Risen 2: Dark Waters - Now with 100% more Emo Pirates

[Vaiti]

What is it with pirates and people wanting to associate dark water to them? What exactly is dark water anyways? Did a septic tank on some pirate's ship bust?
Anyways, I caught wind of this announcement today. Risen 2 is in the works, and this time it's all about pirates. I played the first and was a fan. This promises to be more of the same with a twist in the story and the standard upgraded graphics.
So how could it fail... I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Official fact list forum post

[Sky]

Glad to hear Piranha Bytes is moving forward, Risen was a really solid entry into the franchise. Actually, I hope they draw inspiration from losing the Gothic IP, because I think releasing in trilogy is a nice format. After Risen 3, wrap up the Inquisition/Titan stuff and reboot with a new IP but the same formula.

Probably at the pinnacle of my must-buy list. Something about PB's games just clicks with me.

[Vaiti]

It kind of makes me a little sad we are the only ones looking forward to this Sky.

[Tebonas]

Oh no, I am looking forward to this as well. I loved Risen, and the Pirate theme makes sense in that setting.

[CaptainNapkin]

I'm in for this on release as well. Loved Risen and typically dig all the euro RPGs.

[Mrbloodworth]

First thing i thought of.

[Lantyssa]

I remember that show surprising me, because people on a Saturday morning cartoon actually got hurt.  At least I think it was that one.

[Stormwaltz]

First thing i thought of.

Me too.

Here's the opening, because this post needs to be more than "me too."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_5F1zYQF5M

[Morfiend]

It kind of makes me a little sad we are the only ones looking forward to this Sky.

I wanted to play the first one. But I refuse to knowingly buy a PC game on Steam if it has extra DRM. Steam is enough DRM you fuckers.

[PalmTrees]

I never managed to finish the first one due to a bug that prevented me from progressing on the main quest. Between that and not enjoying the combat I never bothered starting over.

[Ingmar]

I played it for 3ish hours in one session, and haven't been able to find the motivation to get back into it. I joined the little camp of swamp bandits, did some of their business, but the game really has a lot of issues for me. The difficulty curve is all over the place, the story is opaque at best at least up to where I ran out of steam, and the dialogue was less than engaging (possibly bad localization to English, I don't know.) And obviously the combat was Elder Scrolls-y in a not great way. Janky interface but I could deal with that, at least. I find where my tolerance was thinnest was for the story/dialogue stuff.

[Sky]

They've cleaned up the interface pretty well, the first game (and I think the second) were pretty bad UI, especially inventory.

I've said it a few times, don't be afraid to do some minor cheating. I normally never cheat, but the way the combat system works it's worth giving yourself a few training points so you can learn some skills quickly. By the time you hit the endgame, those points won't matter much as you should be pretty overpowered either way. As a melee character, I like to grab some swords skill and str. Archery in Risen is wicked OP and as a melee I ended up putting quite a bit into archery. The melee did get pretty good once you got a few moves and learned to time block.

I'll take combat difficulty being "all over the place" (know your enemy imo) over the shitty Oblivion leveling enemies.

Oh wait, you guys are talking about Risen as the first game? It's really the fourth :p I thought the dialogue was pretty decent, the protagonist reminded me of Turkish from Snatch, which lent a fun angle to the game for me.

I never managed to finish the first one due to a bug that prevented me from progressing on the main quest.

I could say the same about Fallout: New Vegas. Save early, save often, keep multiple saves. What you should be doing in any rpg.

And Morfiend 

[Vaiti]

And obviously the combat was Elder Scrolls-y in a not great way.

See I'm on the other end here on that. I like how Risen did combat over how the Elder Scrolls games do it. In elder Scrolls hits always feel like... not hits? It feels like there is no force to melee and you are fighting with foam weapons.

[Sky]

By the time I got some archery skills to soften up tougher targets (or to plink an arrow, see it did a sliver of damage on a head-shot, and RUUUUN) and a few melee moves, I thought the combat was one of the better offerings in rpg-land, which isn't exactly overflowing with good melee combat simulation.

[PalmTrees]

I had a put a few points into sword, enough to get a combo where you do a spinning slash. Every time I went into the spin I'd get hit the second the spin put my back to the enemy. What's the point of combo that guarantees you'll get hit? I stopped using it and just went poke, poke, shield block the rest of the game.

I was progressing along joining the mages quest line, definitely some uneven difficulty on that one. That fight with the guy under the mayor's house and then with the trainer dude at the mage school, made me want to quit worse than Demon's Souls. They'd kill me in 2-3 hits and I had to hit them like a billion times to take them out.

[Sky]

Diff'rent strokes, then. I thought the conservative melee approach was pretty badass. Only take the big swing when you know you won't get hit in the middle of it. One of the best early moves is evade. When an enemy lunges in with a heavy attack, skip to the side and you can get in a free shot, if he staggers you can follow up, if he recovers you get back behind the shield. I remember wolves being especially tough if you didn't have that side attack move down, lunging mofos. It's where I perfected it.

It's a series you just expect to reload a lot, I guess playing since Gothic 1 came out at retail has 'trained' me to the Piranha Bytes mojo.

[Ingmar]

melee combat simulation.

Simulation is generally the last thing I want from an RPG. I can deal with it for gun-using games, but outside of something like Mount & Blade I've never enjoyed "simmy" RPG swordfighting.

[Vaiti]

Despite this being pretty much completely off topic and not on point with what you are saying, what you said there Ingmar reminded me of it anyways.

Die by the Sword and Bushido Blade type games really need to make a fucking comeback. Mount and blade is as good as we have gotten in how fucking long now?

[Rendakor]

I would LOVE a new Bushido Blade.