Risen for Xbox 360 Reviews by Gamers

First let me say, don't be too quick to believe the plethora of 1 or 2 sentence "reviews" of this game that simply claim it's horrible and looks like an Xbox game. Most, if not all, of those people did not work to actually complete the game.

That said, it IS a game that will require some adjustment. There are points that feel like it could have been tested better, and the graphics are sub-part for this generation. The camera control, as accurately put, is too sensitive, but it is something that you get used to (although making it adjustable would have been preferable).

All of that said, if you're willing to give the game a shot, and I mean REALLY give it a shot, the payoff is wonderful. Great story, great combat mechanics late, awesome array of abilities and possibilities from stealth, to magic, to warrior like skills. The sound and voice acting is tremendous. The world as a whole feels alive, and it's a game that actually expects you to keep your eyes open at all times or face death (traps in temples especially!). I had a tough time at first and was afraid that my purchase was in vein, but after giving it some time, I was hooked. I've now completed it nearly 3 times and even enjoy going for some of its achievements!

So yeah, my point is, it is far from perfect, but if you like RPGs, particularly the Gothic series, give it a shot and try to stick with it. I trust you will be pleasantly surprised.

Overall, I was originally deterred from this game thanks to all of the critical reviews it received. While I have not finished the entire game yet, but it is a well conceived, if simple, plot so far. What really drives the game home for me is the witty humor and the spot on voice acting, close to that of Dragon Age Origins. The combat seems a bit simple so far, but there are a lot of customization options so I'm excited to see how it picks up. The game really starts you from nothing and for that, I feel a real sense of accomplishment when I see my character switch from rags and a stick to a good sword, shield and armor! The story seems really fascinating and I'm excited to see what happens.

Graphics: 7
Story: 8
Voice acting: 9
Gameplay: 6

If you are a gamer who likes RPG, and isn't about how great a game looks but for the RPG element! check this game out! also if you never put your hands on any programming language don't judge a game so harsh! it isn't so easy to program a great game! and those company's who are doing really great games, well they have been doing it for years! don't be so ignorant! take this game to the end you and you will have enjoyed playing it, yes there are some issues to the game, but hey what game doesn't have issues to it! there is never a perfect game!! don't judge so harsh if you didn't take a game to the end!!!

Risen was a pretty good game story seemed good and the fighting system was pretty nice too. Like the other reviews say yea u die a ton in beginning especially if you go somewhere too high level for you. It was almost everything I was expecting it to be accept for one part which was the quest tracking. It was super difficult for me to figure out where I needed to go for quests don't know if I jus read the map wrong or what, but it was confusing for me at least. Overall for story and game play I give it a 8 cause it was still pretty fun :)

After playing most RPG's out there, this is a refreshing mix of things. It's better than Divinity 2, and think of it as more of a "washed ashore... what now?" situation... because it really does play out like that. I highly recommend this game to only TRUE RPG gamers, as others will surely put this back in the mailbox with a frown.

I loved the story line, the open game play, and the general premise of the game. The places that needed real work were the game engine. Too many people or enemies on the screen would slow the screen down. Sometimes I would get stuck in a rock I was trying to jump over. Sometimes my screen would just turn completely yellow and have to restart my xbox. The story line could get very messed up if you happen to get caught early on in the game by the "white robes". I reloaded the final battle close to fifty times due to programing errors. To say this game had some small bugs would be correct, as long as those bugs were as big as a small cars. Worst game ending for an RPG EVER.

I have given this game an 8 for 3 reasons.

First, the character graphics could use a little touching up. Although the environment is beautifully rendered the PC and NPCs are not very pleasing to look at. Bodies are decent but faces are very blocky.

Second, lack of weapon and armor diversity. There are actually several weapon choices to go with and the base weapon is something that I agree with, but in my opinion there should have been more one of a kind weapons. Special weapons if you will.
There are only 14 armors possible excluding the peasants clothing you begin the game in. 5 are exclusive to the bandit path 5 are exclusive to the order path with two sets of clothing availabe to each.

The last is a little nit picky on my part but in the game you can forge your own weapons, rings, and amulets. I would like to also be able to enchant said weapons. (the jewelry is enchanted automatically by which gem you use to make it with) I would also like the option to forge my own armor. (This goes along with having more armor diversity.

On a positive note the environment in risen is simply beautiful. there are several cliffs you can climb up to and look out over the island and the ocean (I would advise you do this atleast once.) and this game possibly has the best night time world of any game I have ever played.

Other than the things mentioned before, a few minor menu problems, and absolutely no tutorial or how to guide for the first timer. (you are pretty much thrown into the world and have to learn by trial and error.) My advice is to look online and find a good help site before you spend 20 hours on a character only to learn you did things disastrously wrong! I use worldofrisen. de (it's in German, so you'll probly need to have google translate it.) and mikesrpgcenter. com. I have found these two sites most helpful while playing.
Have fun and I hope you enjoy as much as I have. I would tell more positives but I hve ran outofspace

i really enjoyed this game.its not the prettiest game in the world , but the immersion and the atmosphere of the game is great. it reminds me of the old school rpgs where you have to do some work to finish quests. if your a fan of the gothic games you will not be disappointed.

Risen is a self explanetory game about a guy being on an island collectiong plants and gold and armor and weapons, and doing quests. Your average rpg elements. The game itself is fun in the beginning with all the side quests, and new enemies and weapons and locations, but after chapter 1 there really isnt anything left to discover.So the game itself goes from a level 10 game down to a level 8, solely still a good game considering the main story quests and travel, and the occasional new armor set or weapon. There are places around the world called temples or ruins. These places hold (SPOILERS) many great new items, but after you steal all the stuff from these places there really isnt much more for you to do except do the story quests... All in all id give this game a 7-8/10

I am a big RPG fan and greatly enjoyed the Gothic series. This game started with a dissapointment with the announcement that it was going to be delayed. But then logic sets in and you believe that the longer they take to develope a game, the more polished the final product will be.... how wrong I was. The graphics are pathetic and would have been mocked had this been an xbox game.

Viewing controls are extremely touchy, and cannot be changed, making me end up viewing the wrong direction more than once, though you can get used to this as time progresses... Trying to use the games targeting system, or lack thereof, will most certainly cause any of 4 things to happen 1) you will luckily kill what you hoped to. 2) you will die because your "target" was not targeted. 3) you will accidently kill or attack an ally that causes all sorts of problems. 4) you will shut the game off in frustration and send it back to Gamefly then write a review... (you may do more than 1 of these).

The quests are difficult to keep track of and often leave you guessing about where or whome you should go to. There are more than enough glitches to go around and, something that really irratated me, was that with the graphics so low it was often difficult to distinguish your enemies from a distance. I have a 32inch lcd hdtv and I couldn't always easily tell what the figure was, until it started to chase me and turned out it was a much higher leveled enemy. So I ran back to the camp where the enemy followed and killed most everyone in the camp... goodbye all those people and all those quests, I tried targeting him, but I did combo 2, 3 & 4...

The game itself has some really promising elements, with a sub-par storyline and an interesting world for you to explore and some interesting characters to meet, though the dialog is... typically lacking. There is lots to do and tons of ways to develope your character, which if you can get past all the negatives is quite interesting.

Risen feels like it falls just short of a good game. The graphics are impressive, but the clip plane is so close that it denies you those epic views. The controls are easy enough, but the fighting system lacks any real depth (and the counter-parry system is way too difficult to use effectively.) The quest journal and character screens are also difficult to understand, and often you are given no help at all when looking for quest updates.

For an "open-world RPG," it also feels very small. The explorable map is nowhere near the size of an Elder Scrolls game or other comparable title. It's also very easy to get stuck on terrain, making navigating tight dungeons a nightmare.

On the plus side, there are plenty of unique monsters in the world, most of which look really good and provide very unique fighting styles. The storyline was also decent, and alone was enough to help me finish the game.

This game had great potential when it was first released as an idea and was supposed to be a super interactive fable style game with great visuals. Unfortunately They missed the mark by a good bit. If you are a fan of interactive story lines this game is rather enjoyable in that your decisions and actions tend to take direct effect on everyone and can prevent you from doing certain missions if you upset someone or kill them. The graphics are sub par for the 360 and the battle system is not smooth at all. It definitely looks like the game was rushed in production and had they invested more time and money into it it would have been a blockbuster.

this is a pretty good game not many keep my interest but this one has. I cant believe that people are giving this a bad score when there is prue junk getting better reviews, it is a little slow starting but give it an hour or so and it picks up. lots to do and lots to search for.

This game isn't graphically impressive, nor is does it add anything innovative to the RPG genre. The story isn't worthy of a movie and the combat is repetitive in the first hour. I knew all this when I added Risen to my Q, so why did I do it? I am a fan of the RPG genre more-so than any other genre and frankly I'm starved. I like medeival RPG's more than any other type and Risen fit the bill. It was enjoyable if nothing but more of the same, but even my starvation wasn't enough to see me to the end of this title. As I said before combat comes down to nothing more than hit and block if you don't use magic. Magic does offer a bit of diversity, but even then it comes down to a routine due to the lack of anything approaching a "large" variety of enemies. The graphics are caught somewhere between Morrowind and Dragon Age. I say that in that IMO, the character styles were like that in Dragon Age, but with the polish of Morrowind when it came out for the ORIGINAL Xbox. To say the graphics are dates is an understatement. The voice acting is lackluster at best and the musical score totals something around 3 tunes. The bugs are what killed my adventure though. The auto-targetting makes fighting more than 3 enemies a chore and please, never, NEVER underestimate this game's ability to undermine you. You will inexplicably lose your entire health bar at times when you are hit by more than one enemy at the same time and the fact that some enemies can combo with the best of any fighter game is frustrating beyond all belief and that is on the normal difficulty. To sum it up: pass on this title, at least the xbox version. Look somewhere else for your RPG thrill. Your sanity will be the better for it.

Lets keep this to a simple good-bad format shall we...

Good- Free roam to almost any area in the map ( i belive is a must in rpg's) Stratiegicaly placed tougher monsters to persuade you from going off your path, Simple easy to follow story line.

Bad- unless you looked at the controlls screen; your about lost, earnig armor!? bogus..., the quest maping almost never points you to the proper area, your levels means almost nothing... all that matters is how you spend your learning points (and there is no way to reset them) SPOILER if you get caught by the mon. your stuck and cant keep working for the don... SUPER LAME. and all i have to say is DONT SELL YOUR QUILL! if you get one keep it!!!!!!! lol

even tho the bad portion is bigger the game was still very fun and a refreshing TRUE rpg... try it out if you liked Obliv.

Risen, a Role-Playing Game from Piranha Bytes (the developers of the Gothic series) is a great role playing experience. Every mission you have decisions to make, choosing who to side with which can change the story. The story is decent and the voice acting is well done.

Presentation wise it could use some work. Textures are bland and blurry, character models aren't very detailed, menus aren't that accessible.

The combat is another downfall. It normally goes like this, block-attack, block-attack, block-attack for about 10 minutes. It can get annoying.

Why would I give the game such a high score with all of these complaints? I enjoyed it, and if you can look past the flaws and are a fan of the Gothic series you'll enjoy this.

I played this game for one hour. Put it back in the envelope. Will ship it back tomorrow.

The game was glitchy. Everytime it auto-saved my xbox would lag.

The right thumbstick to look was WAY too sensitive and there is not an option to set it.

Combat was horrible because of the hyper thumbstick.

I really had no idea what was going on or where to go. Some pigs overwhelmed me right off the bat. Rediculous.

All in all this was the 2nd worst rpg I have ever played in my life. "Two Worlds" being the first.

I may be just me but this is one of my fav games of all time not the greatest graphics but game play and story far make up for it I hope they make a 2nd

Of course this game has a few hiccups every game does. But I just love these type of games. Like Oblivion, this is a good game. Not saying it's anywhere near Oblivion so don't get it thinking that, but it is the same type of game. I wish the gaming industry would produce more of these RPG fantasy games.

This game just moments in has bad points.
1. The graphics could fit on the PS2 in it's early stages.
2. The camera is waaaaayyyy too sensitive.
3. No Radar and horrible maps.

Once you start to fight.
1. Old, used up, watered down, fighting system.
2. Attack is your only attack for a while.
3. Leveling up suck.

Once you get to a town (swamp place)
1. No real direction for plot.
2. Journal to keep quest info in is ridiculously bad.

I had to stop after a while, it was so bad i got depressed!

There's nothing working for this game. The graphics mediocre, framerate is so bad, it induces dizziness, terrible game play, navigation, inventory management, combat system, story line (played for 10 hours, and still have not left the bandit camp), unintuitive menu system, can't see quantity of items in inventory, awkward item trading screen, terrible character leveling (I am level 10, and still can't kill a simple rat that you see at level one with one or two hits, no sense of level progression), everything happens in slow mo, the combat, the navigation...

And to top it all off it's BUGGY. Quest items can be sold off, quests can't be completed, as the involved NPC won't talk to you anymore, and the game does not tell you this well after you have progressed into a dead end, instead of telling you right away, that you failed in the quest, as you killed the NPC, or if you stole from him, that way you can at least load a save game right away.

This is a BROKEN game. The developers should be banned from making games ever again, i.e. they should look for another career...

What's this? A free roaming adventure? Nice, but tragic all the same.
Almost every creature in this game can perfectly dodge almost every attack that you can throw at it(except arrows which do scratch damage at best)! Need to upgrade your skills, which is tough(need looot's of gold and the right trainer)!You will need lot's of gold to power-up your character(which seems scarce). Leveling-up does not mean you can upgrade your skills, you need money for that lot's of it. Some monsters can break your block, seemingly at will(I HATE SPIKEY RATS!!) Monsters love to double-team you, or triple team you; depends on the situation! Once one sees you it calls on it's fellows meaning Be prepared to be out numbered! Worst case you could be set upon by a small animal kingdom!(I hate that!). Need gold for weapons and armor too! Monsters love to backdash, and charge perfectly! Most cases had to pin the monsters up against a wall or cliff justy to damage them(not fun)! I DEMAND A REWRITE OF THIS GAME! Stay-away from white robes early on! Prepare to save often and die alot!
Greg137

This was a poorly designed game. I would have expected this type of game on an older console but there's no excuse for it now. It's getting harder and harder to stay a devoted Microsoft Xbox fan when I see Sony coming out with far superior titles such as Uncharted 2 and God of War 3. Sony is even starting to try and gain ground on Microsoft in the multiplayer department. MAG is a great game and better then most of the xbox titles that are out right now. Alright everyone I will get to the game review before I start to get flamed by Xbox fanboys. The games storyline is great but it starts out ridiculously slow. It takes about an hour or two before you even start to get the concept of the game and by then you have already accepted 10+ quests. The map and mechanics system for picking things up and navigating menus is awkward and feels clumsy. The combat system is poor at best and the game itself is full of bugs and glitches. I put in a little more then 10 hours into the game and I tried my hardest to give this game and its developers the benefit of the doubt but I just came to the conclusion that this game was meant for an older generation console and even then it would be a half finished game. I love RPG games but this game should be recalled and everyone who spent there hard earned money on this poor excuse for a game should have it refunded. If you need to check this game out for yourself, please do yourself the favor and rent the game. See for yourself if you dont believe my words. I read all the bad reviews myself and I thought that everyone was exagerating but to my surprise everyone was actually correct. Im seriously considering buying playstation when the next gen consoles come out. Please Xbox hear my and everyone elses prayers and give us some good quality games!!!!

I have to admit, I didn't log much playing time with this game. I found it very oblivion like but lacking the good qualities of the Elder Scrolls Games. The controls are very easy to learn. Game play moves very slowly and boring. Movement is slow and labored. I found that I had to force myself to continue playing. True RPGers may find some enjoyment in the story which seemed to be the only high point in this game.