Risen 2 beta ?? Initial impressions (nothing real guys, Nda)

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Since Jaesun cares so much about fellow codexers supporting Deep Silver and Piranha Bytes I'll just say that Risen2 is a typical PB game, for better or worse. Will buy.

To be fair, it's pretty hard to take warnings in a video-game seriously anymore. Nine times out of ten, "stay away from ye olde cave, there's an uberfoozle only the strongest and bravest can face" means "go kill this thing now, and when you get back there'll be a rimjob waiting for you."

I really don't see why 'trial and error' is bad design, anyway. Not as if games have any penalties for dying.

Well, G1/2's penalty was having to wait 1-3 minutes for the game to load. Really motivated me to be careful.
As to not knowing what enemies you can/not take: Usually in PB games you can hardly beat anything in the beginning. Later: the bigger and meaner an enemy looks the more dangerous it is. Quite simple, really.

You can usually tell by its appearance, I was never surprised by how strong enemy was in Risen, and only few times in Gothic. Instead of marked difficult areas you could buy (cheaply), be given or find bestiaries, not necessary with exact stats, but with some descriptions.

You forget you have to reload! Don't underestimate how lazy 'modern gamers' are (or the developers think they are).

About this whole 'trial and error' thing, I've a little anecdote. I'm now playing Uncharted on the PSVita and I was surprised how cheesy it is compared to, say, the first Tomb Raider from Core 15 years ago. Despite the concept should be similar, it's almost impossible to fall off a ledge and the jump points are all easily noticeable. There is almost no risk of having to reload from a miscalculated jump or because you though you were in the correct spot for trying some stunt.

Hello Platon!

the beta of Risen 2: Dark Waters comes to an end very soon and we want to thank all of you for your participation.

Now we want to know, how did you like the beta and did you spot any problems? We’ve prepared a feedback questionnaire for you to complete. We look forward to your feedback!
Please complete this form before March 12th 2012.

Here is the questionnaire:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Risen2_Beta_EN


* 1. How long did you play the beta?
How long did you play the beta? Hours:10

* 2. How would you rate the playable area? - Moderate

* 3. How would you rate the current state of the graphics? - Good

4. What do you think about the quality of the the quest given in the playable area? - Satisfying

* 6. What do you think is the technical level of the game? - Good

* 9. How do you rate the overall quality of Risen 2? - Moderate

* 10. How do you rate the "Piranha Bytes" style in Risen 2? (Nice one!) - Low

* 11. Will you recommend Risen 2? Unfortunately Yes

12 . What other Piranha Bytes games have you already played? All of them


And the concludes the BETA. Amen to it..

It encourages constant quick saving.

No it doesn't, trial and error makes you quick save few times during the game, you constantly quick save because of the game difficulty.

Is it wrong of me to think that's not such a bad thing on a portable? I mean, who wants to spend their bus ride / stolen moment / poop / etc dying?

Well, I don't think Super Mario for the Gameboy was noticeably easier than SM for the NES. The same reasoning could be applied to RPGs... who wants to die just because you wandered into an accessible area populated by high level enemies with your level 1 character? I think excising some measure of caution, thinking about the consequences of actions was part of videogaming (and gaming in general). Take it off and you're not loosing part of the fun/challenge but also an important pedagogical value/lesson of life.

But a Mario-style platformer is already cut into neat bite-sized chunks, and everyone that plays an RPG with unscaled enemies probably wants to die (preferably with a warning, first.) I guess I should clarify: I hate the Uncharted stuff, big set-pieces all waiting to fire their scripting, etc... but I'd hate it even more if I had to go through a strongly-plotted sequence with minimal inputs over and over in any situation where I'm not sitting down specifically to camp out and play a game. I'm envisioning it as: Die -> go through "gee golly whiz" sequence you just played (watched) again -> get to part you just died -> whoops, you're at your stop / bathroom is available / the five minutes you were trying to kill are now up / etc etc.

For the record, TPB has a working Beta+Crack out now, for those who want to "demo" it. Wouldn't be surprised if the official demo is gonna be the exact thing.

Since Jaesun hasn't apparently said anything here, for the record: A. B.

What, are you the new gay deputy or something? Codex has always encouraged piracy. Besides, it's not even piracy in this case because the beta is free anyway. For the record.

Yeah, except when it doesn't.

As if I'm the one retardoing posts.

The administration "frowns" upon links to cracks and warez that could directly endanger the site's existence. Simply bringing it up for discussion, no matter how favorably, has always been fair game, except when a mod goes on one of his internet power trips.

Okay, now that I played the Beta for 30 min, I actually got exactly what I expected - that is a typical PB game with all it's strenghts and shortcomings.

It's structure and feel is basically almost unchanged from Gothic 2. Graphics are mostly nice (some shadow flickering, framerate could be better), music is nice, dialogue is funny and sometimes crude, animations are horrid, landscapes are beautiful, blabla, the usual shit. Refreshing to play a PB game after that long time, I got my ass kicked when I tried to steal something. World is very reactive, and nothing's for free. There's tons of dialogue options (well, compared to Mass Effect and DA), characters are just superficial and functional at most. That's okay I guess. Combat is above average difficult, and it plays very well with a 360 pad too. UI is a major improvement over G2/G3 (again, never bothered with Risen 1).

So, from what I can tell in that short time, it definitely is a 100% PB game. If you can live with shitty characters (dialogue, animations) but do care a lot about freedom and a reactive world, this game is for you. If you are a spoiled Mass Effect brat, expect to be disappointed.

I could upload a couple of screenshots too if that's allowed. I mean I didn't remember signing a NDA somewhere...

Dumbfuck confirmed.

What was wrong with G3 UI? Risen 2 UI sucks very little info on each screen, you can see like 10 items at once in inventory. I can live with mediocre UI, but how is R2 better then G3?

It definitely isn't.

How profound. Care to elaborate dumbfuck?

The combat is disappointing, there is no way to dodge, and going back or to sides don't work against normal attack it works only when boar is charging, and that is it, so all that is left is spamming attack. Fighting against humans is better but not much better as hitting the enemy doesn't stop them from attacking.

Also you have to hold block to strafe otherwise you run in left or right, and when you hold a block strafing is so slow that you couldn't avoid any attack.

You can just spam healing potions, there is no animation or cool down.

Lack of normal WSAD+mouse controls presented in all previous PB games.

Simplified teachers system, all you need is goal so the only choice it seems will be what talents you will have faster, you are no longer as limited by XP as in previous games.

Stupid, and annoying QTE.

That's absolutely not true to life. Gothic 2 is huge, open world with large territories while Risen 2 is a collection of small severely walled-up islands.. Just look at starting location, most of it is _painted background_. This is very moronic.

Music is just pieces of Risen music + G3 music, just listen to it closely. Stupid morons can't even do music anymore.

Sigh.. You're a target audience for Bethesda..

But that's just pieces of huge picture. I repeat myself - Risen 2 is not even trying to take itself seriously - it's a roller coaster children fun that's proud of saying fuck word. The animations are just an addition to horrible dialogs that are spit by non-living walking stereotypes. This is NOT how things were in G2.

And yet.. sigh I will play this one. Just of sheer respect for PB, but it might be very last their game I'll ever play.

P.S. Climbing is now of course an old technology which can break things up and spoil fun for children otherwise how can one of the most important and purely "fun" things be thrown off into trash? Also why doesn't your RPG feeling scream when you see looting chest as a "pause" screen. This is NOT I repeat NOT how immersive games are done. Looting a chest should be dangerous that's part of fun!

So far that's the worst thing I've heard about R2.