Risen - Review | A 10-Year Retrospective
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 พ.ย. 2019
- A review/critique/analysis of 2009's action-RPG "Risen" by Piranha Bytes. A spiritual successor to the Gothic series, Risen is a step in the right direction after Gothic 3 that doesn't feel quite as good as it could've been.
Read the text version of this review on my blog:
thenocturnalrambler.blogspot....
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/ thenocturnalrambler
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To me RISEN is exactly what Piranha Byte should aim for. Perfectly sized map and wonderful sense of progression and exploration
All RPG's should aim for.
It was alot better than Elex for sure.
Yep. Same. Elex was a step in the wrong direction imo, Risen was pretty much perfect to me, just pump out more Gothic clones and I'm happy :P
See how many think like us...
Still they fked up Risen 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 XD
It's my favourite game of all time :)
I often return to Risen, play the first half of the game and then leave happily, only to repeat the process after 2-3 years.
There's some exploit I remember where you can infinitely kick the crap out of that guy that lives in the water house above the large bandit camp. You can farm exp for as long as you have the patience for. You could try that and then run through the rest of the game and be done with it. That's what I did.
The best way to play the game!
Wow I do the exact same thing lol, I've got like 90 hours in of Risen played and I've never got past the last 1/4 or so
When I haven't played Risen 1 for a while and when I come back I play the game until it's finished. I'm good or a day or 2 or 3 with some breaks of course and enjoying the OST and story (even though I heard for 10 years haha) but still fun to listen again if you haven't played for like 6 months
@@omegasupreme5527 additionally one guy (caspar in the german version, dunno what his name is in english) up in the fortress sells (as far as i could tell) infinite apples, probably cause you "need" 10 of them for a quest up there - so you can basically get infinite strength & gold :D only ever used the weed-trick tho
I think Risen 1 is underrated. It really induces a strong sense for exploration and the lighting effects can create some really stunning vistas.
In contrast to other tone deaf open world RPGs I always wanted to see more of this world.
Tbh i hate the TES like camera in 3rd person, like moving mouse even when standing changes your direction. I wish it could be altered
@@alkaupadhyay7650 how is it "TES like" when PB been doing 3rd person rpgs since before Morrowind
@@ivarisalie8759 you replied to a 2yr old comment, and more people have played TES than PB 's games
It's amazing how only small channels produce such great content and put so much effort into what they do
"So... the Orcs..." - "Can't have Orcs, our property now." - "So... the Lizardpeople. And the Goblins..." - "Can't have Goblins, our property now." - "Lizardpeople and Gnomes and Swampsharks..." - "Can't have Swampsharks, our property now." - "Lizardpeople and Gnomes and Rotworms and Bloodflies..." - "Can't have Bloodflies, our property now." - "Lizardpeople and Gnomes and Rotworms and Gravemoths."
Also: anything with Alix Wilton Regan in it already has brilliant voice acting.
Rosenkranz once again made a wonderful soundtrack. I really like 'the island at night'.
i loved his music in gothic 2
Seriously, criminally undersubbed channel. Amazing content!
that's just because he doesn't do videos about mainstream games.
Piranha bytes is also a criminally underrated team
@@kollanyidavid4422 They made two great games 18-19 years ago..
true , didn't expect such content.
@@Watchiratzuu It should be enough to give them some credit
I LOVE THIS GAME
I still can remember one quest where You were tasked with stealing a ring from a house in the harbor city. No clue where it is, no quest marks, find the house, gain access and give it to the guy who asked You for it. NOTHING IN THE GAME told me that You can climb a building next to the house, and with precise movement get into the house with some parkour. Man this game had You comming up with ideas on how to solve problems
Another nice world change example is if you're a bandit in chapter 4. After Mendoza goes rogue, Esteban orders you to talk to Carlos and tell him to get out of town, since their leader has abandoned them and they have nothing keeping them there. Carlos complies and the Inquisition is completely gone from Harbor Town (in gameplay terms, they're all despawned from the world).
You mentioned how mundane a lot of this game can be, and for me that's always been a positive. It all feels very comfy and small scale.
The ending really sums it up: PB got burned with Gothic 3 because they completely overstretched their ressources and underestimated the massive scope of the game. They built this huge world but seemingly only filled half of it with content due to time and budget restraints.
Risen was the product of a developer looking back on what worked, what didn't and what was possible with their current ressources and the fact that they no longer owned the rights to Gothic. They did play it a little too safe, but at that point they were doing everything they could to show their loyal fans they would keep the spirit of Gothic alive.
And then they made Risen 2... and 3. It's like they forgot again what worked with the previous games and Risen 1. I don't get it. Is there another head of the studio that fucks everything up for them or what it's really bizarre. Because I thought that Risen 1 was really fun, especially the combat compared to Gothic 3.
@@ogdamo3167 The drastic changes to Risen 2 and 3 might have something to do with the departure of Mike Hoge.
Time wasn't technically an issue. They were late on delivering and as you said underestimated the scope of the game, but it was the Publishers looking to have that bump and make investors "happy" that it got shoved out rather than letting them actually improve it.
Yes and Gothic 3 you were able to fight Orcs at level 0/1 or something without much gear to begin with. They dumbed the orcs way down and that they had to rush the game to finish it.. they should've made the orcs the same level as in Gothic 2... you can to cities and finish some quests for the people inside and in the meantime you gain more experience and you can level up more and you can finally pay for a better gear. So before you can take over a city you have to do some serious level up... I didn't feel it in Gothic 3.. the whole leveling up and getting a better gear wasn't really that important. It was just meh
@Corristo89
unfortunately PB did not participate in the development of Gothic 3. Jowood excluded them, that shit! www.piranha-bytes.com/docs/GothicGoetterdaemmerungPM-DE.pdf
This was one of the best and most immersive RPGs I've ever played. For me it got everything right.
This music made by Kai Rosenkranz! I love, love this music. All these soundtracks I feel it just talks to me. From Risen, by calm, light and darkness, by atmosphere. Brilliant. And from Gothic, mostly G3, where I lost my self loving this. I dont know how Rosenkranz did this, but It is, from G3 and Risen just excellent!
Music in this game is beyond beautiful and atmospheric. Loved it
What i liked most was the crafting. Heat the metal, hit the bar, cool it, shape it, etc.
The most legendary part about PB games are the German voices and lines. Can't imagine it in another language
Though Risen 1 has some really good voiceacting and this is coming from a fellow german^^
@@sapiensfromterra5103 I mean Lena Heady (Cercei Lannester ) is is one of the voices which is so awesome
now i feel depressingly old.
Can't wait till you review the whole trilogy. I know Risen series has not became what many people want. But to me it still have a special place.
I deny the existence of 2 and 3
Come now. Is not that bad ^^.
It have it own charm. Who not want to be a pirate, ARGH!!!
Risen 2 was truly abysmal with that stupid Pirates odf the Carribean flavour. The third part was alright.
@@viettrungtran4500 I see it a bit like you. Risen 2 and 3 are not what I wanted the series to become after I played Risen 1. I don't understand why they changed the setting in R2. Imo it would have been much better and more interesting to explore the devistated medieval wasteland of the mainland and explore the lore of the lost kingdom than this pirate things. It just feels wrong and does not really fit with Risen 1. Why are there muskets now? Why does the Inquisition hate magic now? I know there is an ingame explanation, but come on. Developing new gun powder weapons that work this good in a time span of approximately 10 years while the world is being destroid by titans? No...
That said gameplay-wise I think PB tried a lot of new things, especially in Risen 2, that can be nice. (Ingame Cutscenes, Story, new talents like silver tongue or monkey trainer) I think Risen 2 has the best directed story of all PB games with many twists and really interesting gameplay mechanics like the voodoo dolls. But on the other side they abonded too much of what was the soul of their previous games. Risen 2 feels completely different. Questmarkers, quick travel, you CAN'T loot defeated human NPCs and you CAN'T kill them (WTF), no interaction with the world (You can't sit on chairs etc.), no eating and drinking animations AND a paused inventory, minigames (although I found them to be quite funny), quick time events, a really REALLY linear game world, no free climbing, an even more simplified magic system than in Risen 1 (You can't even call it a proper magic system. There are only like two permanent spells and no mana bar), a strange combat system (muskets were broken in Risen 2 and melee combat was buttonsmashing)
Risen 3 tries to be something between Risen 1 and Risen 2 and gameplay-wise I think it is better than Risen 2. But it is still too similar to please the oldschool PB fans and somehow it is also in a weird spot where I think it does not really know what it wants to be. Oh and the story is just uninteresting and has logical errors. (Why does Mendoza have a completely different character now? Why is Patty looking completely different?) But the world itself was much more interesting to explore and had really cool locations and loot.
But still I had fun when playing these games and I could still feel the charme of PB here and there. But I never got myself to play them for a second time. Maybe in the future.
Risen 2 and 3 are not at all bad. They did mess up with the combat system, especially in 2, but the part that always mattered for PB, the world design, is as good as ever. I would, in fact, say that Risen 3's world design is better than 1, because the locations are highly diverse and you don't spend as much time in dungeons. They also have much better main characters after the bland blank slate of the first game, and better characters in general. In fact, Risen 2's version of the nameless hero is leagues above even the Gothic's version, let alone the first game's.
Also, the setting in 1 is extremely vague and undefined, while in later games they did a lot to make it distinct.
Risen 2 also has some of the best quests in the series, and I'm of course talking about the voodoo possession ones.
The music gives me the feeling ; "I was there once in my life" and man... Its so good to return
Gothic 2 > Gothic 1> Risen > Gothic 3 > Risen3 >Risen 2 my biggest problem with the later Risen games is the focus on pirates, Phiranya bites always had a little fetish for pirates and they probably thought that it would be great to push that theme due to the success of pirates of the Caribbean but it kind of goes against the previously established immersion imo.
I love how at the end of Risen your character is strong enough to fight an army of lizardmen and a Titan but then Risen 2 comes along and PUFF, magically you're useless again with no fuckin explanation. At least in Gothic 2 they explained it with the resurrection.
@@paweklejna5812 they even managed to get an explanation why it happened in Gothic 3 - where Pirates steal your ship and equipment and once again you have to start from scratch
Risen 2 was cute though and it gave me a summer feeling exploring the island and the whole atmosphere with the great OST got me there. Risen 3 didn't do anything for me.. and I was done with the pirate theme around that time and we had to go again like an annoying pirate with a lot of curse words in it. I prefer Risen 1 and 2 next to gothic 1 and 2. Risen 3 and Gothic 3 can be flushed
Rating on point. I do like the pirate theme but the execution wasn't particularly good. I did however enjoy Risen 3, it had the same feeling of exploration that I remember from older PB games. Also - being a voodoo pirate and flying as a parrot over the jungle felt awesome. Gothic 3 has one of the best soundtracks ever whether it be in games or movies/TV shows.
I love how no one even mentions Gothic 4.
Glad to see your channel picking up steam, so to speak.. ; ) Always enjoyed your online blog.
Nice review. I really liked risen, but after closer inspection the flaws he pointed are really there. Although I'd still say it's a nice, short game. The world design and immersion are pretty nice, very resembling original gothic.
I especially loved the concept that you can end up in a particular faction by accident - by getting beaten up and detained. Never saw anything like that before or after.
I' ve always been unsure if I wanted to try out Risen. Now I definitely will. Thank you.
You've got a good cadence and insights that are on par with a lot of the other game analysis channels I watch, keep on it and I think you'll find more success with your channel.
Hi there mate, great channel, love your reviews. Keep up the great work! They are very high quality and you certainly dedicate lot of time into them, you certainly deserve more subs.
The first one was the best of the risen games.
38:11 I actually think that enemies not following any combat pattern makes the combat more interesting because even if you fight the same enemy the fight looks different. Considering the amount of things to kill in Risen it would get boring really fast if you just had to learn the pattern and exploit it.
To be clear, my complaint isn't just "they don't follow any sort of predictable pattern," but that their animations are so fast and so incredibly random that you can't make informed decisions during the battle, because there's barely any warning of what they're going to do, or that they're even going to do anything at all. In other words, it's one thing for enemies to do different things and be unpredictable, so that you can't know in advance what they're going to do, before they do it, but it's another for everything to be so fast and so random and so unpredictable that you can't even tell what they're doing as they're doing it. As such, the learning curve and skill threshold are lowered significantly because the game simply doesn't give you enough information to take advantage of the combat system as a player, so that you can make smart decisions or quick reactions; against certain enemies, everything feels like a wild guess, which makes landing hits and taking damage feel random and unsatisfying.
In short, the enemy AI can be as random and variable as they want, following no discernible patterns whatsoever, as long as there are sufficient "wind up" and "cool down" animations that you can learn how to read as a player, to be able to perform better at the combat system. That's what makes the Souls combat so satisfying for so many people; because enemies give subtle little tells indicating what they're about to do, and so there's a learning process with each enemy where have you have to learn how to recognize and differentiate different types of animations, and then pair those animations with their subsequent attacks. Enemies typically have enough different types of attacks, with similar-but-different-looking wind up animations, that it takes several encounters with them before you can even start to see the full picture, and it takes trial-and-error thereafter to really get the hang of things, but then the level design and enemy placement continually changes and evolves to put you in different scenarios where those enemy attack patterns will play out a little differently. Plus, they have enough different types of attacks that they can do different things in different orders so you can't know exactly what they're going to do a few seconds in advance, so that a similar fight against the same enemy will still play out a little differently.
Point is, in the Souls games, you learn and improve as a player by deciphering the enemies' movesets -- by making keen, perceptive observations and learning to associate certain tells with certain outcomes, and using deductive reasoning to determine the best response for each stimulus. The better you get, the faster you can recognize what they're doing and react accordingly, but you're always given that opportunity to see what they're doing (or about to do) before the attack hits. As compared to Risen, where enemies just seem to launch into random attacks with zero preparatory animations that connect in only six animation frames, sometimes happening so fast that you literally can't process what's happening until after it's already finished, where your only hope is to pre-emptively guess that they *might* be attacking in the next 0.73 seconds so that your dodge move can be sufficiently out of the way of their attacks, without being 0.21 seconds too fast that their perfect tracking spins them around to hit you, or 0.21 seconds too slow that they hit before your fingers finish executing the dodge input. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but that's kind of how it feels compared to other games, and why I find Risen's combat a little lacking in comparison.
Such a great channel, I hope you'll receive the attention you deserve!
Yepp, as a German I of course find the German vocalisation the best BUT my first Risen experiences were English and Russian and those vocalizations were AMAZING and 100% professional! 🙏
This game made me realise I love the swamp setting in video games above any other. Great video and great game
You should play From Softs games lol
Crucially, Patty is voiced by Lena Headey, also known as Cersei Lannister. Also featuring Andy Serkis (Gollum) as The Inquisitor and John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) as Don Esteban.
Thanks
Risen 1 is the most beautiful game of PB. Those warm dark smooth colours. Gosh!
For me the graphics looks like Oblivion and Skyrim combined, in a good way ofc :D hell, still played it to this day just walkin around the world with some of my most fav elder scrolls ost collections, the feelings man...
Such a great overview! Impressive editing as well. Easy sub. I'll probably comment more later.
This was the first real videogame I played, back when I was like 10 or 11. Loved it as a kid, having big Nostalgia right now. It will always have a special place in my heart!
I remember that the Alchemist in Khorinis described you possible locations where the plant needed for permanent potions grows. The game doesn't write it down in a log or anything, you as player are expected to remember it. Later in the game when i actually started finding these plants more commonly i realized that this description given by the alchemist applied each time and im pretty sure if you are dedicated enough you can write descriptors like these for each plant by yourself. So a simple fetch quest in the early game ended up teaching the player how to spot locations where a rare and extremely useful plant can be found which made the flora of Khorinis feel extremely immersive.
I do not believe that any Pyranha Bytes games went to these lengths with world design ever after.
I love Risen as a series but despite them being a spiritual successor I still really miss Gothic.
The plants feel too random. Lack of Diego, Gorn, Milten and Lester type characters takes away a lot of cameradery that Gothic 1 and 2 so excellently captured. Especially considering how important Patty ends up being during Risen 2 and 3 i feel like that plotline should've been expanded further. Risen 1 screamed to have a Night of the Raven styled expansion because even Gothic 2 suffered a lot by not having it. The expansion increases the scope of the game so organically that its hard to imagine playing the game without it. It's easy to forget that it not only rebalanced the entire game, re-added the entire Water Circle magic but also expanded Khorinis with new questlines that you wouldn't even think were missing in the original game.
After Risen 2 and 3 dumbed down the Risen 1 formula Elex feels like a tiny step in the right direction. Drinking potions mid combat no longer happens instantly, you have to leave yourself vulnerable before getting healed and the stamina meter as well as attack patterns for animals helps with the combat system but its still not as in depth as Risen was. Each faction has exclusive perks and getting higher ranks in your faction is completely optional so its adds more side stuff for late game however all side-quests can be done in Chapter 1 so comparing the chapters becomes very hard. The main story feels a little awkward at times but at least the game has a main story. It honestly feels like a more realized version of what Gothic 3 was supposed to look like... especially once your consider the size of the map and which Biomes Pyranha Bytes chose to include. Risen 3 was a improvement compared to Risen 2 in almost every aspect so I wonder how Elex 2 will end up looking. I'm just sad that we're likely never going to see anything as great as the original 2 gothic games.
Preach baby.
Don't know, I do think Risen 3 is the worst of the series, yes, maybe it has improvements over the 2nd, but at the same time it lost all of the remaining charm of the series. Risen 3 wasn't even concludes the story, it just a big pile of mess imo.
@@Pmurder3 I never really saw Risen 3 as something that's supposed to conclude the story. Just something that implied that the Hero from Risen 1 isn't the only one capable of killing titans which solidifies the ending of Risen 1 "Humanity has Risen". Also I doubt you can make a satisfying ending to the series since there are no big stakes. There is no Titan leader, no evil gods, once you kill the remaining titans nothing will happen. Showing that there are multiple individuals who are able to lead humanity into the future is the best ending they could've chosen in my opinion.
and thats why constantino will always be a don! haha
I loved playing Risen but the whole final boss scene felt like I went from an RPG to an arcade shoot-out which, for me, was underwhelming at best.
oh please. you got all the gears that was needed and the weapon to finish it off. Your little sword wouldn't affective... you had to search these gears and weapon for a reason. Yes the battle can be boring but at least the game has a final boss and it felt good finishing it off
I disagree though. You're fighting a Titan. With right equipment you were able to finish the boss. your mortal powers alone weren't enough. They might could've added some stats to the weapon if you had more STR points invested to beat the boss a bit faster. But if we were overleveled and finished the boss with some magic and a few hits we also would complain how easy it was. This setup was the best to end an game
@@capcom23 it was not the best setup to beat the game. A friend of mine only played bow gun and his combat skills were pretty shit. He still won against the titan because the battle was boring and not a great end to a good game.
I killed the skeleton dragon in gothic 2 with two shots with that anti-undead paladin rune.
I killed the skeleton dragon in gothic 2 with two shots with that anti-undead paladin rune.
Spot on review. I hope you get more subs despite gothic series not being very popular with american audience
I'm fairly sure he's on some sort of black list - black hole of youtube. We already had english(or at least english speaking) youtubers making videos about Gothic and gathering a lot of views, yet there we have TNR with his upstanding quality reviews yet not gathering nearly as much praise, which just keeps me wondering, why?
Its because he's having lets plays and video essays in the same channel.
Have my subscribe--you know your info is concentrated when I, the viewer, needs to pause to sort all amazing combustion happening in the fantasy workshop in my brain; well written
Super good video ! I discovered your channel today and i already watched almost all your reviews :) Thanks to you I remembered I have the Risen trilogy in my Steam library, i'm downloading them right now. Hope you'll do a review of Risen 2 and 3 too, meanwhile you got a new sub :)
Honestly, Mendosa's plan sounds like the best option...
Well, if he couldn't control the titan then everyone would have died.
@@thebandofbastards4934 but they all will when the titans come too.
@@HallyVee The titans didn't invade the island because the fire titan was locked inside it. Setting it free would give them the oportunity to attack.
Your comment has disappeared. Yes I understand that Mendosa knew that. He also knew the rest of the entire world had zero chance. And likely this island as well, eventually.
it is like the plot from Watchmen: Sacrifice Millions - To save Billions
Meanwhile: *Angry Joe*
Yeah, that review was the first one Joe made that I really disliked. I remember he and Zeitgeist Reviews were like the only two english speakers to even talk about this game.
Now I feel old.
Angry Juan was never good
well, in his defense he did play on the console version which has absolutely horrendous controls and bugs
Gamesweasl hated too. Said Fallout 3 was better.......I wish i was jokeing
@@nihlus9589 Not really an excuse. He didnt understand core elements of the game. He complained literally that this game made you think what to do next without a glowing questmarker and that it didnt pause when you open the map. Overall he strongly damaged this franchise by also later becoming devoted to always trash on these games which most likely strongly affected the sales of these games negatively in the west.
Yep. This game was probably the most sane decision PB took back in the days after Gothic 3.
But I'm very sorry that Risen 2 and 3 were under the sea level when comparing them to this.
Fantastic review !
Risen 3 is ok, I think they develope some style only in that game, while first was copy of the gothic 1 and 2 and second was an experiment of some sort
I love all PB games and I'm a fan of the first hour. Surprising is here for sure that Risen 2 is one of my favorite! I know this opinion is rare, but I love this flair of a lot of islands. All of this islands had another feeling.
@@adlidetstudios7889 I can't say that risen 2 is my favorite, but it's not a bad game for sure, I enjoyed it from start to the very end. I think the main problem with this game is that they switched the setting from ordinary fantasy to pirate theme very quickly. It's like a few years from the first game and everybody shooting from guns. But the game itself was pretty nice
@@MsVector666 For me is Patty the main problem. This girl is very annoying, just to bring her in the kitchen for work was a good moment 😁
@@adlidetstudios7889 that's right😂
Been waiting, finally here it is!
@Whitie me to there is one more youtuber that does piranha bytes games in same order
My first and favorite Role Playing Game of all time!.....
Have you played Gothic 1 or 2?
CESSKAR No, not yet. I have only played Risen trilogy, and Elex.......
@@AmitDas-lz3bx Try gothic 1 and especially 2 , and u'll see even more immersion and progression than in risen
@@mariusbalan9124 That would depend on nostalgia and love for a certain game. Sometimes nothing can compete with your first love.
lul
Thanks for this video man, helped me decide the game isn't for me but felt like i should mention the quality and depth of the review, really appreciate it, helps me make a more informed decision, have a sub too my good man, cheers!
ah, Risen… so much fond memories about this game. seeing Piranha Bytes stumble with every subsequent game really breaks my heart.
Still one of my favorite games to this day. No hand holding. Figure shit out on your own. More games need this, or at least an opt in button to turn off quest markers and hints.
Would be nice but it would require so much more thought to be put into level design and writing. Often quests are designed with the quest marker in mind in the first place.
Great review again! I really liked Risen. It felt a lot like Gothic 2 (which it was heavily inspired by, obviously).
Now, you talk about the pretty elaborate combat in Risen. However, there's one HUGE problem with it: there's one cheap little trick you can do to make fights against human enemies completely trivial. It breaks the progression quite a bit, since you can win any fight very easily and do the bandits' quests early on, for instance. It's also not some hidden cheat, it's something you can find it by yourself, at least I did.
yep... just found this out. very disappointing.
Cool vid, hope to see more risen reviews
I fucking loved Risen 1, enjoyed 2 and 3 also but 1 was old school good.
The thing is: The Souls games have the trait of telling an undead's story who resurrects after falling, your losses aren't game overs, they are part of the story, and since hollow undead lose their minds it makes sense they'd fall back onto a handful of predictable moves and telegraphing a lot. Also, player skill is supposed to be the main way of improving, with some item requirements mixed in. Risen uses the old Gothic open world style where a hard enemy isn't supposed to be a "maybe later" but a "definitely later". I took on the first Dark Knight in DaS1, in Gothic he wouldn't have registered as a challenge, but as a "fuck off back to the noob zone" sign. Now, if you remove RNG, you can only count on a certain amount of hits roughly being traded if you make combat difficult, and attacking quickly and unpredictably makes more sense for the enemies in universe.
There's still room for improvement, sadly Risen 2 was way worse.
i love this game. One of my favorites of all time.
Piranha's strong side is the exploration in a handcrafted world a well crafted map. I even liked Elex even though the animation and fighting feels like 15 years old but they added so many combinations to clear a quest and people later remembering how you double-crossed them ans such details.
Loved Risen.
I always imagined it was what they wanted Gothic 4 to be. The whole banished gods-thing is what Gothic 3 was all about. But Risen never rose to the grandeur of the Gothci games. Only thing I remember from the game are the agro butteflies. :-P
(And my view on the actual Gothic 4 is the same as many have on Highlander 2 - it doesn't exist!)
You don't just imagine things there. It is confirmed that Risen in it's early development was meant to be a sequel of Gothic 3.
I've started to play it again this weekend, this time as 2h axe fighter. Can't believe how relaxing it is. And an easter egg, look above the harbour town or from the monastery entrance to the harbour area.
and you like to use an axe? To me it felt slow... you had to gain like 6 levels at least to be able to perform fast attacks. i went back to swords due the speed
@@capcom23 played again with sword, much better indeed
You have gained a new sub, sir.
I hope you can eventually review the entire Risen series someday.
I'm definitely planning to review both Risen 2 and 3. I've been taking a short break from the Gothic/Risen catalogue to play a few other games lately, but plan to get back on track with some more of Piranha Bytes' games once my next review is out.
@@TheNocturnalRambler wow, I wasn't expecting a reply haha
I'm glad people are still keeping the Gothic games alive and talked about.
The Risen series was a... Interesting experiment, though they are personally my least favourite PB games to date. Can't wait to hear your opinions on Risen 2 and 3. So far many of your reviews have echoed my own thoughts.
My favorit part has got to be the library in the Volcano fortress. The atmosphere there feels so dense, it gets me every time. Just love the place. Combat works much better than in Gothic and it is a shame, that PB dropped this system. And I liked the dungeons thought a little bit more variety would have been nice, but we have to keep in mind that PB is a fairly small studio
I love this game some much it brings sooo many memories.
I LOVED this game. So glad I found this channel, lol.
I was wondering will you do a review of the risen sequels? In the future?
Risen is like my second most favorite franchise and like one of my all time favorite games.
i think it would have been great if the player was giving the choice to help Mendoza with his plan in order to safe the world or trying to defeat him to safe the island. Either way you choose, it would go horrible wrong of course.
i played this game so often.. i still know every corner of this map. I still play this game like every other year or so. its just Nostalgia for me.
Damn u r the wisest non-German Gothic/Risen/Elex-Fan I know. Respect
Lol that's super specific.
@@FranzBinder20 it's always good to be precise, my friend.
I was searching for an old school rpg where enemies won't scale along with me. Seems like this is what exactly what I am looking for.
Risen would certainly fit that bill. The developers' other games (Gothic 1+2, Elex) would also be worth considering as they all emphasize a steeper progression curve with zero scaling so that you can feel more of that rewarding "zero to hero" effect as you level up and improve your character.
You can also try Chronicles of Mytrana if you haven't already. If you have Skyim I would recommend the Enderal mod as well, no level scaling and harder than vanilla Skyrim.
Getting in early before you blow up, excellent content
The content which you showed from the first 2 Gothic games from around 8:00 to 9:00 had better textures than the original games. Are you using a texture pack to get those effects? Coz my copy of Gothic and Gothic 2 have the original textures and shading
I was playing both games with DX11 mods installed, which greatly enhance the lighting and apparently also come with higher-resolution textures. I thought they made the games look a lot better while still retaining the same visual style of the originals -- a lot of other graphics overhauls change so much that it stops feeling like Gothic. I eventually had to uninstall it on my Gothic 1 playthrough, however, because somewhere around Chapter 4 or 5 it started causing the game to crash any time I warped anywhere, so unfortunately it's not exactly stable.
Will you also make a review of Elex?
I look forward to the tarring and feathering of Risen II
This is all true, but it was one of the few RPGs that I actually finished.
2021 - Risen is still installed on my pc. Unbelievable good game. I remember avoiding to hit the last chapters because it was a bit boring. Any way this game is memorable still can't find any other game like risen to make immersed with thecworld.
I had so much fun with this game :)
I didn't get far but it's very memorable. Unique atmosphere and the world felt mysterious.
Good review!
Excellent review. Well said. For me Risen was a good game, even though a bit rushed and dumb in part where you had to kill off countless lizard men. But much better than Risen 2. And thank you for reviewing good memories. It’s been more than ten years.
Are u going to do the same kind of video for Risen 2 and 3? Please ;;
Can't play this game anymore despite loving it to death, too heartbreaking after what they did with Risen 2.
Too safe or not, dumping the entire (solid as fuck) foundation of Risen 1 into the garbage bin and rebooting the series that didn't need rebooting just seems like insanity.
Couldn’t agree more. Risen was meant to be a course correction after Gothic 3, with subsequent games adding to its foundation. Instead we got Risen 2 and 3...
Risen 2 and 3 were indeed heartbreaking. I think that it was a result of them having to design the game for the first time around the limitations of the consoles of the day. They couldn't do a huge continuous world, so they had to break the world into islands. And then they kind of reverse-engineered the game to have a pirate theme to fit the island design. With Elex, they could build the huge world that they no doubt wanted, but it wasn't a great game. I wish that they could recapture the glory of Gothic 2 and Risen. For as much as I am a fan of PB, it has been over 11 years since they made a great game.
Piranha has been remaking Gothic for almost 20 years now and Risen was the closest to the original Gothic experience. I actually finished it when I stopped Risen 2 once I got to the 3rd island and Elex after realizing im quicksave/pickpocket exploiting every NPC I come across.
I actually really like the freaky english voice acting in Gothic and G2, to me Bromor and the like are a big part of the charm of the game.
Show me your wares!
What I love about Risen that it's not only action packed but it needs intelligence and careful observation of environment and each conversation to actually solve the mysteries and puzzles in the quests to actually progress in the game!
that image there reminds me of the Action figure Steave Osteen 13:13 the doll had tiny plastic parts you put on his are cheast etc, but sounds pretty kool to play
truly amazing game, frustrating at some point but rewarding and beautiful at least
I still don't understand why the saurians come out and attack people or who commands them (not likely Ursegor).
Ahh If you mean the lizards then yes, Ursegor controls them. It is said so when you meet him.
The Soundtrack is fire
I wish i could still play it...but i get c++ runtime error? Any solutions? Im sad
Install the c++ from the redist file
Risen is my all time favorite Game.. im listening every day the Soundtrack, because its so relaxing
Got the entire OST on my phone :) So atmospheric.
@@dailywarcraftreforged9816 Hey, sorry but what is OST? I´m german, so sorry for my english :)
@@TheWave0fDoom89
Es bedeutet: Original-Soundtrack :)
Daily Warcraft Reforged na gut dann auf deutsch, danke 😅🙂
@@TheWave0fDoom89 No problemo, I taught myself Deutsch when I was 10, but never been there :D
alongside Gothic, Risen is for me one of the best RPG's of all time. I love this series as much as i do Gothic. It is really sad that it never got more traction, even if they released 3 games from that series, all of witch i loved. And then came Elex, that one they messed up badly
such a good review thank u
Risen has such a good set up. The loot is vast and demands that you pay attention to the map to actually collect since it doesn't sparkle or anything. The enemies do good damage, so every bit of attention you pay to your surroundings and collecting healing really matters. The combat is simple, but the fact that you have to hit with the right timing to combo quickly instead of button mashing imposes a fun tension. The lack of some stamina constraint makes combat feel very active. The combat is relatively "unfair" which sacrifices some satisfaction but adds some immersion and tension (in real life, enemies don't always have long telegraphed wind ups with predictable attack patterns). The fact that you can save at any moment is unusual but pairs great with the wild nature of enemy attacks. Any combat encounter is artificially made "fair" by the fact that you can save and load. Enemies usually have two stages of aggro: "growling" and chasing. It's immersive and adds tension when trying to sneak past beasts that are growling at you but haven't been aggravated enough to chase you down yet. The bugs sound realistic as hell when they fly around you when you get chests or whatever and I hate it, but it's very immersive. There are lots of skills and specialisations and spells (though a glaring shortage of direct damage spells). The quests overlap and interweave the same npcs in a way that keeps everyone relevant.
Risen is a game that really should've been VERY good, but it was just a terrible experience. You are brought on the island as a stowaway. Your existence on the island is already rooted in criminality, and the feeling of intrusiveness is only made worse by the fact that you're a nuisance wherever you go. In the swamp, you're accurately referred to as "new mouth" by the chef and, seemingly, most responsible and sensible person in the camp. In harbour town, there's starvation and scarcity and now you're here as an extra homeless person or whatever. In the monastery, there's a brief respite in that inquisitor mendoza himself appoints you in particular as the investigator of a murder since your unique status as a new arrival implies your impartiality, but this success is short lived. After you've solved the case, you feel like a charity case again. The most common dialogue I hear from NPCs is "haven't you got anything better to do", "make yourself useful", etc. I can't even pretend to train in the monastery; the second I take out my staff, everyone tells me to "put away my weapon"... IN THE TRAINING GROUNDS. Worse yet, no one else is like me. There are no new arrivals on the island because of it's "shut down" nature. For better or worse, everyone here is already situated. I am completely unique in my intrusiveness to this island and all its people. If not a group, it would've been nice if at least the other stowaway was also around, but apparently she had to rest after 2 minutes of walking. That was literally the only npc interaction that made me feel useful, and instead of using that nice bonding experience as a much needed source of comfort throughout this journey, it amounted to no more than a tutorial interaction.
Wasteful is probably the best word to describe this game.
I enjoyed it, on 360 at that!
Risen is one of those games I really enjoyed a lot, truly a lot, I loved it back then and I love it yet. One year later I played the second part but I was unable to beat it. Just couldn´t keep playing, it was not as good as its predecessor and left me a bit bored. The third part still didn´t tried to play it, but reviewers were not so kind. Anyway, the first Risen is a fun game, even with its imperfections and things that could have been better, if you enjoyed the gothic 1 and 2 you should play it!!
Risen 2 was definitely a step down from the first game. It really seemed like they had a good foundation with Risen, and could've just taken the Gothic 2 approach and kept the same basic gameplay and simply expanded the scope of the game, polished up some of its rougher design elements, and added some new features, and it would've been great. Instead they decided to scrap basically everything from the first game and reinvent the wheel with Risen 2, which turned into more of a clunky octagon than a wheel. I was so thoroughly underwhelmed by Risen 2 when it first came out that I couldn't even write a proper review of it.
Risen 3 gets a bad rap from people, but at the time it came out I actually thought it was fairly decent -- definitely not as good as Gothic 1 or 2, or even the first Risen, maybe, but it was certainly an improvement over Risen 2. The biggest issue is that it felt like it was still retaining some of the Risen 2 influence, and therefore felt more like a better version of what Risen 2 could've been, as opposed to what Risen 3 should've been. It's been so long since I've played Risen 2 or 3, though, that I don't remember too much about either one, and those opinions may not be entirely accurate. I plan to replay both games in the near future, though, so we'll see how well they hold up on replay and further scrutiny.
@@TheNocturnalRambler Well, I´ll have to play risen 3 and see for myself, the gameplays I watched always looked fairly good. It doesn´t look so bad so, we´ll see!!
I'm german, Piranha Bytes simply rocks. If you haven't already, give Gothic 3 with patch 1.75 ("Extreme Edition") & alternative balancing a shot, it is 100% worth it. Risen was fun, too !
Non predictable fighting moves are a strengh not a weakness. Gives much more reality to it and is less artificial.
Video games don't necessarily have to emulate reality to be fun, though. Video game mechanics exist as abstractions of real life, and change things to make them more fun in the context of a video game. No sane person will EVER advocate for more realistic gun combat in video games, for instance, because it's not fun to have to stop playing for months while waiting for your character to heal up from a single bullet to the leg.
In a game like Risen, I would find it more satisfying to fight enemies whose animations and AI were consistent enough that I could learn how to fight against them better by studying them and learning how they function, and then using that knowledge against them, so that there's an internalized progression curve as I learn about each enemy and improve at the game using acquired knowledge. As opposed to enemies behaving so randomly and erratically that every fight is a matter of random chance whether I guess right or wrong.
Video games traditionally are about developing skill mastery as a player, where you have to develop the ability to "Git Gud" enough to be able to progress in the game and ultimately beat it. When enemies have completely inconsistent behaviors, and attack and dodge so ridiculously fast, the threshold of personal skill is lowered because you have less/no opportunity to use personal knowledge against them, and less/no opportunity to rely on reaction and anticipation to make good moves.
Obviously there's value to be had in enemies not being totally predictable and I'm not advocating for that, but I find it seriously hard to believe that the degree of random, inconsistent, erratic unpredictability in Risen is a good thing when other games have handled themselves far better in being able to catch you off-guard and being unpredictable enough that you can't know exactly what's going to happen until it happens, while still being fair about it and still allowing for that learning curve.
@@TheNocturnalRambler "No sane person will EVER advocate for more realistic gun combat in video games"
Escape from Tarkov would disagree:)
exactly my friend. that's why we love Risen/gothic game. This aint Oblivion/Skyrim level 1 finish the game
@@Pmurder3 Escape From Tarkov is "realistic" to a certain point. You "lose" a leg, but you still can walk. You "lose" your arms, but still can use guns. You walk though barbed wire and just got some damage, but in real world, you would stuck there bleeding to death... EFT is just a game with complex mechanics, but if it were trully realistic, it would be really impossible to have fun...
Love this review. So in-depth and pleasant to listen to while bein un-biased!
Fantastic reivew
That volcano reminds me so much of red mountain
Would be very curious to see similar videos about Risen 2&3 and maybe Elex.
mdx I can’t believe how tilted you are. This isn’t the first comment like this you’ve made. Don’t you have anything better to do
mdx now that’s just sad
This is my favorite PB game. They tanked this series though with Risen 2 and 3. 2 and 3 suffered from being designed for the XBox 360, which explains the island design.
Have you considered reviewing Risen 2 & 3?
They're on my to-do list, but I've been taking a short break from Gothic/Risen to play a couple other games. Once I get reviews out for those other games I'll get back on track with the rest of the PB catalogue.
I liked risen very much in terms of atmosphere and also the gameplay was decent. However it is a pity that the game is so short and the second half simply consists of slaying enemies in dungeons. So totally agreed on your review!
I found the first half of the game pretty memorable even when you don't do anything special. I think it's the way the island is structured.
and the OST. Will take you into the whole island spooky atmosphere. That's why I like Risen 1 and when you enter caves... some dark OST playing totally captures the amazing game atmosphere. I play each year
It constantly feels like you're going down a corroder even in the so called "open areas." Definitely was developed with the limitations of the xbox 360.