Platform Played On: PC
Despite never playing the first Sacred, I have a love for Sacred 2. It wasn't an easy love and it was one that we both had to work at, but it exists now and it's very strong. The first time I played Fallen Angel I hated it, but this was partially because I had yet to buy a TV that was capable of handling high-def graphics... so reading text on a screen was extremely difficult. In a game like Sacred 2 this was a huge problem. The second time I tried playing I didn't find the game that exciting, but I enjoyed it more. The third time is when I fell in love. I became head over heels in love with its particular brand of open-world RPG, the complex leveling system, the endless loot and even the humour. Some people felt it was flawed but fun, whereas I think it's one of the best games the genre has seen.
Because of this, I was ridiculously hyped for the next entry in this series. I played Sacred: Citadel to help ease the wait, but it didn't click with me. I didn't know then -- and I wish I did because I would have saved $50 -- that Citadel was a good indication of where Sacred 3 was going. It's not that the game was the same because Citadel is a side-scrolling beat 'em up and Sacred 3 is still a hack n' slash, but one could say the simplicity of Citadel has drifted its way over to Sacred 3.
There's this constant debate within the realm of criticism and people can't agree on whether a franchise should be allowed to change. Wars have been waged (I'm purposely being overdramatic) over whether we should evaluate games based solely on what they are and not on the brand, or if we should take the name into consideration when critiquing it. In layman's terms: should I take into consideration what Sacred 2 brought to the table when reviewing Sacred 3, or should I just write about what Sacred 3 offers?
The answer, in this case, is that I have to take into consideration what Sacred 2 gave me. I can't avoid it. I'm all for series changing and evolving, but do gamers not go to their franchises of choice to have that similar gameplay experience? Unless you're a franchise that is known to constantly reinvent yourself, there are always going to be fundamentals in the games we like that make us go back. I don't want to play a core Metal Gear if there isn't stealth. I don't want to play a core Killzone if it doesn't have that heavy feel that the series is known for. Spin-offs are fine, and the concept of Citadel was okay by me because it was cheap and it wasn't a core Sacred.
That Deep Silver completely shit the bed with Sacred 3 is grounds enough for a mid-year leader for my "Disappointment of the Year" award. It went from what should have been one of my favourite games of the year to what will surely be one of the worst.
I want to get the good out of the way, because even though it's hard to find, it is there. I think that the game is reasonably pretty, with a very colourful aesthetic. We often get dark and gloomy environments in games like this, which is great, so it is nice to see an ARPG that embraces lighter colours and a more "pleasant" atmosphere. The fauna is detailed and the world is lively. Blues, greens, yellows all blend together well to create levels that are, at the very least, nice to look at. It's not that the game redefines graphics, but it is solidly put together and I did notice, and appreciate, the care that they put into creating a world that, like Sacred 2, was a little bit different and more cheerful looking than other games within the genre.
The music is also not bad. It's not great, and it's a bit by the books, but it's serviceable and does what it can to give the game a more epic feel when it needs it. It's orchestrated, and relies pretty heavily on quick chants to get its message across. Think Skyrim but not as good. Hell, it lacks the ability to pull you into its world musically like even a game like Divinity: Original Sin does.
The story follows the same path as the soundtrack, giving us a plot that works fine in moving everything along but I can't see anybody being entranced by what they're giving us. Lord Zane has gotten in bed with demons and is trying to open the gates to the underworld, so the heroes have to band together to put an end to that. It's pretty generic Fantasy storytelling, but if I'm being honest I don't go to action-RPGs for their plot anyway. It'd be nice if something could come along and give us a truly worthwhile plot in the genre, but I have yet to really find anything beyond simply "good."
Like in Sacred 2, the story isn't entirely serious. It's about as lighthearted as a game about opening up the gates of Hell can be without flopping around in parody. There's a lot of humour in here, though I'd argue that it's more of an attempt than anything. There are a couple lines worthy of a chuckle here and there but I'm so sick of hearing my brother's character yell "Sexy!" Hearing the same lines over and over is very grating, and a lot of the lines are cheesy and don't work.
Those are the aspects of the game that I'd deem good, or at least decent, and when that's all the praise I can give something we're in trouble.
I've seen it said a few times that this game should be approached like Gauntlet, but Gauntlet is still fun today due to clever level design and intense action. Despite Gauntlet being better, I do see the comparison. Deep Silver has chosen to strip the game of its open-world elements and give us a streamlined, stage-based game. Instead of traversing the world, finding side-quests and picking up copious amounts of loot, you are simply placed in a stage and are expected to make your way to the end while battling hordes of enemies. It is Gauntlet in that regard.
There are some different types of stages but they all amount to the same thing: you kill lots. There are the story stages, and there are stages where you simply just have to kill all the enemies, and there are wave-based stages where you defeat, you got it, waves of enemies. Even the portals that give longer side-quests still amount to the same thing.
The only thing that could save this set-up would be to have stages with dynamic action set pieces or something. Have a lot of exciting, stressful things happen in a stage to keep you on your toes. Instead, it's mostly just floor traps, which are more of an annoyance than anything, or having to turn a wheel six times while groups of enemies attack you.
This is where it's difficult to separate it from its brand, and the game suffers immensely because of it. Did anybody who anticipated this release want a Gauntlet clone? No, we wanted a huge world to explore, we wanted loot and we wanted a complex leveling system because this is what the previous Sacred gave us.
The sad thing is, I could actually have done without the open-world aspects if they had to strip it away. I wouldn't have preferred it because it was one of the selling points of Sacred 2, but had it gone a more Diablo 3 route where it's always very clear where you have to go, with very minimal exploration... I would have been fine with it. I really just enjoy the genre when done right. We are at a point in gaming where people seem to rage if a game is linear, but I don't mind linear. I've always found these types of games to have tremendous replay value, so I'm okay with only having one direction to go in.
What bothers me is that they've made the game boring and pointless. Hack n' slash is repetitive by nature, yet games like Dynasty Warriors remain fun. However, in the action-RPG I find it difficult to muster up the energy to continue laying waste to entire armies if there isn't something connected to the action. That is always the loot and the leveling.
There isn't any loot in this game. You pick up money, health and energy orbs, and that's it. Laughably, sometimes at the end of the level the treasure chests or enemies will drop health orbs. These don't matter because you're at the end and you gain all your HP back anyway. Without sufficient amount of loot, it's very hard to even care about killing the enemies.
The same can be said with the lack of real level progression. Sure, you level up, but it's in a very hollow way. You don't have stats to manage and there's very little customization in anything. You can choose between leveling up your combat arts, your skills or your equipment, but it's so straight-forward that it seems more like a chore than anything. You only have a couple ways to go, and there's no experimentation to see what is best. You'll very quickly find what works and stick with it because there's only a few different combat arts per character. In terms of skills, you are able to level up things like blocking, dodging or reviving. The choice there is whether you want to be able to block or dodge, because you can only have one at a time. This applies to your combat arts as well, though you can actually have two of those equipped at a time. This is a significant departure from the system in Sacred 2, which is almost godly. It's one of my favourite in the genre.
Everything is basically just handed to you. Sure you can level up the amount of potions you can carry, but you are given two at the beginning of every stage so there's no continuity and excitement in managing your resources.
The combat leaves a little to be desired as well. At first I thought it was interesting for the genre, with something as silly as being able to roll being a plus because there aren't a lot of ARPGs that actually allow you to roll or block. It seems like a novelty at this point, but it's welcome. Unfortunately that wore off really quickly when I realized that it's still the same ol', same ol'. You have a special attack meant to break shields, but that overstays its welcome and just ends up seeming like a way to lazily add difficulty (another sore sport because the difficulty spikes are so uneven and annoying). A long with that you have two combat arts equipped on you, and of course the left mouse button is your basic attack.
Striking your foes is satisfying but it lacks the oomph of a game like Diablo 3. Regardless, it is reasonably fulfilling to lay siege to enemies.
My biggest problem with the combat is one that I imagine would be fixed by using a controller, but I don't currently have a PC controller (just ordered one last night actually... yes I know you care about that): the controls. You move with WASD, but you attack in the direction that your mouse cursor is pointing. I hate this choice in pretty much any game because it makes it frustrating to attack where you want, or more specifically, dodging is a pain in the ass because logic tells you that you'll roll left when you're facing right, but the game tells you you'll roll right when you're facing left because you were pointing that way. This may seem like a silly criticism to some, but it heavily impacted the game for me.
It doesn't help that sometimes the game just ignores what you want entirely. I was playing as the Seraphim -- because it's Sacred and someone has to -- and she has a move where she jumps in the air and lands where you've pointed and does damage to any enemy close to where she landed. Only sometime she jumps in the opposite direction from where I'm pointing. The first few times this happened I thought I was just terrible but while that is true, it isn't why. It seems that the game incorrectly registers it sometimes. I also found that it didn't really send her exactly where I wanted it to.
Which brings me to the final part of my review, where I nitpick some smaller problems that just made me hate the game more. I had a lot of problem playing online. For one, my brother couldn't seem to join my game when I invited him so I'd have to just join him.
From my experience, and I'm well aware that this could differ for people, the person who was hosting the game seemed to run into issues where if you tried using your mouse to click options it wouldn't click the right one so you'd have to use the arrow keys and enter to be affective. The person joining the game ran into lag and constant yoyoing -- I don't know if this is an actual term but I heard my brother say it and I like it -- and it got frustrating. You'd fly back and forth constantly if you were not the host.
Even quitting out of the game is stupid. When you finally click the option to quit your game on the main menu, you actually have to hit the ESC key again. Why? Why would you do this? Normally in a review I'd ignore this or give it a quick mention in the middle of another paragraph but no, not only does this game not want me to have fun... it doesn't want me to quit either. It's like an abusive husband. Or wife, because we here at On The Gamely believe in gender equality.
It's not that these problems are huge. The yoyoing online was a problem, but these minor problems add up and when they're coupled with how terrible the game in other ways, it just amplifies them.
I hate Sacred 3, and from the looks of things, most people do too. The best that I've seen is that it's okay and when you don't look at it as a Sacred game, it's not too bad. When I first started the game I could have gotten behind that, but after spending some time with it, all I see is a lackluster new entry in a series I love, infested with poor game design.
Rating: 3/10
Verdict: Sacred 3 will crap on fans of the series, but even if one can separate themselves from the brand and look at the game as it is, it's still a very shallow experience.
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