Risen

buggy piece of sh1t, good to see piranha bytes is done

if you want a Gothic feel like game, This is definitely a game you wanna play. Try playing on normal unless you are a very, and i saying very good gamer. That way you still have a easy mode to go back on for more difficult parts. no spoilers here, just enjoy the game.

Good game! Nice world, story and quests.

one of the best games

The only good Risen game.

graphics are meh
soud is decent
story is okeish
this game hits me right in the Nostalgy 10/10

The closest to real Gothic 3 out there. Worth a buy, especially for a fan of the earlier PB games.

Great game! You struggle a lot in the beginning, but you can really feel the character getting stronger

Legendary classic

Old school and tough on newcomers, but in a good way. It's made by the guys who did the Gothic series, and I think this is a better version of those games. It seems more polished, but definitely does not hold your hand, similar to the Gothic series as well. Get your ass kicked and robbed by a dude wielding a large stick.

Хех, Піранії, ви намагались зробити продовження Готики після того як у вас відібрали права на Готику, і вам майже вдалось, мені майже сподобалось.
Технічно - це розвиток третьої частини, сюжетно - я оцінив скромну відсилку "коли хтось там вбив старих богів" у виконанні недостатньо замаскованого "Ксардаса" - "Зардаса" - Верховного Інквізитора.
Побічні квести цікаві, монстри нові, все інше - ну перемішали фракції з першої і другої частини...Паладинів з Монастирем, Бандитів з Болотяним, все. Забули пʼяту главу, четверта просто довго тягнеться ходиш-вбиваєш, так само як в першій і другій, тільки менш цікаво.

The World is fine, The combat sucks. Too often did I run into multiple Enemies just to die or not enjoy the experience cause Enemies Dodge around like crazy, I lose lock on on someone or the classic it locks on the complete wrong enemy. If you can ignore that go ahead its a good game. I cant ignore it and it made me quit.

If you are looking for a medieval game, then try this game. It is a third-person fighting game set on a mysterious island. This game is the successor of the Gothic games. There are so many similarities between the Gothic and the Risen games, like storytelling, fighting, etc., and if you like Gothic, you will like this game. I enjoyed the game, and I would recommend it to everyone.

Although i play this game every few years for nostalgia reasons, i cant really recommend it.

The first chapter is excellent, but after that it just goes downhill and becomes a 5/10

Little rough over the edges but overall, It's great.

After playing the Gothic series, this game, its characters and the landscape ring a bell in the memories and warms the heart.

It is just fun. A game you can come back to time after time.

classic

Bugs, roughness and unsurpassed experience of Gothic.

A classic

Интересный сюжет, но боевка душная, особенно если пытаться играть через посохи без щита.
Дошел до 3-ей главы и понял, что желания продираться через сейв скам никакого.

Да, понравилось. Может по началу сложно вникнуть, но стоит разобраться и пошло-поехало. Игра награждает исследование и возвращение, потому что в некоторые места не так просто попасть. Рекомендую играть в версию publicbeta, потому что статистика достижений считается корректно и избегается ряд багов. И ещё: не убивать живность сразу, а по возможности избегать, чтобы в будущем после получения нужных инструментов и разделки получить больше трофеев. Достижения не очень сложные. Yes, I liked it. It may be difficult to understand at first, but it's worth figuring it out. The game rewards exploration and return because some places are not so easy to get to. I recommend playing the public beta version, because achievement statistics are considered correct and a number of bugs are avoided. And one more thing: do not kill animals immediately, but avoid them if possible, so that in the future, after receiving the necessary tools and cutting, you can get more trophies. And be saved more often. Achievements are not very difficult.

A samel RPG with a lot of love for details.

I honestly don’t get why so few of my friends know this game. Risen has that classic Gothic vibe—the rough world, the tough combat, and that nostalgic feeling that makes me want to replay it over and over. Sure, it’s janky in places, but that’s part of the charm. The atmosphere, the exploration, and the sense of progression pull me back in every time. It might not be as well-known as Gothic, but for me, it’s just as memorable. A true hidden gem.

steam keeps asking if i recommend this game and frankly, i’m not sure. i had genuine fun with it for about 50 hours, but i kind of suffered through the last 10. why? because at its core, it’s a solid Piranha Bytes game meaning the hardcore beginning and the lengthy first act (easily half the game) are the best parts. you know, all that classic routine: learning the world’s rules, figuring out who the baddest baddie is, and choosing a faction to side with. running errands for some sketchy hombres. exploring caves and shores, only to get smashed on the head by a random ostrich (or whatever the hell those things are). getting bullied by the bullies at first and bullying them later. mugging and getting mugged. waking up NPCs in the middle of the night just to pester them with dumb questions. waiting until nightfall just to use the smithy because, during the day, those bulky blacksmith bastards hog it nonstop, leaving you waiting for a turn that will never come. sound familiar? that’s because this game is basically Gothic, just in a slightly different setting with much better graphics. plus, Kai Rosenkranz composed the ambient music for this one too, and his tunes really hit close to home.

BUT, the first time you try to take on some lizardmen, you’ll realize the combat is janky as hell. all those action points you invested in sword fighting? they don’t mean dreck because those bastards block everything. every fight becomes a battle of wills: me vs. the will to keep enduring this suffering. and then, when you’ve finished all the open world stuff and only the plot missions remain, you’ll remember: the main story is the weakest part of the game. it’s just uninteresting and painfully boring. again. yep guys, this is truly a Piranha Bytes game. also, i was surprised to see in the credits that Andy Serkis, Lena Headey and Johnathan Rhys-Davies contributed voice work. why? because the acting felt kind of uninspired. or maybe the writing was so generic and dull that i ended up skipping most of the dialogue and missed everything. who knows?

to wrap this up: after all i do recommend playing this game because Piranha Bytes knows how to create an engaging, tightly packed open world. but beware, it’s an old game, and it has its fair share of jank. actually, quite a lot of jank. but hey, let’s admit it, that’s part of its charm.

10/10

I have risen

I haven't played this game a single time in my life what do you mean 100 hours

olb pb = good

Fighting sucks you cant lock onto them while they consistently hit you and you hit air.

nice gameplay, music, landscapes, story

Timeless game. It had a lot of endgame content cut from it during development, but it's a certified classic. Also giant concrete slabs

THE MOST UNINTERESTING / UNINSPIRED BORING PIECE OF TRASH I HAVE PLAYED YET!!!!!!!

nothing cool happens in this pile of crap. fetch quests and i could barely stay awake playing this. i only bought to make fun off cheep games but this one is so bland there is no possible sorce of dowpameen. its not even its age thats the problem cuzz this game was shat on when it launched back in the day

GOOOD!!!

If you are a fan of THQ Nordic and of Gothic1&2, play this game!

Very nice classic RPG, decent story, challenging, nice range of options to finish a quest. Immersive (albeit small) open world, atmospheric, especially when you see the npc's having dedicated cycles. A lot of good work went into making this a living world, where npc's remember your actions. For instance, when you kill someone on the street, bystanders will remember this and stop talking to you, which can ruin some quests. This is an immersion level which even some modern games lack.

I was surprised the game has full controller support, this makes it a perfect game for the Steam Deck. If you're playing this on PC, you can slightly improve the graphics by forcing FXAA in the Nvidia control panel (the game has no AA otherwise).

My only con is that the combat is a little clunky. Thankfully you can put anything on the hotbar, including potions and such, but using them locks you into an animation cycle, which can feel a little frustrating when you're being attacked. Also npc's can dodge lightning fast, which sometimes feels a little too fast. Also using spells is a little inconsistent as using the hotkey sometimes instantly 'unequips' the spell.

still works, big fun. me likey.

Chapters 3 and 4 discourage any desire to continue the game and reach the final, the most interesting chapter is only 1.

A worthy successor to Gothic.

Good melee combat, good follow-up on the "3 camps" Gothic formula, good exploration (not quite as good as Gothic 1 and 2, tbh, but still good), mostly good dialogs and voice acting and characters, pleasant background music, a different protagonist but still working out well, and some welcome improvements to QoL.

And speaking of VA, it has Cersei Lannister speaking as Patty.

The overall story isn't as good as I'd hope, and the very last stretch of the game including the boss fight is not the climax we'd hoped for. But the journey to get there is worth it.

(Unfortunately, it's the only game in the Risen series worth playing. Risen 2 has the distinct honor of being the only game that has ever managed to truly piss me off.)

Fair warning, I can't vouch for the Steam version, as I only ever played retail and GoG and I heard there's been some patch since then. Hopefully they didn't screw up too much.

Awesome open world exploring game

good game well played

I really like the Piranha Bytes games. I played through both elex games and risen 3 but the first risen was hard to get into. The start was rough and I was almost quitting. If I didn't know what to expect, I would never kept playing. But after a couple of hours the game opened up and I it was a great experience.

masterpiece

Fantastic game.
The combat is a bit bad, but the music, design and atmosphere reminded me of a time when games had soul.

This game released over a decade ago, and in my mind, it still holds up today -- provided you like janky old-school RPGs in the vein of the Gothic series. I'm too lazy to structure this like one of my normal reviews, and besides, there are probably 500 amazing YouTube videos on this game that you'd be better off watching. So I'll just make a bulleted list of some of the highlights.

The TL;DR, though? This is a damn good game if you like the Gothic series or Elex, and it recently got an update (enable the 'publicbeta' branch in the game's Steam settings -> Betas) that makes it work properly on modern systems.

Here's what I like about Risen:

- The game, even all these years later -- it was first released in 2009 (!) -- has impeccable atmosphere. The world feels dark, brooding, and moody. Rain and thunderstorms buffet the island on a daily basis, lending an oppressive, dangerous feel to your journeys.
- Exploration is awesome. You never know what's around the next corner; what's hiding in the next cave.
- Gear progression is simple and handcrafted. By this I mean every single piece of gear in the game has been manually placed throughout the world; there aren't RNG chances to get them, no varying quality levels, just simple, straightforward "You get this piece, you do this to get the next, better version" and so on.
- A real 'zero to hero' journey. As is the case with many PB games, you start out as a castaway; washed up on a remote island after you happened to stow away on a passing ship. You have no way of leaving the island due to the storms that terrorize it, and you have no money or equipment. Even an overgrown chicken or hedgehog can (and will) tear you to shreds. But, by the end of the game, you are overpowering all the foes that stand in your way (you'll still die; the game does not pull its punches in the damage department) and challenging the most powerful enemies in the realm with your weapon of choice. Personally, I favored 2H axes and crossbows, but swords and shields are fun, too.
- Surprisingly good english voice acting. I remember not liking it, for some reason, 10 years ago, but now...? Everyone honestly sounds really on-point and thematic for the world. Sometimes the delivery doesn't fit the tone of the situation, but just the quality, accents, etc. of the characters is very solid.
- Quests and reactivity. The quests in this game really rely on you to use your head. While they will occasionally mark things on your map (if they didn't, you'd never find certain key objects), they don't give you any quest arrows, and the marked locations aren't always exact -- sometimes it only points to the ENTRANCE to an area, and it's on you to figure things out from there. You'll also find that many quest-like sources of experience aren't even listed in your quest journal. Did you save somebody or find some item that you think could help someone you've met? Go talk to them -- there's a damn good chance they'll agree, and give you some unique dialogue, XP, and gold for it. You can also follow-up certain quests by returning to their quest-givers later, or going and tracking down people associated with it that may have moved around in the world. Usually the rewards for this are minor; just some minor XP or gold, but it's still cool to have so much unique dialogue.

That's about it. Hope this was helpful.

Very fun and involving, above all for the landscape and architecture that remind a Southern European country as Italy or Spain.

I have more hours than it shows since I played this offline when I had no internet for a while. I wanted to like it. There's good ideas here but it's too generic and too buggy to be worth the time investment it asks of you. I frequently had to reload my game because characters, including the main character, would turn invisible (but their weapons stayed visible). Combat isnt great either. It overall just feels like I'm playing a much worse version of Fable.

легендарная игра, надеемся на ремастер

Recommended only for hardcore RPG fans.
Otherwise the combat system is terrible and the quest system is frustrating.

Unfortunately Risen has not aged well, even though developers released major patch for game in Jan 24th, 2023. Nothing was adjusted or fixed gameplay wise.

I have played Risen back in 2009/2010 and back then I did not realize how bad combat really is, at least for melee character / warrior.

Right of the bat when player starts his journey there are 2 types of animals that their attacks cannot be blocked by pure weapon, they will always hit through if player tries to block with just sword, and in order to block these animal attacks you must find shield, in case you cannot find shield you will be able to purchase one in Don's camp only, but there is bit long road ahead to get there and there are plenty of these animals that can easily hit the player.

Alright so we established that these animals can get player, but worse to come, usually and in most cases these said animals are always in packs, that's right - in packs. Just in case you thought - "oh! lets use bow and kite them out one by one!" in that case I have to say that this strategy does not work in Risen, once you agroed one enemy rest will come in aid and player must fight 3 - 5 wolves at once which by the way can easily hit the player because their attacks cannot be blocked without shield.

Side steps!!! In Risen side steps and back steps are equivalent to dodge roll from Dark souls, this however does not help much because once you start to side or back step your camera will mess up your "locked on" target and will switch to different enemy with full hp instead of staying on the one that is already damaged. And there is no way to turn it off, so the game really screws melee characters. Lock ons are automatic.

You know which character can cake walk entire game? Ranged bow/crossbow or rather Mage character, mage can barrage enemies before they even get to you, does not matter how strong the enemy is, it will die in half way. Really balanced game.

Character calls out misleading information such as "I have to pick this or find a key", lets make it clear that this sentence is false because once you hear it, it only means that you have to find a key from somewhere because even with level 3 lock picking (max level) is not possible to pick that lock, why the hell he is saying "I have to pick it" if he actually can't pick it.

If you have decided to play purely as melee character you actually can't because game will force the player to use magic, which is stupid, more precisely craft scrolls which is considered magic otherwise player cannot progress into the game, why the hell I have to spend my learning points and gold to learn how to make scrolls and then purchase required tools for making scrolls? That is so stupid. Yes, i know you can buy them from mages but that also costs gold. Still it counts as using magic.

End game enemies such as lizard men are far too difficult because their AI is made to make player rage, when player attacks they block and right after they attack and hit the player, this is stupid as well, some enemies can break your block and sneak next hit while player recovers from broken guard, but the player cannot break guards for enemies, I even maxed out my sword mastery and there is nothing like that.

Some enemies can 4 hit combo the player, i mean if they can combo player with hits and player gets staggered while combod then why not just kill the player with infinite hits? Not a single enemy can be staggered while player can be, is that fair and balanced?

Yeah, I used to like Risen but now that I came back to it and realized how bad combat is for melee character I don't like it anymore.