Sacred 2: Fallen Angel has now made it to the 360 and PS3 after it was released on the PC almost a year earlier. During this time Ascaron have put a huge amount of thought and effort into porting the game over to consoles. Sacred 2 is a traditional isometric Hack'n'Slash Action RPG which features a Singleplayer campaign, 2 players cooperative same-screen offline, 4 players cooperative online with 3 various modes to play; Campaign, Free World and PVP Free World. The map at a first glance looks to be of a reasonable size, however once you start exploring you’ll soon realise that you’ve barely even touched upon this picturesque landscape, which is one of the stand out points of Sacred 2 - the game is graphically gorgeous. Technically speaking theres occasional screen-tear and an inconsistant framerate during villages (installing helps), yet the robust colour palette makes a serious change from the usual dark greys often seen in this generation of games. The water looks stunning and the areas are both diverse and interesting throughout.
You have the choice to play as 6 interesting character classes which all come with their own specialities - the Shadow Warrior, High Elf, Dryad, Temple Guardian, Inquisitor and Seraphim. The Shadow Warrior is a heavy armoured melee class with undead magic such as raising skeletons to protect him. The High Elf is a much more magic focused class offering huge spells. The Dryad is a fighter of nature, focusing on ranged combat with her bow, yet still able to effectively wield a sword and nature magic. The Temple Guardian is an Egyptian influenced warrior from the future, with a blaster on one arm yet still offering the ability to wield a melee weapon in his other. The Inquisitor is a user of dark magic and light armour, letting him throw fireballs yet still, with specialisation, wield melee weapons effectively. Finally the Seraphim is a defender of the Light, wielding angelic spells yet still extremely powerful with melee weapons.
This is a game which has been completely designed to be played through multiple times with the various character classes, skill combinations, difficulties dependant on character level, Light & Dark Campaigns, and an absolutely huge world. The game allows you to tweak your character the way you see fit. Skills are gained like items - from dead enemies & stores, however with every few levels you get the ability to pick a new area to specialise in from a certain style of magic, to mounted combat, to dual wielding. However you are only able to choose 10 of these skill specialisations meaning the player must put thought into creating their character 'build' to suit their needs. This means if you want to specialise in magic then you can do so, or if you want to focus on melee combat the game also allows this. The maximum level you can reach is 200, which is more than enough to keep you going for months and months. The game also offers difficulty levels unlocked through completing the main campaign which focus on certain level ranges of characters.
The game offers over 500 quests for you to embark on, which will take you all over the vast world of Ancaria. The quests lack variety however this is to be expected from the hack'n'slash genre and will still manage to keep you hooked for the entirity of the game. The main campaign quests, as expected, are slightly more diverse however this is still a problem if you are someone who is looking for a huge range of quest objectives in your fantasy role playing games. Ancaria has 42 towns for you to explore which are all set out into different regions from the dragon occupied deserts to the dense goblin populated forests.
Sacred 2 ends up being pretty advanced if the player wants to delve into the deepest end. The game features a huge amount of intricacies which some players may never even touch upon. The beauty of this is that a casual hack'n'slash gamer can simply plow through the game and enjoy it without ever needing to touch upon some of the more advanced areas, such as optimising your character to a particular play style. Yet if you enjoy getting into the nitty gritty statistics in your RPG's then Sacred 2 is the game for you.
Combat Arts make up the basis of all skills in the game. Each Combat Art is character specific, which means even as a Shadow Warrior you will still pick up Seraphim skills for example, which you can then sell or use to slot into items such as rings and amulets, one of the more advanced areas of the game, offering the ability to create fantastic stat boosting jewelry.
Multiplayer is probably the most important and enjoyable feature in Sacred 2, allowing you to play with up to 3 other friends online through the entire campaign, or a single friend offline on the same console. The entire experience works extremely well, with little to no lag, and is certainly the way the game is meant to be played. You also have the ability to trade with other users, which is extremely useful as undoubtedly throughout your adventure you will pick up equipment and items which only your partner can use. If you have no access to the internet this can be an issue however as the game didn't ship with any form of offline coop trading, meaning if you pick up an item which your friend can use there's absolutely no way you can give it to them. This was remedied only a couple of weeks after release with a patch for us gamers connected to the internet.
Sacred 2 has completely sucked me in and was worth every penny. The game is ridiculously addictive and the customization of armor, weapons and characters is absolutely superb. Ancaria is absolutely huge and will keep you busy for an insane amount of hours, months and even years. The game however is certainly designed to be played cooperatively. Repetition may set in when playing Singleplayer however if you have a buddy then look no further for one of the best cooperative experiences on this generation of consoles.
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel Gets an official Game-Pad score of 8.5/10
Originally written by Jamie (Voltage) on 21st July 09.
Edited by Charles on 25th July 09.
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