NOTE: The images used in this article are promotional pieces
from the developer. The game never looked anywhere near as good while I
was playing.
Story
The Nameless Hero and Patty Steelbeard (his sister) go ashore to look for treasure in an ancient temple, but a magic portal opens and a Shadow Lord emerges. It then proceeds to consume the Hero's soul, killing him. Patty and the crew bury the Hero before moving on. Some time later, the Hero is resurrected by the witch doctor Bones. However, part of the Hero's soul still trapped in the Underworld, and he must seek guidance on how to recover the missing piece.
Gameplay
Combat is straight hack-n-slash without any fluidity of movement or proper control of your character. It is the exact same loose and broken combat system from the previous Risen title, and it is still possible to become stun-locked. The only noticeable change to the combat was the addition of a blocking mechanic. Blocking didn't work half the time, however, and did nothing to prevent the stun-locks.
The visuals were extremely muddy, making it hard to read most of the text on screen. The landscape was barren and low-res compared to Risen 2; which is strange because the map is literately the same one from Risen 2. I would have kept playing if the frame rate was anything close to steady - it was literal stop-n-go. After several crashes I just had to gave up on it.
Conclusion
The game was too broken for me to play past a few hours; there is simply no excuse for releasing a game in this state and charging $40 to $60 for it. Risen 2 ran just fine, so I can't understand the state of Risen 3. The graphics aren't ground-breaking, the combat is the same thing the developer has been using for years without improvement, and this developer has done better in the past. Many of the assets were copied directly from Risen 2 to boot, but were downgraded for some reason. I am prepared to look past certain technical issues for titles from smaller developers, but Piranha Bytes has been around for a decade or more now, yet seem to be putting out games with the same issues again and again with little to no improvement. I get the impression Piranha Bytes had little to no enthusiasm for the third iteration in the Risen series and rushed this one out the door so they could work on ELEX instead. My personnel recommendation is to stay away from Titan Lords.
First posted to videogamegeek.com.
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