The story, for instance, is hokum of the highest order, and completely fails to engender any sort of motivation in the player to plough through the game’s core quests. In the ludicrously poor introductory cutscene, it is revealed that an ancient magical substance known as T-energy has begun to spread its tendrils across the land of Ancaria, polluting the land and mutating its denizens into gruesome monsters. In essence, this boils down to various races and cultures clashing over the magic, High Elves and the ancient Seraphim alike, in order to determine the fate of the world. Ultimately, it’s awful tripe delivered through sparse, infrequent, but ultimately terrible cut-scenes. Make no mistake, whatever pleasures Sacred 2 offers are to be found within its fundamental gameplay mechanics of exploring, hacking, looting, grinding and customizing.
There are few ways this image could be more uninteresting.
As stated, Sacred 2 is a hack-and-slash RPG. Players can select an avatar from a variety of six classes, including the aforementioned Seraphim and High Elves, in addition to the Anubis-like Temple Guardian and evil Inquisitor. These characters traverse the vast country of Ancaria from an overhead, isometric perspective, cutting a swathe through enemies, scavenging loot and taking on a myriad of quests from a plethora of non-player characters. Players must also choose which deity their character will be aligned with; this choice endowing players with particular spells. For instance, electing to worship Lumen grants players a wide-ranging, devastating light-spell, which is upgradeable throughout the course of the campaign. Each class is also able to use a mount to travel the land and aid in combat, ranging from sabre-toothed tigers to enormous, scuttling spiders. In addition, the game offers players the choice of two distinct campaigns, both Light and Shadow. This initial choice determines the path your character will follow and the events which will transpire and ultimately determine the fate of Ancaria. The whole thing is extremely conventional and traditional, which is not necessarily to the game’s detriments. Indeed, the familiarity of its style makes it immediately accessible despite the plethora of available options.
The game’s controls are also relatively simple, with the face buttons playing host to assignable attacks and powers, which can then be modified by pulling the triggers. It is fortunate that the base control mechanics are so flexible, because navigating the cluttered menus is not. Upgrading items and scouring your inventory are actions made difficult and unwieldy by a graceless and shabbily-designed menu system which is made less workable in the transition to consoles. Allocating skill points (derived from leveling up through completing quests) and organising combat arts (the game’s version of ‘special powers’) requires sifting through said menus, which puts a dampener on proceedings.
No idea why this chappy is wearing lipstick, although we don't begrudge him his lifestyle choice.
Traversal and exploration (which thankfully take place outside of the menu system) are the prime pleasures to be had with Sacred 2. The environments are varied and well-populated, and indeed, it is easy to imagine many players being content to wile away the hours simply ambling about, opening chests and hammering the attack buttons until the opponent falls to the floor. However, the sense of immersion is sullied by the fact that Ascaron have seemingly struggled to cram the seamless world onto a console, with a loading icon (in the form of an irritating spinning disc) popping up far more often than one would like. There may be twenty-two square miles of Ancaria to explore, but its far from smooth-going. Additionally, the combat is not without its own issues. Sadly, there is no visceral ‘oomph’ to any of it; you simply hammer the attack button and you swing your axe or sword through the air in a jerky, trite animation, until your opponent falls. There is no sense of impact at all, and half the time your weapon never even touches the enemy.
Visually, Sacred 2 fails to do the Xbox 360 proud. The art design is horrifyingly bad, with the various races and creatures of Ancaria seemingly lifted from the notepad of a fantasy-obsessed thirteen year-old. Everything is graceless and bombastic: female characters are scantily-clad amazons, villains are hooded and shadowy, and everything is painted in garish tones which evoke the worst designs of developer Rare. On a technical level, an appalling frame rate, screen-tearing, and frequent pop-in make Sacred 2 rather unsightly. On the positive end, there are some lovingly-textured foliage and pretty, reflective water effects on display, so it is clear that someone at Ascaron was doing their job right. Aurally, things aren’t much better. The game’s voice acting is awful, sub-pantomime quality trash, and will likely result in awkward unintentional guffaws on the part of anyone who lowers themselves enough to listen to it. Music on the other hand is generally forgettable, but does the job, with some stirring battle music and gentle, laconic tunes being the order of the day. The game’s presentation is haphazard and unappealing overall, and the lack of charm or atmosphere, both of which are typical strengths in fantasy fiction, make for an insipid experience.
Turfy, nicely-detailed grass represents the apex of the game's visual appeal.
Six classes, online multiplayer and dozens of quests and side-quests and an enormous world to explore make Sacred 2 a game that keeps on giving, and truth be told it probably offers up dozens of hours in raw gameplay for anyone with the inclination to immerse themselves in its depths. Honestly, the game is so utterly charmless that those harbouring a strong enough affection for Sacred 2 to devote days of their life to its blandness will likely be few and far between. Certainly, for those drawn in by its simple pleasures, Sacred 2 has a lot to offer and there is an immense amount of content on the disc.
Sacred 2 feels amateurish. From its insipid art design to its woeful story, there is little on offer for the discerning fan of action-focused role-playing games, especially with the inevitably superior Diablo 3 on the horizon. Xbox 360 gamers starved for games of this type would be better served by the deeply-flawed, yet vastly more interesting Too Human. The core traversal and hack-and-slash gameplay is competent enough to make it worth a rent for devotees of the sub-genre, but this sloppy conversion is not worth your money in a year so utterly jam-packed with exciting, polished games.
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