Risen 3: Titan Lords Review (PC)

Risen 3: Titan Lords is the kind of role-playing game that deals in cliched stories and uses many of the long-standing tropes in the genre, marinating everything in a generous pirate-themed broth.

It's by no means a visionary title, but its diverse and foul-mouthed characters, tropical environments and swashbuckling swag are bound to garner some attention, at least from long-time fans of the Gothic and Risen series, and Piranha Games' title might even provide some good, clean fun to newcomers to the action role-playing genre.

Even though the game is flawed in many ways, it also possesses a kind of infectious charm that makes it easier to ignore its shortcomings and draws you into its world, tugging at you to explore its nooks and crannies and take on pirate ghosts, goblins and undead fiends.

Story

The world has its balance hanging by a thread, left at the mercy of the rampaging Titans, abandoned by all its gods. Humanity is at its worst, facing a losing struggle to band together whatever strength it may still possess and rally against the common threat.

Fortunately, Risen 3 has the common sense to start you off with more personal matters. Your own life has been taken from you, and you must first set out to regain what was lost before worrying about the darkness that is spreading throughout the world.

After you are revived by a wacky Witch Doctor who seems haunted by Shakespeare's ghost and inhabited at times by Willem Dafoe, you will embark on a journey to find the light, embracing one of three different factions.

Shine on you, crazy, tricorn-wearing diamond

Gameplay

Once the tutorial/introduction is done, you get your hands on a modest sloop that carries you through your open-world Carribean adventure, hopping from island to island, until you can get your hands on bigger ships with their own crew.

Along the way, you will run into all sorts of characters, some of which you'll be able to recruit, as you can always have someone fight at your side at any given time.

From the cutlass-sporting fearless damsel Patty, who is your sister in this particular storyline, and who could still use some pointers when it comes to picking combat armor that actually protects the squishy bits, you'll be able to put together a motley crew of comrades, including ghostly pirates and voodoo priests.

There are many loose nuts and bolts in Risen 3, and you'll often find yourself displeased with "random features" such as your companions disappearing for no reason, or having another set of armor equipped after loading a saved game.

But the most annoying thing about the game is the combat system, which unfortunately is plainly atrocious. Instead of having the base system of the combat in an at least functional state, if not streamlined and enjoyable, killing stuff feels like a chore.

It might just be my not being fond of ballet in general, but whenever my avatar starts putting on a complete representation of Swan Lake before trying to poke any critter, I just think that the people responsible for the clunky and unresponsive controls should be made to use them in their daily lives.

Fortunately, from the frustrating parry, dodge roll, and butterfly jump that ends in a Biellmann spin before figuring out what the sharp end of any weapon is, you get some more advanced moves as you progress through the game, including a wide range of magical attacks, from slinging ice shards at mud crabs to summoning various demons and all the other stuff that was lacking in the second installment.

In addition to this, you can also rally behind one of the game's factions, pledge your loyalty to them and gain different attacks. Character progression is not as easy as spending level up points though.

During your adventures, you earn glory from doing pretty much everything, including romantic strolls on the beach during which you pick up shells, and you must spend those points in order to get your base skills at a proper numerical value that will allow you to then purchase new abilities and skills from trainers, using gold.

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The trainers are scattered across the islands, and since there is not one single hub that has everything that you need, you'll do a lot of hopping around until you find the right combination of merchant/trainer NPC that you require.

In order to gain access to some of the most interesting late-game skills, you're going to have to spend quite a bit of time exploring the islands and running errands, and there is a lot of content to go through if you choose to stray from the path of the main quest and also delve into side operations.

Combat takes some getting used to, as in the beginning you depend a lot on your ability to point sharp implements at foes, and enemies such as claw monkeys and other denizens of the islands don't always telegraph their attacks in meaningful ways.

Furthermore, oftentimes enemies will use either a 2-hit or 3-hit attack cycle, ending in a dodge roll, which will leave you guessing whether you'll have time to get an attack in or not, and more often than not, you'll just end up swinging at empty air, stuck in an attack animation that just won't end.

Battles are very tedious in the beginning, because even though you have both dodging as well as blocking to guard your life total, you'll have to steel your nerves and be very patient, inching your way through enemy health bars and fiddling around a lot.

Apart from that, you can explore Risen 3: Titan Lords' open-world at your leisure, with plenty of quests to tackle in various different ways, and a lot of freedom when it comes to character progression, as well as through the main storyline.

In order to keep things fresh, while traveling between the tropical islands, you will also become engaged in naval fights, as well as battles against sea monsters, and there is a wealth of content to go through before reaching the end of your adventure.

Granted, it's not on the level of BioWare's creations, having a general tendency toward mediocrity, but if you find the game to be right up your alley after the slow start, more of the same translates into good news and a lot of fun.

Visuals and Sound

The first thing that strikes you about the game, if you played Risen 2, is that the visuals have not been improved as much as you would have expected, and that many of the assets have been recycled for Risen 3: Titan Lords.

The game lacks overall polish, and the graphical quality is reminiscent of games that are years older than Rise 3, but there are also vistas that look pretty well, as well as some interesting ideas when it comes to level design and the overall feel of the world.

Granted, you can't really go wrong with a tropical paradise as setting, but it's still worth mentioning that exploring the beaches and jungles will feel pretty rewarding from a visual standpoint, just don't expect anything breathtaking.

Does that come with a dental plan?

The game takes you on an adventure set to many different backgrounds and offers you plenty of enemies to test your mettle against, some of them refreshingly exotic.

The character animations, although improved from the days of Risen 2, still feel at times pretty wooden, and there are many instances when hits don't register on enemies, as there are times when you can simply roll in place and become impervious to blows that ostensibly hit their mark.

The voice acting is unfortunately pretty bad, sounding for the most part like someone reading a shopping list in a disinterested voice, having no relation to what is going on on-screen.

There are surprising moments, and some colorful characters to liven things up though, which makes up for a part of the dull or disconnected delivery that most dialogue benefits from.

Also, there is a lot of swearing, which is very welcome in a pirate game, and in games where you indiscriminately kill stuff in general, even though it's not as creative as in that Mickey Rourke game.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion