Risen 2 - Reviews @ RPS, Shacknews

While we build up to another Risen 2 review roundup, I thought we'd mention Alec Meer's Wot I Think at RPS. Alec struggled with the game, enjoying it despite himself, but unable to recommend it to others:

So, a bit of a mess but it’s got charm and brains underneath it. It is inventive and it is trying to avoid genericism, and even though its conversations are far too numerous, far too long-winded, full of the same animations, faces and bodies and occasionally lumbered with characterisation that might cause some upset (I’m going to decline labouring that point, mind), the voice-acting and to a lesser extent the writing isn’t half-bad. The major lesson Risen 2 needs to learn is the value of brevity.

How many hours?’ has become a lazy benchmark for the perceived quality of many games, but RPGs especially, and Risen 2 proves that such a sweeping generalisation is a dangerous one. It’s an enormous game, but I could count the number of honestly memorable moments on the fingers of Captain Hook’s hands. Cutting the number and length of the conversations in half would do it the world of good, and the same again for the side-quests. It’s a big game, but it takes a long while to get anywhere and a lot of it feels like padding. At one point, where simply getting onboard a ship involves completing five separate quests, even your perma-snarky character comments upon what a chore it is. If the game’s makers were aware they’d let things get too flabby, I can’t agree with the sentiment that making it into a joke was the best way to resolve it.

...and I'll throw Shacknews' review in here as well:

Risen 2: Dark Waters offers a lot to like taken in its parts. A competent story, a good amount of player-driven choices, and beautiful locations to explore make it one of the best (and only) pirate RPGs out there. But it fell short for me when it came to other mechanical things like combat and character development. Fans of previous Piranha Bytes titles will likely have an easier time getting going, because familiarity with the developer's particular style game systems takes some of the sting out. However, I can't wholeheartedly recommend it at the end of the day, because the stew of gameplay mechanics it contains—particularly the bread-and-butter combat--just didn't hold up for hours on end.