Review GameSpot criticizes Sacred

[Vault Dweller]

Tags: Ascaron Entertainment; Sacred

<a href=http://www.gamespot.com>GameSpot</a> posted a detailed <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/sacred/review.html>review</a> of <a href=http://www.sacred-game.com>Sacred</a> giving it <b>7.6</b> overall and <b>7.0</b> for gameplay.
<br>
<br>
<blockquote>In comparison to some of its hack-and-slash RPG peers, Sacred is in some ways definitely a deeper RPG than <u>Dungeon Siege</u> or Diablo, since it's less linear and quests are more frequent and varied, but its gameplay isn't as polished as in those games. Sacred is a welcome addition to the genre that distinguishes itself by incorporating a few novel gameplay tweaks. However, the game's success is ultimately limited by an <u>unrewarding character development system and by combat that is too frequently tedious</u> rather than engaging. </blockquote>
<br>
Interesting. Just for the record, <a href=http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/dungeonsiege/review.html>Dungeon Siege</a> got <b>8.4</b>, was praised as a first rate action RPG with a simple and intuitive character system, and readers were reassured that different places and enemies would keep the combat interesting. In case you are wondering, both reviews are written by Desslock. Go figure.
<br>

<br>
<br>
<br>

 

[Major_Blackhart]

WTF is this guy talking about?

 

[Volourn]

It's Desslock. He doens't know what he's talking about. Period.

 

[HanoverF]

Check must not have cleared...

 

[garfield_hsieh]

But i think he does hit the nail on this one:

More importantly, Sacred's combat system frequently feels finicky, and if you don't micromanage your character's individual attacks it's too easy for your character to either fail to line up an attack (particularly on horseback) or to stop attacking altogether. The game doesn't effectively convey a consistent sense that your character is hitting something, which is both dissatisfying and occasionally frustrating. It's a significant annoyance, as your character is constantly fighting and it's difficult to advance even short distances without becoming embroiled in battles with dozens of opponents. Gameplay is never as addictive or rewarding as it should be, since combat is the game's primary focus and it frequently becomes more of a tedious chore than a thrilling, fast-paced experience.

So many Diablo-clone strived for complex character systems but didn't notice tha 'action' part of Diablo, a great A-RPG, was what made it succeed. The character development in the original Diablo is rather shallow, since warriors doesn't have any skills to learn except the weaker version of mage spells. But when my warrior swung his sword into a goat-headed demon or smashed a skeleton's skull, I did feel 'I am hacking it'. I The pace, the animation, the balance, and the sound were so polished and tuned that I even forgot I couldn't even jump/kick/spontaneously block in Diablo but felt it as an action game . That was what made Diablo fun and addictive even for me today. And that's what I think Sacred failed to deliver. Unfortunately, this is what I think most important in a D-like game.

Good RP and character development is fine, but for a hack-and-slash game, give me some real hack-and-slash.

 

[Otaku_Hanzo]

<u>unrewarding character development system and by combat that is too frequently tedious</u>

Hmmm........ sounds like Dungeon Siege to me! How about you? :p

 

[Flarnet]

Gamespot reviewed Dungeon Siege? That's funny, I didn't think they reviewed screen savers.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The combat in Sacred is pretty damn dissatisfying, I'll tell you that. There aren't even any sound effects for swinging your sword - except for the part where it hits. Using unarmed weapons (e.g. cestuses) feels like all you're doing is punching the air and killing any monsters that happen by because there isn't any sound effect for the punch nor is there any sound effect for the hit. I'd call that pretty damn dissatisfying.

The combat is, as he said, and I agree, rather tedious rather than engaging. I'm having a whole lot more fun playing Lineage 2 because of the challenge most monsters pose, as well as other players as It's got a very well built PVP system compared to other MMORPGs. But enough of that, Sacred's a dissapointment to me.

 

[Barghest]

I thought you didn't like Sacred because of the copy protection...?

 

[Limorkil]

I find it funny that the reviewer did not like having to "micromanage" the character. No wonder Dungeon Siege got a better review. Those games where you have to control your characters and think about what you are doing are SOOOO old fashioned.

I haven't played Sacred yet but one thing about these reviews confuses me: Nearly all the reviews mention the various difficulty levels and then go on to complain that you do not need to use the character's special skills and combos because the game does not need it on the easiest difficulty. So how about playing the game on a higher difficulty?

Exitium : I have been interested in Lineage 2 for a while, but you are the first person I have seen mention it. Any chance of you posting a mini-review in the MMORPG forum, or do you know a good site where I can find an (unbiased) review? Thanks.

 

[magerette]

It's enheartening to see at least one semi-negative review of this game. I don't expect much except mindless fun from a diablo clone, but when goblins are dropping over 100 gold in the first hours of play and your character is leveling every five minutes it stretches one's credibility--and fighting horde after horde of the same monsters who respawn even if you don't save and leave the area but ,just happen to walk out of sight for a moment, your clicking becomes so finger-fatiquing you need a CTS brace on your mouse-hand. Once again we have confusion between quantity and quality.

I agree that upping the difficulty might adjust these issues some, but in ANY game where combat is the focus, combat should be satisfying not tedious. The reward should be tactical and strategic as well as financial and material.

 

[Sol Invictus]

The first problem with Sacred is that it feels rather unpolished in terms of interface. You'll feel it when you ride the horse and experience the issues with using your combat arts while on a mount. You'll spend half the time trying to 'position' your horse properly just to land an attack, and it becomes really annoying to say the least.

The second problem is that the sound effects and the animations are totally unpolished. Certain items, like the Gladiator's armor tend to overlap improperly, creating a pretty nasty look sometimes. They fixed that issue with the latest patch but lots of others remain. Notably, there aren't any sound effects for weapon swings and this is especially noticeable with the gladiator's unarmed weapons which do not make a sound when they swing nor do they make a sound when they hit anything. It just feels bad, and I think I pointed this out earlier as well.

The third problem has to do with the game balance: there just isn't any. If you equip your gladiator with two unarmed weapons (e.g. cestuses and combat fists) he will do twice the damage in a quarter of the time anyone else would dual wielding a pair of swords or otherwise. What's worse is that the unarmed weapons come with bonuses like "Damage 10% from Strength" meaning he'll be doing 10% additional damage based on his strength levels , boosting his damage potential to almost 200% of any other weapon in terms of a single round of combat. If the time it takes to attack enemies is taken into account, he'll be dealing 1000% more damage than anyone else in a short period of time.

Fourth problem: the way combat arts work is pretty retarded, to say the least. They become only marginally powerful when their levels are increased but the mana usage is raised by at least 15% everytime you upgrade them meaning to say that a gladiator with Level 30 in Attack might have difficulty killing anything due to the sheer amount of mana usage compared to someone with only a single level in the Art.

Also, if you'll ask Killzig or anyone else who tried a Battlemage, the spells are really flawed in terms of mana usage. There is this spell that is supposed to decrease the mana usage of your spells for 45 seconds or so but it uses a TON of mana and once it is cast you have to wait at least 20 seconds before you can use any of the other spells due to the charge up. Three words: what the fuck?

As for my views on Lineage 2, certainly, the server's down right now for updates so I'll post my views there.

 

[Voss]

The third problem has to do with the game balance: there just isn't any. If you equip your gladiator with two unarmed weapons (e.g. cestuses and combat fists) he will do twice the damage in a quarter of the time anyone else would dual wielding a pair of swords or otherwise. What's worse is that the unarmed weapons come with bonuses like "Damage 10% from Strength" meaning he'll be doing 10% additional damage based on his strength levels , boosting his damage potential to almost 200% of any other weapon in terms of a single round of combat. If the time it takes to attack enemies is taken into account, he'll be dealing 1000% more damage than anyone else in a short period of time.

Eh. Theres some things wrong here. First, a lot of weapons can get that % strength bonus as damage. Not just unarmed. And the weapon classes are a little funky- unarmed hit faster, but axes, for example, have a higher damage potential

Fourth problem: the way combat arts work is pretty retarded, to say the least. They become only marginally powerful when their levels are increased but the mana usage is raised by at least 15% everytime you upgrade them meaning to say that a gladiator with Level 30 in Attack might have difficulty killing anything due to the sheer amount of mana usage compared to someone with only a single level in the Art.

Also, if you'll ask Killzig or anyone else who tried a Battlemage, the spells are really flawed in terms of mana usage. There is this spell that is supposed to decrease the mana usage of your spells for 45 seconds or so but it uses a TON of mana and once it is cast you have to wait at least 20 seconds before you can use any of the other spells due to the charge up. Three words: what the fuck?
.

What the fuck game are you playing? mana usage? Things have a recharge time. As you add levels, the time goes up... certain skills lower the recharge time. On the mage, Ghost Wak (the spell you are referring to) almost triples the recharge rate of spells. It works *very* well. The thing of it is, you can't bllndly raise levels in abilities- they get better, but they also recharge slowly. Its a trade off, and its intentional. If you put thought into the combat arts, they can be impressive. If you just raise them with a higher = better attitude, you'll run into hideous problems with the recharge times

 

[DrattedTin]

I'm having a whole lot more fun playing Lineage 2

Thought it sucked?

 

[Peacedog]

Also, if you'll ask Killzig or anyone else who tried a Battlemage, the spells are really flawed in terms of mana usage. There is this spell that is supposed to decrease the mana usage of your spells for 45 seconds or so but it uses a TON of mana and once it is cast you have to wait at least 20 seconds before you can use any of the other spells due to the charge up. Three words: what the fuck?

I haven't experienced this at all. My Ghost meadow lasts 50 seconds, recharges in 9, and improves regen like 260%. When I use it, my other spells just take their normal recharge times.

As for the mage spells, you have to socket them mostly. Socketing a rune gives full benefits from increasing the level (damage, "hits" for spells like Ice Shards and Meteor Storm), but only one third of the actual increase in regen time. The benefit here is immense.

My mage probably naturally has Metero Storm 3, Ice Shards 3, Petrification 1, and Ghost meadow 2. With all the socketed runes and items, its 8/7/2/5. Thanks to Mental regeneration and Meditation, my regen times are something like 7/5/8/9. I'm looking to get ice shards back to four (I couldn't pass up some recent new equipment). which could happen soon depending.

I socket mostly runes that give regen spells + 10. There are a few ice shards in there (5% bonus to xp). Ghost meadow is great for socketing because of this. Meteor Storm is as well.

The system is quirky, and IMO flawed. You can easily work with it though, at least on bronze.

Trade has been very beneficial to my Battle Mage (though I bumped it to 20, perhaps a mistake). I see multi socket items somewhat regularly. Also, I seem items with very good bonuses like + double digits to ability scores.

 

[chrisbeddoes]

Aside from the fact that immersion is broken all the time by silly coments that the enemy ai is flawed and that combat is too repetitive well i guess that Sacred has potential.

My main complaint however is that the Dark Elf and the Wood Elf at the start of the game do not have wild sex.
No instead they see nightmares and that dream about a demon.

Dont these people know that sex is good and that it stops you from seeing nightmares ?

 

[Malak]

Well I decided to go with battlemage. It can be difficult at times, but I'm getting the hang of it. I use mostly fireball, fire spiral, and a combo of the two regen spells. It works nicely. If I have a couple targets, a roast them with a fireball. If I get mobbed, hit the fire spiral and I should be all right. Bosses are the most difficult, and I've died twice. But at least it's a challenge, unlike Diablo 2 and Dungeon Siege were. Diablo 2 got harder with the latest patch, but too little too late.

I haven't really noticed battle being too repetitive, I'm finding new creatures often, and battles can change with different creatures and numbers. The quests are simple and I like it that way. I don't really care about a long drawn out story, and I think it is more realistic the way they are done. They say they need help, you need to rescue someone or get something, and you go do it. Short and to the point. The adventure for each quest is different and can be challenging still. I failed one quest because I couldn't get it done in time. I had lots of time, but too many goblins in the way.

Though I spent a few hours, and tried to move quickly, I've barely scratched the surface. The world is massive, quests are abundant, and the game is challenging. It's everything I wanted it to be. It's not perfect, but it's certainly better than anything else I have tried in the last couple years. I haven't experienced any bugs yet, but I suppose we'll wait till I get to Act 2 for that water quest, eh?

 

[Anonymous]

I'm having a whole lot more fun playing Lineage 2

Thought it sucked?

It does.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

How will we build it up,
Build it up, Build it up?
How will we build it up,
My fair lady?

 

[Sol Invictus]

Eh. Theres some things wrong here. First, a lot of weapons can get that % strength bonus as damage. Not just unarmed. And the weapon classes are a little funky- unarmed hit faster, but axes, for example, have a higher damage potential

Higher damage potential they might certainly have, on a per-hit basis, but doing 400 damage once every 3 seconds is crap compared to doing 220 damage every .33 of a second.

As a Gladiator with Dual Weapons Lore or whatever it's called and equipping yourself with a set of two unarmed weapons (they stack, btw) you can produce double damage in a quarter of the time it takes for any other dual-wielded weapons to move. It probably takes around a total of 6 seconds for the Attack battle art to work with a pair of swords, or a pair of daggers, or a pair of maces but it only takes a maximum of 2 seconds to pull that off with a pair of Unarmed Weapons because the animation only counts as one weapon - so you attack as if you were using a single weapon (e.g. you are faster) instead of taking two-swings.

What the fuck game are you playing? mana usage? Things have a recharge time. As you add levels, the time goes up... certain skills lower the recharge time. On the mage, Ghost Wak (the spell you are referring to) almost triples the recharge rate of spells. It works *very* well. The thing of it is, you can't bllndly raise levels in abilities- they get better, but they also recharge slowly. Its a trade off, and its intentional. If you put thought into the combat arts, they can be impressive. If you just raise them with a higher = better attitude, you'll run into hideous problems with the recharge times

Well here's the thing - you will do more damage over a duration with 1-2 levels in Attack as opposed to having 30 levels in Attack. The sole reason is the downtime from the recharge, which takes too long. Where is the balance? In Diablo 2, skills cost progressively more mana to use each time you level them up, but the damage increments are high enough to make them worth while and mana use becomes less of a factor as you use better equipment and gain more mana. In Sacred, the time added to the recharge period far outweighs your ability to reduce the recharge period through skills like Meditation and the damage increments aren't high enough to make it a worthwhile sacrifice over producing a larger amount of damage in a shorter period of time.

 

[Malak]

But if you increase the level of your skills through items and socketed runes, the recharge only goes up 33% and it's not so bad. For the battle-mage, you also have a quicker recharge spell that makes things recharge even faster. I have lvl 4 fireball that still recharges in 2 seconds.

If I were to increase it's level several times at this point, it'd be killing things in a single hit. In that case, I wouldn't need it to recharge so fast. Same with everything else. Sure, overall you'll do more damage with your unarmed weapons.. after a certain amount of time. But if that one large weapon can kill people in one hit, you don't need anymore time. It's a matter of circumstance, that's why you have multiple weapon slots. I liked the claw gladiator, but when it came down to straight up killing one dude, you can't beat fist of the gods with a giant axe.