Sacred

Rating:
Summary: Booooooring, Buggy, Piece of CRAP!
Review: No really ... this is a boring game, VERY buggy (even with the "so-called" patches ... Don't waste your money. If anything, wait until it hits the bargain rack for $9.99!!

Rating:
Summary: It had potential
Review: Okay, let me start by saying that I was really looking forward to this game. I played both Diablo games and was looking forward to a newer type of this genre.

I ran into a problem almost immediately. It takes forever to load, sometimes it wouldn't even load. I know it's not my computer because my PC is top-o-the-line. AMD 64 3200+ w/ 1gig corsair 3200 ddr ram, ATI 9800 pro... you get the picture.

Once I started the game I really enjoyed the graphics. Sure they're not to the callibur of UT2k4 or something like that, but were really much better than Diablo 2.

The main problem I had, and the reason for only three stars is that no matter how powerful you get the enemies seem to gain in power equally. At 20th level, the same goblins who were real tough at 3rd level are now super goblins who are still equally tough. You get more experience for them, but at the cost of never getting to be dominate of any monster in the game! I'm not talking about far away, but right near the starting point of the game. I bet at 50th level they will be still proportionally as strong. Therefore, you are fighting for your life constantly. Every creature grows stronger and stronger so you never are able to crush them as lesser monsters. I looked for a game difficulty control to turn down the hype, but there is none. Hopefully, if they come out with an expansion, it will include a way to change difficulty or else tone down the monsters to keep them at their righful place. I understand that in Diablo they used the same character models for tougher monsters, but weak ones were still weak ones and strong ones were strong ones. In this game every monster is strong and grows stronger as you do. There is never an advantage! It's so frustrating.

Rating:
Summary: Addicting gameplay, pure hack'n'slash fun
Review: Sacred is a Diablo-style hack-n-slash RPG with a large game world and a ton of possible side quests. Although presented in the fixed-angle isometric style of many similar games, Sacred's graphics are very detailed, and mousewheel zooming is allowed. The game constantly challenges you by presenting enemies with varying skills and weaknesses, in increasing strength and number as you progress along your journey.

What to expect:
•Although there are times during your quest when you are accompanied by one or more NPCs, Sacred is a single-character game, as opposed to party-based games like Dungeon Siege.
•When starting a new game you can choose from a small assortment of vastly different predefined characters. The game begins slightly differently depending on which character you choose, but the main quest is the same for all characters.
•Combat is very simple: just click and kill. In addition to melee and ranged combat, your character will acquire special moves over time. (Each character type has its own set of possible special moves, further distinguishing the different classes.)
•Your character travels through a single, very large map that features numerous terrains and creature types. The map is so large that if you only stick to the main quest, you may only see about 50% of it.
•The story is rather generic, and certainly not the focus of this very action-heavy game.

What's good:
•Almost all dialog is voiced, and the acting is generally pretty good. Also, the handful of cutscenes are rather high quality.
•The gameplay is rather well balanced in that as your character levels up, your opponents become both more numerous and difficult to defeat. This keeps the gameplay challenging.
•Different types of enemies require different kinds of combat- for example, a number of creatures fly and attack you from above which makes melee combat very difficult. It's best to work these guys down with ranged weapons or spells, even if you prefer to swing an axe. The tactical variations necessary to deal with your foes keeps battle interesting, especially when you're swarmed by numerous kinds of creatures at the same time.
•The different playable character types truly lend themselves to different kinds of gameplay and have their own unique special abilities- it's not like Dungeon Siege where every character has potential to equal any other character in terms of skills.
•The game provides plenty of ways to keep track of the main quest and side quests: You've got your standard journal, the world map uses color-coded markers to indicate places you must visit for your quests, and there's a compass at the bottom of the screen (also color coded) that points you to your destination of both the main quest and any side quest you've got going. It's possible to have multiple side quests open at the same time. When this happens sometimes you'll have multiple arrows pointing to the different side quest points of interest.

What's bad:
•The manual seems to leave out a number of crucial details. For example, there are little gazebos scattered around the landscape. These are actually little teleporters that you can use to quickly travel to places you've already visited. You must activate a teleporter in order to be able to travel to it. There is no mention in the manual that these things even exist, and believe me they're useful!
•One aspect of the game that could have been more interesting is the fact that you can upgrade some weapons and armor in most towns. The upgrade process is rather confusing, and the upgrades that I was able to perform didn't seem to make much of a difference in my character's progress. I would like to have seen a simpler system that offered more powerful upgrades.
•Another thing that could have been cool, but turned out more annoying than anything else is the fact that you can buy and ride horses. For one thing, most of your combo attacks are not available while riding a horse, and the special horse attacks that you can use are difficult to execute. Additionally, mounting/dismounting doesn't work reliably in the heat of battle- your horse can easily be killed before you're able to jump off it and start fighting. There's also a rather strange (and undocumented) limitation whereby you cannot enter caves, dungeons, or any other kind of door while riding a horse... you won't get any feedback indicating the problem- you just won't be able to enter. Just back away from the door, dismount, and enter. (Just whistle for your horse once you're back in an outside area. He'll magically appear.) The only useful thing about having a horse in this game is that it allows you outrun most enemies when you're not interested in fighting.
•Companion pathfinding is rather lame. There are a number of occasions where you must escort NPCs to various destinations and they fall behind A LOT. Luckily, if you get too far ahead of your NPCs, they'll appear nearby in a little puff of smoke and continue trying to keep up with you.
•At least three times during my adventure the game crashed to the desktop upon completing or taking up new subquests. I learned to always save right before talking to anyone, and I admit I eventually became rather reluctant to attempt side quests.
•Respawning. Enemies respawn like CRAZY in this game. If you ever have to backtrack through a region you just cleared out, don't be surprised to find it totally crawling with baddies within a matter of minutes.
•The terrain is often difficult to navigate, in that sometimes there's only ONE way to get from one region to another (there are lots of dense woods and steep cliffs to block your way), and it's occasionally hard to find those little passages when looking at the world map. This often results in a lot of backtracking- for example when you're looking for a way up onto a plateau- which makes the game's respawn rate sorta maddening at times.

Tips:
•Don't use the same kind of tactic with every kind of enemy. Some of the strongest creatures might be vulnerable to specific weapons or spells.
•Remember to jump off your horse before attempting to enter any doors (not necessary for teleporters).
•It's difficult to find patches for the game on the official website, and there's no patch option within the game's menu. Don't despair: There's an "Update Software" option in the Sacred folder in your Start menu. (I never noticed it until somebody told me, because I always launched the game via the shortcut on my desktop.)
•If you're having a tough time trying to get from point A to point B, look for roads and trails in the terrain. Typically, if you follow a road that appears to be heading, that will get you to the next point in your quest. Following these paths will save you hours of tracing forest and cliff edges looking for a way in.

Difficulty (from Very Easy to Very Hard): Medium

My rating (from Very Bad to Very Good): Good

You will probably like this game if you liked these: Diablo, Dungeon Siege

Rating:
Summary: sacred problems
Review: sacred is a great little game but I think they rushed to get it out too soon..Their are numerous bugs in it so many quests get failed. I downloaded the patches and they made it worse.I play with a radeon pro card-my boyfriend plays with an n videa.my card is rated as higher than his but i have problems he doesn't
have-like the game crashing-he has the others-unable to complete a quest..The bug fix downloads make it worse.It is a good game, but frustrating..I think they should have delayed putting it out and fixed the numerous bugs in it.

Rating:
Summary: Sacred
Review: So far i have only played the demo version of this game. It is not as addictive as Diablo 2 LOD but the graphics make up for that. I think that Encore has a lot of work to do on fixing those bugs though. There are lots of places for improvement. For example i called my horse and my characted disappeared until my character mounted it. That kinda freaked me out. I hope that Encore polished the rough egdes of this game a bit, and it might just be as smooth as Diablo 2 and Ultima Online. ;)

Rating:
Summary: If I could only play the game.......
Review: So, I recently aquired this game through this very site expecting it to be a fantastic game. It is as far as I can tell. However the game is so buggy right now that it has ruined everything about the game.

I feel like I paid money to test a BETA version..which makes me fairly unhappy. I hate bugs and the bugs in this game are driving me nuts. Even after the update to 1.6 bugs are still aplenty. One bug that is really bothering me is the inability to alt-tab out, or when someone messages me. The game just dies.

Rating:
Summary: 3D Diablo
Review: Starcraft is to Warcraft 3 as Diablo 2 is to Sacred. Not quite as addictive at first but definately improves where the other left off (not that sacred is a sequel). Horses, charged special moves, graphics (weather effects are awesome), unique characters, and best of all, very user friendly for those who aren't role-playing fanatics! Just plain cool... try it if you loved Diablo 1 or 2.

Rating:
Summary: stop whining
Review: The people that actually play the game dont care if your computer doesnt play the game. if u cant play it then its your computer cause mine isnt top notch but good enough and i can play it no problem with no gliches or anything.

otherwise i have polayed it through and it is a great game. a pure hack n slash and just like diablo 2 cept bnet way better. if you like d2 then you will like this cause it is awesome gameplay and lots of fun to play. i only borrowed it and the day i returned it i bought it. its awsome and buy it.

Rating:
Summary: Amazing value for money. Fun. Massive world.
Review: The six player character options all play fairly differently. Plenty of scope for different builds within each of the characters. The offical sacred forum on the developers site is pretty full of debate on what is "best build"... a good sign.

The game world as stated by many people is huge. I mean really huge. You can walk (or ride) across it without loading screens etc. Very nice. Saving games is also approx 5 seconds long.

Many main and subquests to complete. Subquests are fairly easy to complete, main quests are often lenghty affairs across good distances. Some of the subquests are broken to some degree with the little subquest arrow not working right. I suspect this will all be patched at some point. The game is massive, so not surprising some of the wee bells and whistles don't work. The developers have shown excellent follow up on patch issus so far, which bodes well.

Hundreds of items, plus many can be socketed with jewelry and runes, and there are at least a hundred of these to play with as well. Lots of combinations for outfitting your character.

Simple to use, yet deep to think about, special combat arts, spells and combo system. Also leveling up requires thoughtfull application of stats and skills.

Many people complain about difficulty with clicking on monsters to attack etc. "I have to click 4-5 times to attack a monster" sort of stuff. The game works best by clicking and holding the left mouse button down. Once doing that your character will continue to attack without constant clicking. (Nice for my carpal tunnel issues!) This info is also on pg 27 of the manual.

Overall I've enjoyed it greatly so far. Player for 20 hours and explored 6% of the map. Excellent value for money!

Rating:
Summary: The old 3-D engine reborn.
Review: Theres a few pros and cons about this game, but I'll get to that later on. First off, Sacred is alot like Diablo II, only with a good story. It's very open-ended for an action-RPG, over 50% of the world is open to explore as soon as you start the game. Unlike most action RPGs, where the smaller enemies just seem annoying, in Sacred the monsters carry random items. You could kill the smallest enemy and find a great weapon or item on it. As you go along, you find "runes" to place in slots to do special moves. You can combine these moves to make a really cool looking (and powerful) combo attack. Theres alot of movement in this game. It's not just "hack & slash". Characters have moves where they can kick, punch, spin around, do acrobatics, and all kinds of stuff. Theres also "particle effects" on some items. One of the armors for the Seraphim class, when you put it on, sprouts blue "wing" like things that sway around when you walk or move. You can also have blacksmiths combine weapons and armors to make completly new items.

Pros:
- Lots of 'eye candy' for this type of game.
- LOTS of items, weapons, armors etc etc.
- Diverse enemies and characters.
- Nice music and sound effects.
- Each character class has a differant type of "play". You can beat the game with the gladiator, and have a totally differant experiance if you beat it with a vampire class.
- The replay value is great. 30 main quests and 200 sub-quests. You wont be beating this in 4 hours like some action RPGs.
- You can buy a horse and ride it around, and attack from it.
- Online play.
- The overhead view has a zoom feature. Where you dont have to stare at tiny characters running around. When you zoom in you can see how much detail is in this game.
- A really "clean" interface.

Cons:
- Kind of a "dated" engine. It has an overhead view like Diablo and Baldurs Gate. But it's not really a resource killer. This game will play on any average PC.

Over all, I really liked this game. I compare most of these game types with the famous Baldurs Gate series (gameplay, content, originality, etc). And this one was more than enough to keep me interested. It's just alot of fun. It's good to see that games are still being made that just arent all about the graphics.