Risen Journal 06: Wherein Our Hero is Just Getting Started

Everything changed in the monastery.

Walking its halls as a bandit on a diplomatic mission was an endurance test. The monastery is the rogue’s wet-dream. The quarters are lined with the bunk rooms of the recruits, all of whom are busy with their daily tasks, and rich with chests and cupboards to raid; in the cemetery is a tomb, hosting only still-dead, non-animated skeletons buried with their possessions, ready for plundering; there’s a warehouse where the Inquisiton keeps its artefacts, guarded by a single old man who enjoys taking time off; and if that weren’t enough, a surprisingly thriving drug-trade makes the guards easy to bribe. It takes every bit of will I have to be a good envoy and not rob the fools blind.

Risen Journal 05: Wherein Our Hero Goes Cardio-Crazy

There’s something I have to take care of before I head out on my “diplomatic” mission. Remember those thieves I helped out of Harbour Town earlier? Well, I didn’t just do it out of the goodness of my heart. I’ve had this quest for a while now that I haven’t had time to tackle, to find the entrance to some ruined temple on the opposite side of the island and find three treasure seekers to go dig it up.

Risen Journal 04: Wherein Our Hero Becomes a Real Boy

The walk back to the swamp looks far more daunting on my map than it turns out to be. I haven’t been in the wild for a while now, but during my time in the city I invested good money and points into my skills and stats. For the first time I feel like I can survive out there on my own, without a tour guide or a mercenary mob by my side.

Risen Journal 03: Wherein Our Hero Considers WitSec

I’ve finally found a way out of Harbour Town. During the rest of my time there, I engaged in numerous dirty deeds, all of which means to the justified end that is fighting the Inquisiton.

Risen Journal 02: Wherein Our Hero Acquires Shoes

The first (maybe only?) city in Risen doesn’t change much. Yeah, it’s a lot bigger than the Don’s camp, filled with more people and more things to do, but for the most part it’s more of the same. I’m still performing tasks for whichever factions I choose to ally myself, performing fetch-quests and proving myself in duels.

Risen Journal 01

Risen is a hard game for me to review in the traditional sense, at least while giving it any justice (especially the 360 port). Risen, like its spiritual predecessors of the Gothic series, is often criticized harshly for its technical shortcomings, including bugs, graphics, controls, and interface. In spite of such criticism, the Gothic series, and Risen in turn, maintain a strong cult following. The question I will attempt to answer by writing a multiple-article journal review is, why?

There’s no doubt that the criticisms of the game’s technical flaws are justified. The Xbox 360 port is especially crippled with drastically lower quality graphics than its PC counterpart, so much so that it could easily be mistaken for a mid-generation original Xbox game. By playing Risen at a more casual pace than I would for a typical review, taking the time to make myself see what the fans see, my hope is that I can more adequately convey the experience of a game whose value lies more in the feeling of playing it, rather than the formal qualities of the product itself. Personally, I believe that this is the case for all games.

Most of my reviews I write to convey the feeling of playing a game, rather than to explain the game itself, and make an attempt to reconcile both approaches to determine value. In the case of Risen, however, it’s my belief that even in my usual approach the game would be unfairly marred by its formal qualities and technical shortcomings.

Now that we have the background information out of the way, we can get on with the business at hand: my Risen journal.

(First, I should point out that I played the Xbox 360 version of the game.  Many of these screens are from the PC version; what little I could find scouring the internet and NeoGAF.  As a rule of thumb: Pretty shots = PC, ugly shots = 360.)

Risen (More Fun Than it is Good)

You awake in the night to the steady sound of pouring rain, broken by the occasional crack of distant thunder, washed up on the shore of a tropical island. You’re surrounded by the remains of a wrecked ship and her crew (now only food for the vultures). You’re clothed in rags, shoeless, and the best weapon you can scavenge from the wreck is a stick. You have no direction, no objective, other than to scrounge through the detritus, collecting rum, coins and junk–anything that could possibly be useful to your survival.