RISEN is a massive, open-world RPG where every decision counts and every action continuously shapes a player's reputation. In a medieval setting, the game begins with the player shipwrecked on an island in turmoil, rocked by mysterious ruins rising from the ground. Players will battle dangerous creatures yet the promise of ancient treasures will lead them on an adventure where they must choose to align with either the native Rebel faction, or the mysterious Order and its Inquisition. Only then will they determine just what is truly happening on the 'forbidden isle'.
Initially interesting, but unfortunately the game very quickly turns into endless errands as you sort out absolutely everything for the NPCs, who are too lazy to do anything themselves. I started to wonder when I would have to help characters choose what colour underwear to put on for the day.
The fickle targeting makes combat painful, and the castaway's slogging-through-mud pace makes one suspect they had no other way of making the map seem larger.
This game was pretty sad. It's just really boring. Combat is terrible and in towns there is lots of dialog, which I mostly just skipped because it's too slow. There is crafting, but as far as I can tell you can only craft a single type of sword. So if you chose to use axes, as I did, crafting is useless. Also, it appears that the game has about 15 different weapons total, maybe 8 swords, 5 axes and one or two staffs. Oh, and archery is useless, again it's really really slow.
Risen played a little like Oblivion unfortunately nothing set it apart from the genre and quickly lost my interest. Story line is somewhat interesting
but was not enough to keep me playing.
