Bad Gaming, maybe: Sacred 3

One of the interesting things to me about living in this "accursed millennial age" is the outlook people have on sequels, reboots, remakes and that weird thing where Doom4, which is a sequel to Doom64 and not Doom3, was just titled Doom in spite of referencing Doom. which is weird. But the thing that interests me is the fact people complain a great deal about it happening, but usually the complaining doesn't actually matter. It most cases people who complain are invested fans. You think the people who lined up to buy Doom 3, who later complained about "the flashlight" (hint: light the darkness with the shotgun like a proper doom slayer) didn't come back for more when Doom came out? Yeah, they did. They complain then they buy.

In Sacred 3's case, it seems to have done so. This is pretty unique to me.

I haven't played Sacred 1 or 2, but I have played Sacred Citadel, which was a button mashing pretty decent side-scrolling brawler. It wasn't exactly stellar, and I think I reviewed it at a C grade a couple years back, but it was decent enough at being what it was. It had bright colorful art and a silly, vibrant style that matched up with it well. It was a humorous game, in that janky european way, so that and that alone colors my expectations.

Meanwhile Sacred 3's rating on Steam is ... Man, it is bad. It is "Mostly Negative" which is a pretty low bar. I mean, for example, Bound by Flame is "Mixed" and Blood Knights is "Mixed" as well. Both of those are janky, weird games, and Sacred 3's rating is far lower. I mean that is bad, that is hobo in a greasefire bad.

So when the humblest of bundles ran a Deep Silver 2 bundle, which put Sacred 3 with all the DLC up for a $1. And some other games, most of them I already have. So yeah, $1 to see this "mostly negative" disaster? Sounds like a plan!


Just to be clear, Sacred 3 was originally launched at the $50 pricepoint. It is the sequel to Sacred 2, not Sacred Citadel. This is probably the two biggest elements of its extremely negative reviews. Launching at the nearing AAA range attracts a different sort of response than launching even just a little lower. I feel as though there are tiers of pricing, a game launched at $20 is reviewed very differently from a game released at $15.

I just realized Mighty Number 9 released at a higher price point than Shovel Knight. Saints. You are no Axiom Verge, MN9. Yeesh.

Back to Sacred 3: Graphically, it looks like a triple-A game. It's an over the shoulder brawler slash ARPG sort of matter, but the game really shows a level of visual style that speaks to being well made. There's a great variety in how fights play out, with lots of visceral details like exploding barrels and enemies careening off bridges, cliffs or into the water. The scenery is extremely varied, in the modern fantasy milieu, with the usual mix of coastal cities, ancient ruins and swampy forests mixed with orcish camps and lots of lava rolling down the hillside. The game looks really good.

In fact, it even plays well - sort of - and this is a more complicated matter to get into. You only have one attack button, but you also have a dodge, a bash to break spells or shields, an execute button and two special attacks that can be changed up. Combat generally comes down to positioning, interruption and timing your executions. The behind the back camera angle is fixed, though it does move along the course, and is usually good at showing you all the glorious movement as your character does their thing. There's some really good game play, when it works, but sometimes it really doesn't work.

One of the biggest issues is the range on certain enemies specials. You won't see who is shooting at you, and they won't need to move, but they'll keep pelting you from off-screen. Channeled spells, specials, various abilities you're supposed to move out of... They're all often fair game and it can be frustrating to juggle the gameplay around being in position to avoid something coming from off-screen. It gets really hectic, and when things go wrong, you can end up exposed to a chain of hits coming off a stun or getting juggled into a patch of fire or whatever else.

On the other hand, when it works, it can feel really energetic and pleasant. And the visuals of your character smashing, rolling and crashing through enemies is quite satisfying, breaking up their big attacks and dodging their small attacks while unleashing your flashy specials.

On the audio end of the spectrum the game is pretty solid. The game is 22 gb, a bit smaller to download, and I think a big chunk of that is assigned to all the voice acting. Your character talks a little, and your weapon has a 'spirit' you can swap that also talks, but the big conversation tends to either be your telepathic advisor or the boss of the zone you're in. When I say boss, I'm leaning more toward the employer, less toward the final fight of the zone which is often something the boss throws at you.

Most of the bosses - there are three in the main game and two for the DLC - are well voiced and quite humorous. The main boss, their boss, is however one of the most tedious and schlockfest of anything I've heard before. The three under him, a pirate, a dark elf (I think) with a weird vocal tic of mixing up words and a... Well, I think he's supposed to be something of a Mexican wrestler style big dude, but it can be a little unfortunate at times... Anyway they're all funny (if hammy and kinda silly) and quip throughout the game. On your side, you have the telepathic advisor, named Aria.

Liking Aria is kinda crucial, and if you find the voice actress annoying, you will not enjoy this game. She talks incessantly, much of it meant to be funny or provide emotion to the grind of battle. I found the voice actress, whose name be Alix Wilton Regan apparently, did a pretty good job with the lines she was given but some of them are pretty bad. The game also likes to repeat itself too quickly, and she can repeat "witty" instructions over and over. It's worse, ironically, when you're new at the game. Once you get good at rolling through enemies and doing the murder, you won't hear it repeated as much or at all.

Although... Like, there's one repeated scenario where you need to "charge" a door with your energy supply. You regenerate energy by hitting enemies, and your initial supply isn't enough to finish charging the door. So you turn and hit enemies as you must do, and the game chastises you for doing so, and it's just really bad design.

I did actually laugh outloud at the one exchange where she admits that a victory felt "like eating ice cream or having really good se.... celery" as she realizes she's not supposed to discuss her proclivities in front of her mother. It's about as racey as the game gets, other than the bizarre outfits the seraphim character wears.

But don't worry, their male dark angel looking counterparts? Yeah, there's otter mode man candy on display too.

The story in general is... Eh. The core plot is boring and samey, but individual "missions" can feel pretty interesting. Most of it isn't anything new - recover an ancient artifact, protect the water supply, chase a warlord's forces through a volcano going off - but all the voice acting kinda brings it to life. Like I said, you have to like Aria, and if you don't you will not enjoy the story at all.

The other big issue in the game is more enveloping. The game reminds me a lot of Darksiders, though it doesn't have much in the way of puzzles, the action feels more like a brawler and less like an ARPG. But the game does have RPG elements, and they're... Lacking. You level up, which seems to have some stat bonuses, but the game doesn't tell you this. There's no character screen, and details offered are sparse. You buy talents or upgrades or whatever you want to call them with gold.

Instead, you have talent trees for skills and you can have 2 out of 7 choices as active skills at a time. This is a good, and I like this, but underexplained. On the other hand there are three weapons, which you acquire as set upgrades at points in the game, and they have talent trees as well. This system is awful and you usually end up using 1 weapon 75% of the time, another 25% of the time, and a third just about never. The same kinda happens with the skills. I played through the game once and used one of the skills in my so-called "heavy art" selection for the majority of the game. So you have very limited appeal from leveling, very few decisions and a lot of wasted potential in adding variety to the game.

The game just ends up feeling like 70% of a game, missing properly fleshed out talent trees and honestly a proper loot/stat system. I don't mind the idea of having weapon drops be in somewhat controlled, fine, but giving up all the armor / resistance / stat stuff the genre thrives on makes the game feel really shallow. And everyone loves loot. Everyone.

Enemy variety in general could use a little work. There's a lot of models in the game, but much of it is lost in the chaos, and a lot of enemies attack in very similar ways. They might use different models, but they're functionally identical, which is kinda weird since some stuff isn't used as much as you'd think. It tends to make short sessions fine, but longer sessions get repetitive. If you're playing well the rhythm of dodge / attack / special / interrupt feels good, but if you play too long and start making mistakes the game just gets really unenjoyable. While it isn't a mainstay of the gameplay, there are a couple enemies that can end up stunlocking you, and the hit detection on those abilities feels awful.

Sacred 3 feels like two things more than anything else: It doesn't sound like it's a sequel to the earlier games in the series, and it's an unfinished or at least underdeveloped version of a game that would have been well-received with a loot system and a proper title.

I enjoyed Sacred 3, but a big part of that is going in and expecting a bonfire of crap. Instead it's just okay, maybe I'd even call it "good" but never great. Some sections are a bit untuned or unpolished, which can be pretty frustrating but they tend to go by quickly. Visually the game is really nice, and it is another one of those games where it feels like a total shame the engine goes to waste on a hohum title.

Unfortunately, since none of my friends own the game, I wasn't able to try out multiplayer. I actually think it would be pretty great for that.

Ultimately, I would say Sacred 3 isn't worth the original triple A pricetag. It is just too shallow a game for that. For the price it goes for now, I think it's worthwhile, but I would append that you should try to get some friends to play it with you. I don't think the game allows you to couch play, so you end up with this weird situation where it feels almost shallow enough for silly MP but not quite enough, while being too shallow to really dig into like an ARPG.

You could do worse, but there's lots of better games as well.