Sacred 2: Fallen Angel – Review

	Available On: Xbox 360, PS3, PC Format Reviewed: Xbox 360 Publisher: Deep Silver Developer: Ascaron Players: 1-2 Online: 2-4

Sacred 2 is the Marmite of the gaming world! It’s one of those games that you’re either going to hate from the very first moment, or one that you will believe to be more addictive than cocaine. When we think about recent RPG games we tend to have games like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and Fable spring to mind. Although each of those games do deliver a solid gaming experience they are somewhat RPG light. This is where Sacred 2: Fallen Angel can hold its head high, it’s as traditional as any RPG could ever get. The thing is you don’t know if you like Marmite till you try it, right? Well read on to see if Sacred 2 is for you…

The Sacred games have always had a very strong cult following amongst PC gamers, and due to high demand, the second in the series has been ported to both Xbox 360 and PS3. But rather than produce a direct port of the PC game, Ascaron, the developers, have improved the experience and have thus delivered a far superior game in my opinion than its PC counterpart.

Sacred 2 can be played across 2 campaigns, one light, and the other dark. A magical energy named T-Energy brings life and magic to the world, which was given as a gift by the Creator. The Seraphim, who have served the Creator since time began, created their own world called Ancaria. But this new world was not meant to be, so a punishment had to be administered and now the Seraphim must protect the world along with its inhabitants.

At its core Sacred 2 is an action RPG and a massive dungeon crawl of a game. It is about multiple classes and races, completing over 500 quests and grinding up those experience levels, but most importantly it is about slaying thousands of monsters and dispatching enemies. Classes are all based in the traditional RPG style of warriors, magic users, and so on. Each class can be customised and refined into a character suitable for how you want to play the game. Character creation is not a long drawn out process however, and although it is a deep and complex system, it is never one that feels overly complicated to use.

Depending on the race and class you have chosen determines which unique mount you can use, once you have enough gold and resources to purchase one that is. The mounts are seriously cool and range from beasts like huge Spiders, Tigers much like He-Man’s battle cat, and even an Hell Hound. As well as helping you to travel faster across the huge map, the mounts also grant special bonuses to combat and so on. To travel from one side of the map to the other without a mount would take hours, and I am talking real-time here, the world is simply HUGE. So leveling up and hoarding that gold to get your first mount should be high on your list of priorities from the moment you set foot on the world of Ancaria.

To speed things up, during your travels you will discover large stone portals, simply walking up to one and hitting a button will activate it. Once a few have been unlocked they allow instant travel from one to the other, but the most important feature is that these portals will also be the place where your character will re-spawn should he/she die. Exploring the map and opening up each of the portals is the first job that should be done when arriving in a new area, no one likes a long mission back to an objective after falling in combat.

With the game coming from a strong PC background, one of my initial worries was how well the game would play with a joypad. From the moment the game started I forgot about that worry, in fact it didn’t come back into my head till I managed to drag myself away from the game and work on this review. As you can probably tell the controls work perfectly, there is a lot to take in but since the game builds things slowly they never become a problem. Using the face buttons, combined with the triggers, will have you pulling up spells, special abilities, weapons, and all sorts of items without even thinking about it. Which is just as well when under attack from a whole bunch of enemies!

Sacred 2 also has an online multiplayer side to it, and although a great RPG romp in single player, the game is at its very best in multiplayer. Four player co-op online over Xbox Live or PSN is where you will want to spend you time, so my advice is that if you fancy a bit of Sacred 2 then make sure you convince your friends to grab a copy too. I jumped online and joined with some random people, I expected it to be the usual grab what ya can and every man/woman for themselves, a bit like Gauntlet back in the day a Retro fans? I was surprised to find that people really wanted to work as a team, in fact the initial bunch of people I first started playing with have become good friends and meet up for a night of adventuring whenever we can.

But it doesn’t just stop there, Sacred 2 also has a PvP (Player Vs. Player) mode too. This opens the world up in an MMO style affair where you can enter into combat with other players. The great thing is that no matter what kind of adventuring you fancy Sacred 2 can deliver an experience to match your taste. This also means that Sacred 2 is a game that is going to at least keep you busy longer than many other games put together.

From the moment the game opens you can tell that it comes from a very traditional PC RPG background. With a 3D isometric view, that can be zoomed in to a kind of 3rd person view, it feels very different to what many have grown to love over the last couple of years. But on a HD screen, as the game is meant to be played, the animation of the characters, beasts, and wildlife look very impressive no matter how far zoomed in or out you may be. But where Sacred 2 shines visually the most is in the small details, even when zoomed all the way out you can make out armour plates, loose clothing blowing in the wind, mounts fidgeting about as they await for you to finish your business. From the dungeons to the buildings in the towns, everything fits so well, you can tell this is a world that Ascaron have put a lot of careful love and attention into.

Visually each of the environments across the world look very pretty, with wildlife and other atmospheric effects adding a sense of atmosphere and realism. As you explore the world you will visit environments like green fields and orchids, forests, deserts, swamps, mountain ranges, and bubbling volcanoes. Traveling around the world is seamless with the only loading happening when you enter or leave a dungeon or other building. Just when you think you have seen everything the world around you has to offer, another unique feature will come into view. Wild animals roam the lands, the skeletal remains of beasts that fell centuries before litter the dry and arid areas. The land has such a level of rich detail to it that you will want to keep exploring just to see what you can find next.

This is where the Marmite effect comes into play, if you don’t mind the lack of flair compared to recent RPG heavyweights, and you are not bothered about the overhead/isometric/3rd Person view then you will simply love the game. If grinding up through experience levels, going on long dungeon crawls, and games like World of Warcraft feel simply to nerdy to think about for you then stop reading this now and go and play Call of Duty or something. If you’re sitting on the fence right now wondering if you would like Sacred 2, or even Marmite, then I would urge you to try the game, you will be surprised.