Sacred 2 review

[RichardC]

The original cover was even worse. Same girl, same pasties, just a white background.

[rezaf]

@"10 reasons list"

10) Not too hard, not too easy
The monsters in Sacred 2 are adjusted to be approximately the same level as your character. A similar gimmick annoyed some folks in Oblivion. But here, it’s not absurd and it doesn’t destroy the sense of ecology, because Sacred 2 simply isn’t that kind of game. But because this is such a dynamic game, this is dynamic enemy scaling that actually works. Here it helps create a sense of freedom to go almost anywhere you want without either running you into a brick wall or boring you to tears. There’s still plenty of variety among the monsters, and once you get to advanced difficulty levels and more powerful monsters, it’ll take more than just power clicking.

That’s gotta be THE top reason NOT to play Sacred 2 on my list.
I loathed this in Silverfall. Can’t beat that level 12 giant in the hills?
No problem, level your character one more time, get back, and meet the level 13 giant.
And it sucked in Oblivion, thankfully FO3 mostly threw it overboard.

---

rezaf

[Charlatan]

I dunno rezaf, though in principle I agree with you, it sounds like the monsers have definite level “ranges” - so that eventually you’ll be able to get past it if you have big issues (unlike the obvious counterexample of Oblivion).

The “top 10” article by Tom has intrigued me enough that Sacred 2 has gone from my “eh, I don’t have time for this” pile to the “maybe I do wanna check this out” pile. So in addition to playing WAR and Fable II (and still Fallout) I’m checking out the demo today.

[Chris_Nahr]

@KieronGillen

Judging books by a cover and all that.

The cover, too, has a very German sensibility!

[Aeon221]

@Chris Nahr

The cover, too, has a very German sensibility!

A bunch of blond haired blue eyed people killing stuff while mostly naked???

[BobJustBob]

Protip: HIT F9 BEFORE USING THE BLACKSMITH. If you forget to drag your weapons back off the blacksmith window before you close it, they vanish. Gone forever.

[Doug_Erickson]

I’m really liking Sacred 2. The story, VA work, and one liners are all godawful, but the rest of the game is golden. I haven’t had a single crash on either my main rig or my laptop, and only had one borked sidequest. This is parsecs better than the original Sacred’s launch experience. There’s a lot of depth to play with, here. Good review – and by “good” I mean “thanks for agreeing with me” – Tom!

[Gendal]

@BobJustBob

Protip: HIT F9 BEFORE USING THE BLACKSMITH. If you forget to drag your weapons back off the blacksmith window before you close it, they vanish. Gone forever.

This also happens with the guy you can trade runes in to too. I did it multiple times with both of them before I figured out what was going on.

[Prodigy]

@rezaf

That’s gotta be THE top reason NOT to play Sacred 2 on my list.
I loathed this in Silverfall. Can’t beat that level 12 giant in the hills?
No problem, level your character one more time, get back, and meet the level 13 giant.

Actually it’s not that obvious and really well done in Sacred 2. If you venture too far, you’ll meet creatures who are 4/5 levels above you (and I tried this). If you gain a level the creatures nearby won’t suddenly gain one. Like Tom I tought the difficulty level was very well managed. Some enemies are tough enough to pose a challenge (think bosses), the combats are numerous (if you want them to be), you’ll have to think and react quickly to some ennemies, but the game never gets tedious or frustrating because it’s too hard or unbalanced.

[Cal]

Add me to the love it category too. Even the wife comes to watch the awful cutscenes and voice overs, they are so appalling bad i think im in love with them.

I also was not bothered by the auto levelling bad guys, its not anywhere near as bad as oblivion, and i actually think it works well in S2.

[Abilio_Carvalho]

@Gendal

This also happens with the guy you can trade runes in to too. I did it multiple times with both of them before I figured out what was going on.

What? No, I only played the demo but for me when I closed the rune trader window he just dropped the ones I was using on the floor. I’m pretty sure that’s what happens with the blacksmith as well. You guys tried the autopickup key after exiting the window?

[tomchick]

Yep, the blacksmith and rune trader stuff get dropped on the floor if you close the window.

However, you’ll note there’s a timer on loot, clearly indicated on its tooltip. An item gets “released” after a certain period of time and vanishes. So if you close the blacksmith window and then go make a sandwich, when you come back, your sword will be gone.

-Tom

[Desslock]

The really significant distinguishing feature in the Sacred games is the gigantic, open world to explore, especially when compared to action/RPGs like Diablo 2 which basically just have a bunch of random walls. Even the action/RPGs with decent graphics, like the Dungeon Siege games in their time and the zillion games based off of the BG Dark Alliance engine, are just a bunch of pretty backdrops through linear levels – they never feel like worlds.

The Europeans just do this stuff better - Divine Divinity and Sacred are just a lot more interesting to explore.

[Equisilus]

Hrm. My only issue with Sacred2 is the North American version by cdv has yet to hit Amazon.ca in any form (regular or CE). I gave up checking locally. Talk about a release that crawls into stores…

But hey, I still want to pick it up. I’m going to be very interested in how it stacks up against TQ, since TQ had (and still has) so much freakin’ replayability for me that it’s insane. I’m not convinced by the review that it can possibly be as good as it’s made out to be, so I’m itching to compare notes.

[Gendal]

@Abilio Carvalho

What? No, I only played the demo but for me when I closed the rune trader window he just dropped the ones I was using on the floor. I’m pretty sure that’s what happens with the blacksmith as well. You guys tried the autopickup key after exiting the window?

Oh sure NOW you tell me.

[tiohn]

I am really enjoying this quite a bit more than Titan Quest. Most of the quests are short enough that a 20-30 minute session is worthwhile, which is important to me at the moment.
That and I’ve got to play any game that has a cyborg dog thing.

[Staff_Sergeant]

So, as someone who stills play Titan Quest to this day, can anyone tell me definitively if I should buy this now or wait for the inevitable expansion pack/collector’s edition/bug-fixing patch?

Oh, also, demo ran like crap on my computer, can I pull together a decent average FPS if I crank down the settings? Graphics mean little to me.

[tiohn]

I’ve got 512mb 7950 GTX mobile card and 2gb ram. The demo ran at about 30 fps at 1600x 1024 on low settings, whereas the full game runs much better. I’m getting a consistent 25-30 fps at 1920x1200 with all medium settings and the grass distance increased a bit past halfway.

[Charlatan]

Two questions from playing the demo:

1. Am I blind or does the “paperdoll” (ok, the inventory window) NOT show the weapon you have equipped? Yes, there is a section showing weapon damage, and I just noticed the wepon shows up at the bottom of the screen, to the left of the little doohickey in the center bottom. But it’s not actually shown in the inventory window, is it? I must have spent 10 minutes figuring I was blind, when I got another weapon and I wanted to compare that one to my current, and I couldn’t for the life of me see my currently equipped weapon.

2. Is there a known bug where you can’t pick up items that drop? I killed a wolf or bandit or something and two items dropped. I could not pick up either, regardless as to how much I clicked, ran away and ran back, swiveled the camera, etc.

Oh yeah a third question:

3. Does the boxed copy come with a decent manual or would it work just as well purchasing from Steam? I like good manuals, esp with RPGs, and I’m sort of concerned that if I buy this online I won’t have a good reference for the game.

[Enidigm]

@BobJustBob

This is the one I read this morning that made me give the demo a second shot. And now the game is 86% downloaded on Steam, so I hope you get your payola that I hear all you game journalists are swimming in.

Same here.