Looking at Sacred 2: Fallen Angel from a purely statistical point of view, we had high expectations; 22 square miles of open world to explore, 100 core campaign missions, six classes of characters, tens of thousands of customizable weapons and armor pieces and four-player multiplayer. For the fan of Baldur’s Gate or Diablo style top-down RPGs with a taste for lootin’ and grindin’, it sounds like time-annihilating heaven.

Heaven is a subjective place, though; Sacred 2’s flaws scream of poor design, low budget and unoriginal ideas. Where to start? The cruddy graphics, poorly animated characters and dreadfully laid-out world that requires constant back-tracking because you can’t negotiate the smallest obstacle? The appalling and repetitive voice acting? The convoluted and unfriendly inventory system, lack of storyline focus or the vague missions?

Yes, Sacred 2 is epic in scale and the ability to juggle numerous odd job side quests at once will ensure you’re constantly kept busy. Plus, the 200-plus level cap will potentially provide many hours of gameplay. But it’ll take a particular gamer with a love of the grind to overlook what is unmistakably a decrepit action/RPG in a genre with far more competent competition. For every hundred gamers that spot the numerous inadequacies that run a mile there’ll be one that relishes creating a powerful mega character and steamrolling the map. If that’s you, then we wish you luck…

May 28, 2009