I'm really enjoying this game. It's what Gothic III should have been. Gameplay is difficult for the first few hours, but it's been a long time since I've felt this challenged in an RPG. Quests are varied and interesting, NPC's are well voice acted, and the detailed world is a joy to explore.

They always say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, or by its prologue or first chapter. Only by delving into the expanse of pages can its merits truly shine, and by the time they do, you should be sufficiently hooked to want to see it through to the end. The same is true of films, in which an opening act might prove entirely at odds with what lies in store. When applied to games, though, with their differing styles of gameplay and individual pacings, the concept becomes a little more difficult to apply. When should you judge it? After an hour? Ten? If so, Risen would still come off sorely lacking. It isn’t until you get a good way into the game- and by that we mean 20 hours or more- that the story begins to come to the fore. Before then, our nameless hero will spend plenty of time exploring the island of Faranga where the game takes place and meeting its inhabitants, building up enough of a relationship with them all that when the storyline does kick in, you at least have some attachment to the characters of the piece. In many ways, Risen owes a lot to Piranha Bytes’ previous title, Gothic 3. The world is much smaller- marooned on Faranga after a shipwreck, the nameless protagonist cannot leave the island due to strange storms which ravage the oceans- and the scope more constrained, but Risen picks up on the same style of challenging exploration, combat, and open-world gameplay with lasting consequences. It never reaches the heights of Gothic 3 at its finest- but it doesn’t destroy itself with technical inadequacies like its spiritual predecessor, either. After a brief tutorial, you’re given the first of many choices- to side with the spiritual warriors of the Order, who have come to the island in search of ancient artefacts and have taken control of Harbour City, or to support Don Esteban, displaced ruler of the city and his band of rogues who have set up camp in the swamp. There are dozens of characters to meet on both sides, and many of the quests can be undertaken without picking an allegiance (though some will naturally close off others). But since nearly every character is a named, unique person with their own role (and voiced dialogue), the choices you make have tangible impact on their lives and the way in which they respond to you. Offend someone or get spotted trying to steal something and they’ll not speak to anymore, closing off potential storylines, or possibly even attack you. Not all opponents aim to kill, fortunately, and most will just be content to loot your unconscious body instead. Goods can be traded with locals, new skills can be learned by purchasing training, and you can craft your own weapons, brew your own potions, write your own scrolls and cast spells as you like, developing along an expansive set of abilities that you can customise to your liking. A good deal of the game is taken up with dialogue; many of the quests are solved throu

Risen is an absolutely awesome, challenging, and rewarding RPG. Make no mistake, this game is out to kill you. If you're not smart, quick, and lucky you will die, and a lot. Every fight is a challenge and a very quick way to die. Save like a maniac with multiple save slots. That said, it is incredibly satisfying to win and get at whatever your opponent was guarding. With great challenge comes great reward, and Risen knows how to make you glad you won. Besides the challenge, Risen presents an interesting, though perhaps not original, plot and setting. The island looks good, but not great. For some reason I'm kind of surprised to find no loading screens when traveling between major areas. Risen is a great open-world RPG with a lengthy scope, an interesting plot, a challenging world, and a great sense of success and reward. Buy it.

As mentioned by others, this is a substantial RPG in the Gothic style, with many tens of hours of gameplay. Relatively bug free and very enjoyable for the most part, with a fair degree of replayability due to different character and faction options. Exploration is fairly open ended (and rewarding) although game log always let you know what quests are current. Interface and game mechanics all work very well.

Risen is a solid and totally engrossing open-world RPG which should definitely appeal to fans of the Gothic series, as well as anyone looking for a challenging-but-rewarding role-playing experience. With a large detailed island to explore, a boatload of skills to master, multiple factions to join, numerous dungeons to raid and deadly traps to puzzle your way through, this game will last you a fairly long time, too. One star off for a few (totally patchable) bugs, but other than that it's one of the best RPGs of its kind of the past few years. Highly recommended.

Risen is fun, the story is engaging and it’s easy to play. The English voice acting was pretty good and I liked the characters enough to feel I had engaged with the story. So in general it was a good game and good experience - especially for the price. I’ve played The gothic games and so I expected the combat to be pretty difficult. But like Norwegicus I found the combat in Risen to be a too hard on Normal Difficulty. It wasn’t that I couldn’t kill things or that I died too often - it was that the combat took a very long time and there was a lot of it - and It’s a little too arcade style for my taste. I felt a little like the developer was making a game for the hard core Gothic fans and went a little too far in into the hard core – but that again is just my taste in combat. I went for a mage and enjoyed that game style very much - Although I also agree magic was a bit limited early on but - 10 points in magic bullet and the combat was fast and deadly the way I like it. One thing I really disliked was that the choice of classes was bound to factions. I played a Mage, partially because I disliked the melee combat but mostly because I like playing mages, but was bound to the mage faction by doing so. Personally my sympathies were more with the Don’s men but I wanted to play the mage so I couldn’t join the faction I liked best. I also found the ending to be a pain – I developed mage skills and power etc but the ending isn’t class specific and the fight is pretty difficult. This was balanced by the fact you get all you need to win but i would have prefered a more class (mage) specific ending. I also thought that the end battle was slow and boring and incredibly frustrating – but that only takes a few minutes and wraps up story – the story itself, like the game play, was pretty good. All that said - I enjoyed it - but preferred Drakensang which is a very good old school party based computer role-playing game also available from this site.

A wonderful open-world RPG which is a successor to the Gothic series in everything but the title. You play an unnamed hero shipwrecked on the volcanic island of Faranga, where ancient temples have mysteriously risen up out of the ground. Although the graphics are a bit dated, the voice acting and storyline are superb throughout.

First of all, if you like the Gothic series you will probably like this one. For newcomers it's a nice rpg and if you play all the paths available in the game it's pretty much amounts to the 60 hours featured in the description. The story is so and so but what I like most is the character development in anyways and the different storyarcs even if they are a bit similiar. Combat is a bit shabby until you get a few skills but it's still repetetive, at least you can pick different types of combat for additional playthroughs. Playing as a mage is a whole lot different than as a fighter wielding a sword. The only noticeable bug I found in the game is clipping, I got stuck several times and some doorways magically teleported me to the roofs. Luckily this game has autosave compared to Gothic so that helps when you forget to constantly quicksave, I recommend keeping at least 3 savegames. Considering the amount of patches Gothic 3 received not to mention the community patches it's a possibility that risen will be given the same treatment but as said the bugs didn't really stop me from playing. The most noticeable thing is that a restart is needed every few hours, I lose speech on npcs and it starts stuttering like crazy, I'm guessing it's a memory issue.

Risen is a beautifully imagined world and the way it's been portrayed makes you want to dive in and drink it all up. Often I find myself parking my character and just watching the environments and the world roll by. The combat is vastly improved over Gothic 3 and trying to play it with click spamming is one of the easiest ways to die. You'll need to take into account timing and geography and your opponents strategy to succeed. The story is somewhat stereotypical but includes enough fresh elements to keep it new and enjoyable. The quests are excellently done and rarely boring. My only major complaint is the lack of customization of the main character that and he's got an instantly forgettable face, voice and personality, one of the most uninspired characters in years. Nothing sticks out about the character whatsoever which is a major failure if Piranha Bytes won't let you define your own character and instead provide you with one of their choosing. Regardless it's a solid rpg and extremely stable and optimized pc game that I can safely recommend to any rpg lover and just about any gamer.

Please sir, can you spare some change? Wish there was a begging skill in the game, at least early on. Gold, the engine that drives this gameworld, is hard to come by so be careful how you spend it. I've played all the Gothic games, this is just like them. Polished fighting system that will kill you if your a button masher. As with the Gothic games, I generally stick to melee combat, until late in the game when you wont die trying to hit a stingrat with a fireball. Graphics aren't bad, game only crashed once on me after about 15 hours of playing and multiple secessions. Quests are good, and varied, but like all rpg's pretty standard. Did like the detective work in Harbor Town. Voice acting is from England, a couple of characters sound like my friend from Manchester, overall its not bad, kind of Guy Richie esque. All in all, good game, and like the Gothic series, solid main story line that makes you want to keep playing.

This is quite similar to gothic 3, probably because its from the same makers. Compared to gothic 3 i have not found as many bugs yet in Risen, and that's a good start. Graphics are like gothic 3, so not the best but i will do. The fighting is very similar to gothic 3 only much harder, the enemy dodge more often and block more often. One fight may last a long time because of this so i would say its quite hard at times. Also there are monsters every where, but that's seem to be the whole point when considering the story line. The game world is a little disappointing, your on an island so its not so big and full of settlements, how ever if you like exploring caves and ruins you'll like it, full of traps and a few riddles mixed in with things that go bump in the night. your character is ready made for you like gothic, but you get to choose your own skills and traits, i only wish it was more. And the magic system left me a little disappointed in the beginning, you need either crystals, scrolls or runes to be able to cast spells which make melee skills vital unless you want to die or run all the time. One last thing. You get to choose who you want to join sides with early on. Listen to the warnings you get or you might end up like my character. I went for one profession but was kidnapped and kind of forced to change paths. I could restart but wheres the fun in that, i decided to just go with the flow on my first run through the game. So far its fun, difficult , but fun :D