Kevin Roberson

I wanted to like Risen. I really did; think of the puns! The RPG bar has risen! The messiah of RPGs has a-Risen. But sadly, all I’m left with is Risen-tment. Get it?!

You know you’ve got problems when you take a step backward from a game that was made in 1996

Risen is a third-person RPG about a shipwreck survivor who washes up on an island where a species of monsters who predate humanity are plotting the downfall of man. RPG, in this case, meaning an action adventure game with combat too awful to call itself action. What normally distinguishes RPGs from action adventure games is a series of paradoxical gameplay problems that, if handled correctly, turn into assets. Like Wile E. Coyote chasing the roadrunner, Risen finds a way to spear itself on every single one of them.

The Rogue Paradox: The rogue is a primary archetype in the fantasy setting like the fighter and the mage, but the rogue has the unique ability to open locks and pick pockets. Since game designers don’t want to disadvantage players for picking their favorite class, this means no object of importance will ever be in a locked chest. Similarly, players should not be disadvantaged for moral choices, so the selfless do-gooder will somehow wind up with the same amount of money as the selfish pickpocket. Where most games balance this by making stealth a beneficial and intricate part of combat, to compensate for the rogue’s wasted skill points, Risen compensates for it by stomping your rogue into the dirt until you have the good sense to train as a fighter instead.

The Character Customization Paradox: In most RPGs, the player is encouraged to mold their protagonist to whatever preference they have of looks, combat style and morality. Risen approaches character customization like a registered sex offender approaches their new neighbor by court order. Your class is handed to you as you progress through the game based on who you decided to side with. Each class only has one set of armor they can wear and your hero always looks the same and is disallowed from even having a name. And despite your best efforts to play the way you want, the game will frequently inform you that you’ve made the wrong decision. Early in the last chapter, after I had come to terms with being a fighter, since I couldn’t viably play a rogue, the game tossed up five barriers that required me to have spellcasting training to deactivate and progress the plot, essentially erecting a sign which read “Must be this wizardy to enter.”

Lock-on vs Free-look Camera: Most of us remember the origin of the lock-on camera, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time. Well let’s just say, you know you’ve got problems when you take a step backward from a game that was made in 1996 whose controller thought gamers had three opposable thumbs. In Risen, your camera automatically locks onto the enemy you’re looking at, but this doesn’t distinguish between friend and foe, leading to lots of friendly fire. When you want to change targets, you nudge the extremely sensitive camera in the desired direction. If you nudge too softly it will ignore you and stay locked onto your original target, but if you overdo it, you’ll overshoot and turn your back to your enemies. Did I mention you can’t parry attacks by enemies you’re not targeting and most of the fights in the game involve 3-5 enemies?

Realism vs. Magic Paradox: Potions are a well established hallmark of RPGs. We’re all familiar with the intravenously administered health bar extenders. Yeah it doesn’t make sense that every RPG features a liquid that must be ingested that is theoretically consumed from a bottle but somehow transfers directly from your backpack to your health bar with the touch of a button. But you know what’s even worse? Having to put away both your weapon and your shield in the middle of a fight that you’re already losing to drink a potion. Is there some reason I can’t just put away my sword and keep my shield up? Fixing a well-established, magical game mechanic by introducing realism is like adjusting your patio awning by jumping on it.

Outside-the-Box Thinking: RPGs tend to have a lot of checks and balances for quest solutions so that if you don’t follow a particular order in talking to NPCs or killing certain monsters you’re not penalized. In Risen, your quest log will quickly become cluttered with quests you will never be able to complete because you talked to people in the wrong order or already extorted them before being expressly told to do so by your thief’s guild.

Playable Opposing Factions: Games like Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Never Winter Nights 2 have tried this and it can be done reasonably well. The problem is, it’s an illusion. You’re going to follow the mage into the temple either because he asked you to, or because his enemies want you to see what he’s up to. Somehow Risen flies right past the gimmick stage and turns it into a near deal breaker. In the beginning, you are expressly told by the first friendly NPC to go talk to an organized crime Don and avoid the mages at all costs, even though, as previously mentioned, toward the end of the game being part mage is required to drop a few magical barriers and being a rogue is strictly disadvantageous.

Quantity vs. Quality Graphics: RPGs have to mass produce distinct faces of hundreds of NPCs and don’t know which direction you’re going to explore next. So every nook and cranny needs equal graphical attention, which means lower quality graphics than linear games. In Risen on the 360, the graphics are ok when you’re fighting and adventuring, but the faces and talking animations are about as realistic and lifelike as a surrealist painting of a Picasso exhibit. And even then the framerate dips under 20 when you have more than a dozen combatants fighting at once, which happens three or four times.

Despite all this, the writing in Risen is pretty good. If a quarter of the Risen designers had been hired by Bioware instead, we might have had an excellent game. I found the plot compelling and the dialogue to be well written. I even caught myself having fun a couple of times when I would keep my head down and try to forget that I was playing Risen instead of a good RPG. So I can’t entirely hate it, due to the sparks of enjoyment it brings before it crushes my dreams. But, by the same token, I can’t entirely hate herpes either.

Wounded 2/5