Review | Risen
Format: Xbox360/PC | Genre: RPG | Publisher: Deep Silver | Developer: Piranha Bytes | Release date: 02/10/09 | RRP: £34.99-£44.99
By Lewis Denby
Around 20 hours into Risen, I realised I’d not been having as much fun as I thought.
Not for the last while, at least. It had started better, more emphatically. Dropped on the shore of a mysterious island, with no knowledge of my location or the quirks of this factionalised land, I’d felt a deep fascination with what was to come. It didn’t last. Not really, anyway. For all Risen’s ambition, for all its gentle introductions combined with bravely harsh challenges, there’s something barely tangible that somehow, subsequently, fell to pieces.
The problem is that, even now, I’m worried I’ve got it wrong, or that it was all my own fault.
I once had a conversation about games reviewing with a friend. The debated question was: to what extent should critics be able to develop an intrinsic connection with each game; to what level should they automatically engage with a product, and be able to report with some confidence on their findings? Should every review emerge with the same amount of conviction? Essentially, should every review be so certain?
Playing Risen for the past couple of weeks has left me totally unsure. Is this a good game? Is it worthy of a purchase? Is it going to lead to further discussion? Is it reasonable to not know what I think of it?
And no, none of this is rhetorical. I’m really curious. Maybe, if you play it, you could help me out a little here.
//Washed away
Rewind. There’s been a terrible storm, my boat’s sunk, and I’m now on the shore of a hostile island. It’s probably a few hundred years ago, or the fantasy equivalent, and I’m probably somewhere near Italy, only not in this universe. Everyone’s been washed up on this same beach, and most people are dead. I can steal their equipment, and I can speak with one other lucky survivor.
That’s how Risen opens. This isn’t playing around. This isn’t a harrowing opening that leads to an immediately friendlier game. That’s Risen’s mood throughout. Your situation is absolutely shit. It makes no bones about that.
You snap off a branch and ready it as a weapon. Some wild beasts are attacking, and you’ve to put them in their place. Quickly, you’ll find a path that leads to a house, and some food, and then you’ll follow it some more and find another house, this one occupied by a cagey and suspicious gentleman. You’ll talk to him, and convince him you’re no threat. He’ll heal you up, give you a proper sword, and guide you on your way.
Risen’s primary aim is to create a world that responds to your own choices. Your first one is now, some fifteen minutes into the game, and it’s intimidating. You’re advised to join up with the Don’s men, a group of fighters and guards who have set up their own rebellious camp in the swamp. They’re rough and ready, but seem kind-hearted enough when they’re not snarling at you, which is most of the time. Or you could make your way over to Harbour Town, from where the Don’s men emerged - a once prosperous but now dwindling population, watched over by the Orwellian eye of the Inquisition. The choice is yours, but it’ll affect how the rest of the game pans out. No one ever makes it clear who’s the best to side with.
Rewind even further. Open-world RPGs aren’t a new thing, and there’s an established formula that each seems to stick to. Bethesda have pioneered this. The game, almost invariably, starts with some terrible unfriendliness, but quickly allows you to create bonds with characters, with places, with the world itself. From there, you carve your own path, but essentially stick fairly rigidly to the main story.
Risen rejects this. For all its similarities with… well, let’s face it, with Oblivion, it deviates hugely from the trodden path. Risen starts unfriendly, and continues unfriendly. In two weeks, I’ve not met a single person I fully trust. What’s most striking about this tempestuous game is how utterly horrible everything is. This is a game in which, when you meet someone who only swears at you three times and threatens to beat the living daylights out of you twice, you feel relatively at ease. You’re an outsider, a terrible foreigner, and pretty much everyone is going to make sure you know where you stand. And those who are friendlier are downtrodden, scared and depressed.
The first time I played, I followed the house-gentelman’s advice and joined up with the Don’s clan. I accepted a quest to go and retrive some money - a simple enough task - and got the shit kicked out of me. I went back to my makeshift boss, and he laughed, and told me I should wisen up.
[Continues...]
Well, great review first off Lewis, and it has actually made me interested in Risen, a game I had nary given a glance to before! It sounds like a game I would enjoy and hate (maybe a bit too strong a word) in equal amounts, and thus I know I would end up wondering if it was £30 down the drain.
Perhaps I should have paid attention to the game more before hand eh?
Ah, the usual confusion that occurs when a mainstream gaming site reviewer comes across a Pirahna Bites game. The same occurred with their previous series, Gothic (well G1 and G2, G3 was a bit off and was a buggy mess), before the split with the publisher lost them the rights. It might look like Oblivion (and btw, PB was doing open-world a long time before that - they actually started around the same time that Bethesda released Daggerfall), but it is made for a far more hardcore audience. In PB games, wildlife is DANGEROUS, far more dangerous than, say, a low-level guard - just like in real life. If you’re expecting the Bethesda tropes where almost no-one lies, people will help you and send you on quests for no apparent reason, and wildlife is exterminated so easily you wonder how it doesn’t become extinct, then you’re in for a shock. In PB games everyone has a motive, people life and deceive, and you can’t expect to fight against wildly superior numbers of foes (no leaving the vault and immediately blasting the heads off 5 experienced raiders) and win - well, not until you are MUCH more experienced. PB games have more of the traditional rpg feel in that you start off very weak, and eventually become very strong. Having said that, they aren’t a ‘hardcore rpg’ in the sense of, say, Fallout (the 1st two, not the action-rpg FO3) or Arcanum, with stat-driven combat and complex character/party builds - they are very much action-rpgs with a sole player-character and real-time combat. But they’re as close to those old games that we’re likely to see, sadly enough.
Don’t play it on the 360, it was terribly raped.
If you find it too difficult on PC, then it’s just not for you, just Gothic 1 and 2 fans.
[...] How Possibly To Do Good Games Journalism, Maybe – Part 3: On Being A Tard Jump to Comments Hey! Remember two days ago? Before yesterday, when I didn’t post anything here, due to Comrade Richardson pouring goodness-knows-how-many tins down my throat the night before? Remember that? I said I was reviewing Risen! Well, I reviewed Risen! [...]
You obviously played the Xbox 360 version which is inferior to the PC version. Also you obviously didn’t pay attention and talk with everyone like you are supposed to in all rpgs. (You would have been guided to the rear gate of Harbor Town otherwise)
If you would have spoken to everyone you would have found trainers that will train your skills. I am in harbor town and have found several very easily. (take the right path after entering from the rear gate and go down the steps and there is someone that will train your sword skill and strength) The further you are from the beaten path the stronger the enemies are.
You also need to gain the peoples trust before they will treat you decently. (for the most part) You shouldn’t even compare this game to Oblivion or most other games since this game actually has choices and consequences and has far more depth and a better story then most other games.
“I erased my save file, and started again.”
You did WHAT? Sorry, but why? So you didn’t know what to do - why didn’t you just try to find out? Explore? It’s not like the other path into the town was hidden.
I just find it odd that you threw away ten hours’ worth of progress and experience because you didn’t know what to do next. Imagine doing that in Monkey Island. “Hm, I can’t figure out how to get that navigator’s head, I’d better just start from the beginning again”.
Sorry about rambling, I just… well, the thing is, if that’s how you play Risen, no wonder you don’t like it. This is a game that expects you to make some mistakes along the way, but that’s all right. You learn to live with the consequences.
(and it’s approx. 16 times friendlier than The Void in this respect - The Void kills you later on because you screwed up earlier, Risen doesn’t. Yeah, I know, different games, just pointing it out since you reviewed both, and seemed more ready to forgive The Void for its unfriendliness)
Makes sense to address a few points.
1. I know it takes an opposing approach to Oblivion and as such is only cosmetically similar. That’s pretty much what I said in the review, right? I know that’s not exactly what was opposing on here but someone’s been following me round the internet suggesting as much.
2. Since the time of writing, it has become apparent that the complaints regarding certain technical and presentational issues are isolated to the Xbox 360 version of the game. We were not provided with a PC version, and had no access to one until release day, by which point the review was already published. This is worth keeping in mind.
3. People seem to be completely misreading my comments about the harshness of the world and its characters, which I said I really liked about the game. At no point did I say it was too difficult - the closest I came was to say the early difficulty removes the compulsion to explore, which I was unsure about.
4. “You obviously weren’t paying attention.” This is true. Hence why I say in the review: “I wasn’t paying attention.” I was illustrating a point about how tuned in you have to be.
5. I spoke to quite a lot of people, actually, in various regions of the world. Yes, in Harbour Town, it did become apparent how the levelling system worked. But only eventually - I didn’t initially twig. Maybe that was me expecting something different for whatever reason, or maybe the game just never had the courtesy to properly explain it.
6. I started again a couple of times after becoming more knowledgeable of how the world worked, and wanted to try my hand at the early decisions again, seeing how things would pan out with that extra wisdom.
7. I rather liked the game. That’s one that people seem to be missing. There are elements I really don’t like, and perhaps that’s because I’m not entirely the target market (despite being a long-time RPG fan), but then not a lot of people are. I can only write what I think, based on my impressions, for the readership of this site. If you’re a huge Gothic fan who had Risen on pre-order and knew they were going to adore it, well, this review kinda wasn’t for you, y’know?
Hope that clears some stuff up. Thanks to everyone for reading.
(Oh, to expand on 7: that said, I did try to approach this from all angles. That *was* the angle. Hence the conclusion. Hence the recommendation to read lots of reviews and see which fits. Hence the admission that I’m not sure how to judge the game. All in the name of clarity and fairness, eh?)
Lewis’s review makes Risen sound nothing short of fascinating. I’m really tempted to pick up the PC version.
After reading the review and the comments I’m really tempted to get Risen, its sounds really interesting and obvious passion fan have for it, based on the comments, makes the temptation even stronger.
Can anyone tell me what are the main differences are between the PC and 360 versions? Why is the 360 version considered inferior?
Texture detail is enormously higher on the PC, for a start. Other than that, the interface issues on the 360 version can be pretty much eradicated by assigning shortcut keys, thus eliminating the need for trawling around various sub-menus to get to where you want.
On of the best reviews i’ve read in a long time.
I’ve got an understanding of the game and is what i wanted.
Thanks a lot Lewis
I’ve actually picked this game up now and I’m about 7 or 8 hours in and all I’ve been doing is side quests, I’ve barely even touched on what’s really going on in the main story, and yet I can’t put it down. There’s an addictive quality to it that I just can’t explain, there’s a bunch of really obvious flaws in it, mentioned in the review, but it really appeals to me for some reason.
Greg - AAAAAhhh, now you know what we felt when we played Gothic 1 8 years ago and Gothic 2 and its expansion 6 years ago : ).Piranha Bytes are the best fantasy world builders in the industry.
This is a very good review. I’ve been playing Risen since it came out and my character has attained level 8, and I’ve upgraded my weapons and armor. The game story line goes linear at the beginning, but the game open up later. Then you can tho what ever you want. For me this game is far better than Oblivion.
[...] matter; personal preference is key. Greg’s up first, delighting in a quirky RPG that scored only 6/10 here at Resolution, and split opinion more than almost any other title in [...]