With the long wait until the RPGs I’m really excited to play, Risen 3 could have been the perfect filler game. It boasts large environments, nuanced character upgrades and plenty of side and story missions. Unfortunately, it simply doesn’t work as a game.

Risen 3 explores the story of an intrepid pirate who is killed by a Shadow Lord and returns as a spirit-less version of himself. I’m not entirely clear on the value of a spirit – it seems to just mean that he was lacking in health and ability, but he can carry on without a spirit with relative ease.

Of course, the goal of the game is to regain your soul and take down the evil titan lords who caused these problems to begin with. Not the most innovative story, but it could have worked. The characters are extremely poorly designed, relying almost entirely on such tired stereotypes as the sexy female pirate (who is also your sister) and the darker-skinned voodoo companion.

Risen 3 bewbs

The first glaring issue with the game are the shoddy graphics. Based on the attempts towards epic scale and environments, it’s clear that it is aiming to be a gorgeous game. There are carefully created waves on the ocean and plenty of detailed aspects of the environment. Unfortunately, the textures are so poor with so many glitches and clipping issues that the whole game looks quite laughable. I had times when my companion was glitched into a mountain while fighting, and when I entered one house the carpet would disappear and reappear in pieces, even when my character was stationary.

Just as the visual textures are intangible at the best of times, the sounds also contribute to the negative gameplay experience. While exploring the world, you can find mining nodes. However, despite excellent animation to show the mining, the sound effect is similar to that of tapping your finger on a pile of papers. Nothing has any substance in the game, whether it’s the pickaxe for mining or the sword you swing. Even the voice acting is cringe-worthy.

Risen 3 mining

Speaking of swinging the sword, I found the combat to be just about the most clunky design I’ve experienced in recent years. It is slow and unresponsive, something that becomes even more aggravating when certain bosses have minuscule windows of opportunity for attacks. Even worse were the controls for naval combat. I literally threw my controller during one section of the game which involved aiming a cannon from your ship to kill off all the enemy sailors. Aiming and shooting was done with the right bumper and A button, while taking cover made use of the right trigger. This meant that every time I attempted to fire on the enemy, I accidentally took cover instead. It was as though they didn’t make use of any play testers before shipping the game.

Despite the appallingly bad glitches and bizarrely horrendous controls, Risen 3 does show some elements of excellent RPG gameplay. As you kill creatures and complete quests, you gain glory which works like experience. You spend your glory on attribute points to improve your character’s various abilities such as melee or dexterity. On each island you will also find NPCs who can teach you new skills which require a certain attribute level and then can help you improve your persuasion or lock picking. It’s a nicely executed system and helps players pursue a play style that matches their personal preferences.

Risen 3 demon hunter

Once you align with a particular group, players also gain those new abilities. However, while you can only align with one guild, you can still make use of various abilities. Spells can either be learned, or spell scrolls can be bought/found. In one particularly difficult battle, I found that I was benefitted by combining my Demon Hunter abilities with some Voodoo magic to maximize my damage. This approach to combat and magic was a lot of fun to experiment with and probably the most enjoyable part of the game.

Unfortunately, your companions aren’t nearly as interesting or customizable. Throughout your journey, players encounter a variety of characters who can be recruited to join your crew. Unfortunately, they are almost devoid of personality, have some atrocious AI in combat and aren’t customizable. This meant that at the game’s start, my companion was much stronger than I was, but by the end the companions had become irrelevant to the point that I’d often forget to take them with me when I ventured into a new area.

Risen 3 bones

Risen 3 takes place on seven islands, with extensive load times when you travel between them. While the size of the islands vary, most are large enough to make exploration relatively enjoyable, with plenty of side missions to keep you busy in between chasing down the main story quests. The game makes use of teleportation platforms that require a specific stone to active, enabling future fast travel. However, thanks to the layout of the islands, I often found that I was running through the same few areas more often than I would have liked and the lack of underground mapping made subterranean exploration feel like an unforgiving combination of guess work and intuition with minimal reward.

Despite only running about 25 hours in gameplay, Risen 3 took me much longer to complete thanks to glitches, memory leaks and complete crashes. The game would often lag and jitter so badly that I would have to completely shut down the console and restart just to continue. The framerate drops dramatically at times and I learned that avoiding contact with multiple enemies at once wasn’t just an issue thanks to the horrible combat, but also because the system couldn’t handle it and would crash or slow to a crawl.

Last Updated: September 8, 2014

Risen 3: Titan Lords
Despite some excellent moments, Risen 3 reaches too far and falls short. Glitchy and clunky design will undermine even the most ardent RPG fans hopes of enjoying this game. You're better off waiting for the games you actually want to play.
5.0
Risen 3: Titan Lords was reviewed on Xbox 360
44 / 100

18 Comments

  1. UltimateNinjaPandaDudeGuy

    September 8, 2014 at 12:40

    Yup “test-played” this and well it seems just like Risen 2, but shittier with more tits in your face.

    Reply

  2. Sith JJ

    September 8, 2014 at 12:43

    I got Risen 2 way back on a Humble sale. Was so underwhelmed by that game and this just feels like it’s doing more of the same.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief Assassin

      September 8, 2014 at 12:51

      Same here, but I only got as far as to install it, nothing else 😛

      Reply

  3. Travis

    September 8, 2014 at 12:44

    Speaking of long awaited RPG’s, I was so looking forward to Shadow of Mordor, but after watching gameplay trailers it just looks a lot like Assasins Creed, which I really dislike #verydisappointed 🙁

    Reply

  4. caponeil

    September 8, 2014 at 12:48

    Give me a new KOA!

    Reply

  5. Alien Emperor Trevor

    September 8, 2014 at 12:51

    Typical for Piranha Bytes games, don’t waste my time on them. While it’s got its fans, I thought Gothic sucked giant donkey balls & when I played the Risen demo it was no different.

    Reply

  6. Kensei Seraph

    September 8, 2014 at 12:52

    What platform did you review it on?

    Reply

    • Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim

      September 8, 2014 at 13:14

      Xbox 360. Sorry, the info block is missing from our reviews right now – but it’s coming SOON.

      Reply

      • WarframedSquirrel

        September 8, 2014 at 14:47

        Almost seems like you’re saying:
        “We had that box, but now it was gone, but it’s coming back… so, it’s like new functionality… yesssss…. NEW ‘WHAT WAS IT REVIEWED ON’ BOX COMING SOON!”

        Reply

  7. Hammersteyn

    September 8, 2014 at 12:56

    Seems the game might be a bit top heavy?

    Reply

  8. schitsophrenic-toothbrush

    September 8, 2014 at 13:06

    It took me a while to grab this game with all the bad reviews and also irritating combat controls from risen 1, but I have to admit, I am really enjoying this game. I dont really care much for graphics and the common headless people make me laugh, but i enjoy running around and f-ing sh1t up! Once you get used the the combat it becomes such a breeze that you dont really have to worry about upgrading your fighting skills (unless to unlocks certain moves). Playing on my xbox I’ve had no lag in loading or sudden crashes so possibly that is a PS issue. Overall Im happy with it and I think its a good filler game before I sink myself into wasteland 2. Peace out..toothbrush

    Reply

  9. Sageville

    September 8, 2014 at 13:14

    Based on you header, the entire game can be summarized as boobs.

    Reply

  10. Weanerdog

    September 8, 2014 at 13:37

    I know that we have been over the “score” issue more times than ANC say categorically, but as an ardent dead horse flogger, how can you give a broken game with cruddy controls that is devoid of fun and is parceled with poor graphics a 5. So after reading the review I was convinced that this is a game that should never be played by anyone ever, but now it has a 5 so it must have some redeeming qualities. Are they redeeming enough to get the game on sale. I mean 50% is a pass mark after all.

    Reply

    • Gavin Mannion

      September 8, 2014 at 13:56

      check the comment by [schitsophrenic-toothbrush] to see why it gets 50 I guess…

      Reply

      • Weanerdog

        September 8, 2014 at 14:46

        I just can not trust a schitsophrenic- toothbrush that guy removes old half eaten food and all kinds of bacteria and germs by caressing teeth with his head. Who knows what horrors he has seen and had to endure. Bugs and glitches must seem like a holiday to him. Not to mention the voices. The voices that tell him to do bad stuff, like troll people into playing bad games.

        Reply

  11. Michael

    September 8, 2014 at 16:00

    is it me or is the graphics really, really bad? I know it doesn’t make that big a difference if the game is good but it looks really dated.

    Also, just buy a copy of wasteland 2 in 2 weeks or so when it releases.

    Reply

  12. Axon1988

    September 8, 2014 at 16:48

    And on that note, what is Risen 2 like? It’s in my library… but I don’t want to install it yet. Is it worth it?

    Reply

  13. Matthew Tunnell

    August 29, 2018 at 19:07

    finally i could find a review i agreed with, all the other reviews were very obviously payed off to give it a good review.

    Reply

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