Review of PS3 version. This is the usual addictive RPG type games that has been lacking in a couple of months or years. The transition from PC to console game play is perfect. For a while I couldn't image playing RPG on a console, but I gave it a shot and definitely would say the console would be the prefer choices now. Like its PC roots, there minor bugs in this game that is annoying and makes it less refine then Diablo. This RPG is a bit of Diablo and Baldur Gate.

Game-play

This game is as fun as the Diablo series, but a little less refine and buggy unlike most console games. The hack and slash, weapons customizations, levels do feel like Diablo. The swamp, desert, underworld does seem it was taken from D3. Otherwise when you first start out clueless like Balder Gate with very little tutorial, you end up figuring things out a couple of days later. The control layout is amazing where everything is quickly accessible. It is that you will have to figure most things yourself. It been a week and I just figured that the gem goes in the grey socket and amulet or amulet goes in the gold. Also you can wear rings or an amulet. The map is good but need some work, Chapter 5 where they overlay the underworld and real world is confusing at first. The quest are great, but some are buggy, like the tasks was can't be done because of some odd reason; this is like 2 in 600 quests. The online version works fine with a second controller in private or up to four others in public setting. Too bad you can't use the keyboard and text, but you can use your Bluetooth mic.

Strategy

Bosses aren't that tough in general, especially if you got a lot of heal potions you can just stand there for 10mins pressing the heal and action buttons. Once in a while you switch gears if one boss is more susceptible to fire or ice, but that is it. Some players I seen, have mastered some spells and kill things off quickly, so the leveling of skills and item forging is as deep as Diablo, but it is a little confusing which skills or attributes is better. Get a horse or a mount creature, since it will save a lot of time running around between quests. You can combo some spells together also, I got 3 in 1.

Design,

Wow, is what I got to say on some of the level details for such a big open world game. The detail is amazing and the levels are very different. I love that you can zoom in and out like in Heroes of Might and Magic V. You can play it as a 3rd person or zoom out into the regular overview of RPG. The enemies are Diablo like clones in type of magic. The teleport system is alright, you about a minute or two away from any portals. The characters weapons and armors is very detail and nicely designed (unique) like Diablo and much better than the cheap looking items from Baldur Gate. The enemy too looked unique and had some varies.

Conclusion

This is an awesome game that I just decided to pick up rather than wait for other hack and slash RPGs to come out like Demon Souls (DS), Dragon Age (DA) for the console and Diablo 4 for the PC. I am not disappointed at all. I got to say the story telling or movies animation and music scores (background) didn't drawed me into the game or created great atmosphere as many other RPGs I played. The animation looked amateur. It is the action and everything else that kept me playing. Funny how the PS3 is lacking in PRG since its release, but by the end of the year and early next you got DS, DA and the White Knight Chronicles.

• from

this game,is great this is one of the best games ever made! i look foward to a part 3! keep up the good works

• from

Although I was only able to spend about an hour playing the game yesterday, I feel like I have a few noteworthy remarks about the console release of Sacred 2. Take my feedback with a grain of salt but with that being said I'll do my best to describe what I experienced. At the very least this will provide a morsel of information out there about this highly (for some) anticipated game. Also to confess, I've not played the PC version more than about an hour so I'm not overly familiar with the game in it's many iterations--but I do love dungeon crawlers of any kind like Diablo I & II, Titan Quest, Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 1 & 2, and Champions of Norrath.

The installation of the game took as long as any other 360 game--roughly 8 minutes. The installation improved load times significantly. I don't mean to imply that loading levels is non-existent but they do load with in seconds.

I decided to play as a Shadow Warrior and check out how melee is handled in this game. You have the option to choose to play the Light or Dark campaigns and select an applicable deity to worship. The Shadow Warrior begins his saga in a tomb and my initial impressions was "cool, a dungeon! There's bound to be lots of loot around here!" I ran around a bit and everything looked well enough. It certainly wasn't mind blowing but it definitely looked better than the games I mentioned above. :)

Unfortunately, once outside the tomb the frame rate took a little bit of a hit. Not severe enough to make the game unplayable, but I think people who are really sensitive to a slight drop in frames and tearing will be put off by this. Personally, I thought it was a little annoying--but not annoying enough to ruin the gameplay. If I had to guess I would say it dropped < 30 fps.

The fighting was a little strange for me. I felt a little disconnected when fighting (melee) because you don't mash a button. It's not similar to the Baldur's Gates or the Champions of Norraths where you hit a button to attack. Instead you hold down the button and direct your attacks towards the enemies. It works--and I imagine it takes some getting use to--but for me I would rather mash on a button and feel more involved with attacking. It felt a little too passive but I am only an hour into the game. I imagine this is a mechanic that will feel more natural (and perhaps for connected?) in time.

Loading up on loot in these games is always something I look forward to--don't we all? In Sacred 2 (console), looting is done automatically when pressing the LB. Again, you feel a little detached when loot is magically transported into your inventory and where's the satisfaction when you don't get the feel of snatching it up? At least you see it on the ground and know you have to pick it up so the process isn't as drastically passive as Too Human where goodies didn't even fall on the ground but jumped into your inventory. I am sure this sounds totally trivial to a lot of you but for me, I enjoy picking it up and hearing the "clinks", the "clanks" and the "cha-chings" of the gold pieces. For those of you like me, a little thing like that is hugely missed.

I did notice that weapons, abilities/skills and magic can be bound to any of the 4 face buttons. The LT and RT act as a "shift" key so you can bind up to 8 more items for quick use. It looks really effective and I think it's a smart way to handle diversity in combat methods.

In the inventory, I noticed that comparing items is as easy as pressing a button so it does look like Ascaron made an effort to create as console-friendly game. Again, these are very early impressions of a ginormous game. There are still many many things left for me to see and find and get used to. Knowing some of you are as eager as I am for first-hand impressions of this game on the console -- feel free to ask if you have any questions!

• from

The fact there are pretty much no action RPGs this generation is a tragedy. My wife and I played so many on the PS2 and had a great time. You would think with all those great games to look at it would not be difficult to get it right, but apparently it remains very difficult as Sacred 2 demonstrates.

Pros:

-Action RPG

-Unique classes (+1 star for the Temple Gaurdian)

-Big world

-Lots of quests

-Included secret rock video

-Humor

Cons:

-There is no main plot. I mean maybe there is, but it was so incoherent I could not keep it together. Just random characters saying random stuff to move you through the towns and world.

-Loot is abundant, but trash. So you are sorting through an endless list of junk. This problem was in the first game. In effort to outdo Diablo 2 they pushed too far and outdid the fun factor. Sorting through 30 items every 5 minutes is just not that fun. You can actually have too much of a good thing.

- You could not trade between local co-op until a few days ago, but now you can once every 20 tries if you follow the exact ritual and make a blood sacrifice to the PSN. Buggy.

-What is it with games pushing you to use 2 accounts to play one local game. WORST GAME DESIGN EVER! I have one account on my PS3, I just want 1 account.

-There is a limit on the number of characters I can make on my account. On a single player game. Read that again. Its unbelievable.

-Character advancement, the premier fun of an RPG, sucks. Like too many RPGs there is no indication of how your choices actually impact your player and no useful guidance on how to make those choices. The interactions between your skills and combat arts can be complex and counter-intuitive. That could be fun...I guess. But it was not for me. On the internet you can read boards where people discuss this and write how you will probably trash your first few characters you got into the 20s as you learn the system. To get a character to level 20 takes 10 hours. I need to waste 30 hours just to learn the leveling system? Great for teens but if your system takes that much practice, its broken. Here is some advice for future game makers...bigger numbers are better, smaller numbers worse. Fun is the goal, not figuring out how clever your system is.

- A major skill which a class is dependent on is currently completely broken. Nice work guys.

- The character classes are unique but also too similar. Every one has a hit harder skill, a hit quick skill, ect. There is definitely variation, but they can all start to feel pretty similar.

I am sure there is more, but I have now expended all my venom and am feeling quite refreshed. Is it the best action RPG on the PS3? Weep with me when I say...probably.

• from

this is a lot of fun to play -- especially with someone else (co-op). there are many characters to choose from and a nice size map. ps3 version is a lot better on load up times than the 360 version.

nice site to help you decide if you want to play:

[...]

• from

A bit depressed and dizzy after playing this game for a few hours. waited 3 month for this only to be let down, here's why:

1. character design - none.

2. graphics - there's some slow down even in the 2 hours I played, and really didn't encounter any major scenes.

3. tutorial - Yes, this is a diablo clone, but come on, at least a minor tutorial would be nice. There is nothing at all.

4. Not sure if it's a camera or the graphics, but I sure was dizzy after a few hours of playing. and that tiny map you try to figure out where the quests and merchants are located, even on a 52" LCD, I had to really focus to see it.

5. quests - very unclear. no way points, nothing, good luck trying to find it.

6. The game is very open, this is good idea but it needs some direction. Can't just be an open map and you have no idea where to go, what to do.

7. Loot - to be not able to transfer loot between characters is insane. wow.

Don't think I'll be putting this back in again, better off playing Wolverine.

• from

im writing just a general review, game is good on its own legs, just if your expecting anything new and innovative you will be unpleased, however gameplay and enjoyment factor of massive slaughter on top of a fairly good customized skill system puts it above others of its genre currently

• from

I've been looking for something to fill the void of Diablo II since I came over to consoles. Baldur's Gate and Dark Alliance were ok, but lacked a certain something. I was a fan of the original Sacred so I thought I would give this one a go. Sadly, my favorite class is gone, but there are some new solid choices available for this iteration.

Single Player

Pro: Variety of stories depending on class and path

Pro: Tons of loot

Pro: Many levels of customization available

Pro: No where near as buggy as the first Sacred was (nor Sacred Gold)

Pro: There is an underlying sense of humor throughout the game. Read the tombstones or listen to the comments of your enemies (i.e. "I should have listened to my wife!" when killing a kobold)

Pro: The game world is HUGE. My wife and I played for 4 hours straight trying to reveal as much of the map as we could and we managed to hit 3.3%.

Con: Learning curve may be too steep for some

Con: A couple of glitches from time to time, but nothing serious

Con: The horses still pretty much stink

Couch-Coop

Con: You can't zoom the camera in.

Con: You and your teamates must be following the same path (shadow or light)

Con: You can't take your offline couch-coop game online (not an issue for me, but may be for some)

NOTE: You *CAN* trade with players on the same PS3. You must both have valid PSN accounts and you must both be logged into the server (as well as have the patch)

Online Coop

No clue, as I don't play online with folks anymore. I hear it's essentially the same as Couch-Coop.

• from

I love me some RPGs. I also love me some offline 2-player coop games, a residual effect of having grown up on Atari and NES platforms. So it is a rare day indeed when an offline 2 player RPG coop comes down the pike. Unfortunately, this one does more to reveal what is missing from a good RPG than to stand out on its own.

Sacred 2 is basically a poor man's Diablo 2. It has good visuals, but that's about where any favorable comparison ends. For example, combat in Sacred 2 is fairly uncertain and frustrating -- you can cast a spell that goes right through someone without injuring them, or continue standing in place and swinging a sword and hitting someone who is running away over a distant hill. It really drops you out of the game when you can actually "feel" the combat code locking you into a fight with a foe, artificially rotating your character and triggering combat moves and the like, instead of just intelligently dealing damage like Diablo 2 did. Btw, Diablo 2 came out like a decade ago.

A variety of other frustrations require you to actively ignore elements of the game in order to enjoy it -- never a good idea in a game:

1) Horrible, hammy in-jokes by the programmers. I don't even try to read the "hilarious" gravestone warnings anymore. And the catchphrases spouted by your characters are beyond atrocious. Remember how annoying it was for Anakin Skywalker to shout "Yippie!!!!!!!!" in The Phantom Menace? Well, apparently the 1 person in America who loved that movie ended up working on Sacred 2, particularly the Seraphim character. She shouts that phrase about every 5 dead monster. I recommend playing with earplugs.

2) Numerous broken skills. For example, on the PS3, the Blacksmithing skill doesn't even work. At all. Good thing I told you that before you built up that level 40 warrior, right? Wish someone had told me. Another skill claims that it will unlock "additional powers" of various divine relics that you pick up, in addition to their basic armor boosting abilities. Like an antidote relic might do more than give you more poison "armor". At least, that's what the skill says. However, pumping points into it does exactly nothing. 30 points later, I finally looked it up online and apparently none of the relics actually have any other attributes you can unlock. Another character goes onto the trash heap.

3) Extremely elaborate skill system. If you even figure out what fraction of player skills actually work, pumping them up and distributing related "modification" points is confusing in the extreme. Modification points are additional points that might make a given skill do more damage, or last longer, or have a greater area of effect, or the like. They are in addition to just pumping up a skill directly from runes or skill points. Get it? Me neither. Anyway, they unlock at seemingly random, and you get trapped in the "modification" page, so sometimes you end up having to modify and waste points on a skill you never use just so you can get back to the game. Better still, the higher a skill level, the longer it takes for cooldown between uses. The game itself warns you to NOT make skill levels high quickly, because you won't be able to use them often. Fantastic.

4) Every fetch quest known to man. "Fetch" quests are common quests in RPGs where you have to get Vial X or Lump of Metal Q and take it back to NPC Y to do something. Who cares what. Well, this game has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of those quests. They are everywhere. Seemingly every single person in the game world has a burning problem, and none of them can solve them alone. It's all up to you. I had a 45th level undead warrior character chasing rabbits around a city park. They're faster than you can run, so eventually he had to go buy a longbow for the sole purpose of helping a groundskeeper kill rabbits. Again: rabbits. What makes this worse is that once you wise up and start ignoring these people, you actually miss some good stuff. 99.9% of the quests are worthless time sinks that require you to run or teleport halfway across the globe to recover someone's teddy bear (actual quest!) but that 0.1% of real quests will net you a unique longsword that deals 250 damage or permit you to, say, actually use Runemasters. It's beyond annoying -- it makes you wonder if the game is actually a gigantic social experiment thrown together by our space ant overlords to see how well we could be trained to chase sugar cubes across the galaxy. Answer: quite well.

5) Loot. Most of everything you find is garbage. However, occasionally, completely at random, you will find unique armor or the like. Unless you happen to see a suspicious name pop up when auto-collecting another field full of trash ("Axe," "Broken dagger," "Alex's Firey Blaster Mace of Tyrannical Justice," "Boots"), odds are you will just sell it by accident at some point. Better still, many items are class-specific AND CANNOT BE TRADED DURING OFFLINE COOP. So if your warrior picks up that unique magic staff that only a dryad can use, the only way to give it to your friend is to sell it to a shopkeeper, and then spend millions of gold pieces buying it right back with a dryad character. Brilliant.

6) Uniques. Most foes are a dime a dozen. There are vast fields filled with annoying kobolds just waiting to lard up your inventory with worthless equipment. To paraphrase the Matrix, for the longest time I wouldn't believe it, but then I saw those fields with my own eyes. So too will you discover the beaches of a Million Identical Pirates, or the Forest of a Thousand Nearsighted Wolves. But the truly interesting monsters are unique. Once you kill them, they apparently never ever come back. For example, one time I followed this random river deep into the mountains. It kept going and going and going. And going. Honest to god, a good 30 minutes later, I popped out into this cave in which I was assaulted by a gigantic, screen-filling dragon. It was AWESOME. Then I killed that dragon, and got some mediocre loot. Later, after some saves and reloads, I went back. Dragon was still dead. Confused, I checked online, and learned I had killed one of maybe 7-8 dragons in the entire game. If I want to fight it again, I have to start all over again -- including a reset of the eleventy zillion quests I'd already completed. If it was a quest-related foe, I might understand -- but why purposefully make it so you can't fight any of the FUN monsters more than a few times? Why??

A related annoyance is that monster difficulty can vary wildly, and XP is related. Now when I start a new character, I simply take an hour and sprint -- literally running and ignoring everything -- until I reach the desert area where I can actually stock up on XP. It's far, far faster than popping skeletons on the head for 7 XP a whack.

7) Two player offline coop is very lukewarm in terms of fun. This is probably the kicker for me. Basically, one character starts a typical quest, and the other joins as the character class of their choice. In addition to the stupefying idiocy of not actually being able to trade with each other directly, it's also random as to who the computer will even permit to pick up dropped loot. Sometimes you can, sometimes your friend can -- and it bears no relation to which person opened the chest, which killed the foe, or anything like that. You just have to hope for the best. Having two players also reveals enemy pathfinding to be a joke: foes usually gang attack one player and ignore the other. You can kite a vast herd of foes in a circle with your friend as the hub and your friend can just kill and kill and kill and nobody notices. It's even more hilarious when you have NPCs travelling with you because of some stupid travel quest you may have picked up -- some NPCs, apparently chosen at random, are immortal. I've had NPCs in full plate with magical swords die almost immediately (you fail the quest, of course), while at present my 38th level Temple Guardian has an accompanying NPC fishwife -- literally an unarmed woman who screams and runs away at the sight of a foe -- traveling with him for a good 20 levels. She won't die. She can't die. And she's awesome at drawing all the incoming fire. It's like a Monty Python skit where she just runs by screaming in one direction, we blast her pursuers with magic or arrows, she runs back screaming in the other direction, etc etc.

All told, Sacred 2 could have used about another 6 months of development work. Some of its foibles are traced back to the old PC game and apparently were deemed "good enough" to keep (although I note that game at least had Dragons come back to life so you could fight them again) but others are sheer laziness. If there are character skills that don't work at all, and players cannot trade items, your game should not be released. It's just one of those rules gamers have collectively decided upon.

• from

Yeah I would put this game in with the "Worst games i've ever played list"

I first got the game a few day's ago i decided to buy it a few hours later it went right back to the store.

The controls are "clunky" I kept hitting the wrong buttons.

The interface is a JOKE, i'm sure they spent all of ten min's putting the interface together.

the story line is even worse and the voice acting is OKAY (i've heard alot worse) but while in battle you just want to scream "Shut up!" because they do get annoying.

it's not as "highly' customizable as the game wants you to think... some toons dont get new hair... you can't change anything about them but their gear and trust me... the gear is not that good looking.

The lay out of the world is utterly confusing, running around and grinding up SLOWLY to gain lvl's.

I think the BIGGEST dissapointment of all though are the graphics! it would have been great for 1999 but we are in 2009 and If I full price for a game it BETTER have awesome graphics... sadly .. no

I beg you not to get this waste of time game.... it's simply a waste of money and tim

• from

I bought the game mostly for the multiplayer. The multiplayer works OK even with the lack of trading items (offline), no pause feature, and only 1 player in their inventory at a time (a major disappointment and hindrance to learning this complex game).

Overall I am most disappointed with the gameplay. Let me briefly compare it to Champions of Norrath an action RPG for the PS2.

1.) Graphics - The graphics in S2 are detailed and impressive at times. The ability to seamlessly move into buildings and adjacent areas is nice. The character figures are slightly blocky and do not reflect all of the items you might be wearing. You cannot really examine your character's representation except at the start of a game. In multiplayer the figures are quite small (especially the females) and all 3 of the people that I have played it with sat very close to the screen so that we might see the action (42" HD TV).

The graphics in CON are overall superior. The detail is not as great in the overworld, however the areas you can travel in are more clearly delineated, the character representations are detailed and larger in multiplayer, and most wearable items are reflected in your character's appearance.

2.)Gameplay- S2 fighting is weak in multiplayer because of the size of the characters and the apparent loss of detail. I often did not even pay close attention to where I moved and to how I attacked with very little change in gameplay. The quests are quite boring (i.e. fetch this, kill that, pay this etc.) Quests are isolated islands not really adding anything to the overall story. Lots of text that I do not think anyone should take the time to read. The main story is almost non-existent.

The gameplay in CON is substantially better. Obviously, this same engine was successfully used in many other games (Fallout BOS, CON, RTA, BG, BG 2, Justice league heroes, etc.). The size of the characters is acceptable and actions are more clearly tied to the players controller performance. When there are quests they are substantial involving bosses and linking actions that show an overall goal and process.

3.)Inventory - S2 inventory functions are OK albeit non-intuitive. It is a knockout blow to me that the game only allows one person at a time in their inventory in local co-op.

CON inventory is very intuitive and easy to use for two players simultaneously. If 3 or 4 players are playing it becomes more difficult.

4.)Overall - S2 is a tedious game to play. Many things are not explained and most interactions are not intuitive. The size of the world and the complexity of player statistics do very little to assuage the sheer boring qualities of the gameplay and quests. It is a game that is difficult to enjoy

because of its glaring flaws and unfriendliness.

CON - This is a great game that honors the best ideals in action role playing games. Whether its spinning my character on his pedestal and appreciating a new weapon or battling a vicious boss deep in a dungeon - now this is a game that is satisfying and far better than anything S2 has to offer.

Final thoughts: Can S2 be fixed with patches? Probably not. It just seems to be too broken all over. I'm sorry about this because after all I spent $60 in hope of something more playable.

• from

This game is really fun and addicting. The only real complaint I have is that when you play co-op your charater is small and you can't zoom in, but you get use to it and the game is still really fun. Great for my husband and I to play together.

• from

This game is great. It has a rich complexity to the game-play that makes it progressively more fun the deeper you get into it. Also, and super important, are the difficulty of the trophies. The trophies are just right- they're not too simple, and they're not frustratingly impossible, making it the perfect balance of challenge and reward. The visuals are beautiful, and the characters and voice work is funny and entertaining.

This game does have some flaws though, that cannot be avoided- but nothing too bad, or detrimental to the experience. Before I got this game, i read all sorts of reviews, and a lot of reviewers (ign, gametrailers, PTOM, etc.) gave it just mediocre scores. The hardest thing about this game was that it was so complex at the beginning, without any tutorial stages or explanations throughout the game. This is a game that you have to read the booklet before you start playing (and it's like a 50 pg manual). The actions and buttons are simple enough, but the character and skill variations have no explanation at all during the game and none of it will make any sense without the booklet.

Sometimes, during a busy scene, the game will have to load the next area and you might have to wait a second or two.

And the last noticeable flaw with the game is in it's local co-op mode. Items in this game are character class specific, and if you pick up an item that is not for you, you cannot drop it, but can only scrap it, or sell it. So, if your co-op teammate picks up an item that their character cannot use, but your character can, there is no way to trade items (only on local co-op is this unavailable. Item trading is available on other multiplayer modes), which just seems odd that they excluded this feature for co-op game play.

The game is, overall, very fun and a very beautiful game. It has a lot of ways to upgrade your character, which might seem overwhelmingly complex at first, but with the self-assigned face buttons and D-pad for items and weapons, it's, at the same time, simple enough to just pick up and enjoy right away. The open world is huge, and you'll find yourself logging in hours upon hours in exploration and in solving quests.

• from

I happen to really love this game!! This is coming from someone who really doesn't care much for playing RPG's. I've played Champions of Norrath, Gauntlet, and such. I think the one thing that I love most about this game is the fact that you can level up your character to 200! The map is huge, and the quests seems endless. You can enhance your weapons with rings, pendants and runes. Other items allows you to upgrade your weapons. There are combat arts which allows you to enhance your characters fighting abilities. There are character specific mounts, and horses. At times, the game seems "broken", but the new patch seems to have fixed some of those flaws. You can now trade between characters on a single console. Aside from the few flaws that still remain, it's still a very fun and addictive game! For more game specific information, I recommend [...]. See you in Ancaria!

• from

I was a little hesitant at first when buying this game but after 30 hours of play I still haven't lost interest. Rivals Oblivion for game content, but the combat system is a little harder to master at first. Over all a five star tittle. Well worth the money!

• from