Sacred 2

[ccesarano]

An interesting title to say the least, I'm still trying to figure out where I stand in terms of Sacred 2. I like playing it, but after about two hours I tend to feel it wear on me.

It seems to feel like a combination of Oblivion and Dragon Age, where the style of the world is massive with side quests at every turn and a lack of motivation to move on with the main quest, while the combat works more like Dragon Age. Special abilities are tied to the face buttons A, B, X and Y, and L and R can be used to shift between different hot-keyed weapons and abilities. I wouldn't be surprised if the D-Pad could be further mapped as well, but I haven't bothered yet.

Thus far, most of the abilities aren't really worth mapping. You need to grab items that basically upgrade its level, making it more powerful, for it to be worth the time spent using the ability. Still, the abilities are varied and I think the drop rate is based on how frequently you use the ability, or if you manage to kill someone with the ability. I'm not certain on this, however.

I imagine the game has a bit of Diablo mixed in as well, as you pick up tons of loot, but I pay little attention to it. I've got more money than I'll probably need for the entire game.

Overall it's a pretty decent game, but some stores still carry it for a pretty penny. It needs a price drop desperately, that's for certain. Still, if you dig the open sort of world that Oblivion has, then you may enjoy this game as it is loaded with hours of quests and land to explore. The only problem is a lot of that world is blocked off. You can't wander between buildings to cut across town, but actually have to follow the road. Which means even though your objective is about 50-100 feet away, because you can't walk through trees or past buildings you need to follow the road 500-1000 feet just to get to where you need to be.

Matt can fill in more details I'm sure.

[EarthViper]

I'm surprised it hasn't dropped in price yet, the game can't have sold very well. Anyways yeah, it's fun although in a sort of guilty pleasure kind of way. I know it's low budget and probably fares better than many other low budget games but it doesn't make it feel any less low budget. The voice acting is so bad it borders on funny, the game is glitched up the wazoo with no hope for a patch, the netcode is poor and spellcasters can cause some severe slowdown. If you can look past those things though and the sometimes troublesome multiplayer issues (like not being able to play with anyone more than 10 levels above/below you) then it is a pretty fun game that promises a lot of game time.

It's definitely your typical Diablo clone although I can see the connections to Oblivion geographically and the connections to DA in terms of controls. Regardless, while it's nowhere near as polished or deep as Diablo and will never get that kind of post launch support it definitely is your typical HNS Action RPG so if you like one you'd probably like them all.

[ccesarano]

I've posted my overall thoughts on the main page.

Final verdict: I'd buy it for $20 (if I had money). It's fun and I loved playing it with Matt and Ben (A_Reaver on the Wii60 forums). It just isn't worth the full price.