The angelic Seraphim have lost interest in Ancaria. The world now lies in the hands of the embattled High Elves, leaving none to manage the people and the powerful t-energy that is the source of the world’s magic. This is where you come in. As a warrior for your faction, your character seeks to throw in their lot and vie for power in this opportune time.
Heavy metal, weird enemies, thousands of kills, laser guns, inadequate explanations, flaming swords, mounted combat, bad jokes, Bruce Lee references, Sacred 2: Fallen Angel has a little of everything. In describing Sacred 2 to fellow Depoter Nick, I could only say, "I have one of those staff-blaster things from Stargate that I use with this triple-shot ability and a spell that detonates corpses," and that’s about a valid description as any. For those who had skipped the original Sacred and its expansion, such as myself, the broadest and simplest explanation is that it is an open-world Diablo.
To play Sacred 2 as Diablo, however, would drive you insane. Beyond the isometric angle, the constant clicking to bash the dozens of enemies on screen, the gulping of potions, the upgrade trees, you find a game that offers its own, sometimes strange, perspective on the genre. For starters, the game is elegant in a way that is almost inelegant; thanks to the abundance of modifiers, the numerous runes for the deity, combat, and weapons are as confusing as the web of skills, abilities, and buffs. Once you devour endless forum posts and guides, then you begin to see how the flat descriptions and relatively sparse layout functions come together quite nicely: runes and spells are grouped together by use, flanking gradually unlocked slots that allow for quick selection of three weapons and three abilities. It’s daunting for quite a while, but it does click eventually.
Getting the hang of the abilities (combat arts) is your first step in really getting the most out of the game. Each class - Seraphim, High Elf, Dryad, Temple Guardian, Shadow Warrior, and Inquisitor – has its own set of combat arts. Runes can be used to either upgrade a like ability or traded to a rune master to decrease the exorbitant price of a rune that is more to your liking. The abilities offer a variety of classes as well. My Inquisitor had Gruesome Inquisition, Astute Supremacy, and Nefarious Netherworld. The Inquisitor’s combat arts range from standard attack upgrades (hitting multiple opponents at once) to more exotic abilities, such as creating a vortex that sucks in nearby enemies and causes them to slam into one another. One of the more innovative features is the ability to sacrifice one of your three main combat art slots for a combo: a handful of combo icons are available for you to drag and drop arts into, which are then performed in sequence once the combo is activated. The combos become truly impressive after a while, with scorched body parts flying all over the place.
Coping with the quests will also take some time. Unlike most role-playing games, you do not go through the pattern of receive quest, adventure, return for reward; if you did, you would go nuts at having to backtrack the lengthy distance of such a massive world, even on a mount. Instead, quests are to be treated as an adventurer should treat them: do what you can, when you can, and move on. There are so many side quests to partake in, as well as a somewhat meandering faction- and class-specific main story, that you will always be busy and receive plenty of experience.
The lure of quick experience is a necessary bait in the beginning, because the game is incredibly easy on bronze, the suggested difficulty for newcomers. Even with a dozen enemies surrounding me, I could easily pummel or shock my way out of the situation. That is, unless I was hit with some strange life-draining spell that would turn my screen red and literally siphon 80% of my health away – very irritating. Aside from that anomalous smack from above, I strolled through over 20 hours of the game with little difficulty. The end-game in bronze improves some, but I found the other two difficulties - silver and hardcore - were much more to my liking. Silver provides the same experience as, say, Diablo, and was the level I preferred. Hardcore, on the other hand, is the ironman mode: once your character dies, they’re dead. Of course, for those who want a bit more of a challenge from silver but not waste time with a character that cannot be resurrected, you’re out of luck.
A significant barrier to entry is that Sacred 2 has a lot to take in. Making things worse are the numerous glitches and strange design decisions. I did not experience the kind of major technical problems that I have read about; however, the framerate would stutter and I did crash to the desktop once. My problems, however, were minor when considering the time I put in.
The hang-ups I experienced were more nuisances than serious problems. The annoyances were enhanced by the fact that they hampered some sounds features. The world map, for instance, is generous with its zooming function, and you can even use the mouse wheel to click and view an in-game shot of a specific area, but selected quest waypoints would deselect and the computer would choose other target locations; similarly, areas indicated as a waypoint would be devoid of anything to actually do, with no person or thing to interact with. Quest scripts not being triggered were especially noticeable whenever there would be vocal cues indicating that the area was of purpose.
Getting to quest locations can also be a problem. There are numerous invisible walls and dead-end paths that really frustrate things. Even though the world is open, there are very specific routes that can be traversed, with little reward for adventuring to the edges. And heaven help you if you are traveling with AI companions, because they are absolutely worthless: running in circles, attacking with the vigor of a sloth, and being little more than mobile meat shields. At least you don’t have to worry about waiting up for them, because leaving them behind simply teleports them to your location – thank goodness.
There are also random oddities that won’t suit some players. In the endless amounts of recorded dialogue are lines that aren’t just random but downright nonsensical. Some characters will also have strange voices, such as the goblin-like creature that sounded like a sidekick in a 1930s gangster movie; and your avatar will crack wise about the backtracking or more irritating and boring non-playable characters. During the loading screen alone, which lasts only for a few seconds, there are at least 200 random messages that range from bits of poetry to addressing the player directly. Sprawled throughout the game are tombstones and statues that sport everything from bad jokes – ‘Marathon runners with bad shoes suffer the agony of de feet’ – to pop culture and religious references – quotes from Bruce Lee, Confucianism, and nods to the hardcore that fell while playing the original Sacred and its expansion. This sort of skewed material is literally everywhere in Ancaria.
The strangeness actually lends to a feeling of detachment with the world. Despite all of the spoken dialogue and numerous merchants, rune masters, horse peddlers, and random townsfolk, I rarely found myself a part of their world. To be honest, I didn’t mind either that or much of the game’s quirkiness. Some of the random chatter or music in town squares is delightful, while the weird odd job (shopkeepers arguing about stuffed toys) kept things interesting. A particularly awesome if not completely jarring addition is the heavy metal that randomly plays during combat, as if Dio is playing the Bard.
Folks more inclined to a traditional approach will no doubt find all of the quirks chafing to their sensibilities. I admit that it got to be a bit too much for me at times as well, but more often than not I simply found it to be in good humor. The traditionalists will certainly appreciate the healthy tech tree and leveling system, though, as well as conveniences sprawled throughout the lands. Traveling the world is made easier by both a handful of portals and your mount, the latter of which not only has combat abilities but will also appear when called – handy. Items can also be sold while in the wild as well, though for lesser amounts than from merchants.
Death is also easy to brush off in the lower difficulties. Dying is more of a minor setback than a serious problem, really – loot stays put, and abilities and status stay the same. The only minor annoyance is a one-save limit, with the game saving upon exiting or near resurrection monoliths. The monoliths are also used whenever a save is loaded, teleporting your character there rather than the actual location where you exited the game. Magic is handled differently as well, with no mana to speak of but cool down times instead. A trade-off exists in that using runes to power a spell, however, as making it more potent also lengthens its regeneration time – a serious problem towards the end. The lack of mana means that the only gulping necessary is for health, which is also nice, and I found even that relatively lacking when compared to similar titles.
The leveling system offers numerous avenues for optimization. The set classes vary by their allegiance to the light or shadow, their chosen god, but mostly by their special combat arts. Experience gains points for both attributes (strength, stamina, vitality, dexterity, intelligence and willpower) and skills. New skills are unlocked after a few levels, which include the ability to increase toughness, use of dual weapons, proficiency with pole arms, increased tactics lore (overall performance), and the class-specific combat arts. Points allocated to a combat art increase a category of arts, which upgrade all of the arts within but also lead to modifiers when a category is leveled up. The modifiers are a three-branch system that allows for one of two choices for each modifier – typically greater damage dealt or adverse affect – for each art. Yet another thing to wrap your head around.
For those who find themselves hooked, there is a great deal of replay value. Out of the six characters, only two are forced into either the campaign of light or the campaign of shadows, while the other four have either campaign selectable; not a great difference, but it still shakes things up a bit. The real reason to play through the game again is just to experience all of the different combat arts. The Temple Guardian, a robotic humanoid canine, was my second character, and playing him on silver difficulty was a blast: in no time he was blasting away with his arm laser cannon and was cutting through the ranks with a sword, all while calling up ice to freeze attackers and defensive spikes to impale them. Although the replay value might be reduced for those who enjoy female avatars, as the women characters tend to be ridiculously disproportioned. Rounding out the experience are multiplayer features. Aside from co-op, you can play with others over open and closed networks. On top of all this, the game looks and sounds great.
Overall: 8/10
When installing Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, prepare to be confused. Start off slowly, start on bronze and thumb through the manual while you become acquainted with a handful of websites where everyone else is equally confused. Stick with it, though, because you will find a game whose strange characters and unique combat arts will keep you coming back for more. It will be too goofy for some, so be sure you go into it fully aware that plenty of the gags and references are hokey and have no place in a game set in high fantasy. For those who want a little something different and aren’t afraid of some technical and design hiccups, then jump in and enjoy. It may be strange, silly, and not quite polished, but it’s also a whole lot of fun.
