First things first, I love Role Playing Games. Really, I do. If some poor soul has rats in their pantry, or needs 20 bushels of wheatgrass, I’m their man. However, I think the RPG genre has been dumbed down far too much. Even though games like Skyrim give you a massive open world, I think they still suffer from ‘long narrow hallway’ syndrome. Why, you ask? It’s because of the omnipresent, in your face, look-at-me waypoint. With a destination marker on your map, exploration often falls by the wayside.
Enter Risen 2: Dark Waters. An open world RPG set during the Inquisition in the Caribbean. Certainly it is a very unique starting point. You play as a lieutenant of the inquisition; tasked with infiltrating a group of pirates in order to retrieve a magical weapon said to be able to defeat the Kraken. I recently had the chance to play around with a preview build of the game, and I must say I came away feeling very impressed.
Risen 2 is old-school in the absolute best sense. No hand holding to be found. One NPC asked me to track down a group of missing slaves. No problem, I thought. He said they’re probably in a valley, so I brought up the map. Wait, there’s no map? Turns out you need to buy/acquire a map if you want one, and even then you’ll be mostly on your own. It marks your current position and any settlements you’ve found, but that’s it. No waypoints. Personally, I love this. It forces you to actually pay attention to what people are telling you during dialogue.
So off I went, in search of my goal. I combed a handful of valleys before finding the missing slaves, and got my first taste of combat. If I may be blunt, the game is not very forgiving. If you don’t prepare for a situation, you’ll probably end up dead. Fighting with a sword feels weighty and button mashing WILL get you killed. You need to be very careful and strategic, with deliberate and well planned movements. The slaves and their throwing spears took me out a number of times before I smartened up and took some sword fighting lessons, which evened the odds somewhat. With my goal in tow, I headed back towards the settlement. But wait, what’s that on the ridge? The feeling of excitement when you discover something in Risen 2 is much greater than other RPGs, simply because you don’t know it’s there. There’s no mini-map telling you something is close, no enemy radar, and no golden trail of breadcrumbs. Exploring feels very authentic, and is most often life threatening. I felt very compelled to look in every nook and cranny, and I was often rewarded with an unexpected find.
The game also seems to have quite a variety of skills you can learn. As you do various deeds you earn Glory – Risen 2’s version of experience points. These points can be spent along with gold at a variety of trainers you run across. I think this is brilliant as you’re never forced to choose a class of character, and you really have free reign over how your character develops. During my time I focused on thievery and swordplay, but also ran across a number of other distractions like smithing and a type of alchemy (brewing alcohol). I also cast myself in the role of absolute pirate – lying, cheating and stealing my way across the land. It seems likely that the game will be very replayable. Playing the ‘good guy’ would be a much different experience I’d wager.
Technically, Risen 2 looks really nice. The character models are unique and the settings are gorgeous. The jungles of the Caribbean look great, and feel very diverse as you move around. The lighting in particular is quite impressive, and I experienced more than a few jaw-dropping sunsets. A few wrinkles pop up here and there, but nothing deal breaking.
I took particular notice of the sound. The title theme very much reminds me of Uncharted (a serious complement). The music throughout the game is much the same, hovering somewhere between Uncharted and The Dark Knight. The voice acting is also well done, with each character having a distinct personality.
Sometimes the game as a whole feels a bit rough around the edges, but I really enjoyed that about it. It’s hard to explain, but the game is very charming.
In all, I came away from Risen 2 feeling very pleasantly surprised. With the unique setting and old school RPG feel, Risen 2 has the potential to be a real winner. I’m greatly looking forward to checking out the finished product this April.
