings, then switch back and you may not be looking at the original sword. Makes comparing items difficult.
- Documentation is weak. I still don't entirely understand how the "tech tree" works. Can't find anything online to clarify. What do the stars mean next to inventory items? How can I get "alchemy"? It's probably all relatively simple, but not intuitive and a better explanation would help dramatically.

1) Add me as a friend on the PSN! (username: JB-1980)

2) This review is MY opinion! If you have played the game and don't agree with me, that is fine - Just don't tell me I'm wrong, because this is MY opinion! However, I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts and knowing if you do agree or not.


I rate SACRED 2: Fallen Angel, 5 out of 5 stars! - I am a huge fan of games in this genre. I made it through college by playing Diablo 2 and drinkin' beer with friends. Since then I found the Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance series and played through them. When I purchased my PS3 almost 2 years ago, I also purchased Oblivion. I put a countless number of hours into the game... I think last time I checked I broke the 90 hour mark.


QUICK REVIEW:

I feel SACRED 2 is an even mix of Diablo 2 and Oblivion. It has the hack & slash and looting feel of Diablo 2, but the character AI and open world feel of Oblivion. You can zoom the camera out pretty far, which is nice to see more of the map and enemies around you, and also zoom way in to make it 3rd person, like Oblivion. I played for approx 6 hours last night and completed approx 15 quests out of approx 45 I was given by talking to random townspeople (I believe there are a few hundred quests in all). You can customize your weapon selection and have four available sets at your disposal at any given time. I went from shooting enemies with a bow & arrow to hacking them with an axe in a matter of seconds just by hitting a different attack button (square, triangle, circle and X). As far as leveling up goes, it is very similar to all games in this genre - Upon leveling up you can raise your strength, agility, dexterity, etc. This game is a little different from the Diablo series and Oblivion - Maybe a few of the differences (like auto loot [which can be disabled in the preferences] and auto aim) aren't for the better, but they work. When I first played Oblivion I also didn't like how a few things were designed, but after playing for a few weeks, it grew on me as I became accustomed to it. In a nut-shell, this game is awesome and anyone that is a fan of the genre will enjoy the many hours of game play they will get out of it to achieve the platinum trophy.


ADDITIONAL NOTES:

Besides the notes I make below, this game is very similar to Diablo, Oblivion, Baldur's Gate, etc. These are just notes of some obvious differences:

A) Trophies: There appears to be 48 trophies and they do take a long time to get! To get my first trophy (reaching level 5) took me approx 2.5 hours. I figure I will be investing at least 100 to 150 hours into this game to reach the platinum. I'm glad this game has already reached me top 5 favorite games list, because that is a lot of hours to invest...

B) Looting: When you kill an enemy your character will automatically pick up all the loot the enemy drops. Or you can click L1 to pick up other items you find or items other characters drop when defeating an enemy. I haven't played multiplayer yet, but a lot of reviews have been negative because you can't drop an item for a buddy to pick up. Once you pick up an item, you cannot drop it! Instead of dropping it, you get gold for it. Less money than selling it to a merchant, but when you reach your maximum weight carrying capability, you need to get rid of stuff to make room for more.

C) Combat: It appears you don't get full control of who you are attacking. You can influence who you want to attack by facing the enemy, but when you have a lot of enemies around you, it attacks what appears to be the closest one. This is totally a non-issue for me. I don't really care because you just mash the buttons and in the end all the enemies die.

D) Weapon choices: You get up to 4 weapon configurations at one given time. I mentioned this above in the quick review. This feature is awesome! I love being able to hit a different attack button and going from bow & arrows, to a quick sword attack in a matter of seconds.

Without attempting to be too hyperbolic, I have to say that this game is without a doubt one of the more puzzling entries into the hack n slash genre. Sometimes you just want a game that you can turn on and run around in with your buds, laying low countless legions of... rats? Sheep? Rabbits?? Well if that's what does it for you, you get all that and more! More rats I mean. Oh yes! More rats than you will want to shake a stick at. Or a broadsword for that matter!

Its an interesting game, with as many highs as lows, and so I give it a solid 3 for overalledness and a 4 for funiosity. Basically the inclusions of multiplayer local co op will give any game a one star boost on the fun level, even if its complete garbage. Not to say that this game is garbage, but you wouldn't know it by all the freakin rats prowling around it!

Ok, ok you're saying. Enough about the rats, lets get down to brass tacs. Sure, Ok. Here goes nothin.

Plot and Characters

In Sacred 2 Fallen Angel you take on the roll of either wicked malefactor, trying to dominate all life and wield ultimate power, or benevolent savior, righting the wrongs of the world! Either path results in you cutting a bloody swath through legions of enemies, only roughly half of which are something you could easily dispatch in real life. Never mind that though. The real charm of the game lies not in its plot, which is paper thin but appropriate for the style, but in its interesting character concepts.

You get to choose from one of six archetypes, and from there you also choose what side of the fence you fall on.

Seraphim- The good, and scantily clad high heel wearing paragons of technology and virtue.

Dryad- The nature aligned woman like thing that always uses the bow, and can also do other stuff, but let's face it you will be using the bow if you know whats good for you.

Temple Guardian- Something you might sketch in your notebook when you were 14. Sort of an Anubis with gun arm situation. Maybe some late nights watching Stargate reruns... You be the judge.

Inquisitor- As you might expect from a game with a full length Metal song in it, the only established religious figures are portrayed as robed psychotic madmen attempting to dominate and slay all free thinkers and good folk. Honestly metal guys, I don't see them walking around dressed in skull motifs from head to toe... actually I take that back... Playing as the inquisitor gets you some great super zealous psycho babble from the character periodically, but can your conscience handle it?

Shadow Warrior- A dark and gritty anti hero? In a form of media? Sarcasm? If you can make out the letters of the class name then I think you probably know all you need to about this one. Moving right along.

Wizard/sorcerer/mage- The class you make your girlfriend be so that you can hack up more guys with your sword while she runs around without any mana. considering how outlandish all the other characters are, this one is pathetically bland. Just your typical elf.

The characters all have some personality that you glean in silly moments of babbling peppered with self awareness. You might be tempted to think this is the dumbest game ever made, but that's only if you can't appreciate the subtle tongue in cheek metal theme. I hope... It really is hard to tell if they are serious sometimes. At any rate, you should be able to enjoy it whether you are really lame or really into B Movies. Now that's demographic marketing!

One problem with the whole alignment system of the game is that though you can choose good or evil for your character, and this choice will effect a handful of main story quests in the game, you will still find that your hulking sinister Shadow Warrior does an awful lot of Teddy bear retrieval and farmer saving, not to mention at least two occasions of overt pest control. How much is too much teddy bear retrieval you ask? Look to your black heart for the answer warrior...

Gameplay

Now this is a mixed bag if I have ever seen one! Its as if there were two developers. One that always tells the truth.... and one that is manifestly incompetent and possibly from an alien world. The former is responsible for such great elements as the ability to hotkey up to 12 powers by holding down the shoulder buttons! Most of these games limit you to a handful because of the limited button count on the controller, but Sacred 2 makes sure that you can use just about every spell or horrible chopping style you should want.

The other guy? Well he's the one who cooked up the idea to have a character customization system so incredibly convoluted and needlessly touchy, that you will have to remake your character half a dozen times before you realize you took something totally useless that you cant get rid of! There is a major lack of explanation in the game of what anything means.

Basically you have your character and when you level up you get a couple points to put into Stats which is pretty typical, but then you also will get some skill points, which you will need to assign in specific ways according to what class you have chosen to play. Beyond that there are rune coins that let you rank up your individual combat abilities. Oh but don't put too many ranks into an ability or it will become unusable since every one makes the spell take longer to cast! So how much is too much? Its probably best not to worry about it too much.

The game world is truly vast! Its also somewhat free roaming, though not in the same way as games like Oblivion. In this game you will know when you have strained your free roaming abilities because you will find yourself surrounded suddenly by a horde of level 40 rats set to rat punch you back to kingdom come. Level 40 rats?? That's right warrior... level 40 rats.

Rant->Why the hell is it that in every fantasy game the developers feel the need to include animals as enemies you fight!? Its fantasy! You can literally have anything you want as an enemy! Anything at all! Now far be it from to suggest that anyone stray from the Tolkien inspired connect the orcs approach but can I tell you how damned sick I am of fighting rats, boars and raptors in every damned game! Oh and don't try to feed me any crap about how these are "plague boars" or "Razor Rats" or whatever the hell. Rats and boars are not something I want to be battling with my immortal freshly arisen shadow warrior game! If its not that, its fighting a never ending string of bandits/thugs/pirates. <-Rant

Overall

Does it seem like I have done an inordinate amount of bitching about this game? I admit that part of the fun of this game may just be complaining about how ridiculous it is with your drunk friends at 2 am! (Go back to college by the way.) My favorite part of the game has to be the full feature computer animated Blind Guardian concert that you can go to as a quest. You get to watch a full length song being performed by CG Blind Guardian to a crowd of... I can't even say it... Headbanging ogres and werewolves!! I really like to imagine that this was a deal breaker for Blind Guardian. I suspect they were in on the silliness, but god do I want to think they were really firm about it.

Developer: Hey guys this is looking real great, we rendered you really well I think and...

Blind Guardian: And the werewolves and ogres?

Developers: Uh what?

Blind Guardian: I want them all to be in the mosh pit! The entire audience will be monsters!

Developers: uumm but in this game you actually fight mo... Actually there really aren't any werewolves or ogres in...

Blind Guardian: WEREWOLVES AND OGRES!!!

Developers: ok, ok whatever you say guys! Just put the guitar down...

FIN

Basically its dumb fun that you're in for in this game, and if you can stand the running pest control theme you will find there is plenty here to keep you busy. I would not recommend trying to play by yourself, but with a friend you are in for some sweet sweet torture!

I actually own two copies of Sacred 2, that is how much I loved the first game. I own the PC version and PS3 version but for a reason. The PC version (I am on Vista x64) just wouldn't run right for me no matter what drivers I used, vista patching etc. It has been the only PC game I own that ever gave me nonstop problems and I wasn't about to build a new PC just to play one game :P So I purchased this for PS3 to be able to just sit back and enjoy (I purchased this May 2009, for PS3 Jan 2010... re-installed it up a few weeks ago to replay it for reviewing)

GAMEPLAY
Sacred 2 changed very little from the original game, Sacred. This is a good thing as the system they had in place was just amazing I thought. Combat is handled very similar to Diablo and other point/click hack n' slash games just on the PS3 you just move and the game will auto target for you and outline the mob you are attacking. While this really was helpful vs blind hack n' slash... at times you might end up selecting the wrong mob because it path'd by and have to reacquire the mob you were pounding on. There is even mounted combat! The entire game is going to be pretty much sending you on a giant quest throughout the vast map Sacred 2 has to offer. With so much to offer here is a breakdown of what Sacred 2's gameplay will throw at you

1. Hordes of mobs! - Mobs mobs everywhere . It is raining mobs sometimes with how many show up. This provides nonstop hack n' slash action but with so much combat going on I actually began to get a little bored with the unnecessary combat. To much of a good thing perhaps but there is no downtime in Sacred 2.
2. Skill / Combo System - Mobs will drop skill charms that you use to increase your skill level often increasing effectiveness at the cost of cool down time. You can take charms for skills you don't have and trade them for a skill charm of your choice. There also is a combo system you can advance by spending skill points. Map skills to the combo button and with a single cast of the combo you could perform multiple skills at once. Very helpful just be cautious of skills with different cooldown values
3. Quests - tons upon tons of them in fact, after the first 15hrs of gameplay I began to get bored with the quests. They are very repetitive and are "fetch" quests pretty much. GO run and kill this mob and return. Kill this guy to get this item . Kill x mobs. Not that this isn't bad but after your 50th quest to go kill a bunch of mobs for quest drops you'll start twitching. By the time I got about 3/4 through the game I simply did storyline quests only and just ran past towns. There are just an insane amount of quests to do; it is just a shame they are incredibly repetitive.
4. LOOT! - if you enjoyed diablo/diablo 2 or two worlds/two worlds 2 where loot basically rained from the sky this is going to be loot heaven. Only problem I had is that just like in other hack and slash RPGs, the loot often is just total junk. I found better items at vendors
*** I found the PC handled far better than PS3 when it came to managing inventory, controls etc. There is no replacement for a good mouse/keyboard in games like this ***

GRAPHICS / SOUND
For its time, Sacred 2 has some pretty good graphics. The PC easily is superior to the PS3 version but nothing to the point that ruins the PS3 version. Armor and weapons look very detailed, maps look very high quality and crisp coloring. Mobs are detailed well but I did run into some hiccups if you would sprint through heavily detailed areas; loading times were actually very short when I did run into them. *** SOUND was actually average in my book. Weapon sounds, effects, voices were actually not bad however the repetitive nature of combat dialogue did get very annoying, fast. The Music was really really good! Blind Guardian did a few songs in the game and you actually will hear them in game when visiting towns and there supposedly is even a quest where you meet Blind Guardian (in game, their "sacred" likeness') but I never ran across it (might of skipped it w/o realizing it)

REPLAY / STORY
Sacred 2 takes place BEFORE Sacred in terms of storyline . If you played Sacred you will recognize some elements from sacred that gives a little more background to events in Sacred; but you are not missing much if you never played Sacred before. The storyline isn't bad but does lose some of its punch if you consistently do your side quests. This is because there are just so many side quests so there is a lot of downtime between the storyline quests. Replay value is exactly what you might expect from like Titan Quest, or Diablo. Multiple difficulty levels that will turn your Super Powerful character into a newbie all over again. Rinse and repeat pretty much as you continue to get stronger and stronger. I enjoy that element as replaying the campaign is a whole new experience. You still get better item, stronger armor sets and bosses require new strategies sometimes, just keep in mind you are redoing the same side-quests all over again ^_^

OVERALL (79% 7.9/C+)
Is sacred 2 a great game? No... a good game YES. There is plenty to do, with tons of mobs to fight and lots of quests to keep you busy. However things do get repetitive and there are some broken elements to this game that hampers gameplay(will be in pro/con section below) Sacred 2 scores a 79% (7.9 / C+) in my book just missing the mark of a 4 star game. A few more months of polish and some better quest variety would of made this game a much more enjoyable trek. I'll be honest, if you had a choice between Sacred 2(PC) and Titan Quest(PC) I'd pick Titan Quest.. BUT Sacred 2 is a decent game but expect to start finding some tediousness after 20-25 hrs

PROS
- Great skill/combo system setup
- Tons upon tons of loot and wide variety of gear
- Classes are generic but handle very well for their specialties
- World map is MASSIVE
- Tons upon tons of quests (to many I think) , and Loads of mobs to hack, slash, nuke etc
- Mounted Combat

CONS
- Combo system is buggy sometimes especially with skills that have varying cooldowns. Your combo might say "READY" to use, but will only attack twice then stop not sure why the combo cooldowns don't match the longest cooldown skill bound to it
- Blacksmith was very iffy and in fact I stopped using it by level 30 because I was finding far better drops
- Skill leveling was very unbalanced sometimes. I would upgrade a skill and get +1.5s cooldown for basically +20dmg?! So NOT WORTH upgrading but you have to for stronger skills at higher difficulties. (not every skill level had this problem and it was only with certain skills)
- Quests are just far to generic and repetitive. By the time you are 70% or so through the game you might find yourself so sick of questing only to find out you only did 60% of the quests and still have 90+ more side quests to go for 100% completion
- Mob XP and targeting is iffy. Sometimes I found myself doing quests in areas I was getting barely any XP for yet it was where I had to be for my storyline quest(easy to overlevel an area at times) and on PS3, auto targeting can sometimes play games with you

** As you can see, in my book this game has lots of pros and cons... many of the Cons could of been resolved with some polishing. Sacred 2 is a good game that did improve upon the original but just did not improve enough to put it in the heavy hitter category **