Grab The Games: Sacred 3

Since the game has 3 in its name a little history first. When Sacred 1 came out Diablo 2 was the king, and the whole ARPG genre boiled down to cloning it. Sacred wasn't revolutionary, but had a vast open world, horse-riding (a big deal at that time) and large selection of characters both good and evil, standard and original (Vampire). Its character development system was unique, the game used attack combos and generally felt like something fresh. Sacred 2 was more of the same... and then the developer went under. Sacred disappeared from gaming world for a while and then the game found a new home and a new entry Sacred Citadel, a 2d hack and slash with a retro feel. Sacred 3 is more connected to Sacred Citadel then any of the previous games.

That's more or less what you can expect from Sacred 3 sense of humour

Sacred 3 is a co-op or single player hack and slash. It comes back to isometric view, but other than that sticks to generic hack and slash formulae, with RPG elements so small they are unimportant. You start off by choosing one of five characters, the game supports single player or a co-op mode up to four players, both local and online, and support for co-op on a single computer works really well. Even if you choose single player, an online player can drop into your game and play with you. I'm not fond of playing with strangers, but here it works really well. Sadly the reason for that is the game's linearity. But back to characters 5 characters, 4 maximum players, doesn't sound bad, does it? Problem is 4 of the 5 are melee characters. They have different special abilities, but other than that are identical. None of them has a shield, they have a standard attack and a charge-up attack that can break shields and stun. Don't expect them to be different in a typical ARPG way (speed, health, etc). The last character is an archer, and that is the only ranged character you can choose. What's more he's the most awkward to play. Generally the game plays great with both the controller and the keyboard. The console gameplay seems to be the goal here and controller feels slightly more natural. Everything seems fine when going hand-to-hand but the archer can't move and shoot, which makes him much less useful, and it seems this was done because walking and aiming at the same time is awkward on the controller. So, the characters don't seem different at first, but what about their special abilities? Each character has 2, normal and heavy, you start with 4 uses for them and regenerate them by killing enemies. While the abilities are different, they basically follow the formula one for higher damage and one for crowd control. Still, the characters do feel a little different thanks to them, but that is the perception of somebody playing them. They do not fulfil different roles in a group (other than the archer), so the co-op experience is not tactical, just a bunch of people trying to kill everyone on the screen.

Enemies with shields add a little tactical element to the game

The combat itself is pretty satisfying, and on the highest difficulty level can be challenging. You have enough options to feel you are doing something and not just mashing the attack button. You have to remember to break the shields and stun the traps, you you can throw some enemies damaging others, you can dodge attacks. Problem is after some time everything gets really repetitious. The levels are extremely linearly designed, sometimes you can take some alternative path and find something optional, but these are small things, generally you move between rooms/areas and the path onward is closed until you kill everybody, then it opens, you walk into the next one, there is another barrier and again you have to kill all the enemies.

Level up screen looks more interesting than it really is.

A large part of the draw of ARPG games is looting and gaining levels. Sacred 3 has these elements... kind of. You can't find any equipment, you only find gold, which later you can spend on upgrades and new skills. So, yeah, there is something, but the thrill of finding a new magic weapon is gone. So maybe skill progression is interesting? The game gives you quite a detailed description of what each skill does, including diagrams of projectile path, this allows you to make an informed choice. Choice you ask? Well, remember when I wrote about each character having two abilities? Unlocking new ones when you level up (and pay for them) forces you to choose which you want to use. You won't get more than 2 at a time. That's it. It doesn't give you more tactics, just different tactics. Granted, the skills can different a lot e.g. you may exchange a skill that stole your enemies' health to heal you for a skill that will boost your damage but do that at a cost to your health, but still the limit of two at the time leaves you with a simplified experience. One other ARPG element that survived are consumable items (potions). On standard difficulty they are useless, as enemies constantly drop health bubbles, but on the highest one using them can decide on your victory or defeat. Not that dying is punishing, you just come back to the last checkpoint (there is no manual saving) and lose some gold.

Somebody joining your game is a nice thing, unless they choose the same character as you. :)

The presentation of the game is... well, good. Really, that's as much as I can say, everything is colourful enough, men have big muscles, women big breast, basically what you would expect from standard fantasy game. Animations presenting the story are a bit better using semi-still images and a moving camera. Problem is the story is forgettable. The game itself doesn't take itself seriously and bombards you with countless jokes and obnoxious villains, none of them funny.

Concluding you can have fun in Sacred 3, but don't buy it because you liked 1 and 2, you won't find more in common than place names. If you have other games like this, I don't see what Sacred 3 has that they don't. But if not, it may be a good choice, the game is great at allowing you to play with friends and strangers both online and local. And will actually run without an internet connection, which is sadly not the norm in the genre. Personally, I feel that if the characters were more distinctive in their playstyle I would like the game much more, as it is I feel that having beyond 2 players actually detracts from the sense of cooperation.

Mikolaj W.