Sacred 3 – Review

This article has been archived and may have some errors due to a previous design of MGL. None of the review has been altered however. Sacred 3 is the latest action role playing game to hit the market, similar to that of Diablo, Dungeon Siege and Baldurs Gate. I was a huge fan of this genre growing up, having played Baldurs Gate nearly every week back on my PlayStation 2. However in recent years I have fallen out of love with this genre, although I still enjoy it I am not finding myself to be as into them as I previously was. I have however completed both Diablo 3 and Dungeon Siege 3 on the Xbox 360 and both in my opinion were very solid games. This  is my first time playing a game in the Sacred series and with it being published by Deep Silver(Dead Island, Catherine, Saints Row IV) I have high expectations.

Look & Feel

Look & Feel

With Sacred 3 being released on PS3 and Xbox 360 I was expecting a beautiful game, something that takes advantage of both these consoles strengths. With the previous generation coming to the end of its console life span, developers have had 9 years to make games to push the consoles boundaries and really see what they are capable of. Unfortunately Sacred 3 does not do this.

Firstly lets take a look at the cut-scenes, when you start the game you are presented with a beautiful looking full motion video cut scene just before the title screen, but when the game starts the cut scenes explaining the plot are all done in a motion comic style. This to be fair to the developers is very common with this genre of game. Even the mighty Diablo 3 only used full motion videos(FMV) at the start of a new chapter. I am not a fan of this style of cut scene at all, the motion comic to me is rather boring and unappealing. For them to work normally you have to have a epic storyline, amazing artwork and a solid voice cast. Sacred 3 has only one of these, the artwork for these cut scenes is too a very high standard, they genuinely look amazing characters look full of life and the colours used really make it seem like you are watching a work in art in motion.

The voice acting in Sacred 3 is mix of a appalling script and actors who sound as though they don’t even want to be there and makes this one of the worst voiced games out there. I do get that they are trying to make the game sort of a parody of the genre, similar to what Saints Row has done with GTA, however the humour in Sacred 3 simply does not translate. Characters make bad jokes, appalling puns and at times actually say stuff that makes no sense. The worst candidate is the archer character in terms of the playable characters, it is just so bad.

Throughout the game you will encounter lost spirits or souls after defeating certain enemies, these spirits you can equip at the end of each stage and depending on which one you will chose they will add a bonus feat to your characters stats. These characters however can be very, very annoying. In one example you will encounter a Battle Mage who makes more sexual comments packed full of innuendo than The Todd from Scrubs, a singer who screeches at you out of tone with modern day songs whenever you complete a certain action(for WWE fans out there think Jillian Hall) and a Hippie type character who you guessed it voices it as though she is stoned. These characters do not shut up and every couple of seconds they will make a comment(or sing) and will not stop.

If you are a person of particularly childish humour you may well be entertained but it is very much love or hate here, if you are anything like me this makes the game hard to play. At times I found myself taking a long break at the end of each level, just so I didn’t have to listen to a stupid joke. Sacred 3 really could have benefited from an option to turn these comments and jokes off  as it isn’t vital to the game at all and when you have a guide that helps you through the mission who makes the same bad jokes it is just a bad idea.

In-game graphics are a mixed bag, the environments do look OK but are bland compared to other games in the same genre, you will go to a variety of different areas ranging from a city under siege to a sewer which has been done time and time again with these sort of games. Character design is not great, characters look pixelated and its as though the textures have not been mapped properly to the character models. Enemies are repeated time and time again with very little variation in what you fit, the bosses do suffer from the same pixelated issue as the other characters but at least they have some variety. I did also have an issue with not being able to see some of the smaller enemies as they sort of just blended into the background.

On a positive note, soundtrack is very solid, the music really fits in well with a RPG game and when characters are quiet enough for you to enjoy it it’s very enjoyable.

Story & Characters”]

Story & Characters

Sacred 3 sees you playing as one for four heroes trying to free the empire from its evil ruler who has sided with demons and is bringing terror to the land. The sort of typical storyline you will get this this genre of game, however what Sacred 3 tries to do differently is it takes a light hearted approach and tries too add in a few jokes.

It does not really matter what kind of character you play as the storyline will not vary in anyway, the characters them self are lacking in any depth and you don’t really get to know about the characters individually. This again is common for this genre, however in some games in the past you did get some unique missions however I did not encounter any in this game and to be far is no big loss as they tend to be not essential and more of a bonus than anything else. Some of the main enemies are again comical for example the Boss whose main base is in the sewer is called Skep Tic, again this is actually quite a nice touch but at other times the game tries to hard to be funny and tries to force a joke when it isn’t needed. One of the bosses who is in a war ship for example says after you defeat one of his vessels ‘ You sunk my landing ship’ saying it like the old Battleship board game ads. This game is face palm central at times.

The story overall does nothing new and characters again aren’t particularly interesting I did like the fact that they tried to make this a light hearted experience but is poorly executed, perhaps with better writers and actors this could have worked very well and could have been the Saints Row of the action RPG genre but unfortunately does not live up to its potential.

Gameplay

Gameplay

If you have played an Action RPG before you should know what to expect. Several characters to choose from each with their own strengths and weakness along side their special moves. You essentially attack everything on screen until there is nothing left and gain EXP points to increase your characters stats and coins to improve skills. What Sacred 3 does differently however is it makes you defeat all the enemies in the area before moving on, similar to that of the Devil May Cry series. But Sacred 3 does have the habit of recycling a lot of missions from previous levels.

One example would be, you have to turn a wheel a certain amount of times to move a crane in an early level to create a walkway to travel further in the level. You have to turn it a certain amount of times whilst dealing with waves of enemies. This is a routine mission for this type of game and normally appears a couple of times in a action RPG, however Sacred 3 uses this every level. And it is not just for this mission type, trust me once you encounter anything for the first time in the game you will have to do it in every level after that. It is a shame really as it makes the game rather boring to play on and every level is the same. Fit the same enemies, the same mini bosses (once you learn the sequence not one presents a challenge) and the same missions. The only thing that offers any sort of variation is the bosses at the end of each storyline level, but again these are recycled and turned into mini bosses in later stages. It really comes across as lazy games design from the developers.

The special attacks do offer some sort of variation, with only being allowed to select 2 per level and you also will have a multiplayer move you can pull off. I do feel that 2 though is not enough and they could have mapped more to the controller as these attacks are the only thing that try to do something different. These attacks also come with their own unique animation unfortunately though you can not always see them and they do tend to just blend into the background.

Level design is very good though, I never found myself getting lost or coming to a dead end. However there is no map on any level so I am not sure if I missed out on any secrets and part of why I like this genre so such when I was growing up is you can find interesting things by exploring with help of a map.

I played through this game on single player, but Sacred 3 does seem it would work better with a friend. Some of the attacks and gameplay features were clearly built for more than one player and when playing it solo some of these don’t work. For example with bosses you can hold them, stopping them from attacking or moving allowing other players to attack. Doing this in solo does drain the bosses health but very slowly. One thing I also found weird was that with 4 playable characters you can only have 2 players when playing locally? I am not sure the reason for not allowing 4.

Lifespan

Lifespan

There are quite a lot of levels to play through, but I found them to be too repetitive and a lot of gamers will find themselves turning off rather than playing to the end. Each story level takes around an hour to play and you also have mini levels in between, which are basically defeat a few waves of enemies followed by a boss or defeat all enemies. These only take around 10 minutes tops and are really just used to level up your character and collect gold, they are OK the first time you do them but they quickly become tedious. I see no replay value at all in this game, the storyline is not good enough, the gameplay is OK and the characters become very annoying fast and I did struggle to get through my first play through. Not due to the difficulty of the game but because the some of the characters were annoying me so much it was giving me a headache.

Overall

Overall

I think its safe to say I did not enjoy Sacred 3, I do not enjoy this genre as much as I was did so some hardcore fans of the genre might enjoy this more than me. However I feel that the previous generation of consoles have superior games in the genre that have been out for several years now. Childish humour in the game with poor voice acting overall ruined the experience for me but if you don’t mind that sort of thing it might be something to consider down the line.

But regardless of anything else, Sacred 3 is a below average action RPG with some decent elements and some poor ones. the developers tried to bring something new to the genre but ultimately it didn’t work. I would suggest you try it before you purchase this game.