Sacred 2 - PS3 - Review [View All]

[Ohio Joe]

First, let me say that this game is also available on PC and Xbox 360 with only minor differences.

This is a Diablo clone, make no mistake. I had been looking forward to this game, it looked to have an interesting set of characters, not your generic cookie cutter types. Then the game was delayed, delayed again, then dumped out with little fanfare, it did not look good (the official site did not even make mention of the release). I decided to rent the game and give it a shot but was not expecting very much since the reviews (mostly for PC) said the game was full of bugs.

I have to admit, I was really very pleasantly surprised, this game is a lot of fun to play (assuming you like action RPGs). Enough so that I went and bought a copy after my rental.

The game play is much what one would expect, get quest, kill monsters, return to quest giver get reward, level up, assign stats/skills, rinse, repeat. If you don't dig this type of game, there is nothing new here that will bring you into it. There is plenty of loot to be found and a very handy one touch button to pick everything up. The button can also be modified to only pick up loot about a certain grade. Everything, magics (and better) only, specials (and better) only, etc.

Bugs - I've only noticed one bug so far and thats with the quest arrows. In the mini map, there are supposed to always be two arrows, one gold and one silver. The gold points to-wards the next main quest and the silver to-wards the next side quest. The silver one often disappears and you have to reset it by going into the quest log and selecting a side quest manually. Not a big deal.

Quests - There are boat loads of quests, over 600. It can be a little overwhelming because you get a lot of them going at them same time but since they are not timed, you can relax and just do them as you feel like it.

Mapping - The maps are the biggest disappointment so far for me. You nave the mini map that shows your general location and the world map that shows the whole world. You can zoom in and out on the world map but it gives no more detail up close. In a way this a pain in the ass because the world in huge... really huge, dwarfs Diablo totally. You seem to spend a lot of time figuring out how to find the path to your quest but... thats also kind of ok because unlike Diablo, you are not really going to rush to the end of hell difficulty and spend you time doing Diablo runs, wandering around the huge world works well too for getting experience points.

Leveling up is a little different. Your stats get an auto boost with each level (max level 200) plus you get point(s) you can distribute. You also get skill points (1 to start with per level, more as you get to higher levels, I think it tops out at 5 per level) to distribute. You can have a max of ten skills... now, these are not spells. I'll get to those in a bit. There are a bunch of skills and this is really the key to making different character types within a given character. You do not have access to all ten skills from the start, just one. As you level up, you get to pick new skills (my highest character is level 15 and has 5 skills). Skills can be things like weapon mastery, defense bonus, black smithing, reduce spell cool times, spell bonus's, all kinds of crap. Picking through and figuring out how to make your ultimate character looks like heaven for a stat junkie like me.

Spells - Every character has a total of 15 spells, broken into three groups of five each. You level up your spells by finding runes, nothing to do with your character level (well... mostly). Runes are plentiful to find and it appears that all spells can be found even from the very beginning of the game. What spell level you want to make a spell, really depends on how you plan to use it. The higher the level, the longer the cool down time (how long before you can use it again). Items and skills can reduce cool down times, so it is a balancing act.

Graphic/control - The game is beautiful, just no other way to say it. It does suffer from a little bit of "sudden pop up" but it does not really distract from the game. Controls take a little getting used to, on the PS3 it uses every button with some doing double duty if a trigger is pressed. It takes a little getting used to but not issue for fans of this type of game, all the buttons you want and need are there.

Overall - I'm seeing myself playing this game a lot, for a fan of the genre it has a lot to offer. Casual fans and those not into the genre should probably stay away or rent first.