I'm not going to sugar coat this: Risen looks like a poor man's Fable. In fact Risen doesn't look like it's going to be doing anything that earth shattering at all. However, if you're in the mood to play a traditional Western RPG it could be just the ticket for you as this launch trailer clearly and obviously demonstrates.
All the cliches are there: choose your own path, save the world, hack at enemies, cast magic spells, airy female voice narrating. If you buy this game and don't know what to expect after watching this trailer, then you need some serious help in identifying your gaming genres and knowing what you get out of them. If you still haven't got a grasp on what the game is all about, you can check out our preview of it.
Now you know everything. Go forth and make purchasing decisions if you see it in the store.
Matthew Razak is Destructoid's Associate editor and co-founder of film site
Flixist. He began as community member "cowzilla" and was since sequestered to write brainy features material. He lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife.
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Contest:
1:00 PM on 02.27.2010
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It is almost the same game as legendary (at least for me) Gothic 1 & 2 . It does look poor, but who cares? It turns out to be a quite nice cRPG.
Also, I have no idea where the idea comes in that it's a "poor mans" Fable. It's nothing like Fable.
Gothic has a lot more potential for procedural type story telling, and freedom to slaughter even people who are 'friendly' and steal their shit. I'd be surprised if Risen wasnt much the same way, seeing as it's supposed to be kind of an apology to fans for Gothic 3 (I feel).
Having said this, I strongly recomend anyone having a xbox360 to stay away from it as it's just a poor port of the PC versios. The PC version is definetly the way to go
The gameplay is unique enough, and the RPG world refreshing enough, to provide a solid role-playing experience that is rewarding to players who give the game time to develop. Though, it's almost certainly better to purchase the PC version.
Far superior than Gothic 3.
For Fable fans... I think they will like more The Sims.
Caution: Risen on 360? STAY AWAY. The outsourced port apparently has many shortcomings, and is only recommended for the most diehard of fans.
Except for a somewhat lackluster conclusion, I found the overall story and questlines in Risen to be well-developed and more mature than the Fable series. Fable is very good at providing fun cartoon-like entertainment with solid plot elements.
In short, I felt Risen's inspiration originated more from the likes of Lloyd Alexander's "The Book of Three" as opposed to Fable's Disney-esque atmosphere. I enjoyed both games, though I did play the (likely superior) PC version of Risen rather than the Xbox port.
Funny, having played both Fable and Gothic on PC... I never saw any relation between Risen and Fable either I guess, but whatever. I can't imagine a port of Risen to 360 would be very good, but who knows. The combat wasn't always the best on PC either at times.
And if people want to know about Risen I am sure endless reviews, gameplay vids and screens of the PC version, 6 months old now, would suffice.
Of course the 360 port could be terrible for all I know, and reviewers want dumbed down to interactive movie level RPGs it seems, so I expect this to get 5s and 6s no matter how strong the port is.