by: Angela Proto

July 03, 2009

After playing 53 hours as a High Elf, 20 hours as a Seraphim, 17 hours as an Inquisitor, 3 hours as a Dryad, and probably at least 20 minutes as the other characters (Shadow Warrior and Temple Guardian), I still can't decide how I feel about this game. Ninety-three hours into the game and at least two or three hours of reading the Sacred 2 wiki and planning out my characters, I still can't figure out if my time is well spent. I realize to any reader, this sounds ridiculous. I have voluntarily spent ninety-three hours of my life on a game: I must be over the moon for it, right? This isn't exactly the case. I have loved Sacred 2, but sometimes I'm not sure if I actually liked it.

I've been told that Sacred 2 is a game very similar to Diablo 2, but I've never played that. I've been told that Sacred 2 is like a smaller-scale weaker version of World of Warcraft, but I've never played that either. Sacred 2, at its core, is hack and slash combat, fetch quests, and character customization. You will literally be doing one of those things at all times, either by yourself or with other players. There is absolutely nothing else to do and sadly, the plot is pretty weak. On the flip side, there is something intrinsically addicting about Sacred 2's hacking and slashing, fetch questing, and character customizing. There is something that will make you not want to stop, even when you actually do want to stop. I can safely attest to how addicting it can be after 93 hours of my life have somehow slipped away over the past 5 weeks.

Sacred 2 offers two kinds of co-op: online co-op of up to four players, or two players on the same console. You can mix this, as well, by having two players on the same console connect to other players online. The gameplay of two players on one console feels more sluggish than playing on a screen by yourself because now you have to wait on another person as they shuffle through their inventory constantly and agonize over how to spend their skill points. If you are not an infinitely patient person, stick to multiplayer over Xbox Live.

The game flow of Sacred 2 is very straight forward. You run around with the left stick and control the camera with the right stick. The camera can take some getting used to since pushing up or down actually zooms in or out, which might take some players by surprise. You can map a different command to A, B, X, and Y, and in addition, another four command to those buttons while you hold RT and then another four commands while you hold LT. Overall, you have twelve different commands to select on your own. The kinds of things that you can map to those buttons are weapons, shields, or Combat Arts. Combat Art is the term Sacred 2 uses for both spells and special moves. Combat Arts depend on your character and can range from anything such as projectile attacks or strong focus attacks to spells that increase defense or summon other creatures or turrets. You can even link together Combat Arts as you create four different combinations and map that combo to a button. Once you have a weapon (or Combat Art) mapped to a button, you execute your command by hitting the button, or pressing and holding the button. You can tap the button over and over for repeated attacks, but simply holding the button down will also make your character attack or shoot continuously. Although some players of the PC version may not enjoy how the game controls translate to the 360, I never touched the PC version but have found the controls on the 360 to be perfectly adequate and comfortable.

There are six kinds of characters to play as: Seraphim, Dryad, Shadow Warrior, Inquisitor, High Elf, and Temple Guardian. When you create a character, you also get to choose the Deity that your character worships. This god or goddess decides what your Divine Gift does (pressing up on the d-pad). This Divine Gift can be a healing power, or immunity to enemy attacks, or even some form of extra attack spell. To start, all you can visually customize on a few of the characters is their hairstyle and hair color, but as you collect new armor as you play, you can see your character's outfit change for every piece. Some of the characters can fall neatly into cliches: High Elf is a magic user, Shadow Warrior is a close combat tank, and so on. However, Sacred 2's character customization truly allows you to build whatever kind of character you want, so none of the characters have to live up to their cliches if that is not what you want to do. You basically choose your own play style for each character: you can choose to rely mainly on particular weapons or choose to rely mainly on your Combat Arts. You can play as a ranged weapon character or a close combat character. The possibilities truly feel endless and even a second play through of the same character class but different skill builds and Combat Arts selection will make Sacred 2 feel like a different game.

The storyline is something to the effect of "Save the land of Ancaria." Or maybe don't save it? Honestly, the story is not particularly engaging. I have paid terribly little attention to it, and I've beaten the game three times: twice on the Light path and once on the Shadow path. You can choose to play either the Light path or the Shadow path at the beginning of the game and once you choose, you are locked into that path for the remainder of the game. The game is only slightly different for each path. You may go visit a different part of a certain area to complete your quest or you may end up with a different outlook on the same occurrences, but basically the game paths play identical. There are two characters that do not have an option for their path: Seraphim must play the Light quest and Inquisitor must play the Shadow quest.

The only thing to be careful of when choosing your path is choosing along with your friends. Light characters can never play together on campaigns with Shadow characters, so if you choose a Shadow Warrior on the Light quest and your best friend chooses a Shadow Warrior on the Shadow quest, you unfortunately will never be able to play together. This also means that a Seraphim will absolutely never be able to play co-op campaign with an Inquisitor. Aside from the main story quests, there are also class specific quests and then roughly 500 side quests. Unless you get sick of playing, you will never get bored in this game. There is always something more to do. Playing in co-op only benefits the host in regards to quests. Although you will keep experience and loot from playing in the host's game, only the host's story quest and side quests will advance.

Most of the time you will be killing peons along your path from one location to another, but there are a variety of storyline bosses in addition to various mini-bosses hidden in caves (or other places) throughout the game. You can customize your weapons or armor by forging items into slots and you choose what Combat Arts your character learns by reading runes that you find or trade throughout the game. You can choose to buy a horse or eventually buy a special mount for your character to make the map easier to navigate.

And the map. That enormous map. When you start a game, you will notice that the percent of the map that you have uncovered raises painfully slowly. The world of Ancaria is absolutely huge. At first glance, the achievement of "Master Cartographer" which asks the player to explore 50% of the map with a character doesn't seem like a big deal. 50% is only half the map, right? Considering you can beat the game and explore less than 20% of the map, 50% is far more than you would imagine. I spent at least three to four hours of doing nothing but uncovering random parts of the map with my High Elf and even after 53 hours, I still only have about 45% of the map explored

You should not let the size of the map or the number of quests possible in the game overwhelm you. The beauty of Sacred 2 is that it can be as deep or shallow as you make it. Maybe you will only ever care to play through the story once on Bronze difficulty in single player. Maybe you will carelessly spend your skill points or skill slots on things that won't actually help you that much. Or, maybe you will take time to read up on the intricate building of characters and start planning a character from the beginning that can eventually tackle the highest difficulty with no problems. Maybe you will try to do as many side quests as possible and spend all your time running around without advancing the story quest or maybe you will play just through the story quest and never spend your time on anything else. Maybe you will just pick up the gear you find along the way, or maybe you will spend hours searching for a particular piece of armor, or maybe you will haggle with other players online to trade for a sought after item.

Unfortunately for Sacred 2, all of its content does not come without a few snags. Although a patch has fixed some of the major problems (such as the nearly unplayable issues with the screen freezing in the swamp), you may still experience some visual issues such as slow down or, if you're really unlucky, complete freezing of the game. Another issue is the game's soundtrack. Disappointingly, the music is annoyingly lifeless and you will be hearing is drone along for as long as you continue to play. Sacred 2 tries to incorporate musical swells that are different for each character class as enemy hordes increase, but the music is so bland that it fails to achieve any sort of mood. The visual and audio let downs don't really interfere with playability, so don't fret: you can chug away for hours as long as you don't mind. The only music plus is the theme song, by Blind Guardian. It's amazing.

In the end, Sacred 2 is what you make it. It's an addicting single player experience. It's an addicting multiplayer experience. But like I said earlier, if you don't pass the personality test, you will never be drawn in. I obviously was the kind of person who could get drawn into the world of Ancaria. Right now, I could stand on a mountain top and sing praises for Sacred 2. Or I could stand on the same mountain top and scream "SACRED 2, WHY DID YOU MAKE ME FORGET TO EAT DINNER FOUR NIGHTS IN A ROW?!" I wish that were a joke.

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This game is not for everyone, as the review score suggests. Many people will have no interest in this game. Other people will be unable to function in their daily life without their Sacred 2 fix. Figure out which kind of person are before you buy the game.

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